A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,77
heard, rests on your broad and handsome shoulders. You are of an age to take a bride.”
The panniers were becoming heavy, though Stephen refused to put them down. His leg could not be helped, but he kept the rest of himself inordinately fit.
“I was not-bad-looking two minutes ago, and now I’m handsome?”
“Don’t try to distract me.” Milly fluffed his cravat. “You need a wife. Althea needs a husband. These conundrums are often solved by socializing with the opposite gender. Althea should hold a ball, and you should summon Walden and his duchess up here to lend their cachet to the occasion.”
“If Quinn and Jane come all this way, they can and should host the blasted ball. They are the duke and duchess and this property only came into family hands through the title.”
“An excellent idea, my lord. So glad you thought of it. Will you send Their Graces an express?”
Stephen had been maneuvered, not quite manipulated. He admired Milly’s shrewdness, even as he did not care for the view from a tight corner.
“I will discuss this with Althea, whose household this is. We thwart her wishes at our peril.”
“Oh, right. Happy spying, my lord.” Milly waggled her fingers at him and bustled back to her lair, from which she could no doubt order the affairs of the whole shire, should she choose to do so.
“I hate balls,” Stephen muttered, as a groom fixed the panniers to the saddle of a raw-boned gray gelding.
“Beg pardon, my lord?”
“Nothing of any note, apparently.” The next bit was delicate, and Stephen usually preferred to climb aboard his horse in the relative privacy of the stable yard. He hadn’t wanted to lug the panniers that far, though, so needs must.
The groom stood at the gelding’s head, gaze on nothing in particular as Stephen stashed one cane into a scabbard affixed to the saddle. The gray gelding, a stalwart soul traveling under the nom d’écurie of Revanche, knew to stand until Kingdom Come when Stephen was mounting.
“Good lad,” Stephen said, swinging aboard, sliding the second cane into the scabbard, and patting the horse. “Away with us to Rothhaven Hall.”
The groom stepped back. “You’re for Rothhaven, my lord?”
The stable lads would not know where Lady Althea had got off to or why. Best keep it that way. “I am. One pays calls when biding in the country, as best I recollect.”
“One might pay calls, sir, but Rothhaven Hall never receives visitors.” The groom was an older fellow, gray-haired and lean, with the Viking-blue eyes common in the district. “Our duke is a man of particulars and likes his privacy.”
“Then I won’t be gone long, will I?” Stephen said, kneeing Revanche away from the mounting block. He kept the horse to the walk, in deference to the panniers behind the saddle, also to give himself time to think.
Stephen detested balls with the unrelenting passion the musically disinclined reserved for bad opera. Hated watching the couples flirt and twirl, hated that the long evening forced him to roost in his Bath chair like a dropsical dowager too stout to properly socialize. Hated the awkward conversations that resulted when one person remained seated and most around him stood. Hated the difficulty of maneuvering a Bath chair through a crush, particularly with a drink to hold as well.
But he loved his sister, and a ball was a logical next step in her campaign to secure the honors of social acceptance, and thereafter, wifehood.
He kicked the horse into a canter and prepared to do some spying.
Althea did not want to leave Rothhaven’s bed. Part of her reluctance was fatigue—the bed was so comfy with him in it to cuddle up to—and part of her reluctance was because she had no experience with what came after lovemaking.
She knew what followed a tupping—smiles, a little affection, a mutual need for distance lest anybody read too much into the encounter.
But she and Rothhaven had not engaged in a tupping. His hands had been nearly reverent, his caresses lighter than wishes and more sincere than prayers. Nobody had ever touched her that way before, such that physical sensations conjured an emotional certainty of caring, desire, and respect.
Dear God, his touch had been lovely and loving. What did one say after such a joining?
“Are you awake?” Rothhaven murmured. “I can hear your mind whirling, while I cannot catch a coherent thought.”
He was spooned around her, and she could feel the words rumbling from him. “I am awake,” she replied. “I feel as if I ought to offer