A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,68
infirmity and damned brothers who worried about every damned thing, but he’d also been far hotter than he should have been when Althea had arrived. Chills might come next or another bout of fever, and the grumbling would be nigh constant until he was well again.
Assuming Althea was still here to tend him.
And assuming he recovered.
“Were you?” Rothhaven asked. “Friendly to the gentlemen?”
With only the firelight to illuminate him, he looked like a dark angel of justice, ready to pronounce sentence upon her—or possibly on Jack Wentworth, may he suffer eternal unrelenting agonies of every description.
The clock ticked quietly on the mantel, the fire crackled in the hearth.
“I let some of them touch me,” she said. “Stephen wasn’t nimble enough to work, and Papa said a boy who couldn’t work had no business being alive. He’d eat in front of Stephen, using a stale crust of bread to torture a small boy. So yes, I let some of those men touch me or look at me—only that—but they paid first and paid handsomely.”
Rothhaven rose and paced silently before the fire. He’d taken off his coat an hour ago in deference to the room’s warmth. His cuffs were turned back, and his cravat had long since lost its starch.
And yet, his appearance remained imposing, his expression severe.
The quiet took on a density, while Althea waited—for judgment, for disappointment, for awkwardness at the very least. The Wentworth family never spoke openly of the past, not if they could help it, but in Althea’s experience the pain and rage only festered more virulently for being consigned to silence.
She faced the memories squarely, of drawing up her tattered skirts while some fiend rubbed his crotch and stared. She’d not closed her eyes then, she didn’t close them now, but her throat hurt as badly as if she’d fallen ill, the ache familiar and bitter. She was on the point of rising to see herself out when Rothhaven spoke.
“Please assure me,” he said, “that the gin truly did kill your father. If he yet lives, he won’t for long.”
The clock ticked a few more times before the meaning of Rothhaven’s words came together in Althea’s mind. “You’d kill him?”
“With my bare hands, at the first opportunity. The wrath of God should have struck him down before allowing him any progeny, but then you would not be here. For my brother’s sake, also for my own, I am very glad you defeated the monster you were compelled to acknowledge as your father.”
“He was a monster,” Althea said, the words imparting an odd lightness. She hadn’t put that name to Jack, not aloud. “He lacked humanity, lacked…basic decency. Something in him was broken, dangerously so, and nobody dared intercede. I’m convinced my mother died from the sheer weariness of spirit that comes from living in proximity to such evil. He’s dead, and yes, the gin did him in.”
As far as the world knew. The truth was more complicated and not Althea’s tale to tell.
“I am pleased for the sake of all humanity that he no longer draws breath. A father like that…” Rothhaven’s gaze went to the bed, where Robbie slept on. “A father like that should be left to the mercy of the elements on the moors, preferably in January. No walls to shelter him, no light to illuminate his path.”
January was the coldest, darkest month of the year—an ice bath—and yet, Rothhaven’s sentiment lit a warmth inside Althea. “Just so, with a hole in his boot, a broken compass, and a storm bearing down.”
“I do admire a woman with a sense of justice and a vivid imagination,” Rothhaven said, his smile tired. “I can stay with Robbie if you’d like to rest. My room is across the corridor. You’re welcome to use it.”
Althea wanted to tarry in the warmth of Robbie’s chambers, wanted to bask in the pleasure of Rothhaven’s ire on her behalf—when had a man ever expressed lethal indignation for her sake?—but Robbie was far from out of danger, and what lay ahead could be taxing.
“A nap makes sense,” she said, rising. “I will rest briefly, then wake you so you can take a turn at napping.”
Rothhaven lit a carrying candle and showed Althea across the chilly corridor. Whereas Robbie’s rooms were full of books, atlases, treatises, a telescope, orrery, and several stringed instruments, Rothhaven’s sitting room was plain and cozy. A blue-and-cream afghan sat in a rumpled heap on a sofa upholstered in gold velvet, writing implements were scattered across a much-stained