Amber (Jewel Trilogy, Book 3) by Lauren Royal Page A

mansion and abandoned that perfectly good manor house. I wanted to see it put to use. Filled with children, as it might have been had he ever made something of his marriage."
    She turned to him, her heart in her eyes. "That's why you play the highwayman, then, isn't it? To pay for the children, since your father spent all his money on the mansion and left you without adequate funds."
    "Not precisely." He was about to add that he'd turned his father's illicit enterprise into a prosperous legitimate shipping company, but thought better of it. Not that he wanted to hide things from her, but damn it, his hands were tied.
    It was no fault of his he was stuck in this situation. He'd been wracking his brain for a believable excuse to continue playing the highwayman, and she'd just dropped one in his lap. Never mind that he could support Caldwell Manor ten times over. She didn't have to know that. Not right now.
    "When I tell my brothers—"
    "Don't. Don't tell them anything. I promised them I'd stop the highway robbery."
    "No, you didn't. You ducked that issue cleverly." She was entirely too perceptive for his comfort. "If you stop, the children will suffer, and I couldn't bear to be responsible for that. I was an orphan, myself."
    "Aye, well, any feeling human being would be sympathetic to their plight." Trick's mind raced, searching for a way to avoid these secrets and lies. But he saw no choice. He'd promised King Charles he wouldn't breathe a word of the real purpose behind the highwayman ruse.
    He sneaked Kendra a guilty glance. She twisted her hands in her lap, and the imported lace fell back from her wrist, leaving it bare. "Why aren't you wearing the amber bracelet?"
    "It doesn't go with this plain gown."
    He wondered why he found her flip answer so disturbing. "Are you still mad at me for being a duke?"
    "I'm not sure what I feel. I don't like being lied to." Though she directed those words to the sky, she soon looked back to him. "Did you feel abandoned as a child?"
    "In a sense," he said slowly, wishing he could go back in time and start this marriage right. He didn't want it to end up like his own parents'. "My father took me from my mother when I was ten. I'd seen him but a few times over the years, and I'd never been more than a dozen miles from our home in Scotland." The caleche bumped over a particularly rocky stretch of the path, and he reached to steady Kendra. "He took me to France. A cold man, was my father. He wanted me only to further his business dealings."
    "His business dealings?" She subtly shifted away from his touch. "He was a duke, was he not?"
    "An impoverished one. He lost everything, including Amberley, helping finance the war. Upon the restoration, King Charles returned his title and land to him. But believe me, Father could never have abandoned the old manor house and built that mansion without the enterprise that sustained him through the Commonwealth years. He was ruthless, underhanded—not a man one would be happy to claim as a relation."
    "What was this enterprise?"
    "He traded in spirits, among other things. Madeira was his ticket to riches. Every bottle that graced the tables at the courts—French and English alike—passed through his hands." He hesitated, then decided to come clean with it. Enough secrets stood between the two of them already. "He was a smuggler."
    She gasped. "A smuggler?"
    "Aye. One doesn't amass a fortune paying import taxes—at least not on the scale that he managed. You can see now why I elected not to continue his enterprise, no matter that it was highly lucrative." And since that half-truth caused him no small discomfort, he added, "As I was only a pawn in his game, you can see as well why it is I felt orphaned as a child."
    Some small measure of honesty, at least.
    "But your mother—"
    "She let me go," he said, the words calm and unemotional though he ached with an inner pain that would never ease. "Any warmth or love she showed me was naught but a facade. Elspeth