When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,11
freedom of the saddle, a medication Stephen still relied on in frequent large doses.
To advocate for Duncan, however ineffectively, felt good.
“We are not disowning him, Stephen. In all of your wanderings, did Duncan ever show a friendly interest in a woman?”
Oh, for God’s sake. “He never showed a friendly interest in another person, Quinn, though he’s inexplicably tolerant of children and dumb beasts. People are specimens to him, an experiment in progress, a chess puzzle. His near acquaintances are the classical philosophers, his greatest recreation is to sit of an evening with a glass of brandy and stare into a modest fire as it burns down to coals. You torment him when you force him into the society of squires and goodwives.”
“Jane disagrees with you,” Quinn said, kissing the baby’s fuzzy head. “Jane says he’s lonely, and that we’ll soon lose him to endless travel if he’s not given an opportunity to form some meaningful associations.”
Jane was a preacher’s daughter and had a way with a sermon. “You disagree with Jane.”
The look Quinn shot Stephen was exasperated and wonderfully honest. That glance was sent from one adult brother to another, allies in the ongoing investigation of the Great Feminine Mystery.
“I have suggested to my duchess that Duncan’s version of happiness does not comport with her theory.”
“Which suggestion Jane batted aside like a new maid going after cobwebs, but there’s our Duncan, in godforsaken Berkshire, surrounded by the racing crowd, the hunt set, and the farmers’ daughters who’d love to marry into a ducal family.”
The baby got a fist wrapped in Quinn’s hair. No gray there yet, but then Quinn was only in his mid-thirties. If anything, he seemed younger now than he had ten years ago.
While Duncan had always seemed grown-up. Not lonely, exactly, but inured to life.
“I compromised with my duchess,” Quinn said. “Duncan has one year to make the estate profitable, after which I will take over management of the property for him. If at the end of one year, he has not brought Brightwell up to scratch, then management of the property remains in his hands, though I will hold a life estate.”
Quinn was big, dark, unfashionably prone to muscle, and easy to mistake for a bullyboy in fine tailoring. He’d used that perception to his advantage when establishing his bank, and yet, he was also shrewd in a way Stephen had never had to be
“And because of that life estate,” Stephen said, “Duncan cannot easily sell the property. Either he learns to manage Brightwell in the next year, or he learns to manage it over the next decade—if he wants to escape back to his travels. Is this kind, Quinn? Even schoolboys eventually win free of having to study topics they abhor.”
Quinn settled onto the sofa with the child in his lap. “Duncan has more than enough brains to bring Brightwell ’round. All he wants is motivation to accomplish the task. What does the future hold for him otherwise? Another five years touring the Continent with some spoiled lordling?”
“Many men have a worthwhile career as tutors,” Stephen said, a career he’d consider but for his damned leg.
“Those men are not our cousins. Jane wants Duncan settled. If he gets Brightwell sorted out in the next year, then he can lark about wherever he pleases.”
“I’d best pay a call on him,” Stephen said. “I know a bit about managing a property, which affliction we must also lay at dear Jane’s feet.”
She’d prevailed on Quinn to give Stephen a modest estate when Stephen had turned twenty-one, because, in Jane’s estimation, a young man needed his own quarters. This was Jane’s euphemism for ensuring Stephen’s dubious friends and paramours did not disturb the ducal household.
“You own the best property of the lot,” Quinn said. “Also the smallest acreage. Althea and Constance wanted more distance from London and needed a challenge.”
Althea and Constance, Stephen’s older sisters, wanted dowering, in other words, and productive land was the sweetest asset a doting brother could add to the marriage settlements.
Both sisters remained unmarried, despite having dowries overflowing with sweetness.
“I do thank you for your generosity,” Stephen said, though was it generous to exile a fellow upon his majority? “The Continent is endlessly fascinating, but one wearies of wandering.” For a time, then one wearied of staying put. “I’ll trot off to Berkshire in the morning.”
“You’ll mount a sneak attack?”
Duncan had lived with the ducal branch of the family for years—when there had been money, but no title—and yet, in some ways, Duncan was