A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,27

she’d never noticed this herself. Could this be part of Lady Phoebe’s hostility? She resented anybody who outranked her?

“I haven’t dared to invite anybody to anything,” Althea said, “lest they decline.”

“They would accept out of vulgar curiosity if nothing else.”

“I must correct myself. I invited you—my nearest neighbor—to an informal dinner. You declined my invitations twice.”

That retort merited a second visit to the tea tray, which Rothhaven relieved of another jam tart. “I decline everybody’s invitations.”

“Which is why Lady Phoebe had your regrets displayed on her mantel, like a mark of royal patronage. You ignore the rules and are nearly venerated for it. I observe the rules as carefully as possible and get nowhere. I want one-tenth the cachet you have with the neighbors when you don’t even show up.”

Rothhaven resumed his seat at the desk and uncapped the ink. “No, you don’t. My cachet, as you call it, comes at a high price. This is the reply you send, but wait until at least next week to have it delivered.” He scratched at a piece of foolscap while holding his tart in his left hand.

Althea rose to read over his shoulder:

On behalf of herself and Mrs. McCormack, the Lady Althea Wentworth accepts.

AW.

“I’m to refer to myself in the third person?” And in the somewhat formal third person, using the written version of address that would appear on the outside of a letter.

“Third person implies your correspondence secretary wrote the reply at your behest. My own steward very early in my tenure as the titleholder explained the niceties of this fiction to me, and it has served me well.”

“I have a behest and a correspondence secretary?”

He waved the paper gently to dry the ink. “Not to be confused with your amanuensis, whose responsibilities relate largely to managing the estate and handling communication with your London merchants and suppliers. You will have to copy this in a feminine hand, but make sure the writing differs in a few particulars from your natural penmanship.”

“In case I ever have occasion to actually write to Lady Phoebe as myself.” Rothhaven’s gift for strategy put Althea in mind of Quinn, who’d learned shrewdness early and well, and from a very hard school. “Do I beg off if Mrs. McCormack isn’t back before the date of the dinner?”

“No, you do not beg off. You send a note worded as this one is, expressing the Lady Althea Wentworth’s regrets that Mrs. McCormack will be unable to attend, and apologizing for the late notice. Offer no explanation at all. Have your regrets delivered about four hours prior to the occasion.”

“Because,” Althea said slowly, “that is barely enough time to find a replacement guest if the numbers are to match, but a savvy hostess will be able to produce another lady guest on even that little notice. What a diabolical mind you have. I will have challenged Lady Phoebe before I step down from my coach.”

Rothhaven removed the glasses and set them on the blotter. “Just so. Now about that cheese, my lady?”

Althea went to the sideboard and retrieved a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “Before you dash off over the balcony or leap through a window, was that you I saw wandering down by the river at dawn? It looked like you, but perhaps you didn’t hear me when I called a greeting. Fog distorts sound, I know, though I’m almost certain it wasn’t the vicar.”

Rothhaven shrugged into his coat and fairly snatched the parcel from her hands. “You shouldn’t be out wandering alone at such an hour.”

“You, who wander alone everywhere at all hours, often at a gallop, lecture me to have an escort on my own property?”

“Precisely. If you aspire to have one-tenth of my cachet, you must develop your own crotchets. No fair stealing mine. My thanks for the cheese.”

He bowed, and Althea should have curtsied. Instead she seized him in a hug. “Thank you, Rothhaven. For an eccentric, reclusive, crotchety demon, you really are a lovely man. Enjoy the cheese.”

He muttered something that sounded like “Oh, for God’s sake” and did not hug her back. Perhaps that was because he held a sizable wheel of cheese in one hand, or perhaps an aversion to hugs was another one of his crotchets.

“I used to love the evenings,” Everett Treegum said, settling into a rocking chair. “The sun rose on new opportunities and, with my energies refreshed from a night of sound slumber, I went about my tasks grateful for my blessings. By the end of