A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,74
his dressing gown and draped it over her shoulders. “He reads the financial pages from many newspapers with more focus than a fortune-teller at her tea leaves. Thanks to his interest in the estate’s investments, our fortunes prosper, I’m pleased to say. If anything ever happens to me, he’ll be able to afford good staff, assuming he remains in control of his affairs.”
Althea patted the mattress on the empty side of the bed. “You have rested enough to resume your worries.”
Rothhaven settled beside her. She hadn’t shared a bed with a man previously. With him, she liked the companionability. He helped her get the sleeves of the dressing gown sorted out and passed her a glass of water.
“What does it say about me, Althea, that I enjoyed being exhausted to the point of witlessness? I grasped this morning what it means to have a mind truly numbed by fatigue. The peace of it was seductive, like strong spirits but without the bodily reproach for over-indulging.”
The water revived her, though she stopped at half a glass and passed it back to Rothhaven. He took a sip and set the drink aside. He was so casual about intimacies that drew her the way blooming honeysuckle called her to the out-of-doors on a beautiful day.
Sharing a dressing gown that yet held Rothhaven’s body heat and the scent of his shaving soap.
Sharing a glass of water.
Sharing a bed.
“What does it say about me,” she asked, “that I’m supposed to be at Rothhaven Hall to lighten the burdens in the sickroom, but all I can think about right now is spending more time with you in this bed? And I do not refer to another nap.”
Rothhaven’s smile was wry and a little sad. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It means we are both human, for I’d delight in disporting with you as well. Naughty of me, but with you, only honesty will do.”
“So why don’t we disport?” Althea knew why: because she cared for this man and respected him, and what might have been a casual, giggling romp for a girl raised in the slums would be a different undertaking altogether with him.
Different and wonderful, but so very ill-advised.
He brushed his thumb slowly back and forth over her fingers. “I can offer you nothing, Althea. Not tomorrow, not marriage, not a discreet liaison. You deserve devotion and propriety, a public union with all the trappings, a courtship for the ages—all the dignities and graces I cannot provide—and you well know that is your due, my lady.”
She was coming to hope that was her due. “Robbie will never recover?”
“Apparently not, and the fits aren’t the worst of his problems. You saw how he was at the mere mention of an ice bath. He still keeps the drapes closed in his sitting room because even the sight of the moors unnerves him on his bad days. He won’t eat many foods because he was forced to subsist on them for years. Others he shuns because he thinks they aggravate his condition. He’s in no fit state to take on the world and probably never will be.”
Once upon a time, Althea had thought her life would never change. She’d been doomed to suffer Jack Wentworth’s violence and evil, to suffer poverty and desperation. Quinn’s determination, shrewdness, and good luck had proved that never could turn into someday.
She was determined that society’s decision to never accept her also turn into a someday.
But this never besieging the Rothmere family was beyond her control.
“I understand that you must heed your duty to your brother, Nathaniel, and I will not beg for what you cannot promise, but I can offer you myself, here and now. Will you refuse that too in the name of duty, or will you share with me a comparable gift?”
He dropped her hand. “I am no gift, Althea.”
“You are wrong.” Rothhaven had instructed her brilliantly on how to improve her standing in society—a task nobody else had been able to do. He’d paid her the very great compliment of seeking her aid when Robbie had fallen ill. He’d laughed with her over a few hands of cards, and he was in this bed with her now, inspiring feelings so precious and rare Althea had no names for them.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and slanted a look at her. “Shall we argue over my various attributes, or shall I kiss you?”
“Neither.” She won free of the covers, straddled his lap, and planted a smacker