A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,84
Let me fetch my cloak.” He waited for her to nod before he left her by the side door.
Althea’s departure should be a relief. She and her rubbishing nosy brother were a disruption, a disturbance in a routine of privacy that had been established for very good reasons. As Robbie lay dozing the night away, Nathaniel had reviewed those reasons and still found them compelling.
Robbie was not well in body or mind, at least some of the time.
Enlightened thinkers attached no stigma to the falling sickness, but much of society remained downright backward about any illness, muttering about tainted blood, curses, and worse. If Althea could be ridiculed for years simply because she had humble origins or held her fan incorrectly, Robbie would face even worse judgment.
And for Nathaniel himself?
He snatched his cloak from a peg in the foyer, grabbed Althea’s straw hat, and trotted back to her side rather than ponder his deserts. What became of him did not matter in the slightest, except that Robbie needed and deserved an ally. The staff needed and deserved guidance.
“You waited,” he said, passing Althea her straw hat.
“The morning has obliged us with a mist. I will not be seen crossing the fields.”
A mist, less than a true fog. “We’d best be going, then.” He did not offer his arm, he did not take her hand. The morning air was brisk, but did nothing to clear his head.
“Robbie had a seizure last night, didn’t he?” Nathaniel said as they crossed the garden.
“Why do you ask?”
Althea was back to being the cool, self-possessed lady he’d met at Lynley Vale, and that was for the best.
“Robbie always sleeps without moving after a fit, and he was too cheerful about Tom Jones’s tiresome behavior.”
They reached the garden gate. Althea opened the door with no assistance from Nathaniel and marched right on through it.
“Was Tom’s behavior tiresome, or was he born into a tiresome society?” Althea rejoined. “When a wealthy squire doesn’t know who his own nephew is, when lawlessness and licentiousness are held up as amusing, when a hanging is supposed to be hilarious…I believe Mr. Fielding must have been a savagely angry man, and rightly so.”
Althea was savagely angry, and rightly so, while Nathaniel was…annoyed, but resigned. He’d been annoyed but resigned for so long the habit fit him like old boots.
“Things have changed some since Fielding’s day,” Nathaniel said. Outside the garden, the mist was thinning. Althea’s decision to depart early had been wise and considerate, though some small, selfish part of Nathaniel wanted to carry her back into the Hall and beg her to bide there just a little bit longer.
Never, ever beg. What fool had said that? “What will you do with yourself today, Althea?”
She slanted a glance at him, half-amused, half-exasperated. “I will be interrogated by Stephen and Milly, and refuse them any information relating to you, Robbie, or the Hall. How much did you tell Stephen?”
“The basics. Robbie was and is in no fit state to be the duke, his death was believed genuine because my father made it seem so, the situation is in hand provided…”
Provided nothing ever changed. Annoyance acquired an edge of despair.
“I will probably spend the day going over my books,” Althea said. “I will hear the latest family news from Stephen, and I will take a nap.”
How Nathaniel wished he’d seen her bedroom, the better to picture her cuddled beneath her own covers.
“What else will you do with your day?” Nathaniel’s question was selfish. He wanted to envision Althea resuming her normal life, chatting with her tenants, beating her companion at cribbage. He needed to see her thus in his mind’s eye.
“I’ve lately had callers,” she said. “Viscount Ellenbrook and Miss Price. I believe Miss Price is supposed to be tossing her cap at Ellenbrook, but she’s noticed Stephen. Her aunt seems particularly desperate to get her fired off.”
“Do you underestimate your brother’s charms?”
“Not in the least, but Stephen well knows the difference between flirtation and courtship. He excels at the former, while the latter frightens him witless.”
They passed the orchard on its hill, dark limbs stark against the thinning mist.
“Lord Stephen strikes me as excessively courageous, to the point of recklessness. Why would courtship frighten him?”
Althea picked up her pace. “Because courtship ought to frighten anybody who can admit to human frailties. We are none of us lovable all the time, and Stephen can be exceedingly difficult. What ails Miss Price that Lady Phoebe should be so ruthless about making a match for