Sam’s curiosity didn’t sit long before she started asking more questions. “Where does your mother live?”

“Albany Hall.”

“She lives in your house?” There was a small amount of surprise in Sam’s voice.

Blake wondered how much he should reveal, how much truth he could trust his wife with. He started with the facts that would be easily obtained if Samantha bothered looking.

“My mother was the Duchess of Albany for the time she’d been married to my father. After his death, she kept the title, until I married you.”

“Ouch. Talk about a wedge between a mother and a daughter-in-law. This can’t be a good thing.”

Blake shifted in his seat to look at his wife. “It’s expected. She knew the day would come sooner than later. Once my father’s will was read I’m sure she realized I’d do everything in my power to secure my inheritance.”

“How close are you and your mother?”

“We do okay.”

“That doesn’t sound hopeful.”

The air around him started to chill. There was a time when he and his mother had been close. When they had a common goal of hating his father. “You don’t have to worry about her.”

Samantha seemed to gather the information, process it, and then kick out a solid assessment. “But there is someone I need to worry about, isn’t there?”

He wanted to lie, but couldn’t. With Sam, if felt wrong to let white lies begin and possibly wedge between them. “My cousin. He’s on my short list of people who might have planted those cameras in your home.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I wish I was. Howard stands to inherit a hefty sum should our marriage fail.”

“I take it the two of you aren’t chummy.”

“Barely tolerate each other is a better description. He stays at Albany as often as he can manage. My mother is too kind to send him away.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m not there enough to care. Though now that will change.”

“How so?” Samantha said.

“My mother has the right to live in the house until the estate turns over to me next year. It’s understood that once I took a wife, she, you, would take on the duties of Duchess and my mother would move to the smaller estate on the grounds.” He didn’t expect Sam to take all this in and understand it. But he wanted her to grasp most of it before they left for Europe.

“I don’t think I’ve done enough research on your family home. I assumed Albany Hall was a convenient name for a manor house. Something you British used to make things grander than they are.” Samantha played with a lock of her hair as she spoke. Her eyes kept drifting toward the sea.

“Once you see Albany Hall, you’ll understand my reluctance to choose a bride.”

“Hmm, you know, something has bothered me since we met.”

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t you have a British accent? You grew up there, right?”

Memories of hearing his father scold him for not speaking properly chased around in his head. Blake did everything he could to go against his father’s wishes, right down to speaking American English and not the Queen’s English.

“I spent summers at Albany when I was in boarding school. Every chance we could, my mother took my sister and I here to the States. I immersed myself in American culture.” Blake noticed the fog bank drifting closer as his mind drifted with it. “I rebelled against my father on many levels.”

“Do you think that dissension between the two of you prompted him to make it more difficult to collect your inheritance?”

Blake gave a curt shake of his head. “My father had to have the last word. Even in death.”

“Was he that awful in life?”

“My father was a typical British Royal. Old money filled his pockets and awarded him with the ability to be a pompous jackass whenever he wanted. He married my mother knowing he’d be unfaithful.” He remembered the first time he’d seen his mother crying over his father’s infidelity. A British tabloid splashed his father’s face over the cover with a woman ten years younger on his arm. That was when the trips to America began to shape Blake’s life. “He thought he was entitled to walk on people.”

“Why didn’t your mother leave him?” The softness in Samantha’s voice forced Blake’s attention away from the sea. Her bright green eyes watched him through lowered lashes, as if she were an intruder carefully trying to avoid detection.

“I don’t know. Money, probably. They never spoke of divorce. They lived separate lives most of the time. After my sister was born they stopped sleeping in the same room.”

“So was your hatred for how your father treated your mother what pushed the two of you apart?”

Did he really hate his father? Blake never put such a strong word to his emotions. He didn’t like the man, no doubt about that. “My father wanted me to be just like him. ‘Go to school, get an education, but don’t think you have to work more than a day a week.’” Blake let his father’s accent bleed into his mockery.

A sad smile spread over Samantha’s face. “So your rebellion was to make your own fortune.”

Blake sat taller. “I funneled my allowance into stock in the shipping company I now own. Halfway through college, I made my first million. My father was furious.”

“He wanted to control you,” Samantha said. “He couldn’t do that if you were a self-made man.”