A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,31

for the time when Robbie would be left alone, no brother to buffer him from the demands of the outside world.

Something as simple as a tumble from the saddle could change everything.

Movement across the garden stopped that dolorous line of thinking. Somebody had entered from the far gate.

Nathaniel remained unmoving on his bench. If the under-gardeners sought to scythe the grass, they asked Nathaniel’s permission first, and he scheduled an afternoon to review the books with Robbie. Robbie either didn’t notice or didn’t care to mention that the grass seemed to scythe itself.

The staff took the order to avoid this place seriously, so who…?

Nathaniel knew that walk, knew that purposeful swish of skirts. His reactions to seeing Lady Althea marching about his garden at dawn went in all directions.

Sheer shock, to see somebody striding along with that much purpose in a space given over to tranquility and repose.

Delight, that she would come to the Hall for any reason.

Sorrow, that he must turn her away, and do so decisively.

And beneath that bleak sentiment, a stirring of resentment. He did not want to turn her away. Far from it.

He rose and approached the intruder. “What the hell has the world come to, when a duke’s sister must entertain herself by trespassing on her neighbor’s property?”

She jumped, swinging the walking stick to her shoulder as if preparing to take a turn at bat on the cricket pitch. “You startled me.”

“How inconsiderate of me,” Nathaniel said, ambling closer, “to linger in my own garden at dawn. Have you come to peer through the windows in the tradition of nosy, prying, neighbors from time immemorial?”

She flicked a gaze at the façade of the Hall. “Is attempted peeking a crime?”

Nathaniel dared not come any closer to her. “Trespassing, my lady, is a crime. I will not hesitate to turn you over to the magistrate.” If Nathaniel did such a thing for the sake of making a show, he’d also notify the magistrate that no charges should be pressed, for a reclusive duke must not testify at the parlor session. Or at the assizes. Or anywhere.

When had his role become so suffocating?

“Fine,” Lady Althea retorted. “Turn me over to the magistrate, and I will explain to him that I was simply returning my nosy, prying neighbor’s walking stick. The same neighbor who apparently feels free to roam my riverbank first thing in the day. The same fellow who lurked in my garden in the dark of night.”

She poked him in the chest, three times: In the—poke—dark of—poke—night—poke. Then she smoothed her palm over the same smarting place and Nathaniel had to grab her hand simply to get her to stop touching him.

Or something. “You should not be here, my lady. You know better.”

“You should not have left your walking stick at my house, Rothhaven. You know better. Some beady-eyed footman would notice that no gentleman’s walking stick has ever graced my porter’s nook before, and yet, yours appeared between sunset and sunrise. We can’t have that, now can we?”

She smelled of damp wool and honeysuckle, her hems were soaked, and her hair…her hair was a positive fright. Tiny beads of moisture clung to a halo of errant strands. Her braid was half-down and half-up, not so much a coiffure as a battle lost to the elements.

“In my experience,” Nathaniel retorted, dropping her hand, “no footman is half so astute. Women use walking sticks when they take a notion to hike the countryside. I’ll thank you to return mine.”

She held the stick away from him. “Apologize first.”

The lady was in deadly earnest. She’d clobber him with his own walking stick if he failed to abide by her command, and she’d make the blow count.

He scowled to keep from smiling, not for the first time in present company. “Apologize for…?”

“For startling me, for being so inhospitable to a guest, for threatening me with criminal charges when you have behaved with even less regard for the law. What if one of your pebbles had broken my window? Should I have had you tried in the Lords for destruction of property and trespassing?”

She’d do it too. “You invited me.”

“Not to lurk in my garden, I didn’t. Not to come and go like a thief in the night. Not to pounce upon me at dawn when all I sought was to leave this walking stick where you’d find it.”

Nathaniel had the suspicion she’d been intent on no such errand, but the gleam of righteous ire in her eyes said otherwise. And she