A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,93
have talked me into hosting an entertainment later in the month. We are all awhirl at the Vale, planning this great event, and you will soon receive your invitation.”
He rose as any good host would. “I will be pleased to accept. Won’t you finish your tea?”
“No, thank you. I must be off to the lending library. Mrs. Peabody says the inventory could use some refreshing, and I have the means to address that situation.” Althea wanted out of Vicar’s pleasant little parlor, away from the sense of unrelenting gentility his household wore like a favorite shawl.
The housekeeper appeared in the parlor’s open doorway. Her usually cheerful countenance looked worried.
“I am sorry to interrupt, Vicar, but a situation has arisen requiring your attention.”
“A busy day,” he said, his smile back in evidence. “Lady Phoebe did me the great honor of calling upon me earlier, and now somebody has doubtless had a spat with a sweetheart. A vicar’s work is never done.”
“You like it that way,” Althea said as he walked her to the front door. “You like being constantly faced with challenges, like making a contribution that’s seldom acknowledged.”
“And you,” he said, holding up her cloak, “learned to read far more than mere books. I admire you tremendously, you know.” He went about fastening the frogs of her cloak, as if Althea permitted anybody ever to assume that familiarity. “You don’t simply sing the hymns, you exemplify the teachings.”
One could not bat at a vicar’s hands as if he were a presuming brother, so Althea tolerated his assistance.
“Literacy matters, Vicar. It can matter a very great deal.”
He stepped back, his gaze conveying that he knew exactly what point she made. “A system of circulating schools in an urban situation will take some thought.”
“I know. Because the impact could be faster and far greater than what was accomplished over decades in the Welsh countryside. All the more reason to be about it.” She dipped a curtsy and bid him good day, uncertain what, exactly, to make of the encounter.
Sorenson was a good man, mature, intelligent, handsome in a severe Nordic way, and possessed of a sense of humor. Althea was almost certain he’d been flirting with her, but then again, her inability to gauge flirtation accurately was yet another of her many social shortcomings.
She spent nearly an hour with Mrs. Peabody going over the lending library’s inventory and hearing stories of Mrs. P’s girlhood. That courtesy meant Althea stayed a good thirty minutes longer in the village than she’d planned to. For that reason, and that reason only, Althea chose for her homeward trek the trail that crossed a corner of Rothhaven land, rather than return to Lynley Vale by the lanes.
She was passing through a copse of slender, greening birches when she became aware that she was not alone on the path.
Chapter Fifteen
Wilhelmina had read the letter twice and knew she would read it many more times.
“Bad news, Your Grace?” Sarah asked, her needle moving in a steady rhythm.
“I hardly know what to make of it.” Wilhelmina removed the spectacles she’d begun wearing for close work more than a year ago.
“Is His Grace in good health?”
“If Nathaniel were suffering an ague, food poisoning, and a festering bullet wound, he would admit to being slightly under the weather, no more.” In that, he was like his father. All quiet frustration and determination, though Nathaniel—thus far—hadn’t his father’s arrogance or temper.
Robbie had had a seizure by the river. Nathaniel’s description had been oblique, mentioning only a valued member of the household, but his code was easy for a mother to decipher. Robbie had apparently made a regular habit of leaving Rothhaven’s walls. He’d not told his brother of his adventures, and he’d nearly come to grief as a result.
“What do we know of a Lady Althea Wentworth?” Wilhelmina asked.
Sarah put down her embroidery hoop. “Little, besides what every common gossip knows. The Wentworths rose to prominence more than five years ago, when the oldest brother inherited the Walden ducal title. He already had significant wealth as a result of successful banking activities, but there was that business with Newgate too.”
“Lady Althea is from that Wentworth family?” The ducal heir had been imprisoned—wrongly, or so the story went—and nearly executed. The College of Arms had named him the successor to the Walden title, and society had been faced with the conundrum of what to do with a ducal family of exceedingly humble and colorful origins.