A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,52

quick succession. We were sturdy, lively boys who managed to have happy childhoods despite our father’s severe disposition. Mama did what she could, choosing tutors with a sense of humor and governesses who held us in genuine affection. His Grace tolerated that until Robbie was eleven, and then the game changed.”

Althea remained right beside him on the bench, as if she listened to the makings of great scandal every day.

“Our father decided that we must embark on the path to manhood, and our first step was to graduate from ponies to horses. We loved our ponies, but were excited at the prospect of full-sized mounts. His Grace would not listen to the stableboys who counseled prudence, and instead he bought us handsome, half-wild youngsters. The duke thought we ought to learn to train our own mounts, a job many a grown man would shrink from. Robbie came off his horse frequently, as did I, but one day, Robbie came off and didn’t get up.”

The morning Robbie’s fate had changed had been like this one—sunny, benign, Yorkshire in her spring glory. Nathaniel had perched on the rail as Robbie had come off his horse yet again. Nathaniel had called encouragement to his brother and cursed the horse as manfully as he was able to at ten years of age. Elf had known something was amiss, though, and had dashed across the arena to wave the colt away from the fallen rider.

“The horse wasn’t a bad animal,” Nathaniel said. “He was simply young and lacked training. My father had made a bad choice and could not admit it, even when that bad choice put his heir at risk for grievous harm.”

“Doubtless,” Althea said, “the fault was with the boy for coming off the horse, with the horse for being too fractious, with the very ground for being too hard. The hubris of some men beggars description and seems to be inversely proportional to their human decency.”

Nathaniel let his arm rest ever so lightly around her shoulders again. “Just so, my lady. Exactly so. My brother lay unmoving in the dirt, and the duke stood over him, bellowing for Robbie to get up, to stop being a coward, and to climb back on the damned horse. He ordered a bucket of cold water tossed on his own child, and still Robbie did not awaken.”

Althea scooted around as if the hard bench were uncomfortable. The result was that she sat infinitesimally closer to Nathaniel.

“My father used to rail at Stephen,” she said, “for limping. Accused him of faking and shirking, and Stephen could not run away. I think Papa delighted in the fact that he could abuse a boy who had no means of escape.”

Nathaniel knew Althea would not have left her brother alone with such a monster, but where was that brother now, when she had been all but hounded from London?

A question for another time. “Robbie did not awaken until that night,” Nathaniel went on, “and when he did, he had no memory of coming off his horse. The physicians said that wasn’t unusual, so we all breathed a sigh of relief. The physicians also said Robbie ought not to ride again or otherwise risk another injury to his head for at least a month, but the duke would not listen. Three days later, he insisted Robbie resume his riding lessons. Robbie insisted too, said he wanted to show the horse what was what. But then, what could he have said, with the old man threatening him with every punishment known to English boyhood?”

“Somebody should have put your idiot father on that horse.”

Exactly what Elf had suggested. “His Grace told Robbie that if he didn’t get back in the saddle, I would be made to ride the beast. At the time, I was the smaller brother, and I was not a confident rider. Robbie climbed aboard, and all seemed to go well at first.”

The next part was hard to relate and impossible to forget. “The horse walked and trotted to the right well enough. Robbie rode across the middle of the arena to change directions, and then simply…left his body is the only way I can describe it. He stared at a fixed point, the horse became more and more unruly, and Robbie did nothing to correct the animal. We shouted, and he appeared not to hear us. He simply stared and bounced about in the saddle like a marionette on loose strings. When the horse bolted, Robbie came off again. He