A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,95
feel.
Then too, this Althea Wentworth person was an alarming development, inviting herself and her sows onto Rothhaven land, befriending a man whom she doubtless believed to be a duke…But perhaps not. Althea had been an “aid in the sickroom” when Nathaniel’s valued member of the household had fallen ill.
What sort of woman could scale the ramparts Nathaniel and Robbie had defended for years? Why bother, when Nathaniel had, like his father before him, cultivated a reputation for overweening arrogance?
“I’m not saying yes,” Wilhelmina said. “I will consider the idea, and let Nathaniel know we might pay a visit. Planning such an excursion will take time.”
“Nonsense. If anybody knows how to get from one place to another on the king’s highway, it’s you. I’ll need a day to pack and send a few regrets on your behalf, the staff here will require some instructions, and we can be on our way by Saturday at the latest. I do wonder if Everett Treegum will ever find himself a wife. He had a delightful sense of humor.”
Sarah looked more animated about hundreds of miles in a lumbering coach than she had about anything for the past five years. Wilhelmina felt more animated than she had in at least that long, but she was also more worried for her children, which was saying a great deal.
“Sarah, I have a few calls to pay too,” Wilhelmina said, donning the determination of a stubborn duchess. “And before we set out, I must be sure Nathaniel is prepared to receive us. I will not sleep on damp sheets under musty bed hangings in my own dower house.”
“Then we shall leave on Monday. I cannot wait to quit London, and I honestly don’t know if you’ll ever get me back here.”
That makes two of us. “Where are you going?”
“To start packing.”
“Sarah, I haven’t even sent Nathaniel word of what we’re thinking!”
“Then send him an express.” She fairly scampered out the door, while Wilhelmina remained on the sofa, torn between anticipation and worry. She would send Nathaniel an express, though, and she would wait until Monday to depart from London. Nathaniel deserved some warning that Rothhaven was about to be invaded.
And Wilhelmina needed time to pay a call on the Duchess of Walden.
Althea stood a cautious two yards from Nathaniel, the birches shielding both Nathaniel and the object of his frustrated dreams. The temptation to take her hand had him linking his own hands behind his back.
“You are abroad, on foot, in the middle of the afternoon,” she said. “Is all well at the Hall?”
“If I had any sense, I’d tell you we’re getting on quite well and wish you good day.”
Still she came no closer. “You are awash in sense, nearly drowning in it, from what I can see. What’s amiss?”
“Robbie is in good health, if that’s your concern.”
She marched up to him. “You are my concern. Robbie has the entire Hall fluffing his pillows and bringing him toast because every few weeks or so, he has a bad moment. God forbid such a delicate creature ever has to deal with menses, megrims, or impending motherhood.” She stared at Nathaniel’s cravat. “I am having a bad moment.”
Althea looked tired and angry, also impossibly dear. “Why, my lady?”
“Because I want to wrap my arms around you and never let you go. Because I should not have left you alone to deal with the mess life at the Hall has become. Because I miss you.”
“I miss you as well, but we have agreed that such sentiments can bear no fruit.” No happy fruit, but all manner of sleepless nights and doomed hopes. Nathaniel made himself say the next part. “We were seen, Althea.”
She smoothed a hand over his lapel. “By whom? Your staff knows I was at the Hall. My staff heard that I was off visiting a sickroom, but for all they know I was tending one of my sister Constance’s employees.”
He took her by the hand and led her to a gray, lichen-encrusted boulder amid the trees, for he knew better than Althea how hard a secret was to guard.
“Your staff will cross paths with your sister’s employees at market, or see them at the pub, and they will soon eliminate that possibility. We were seen by a member of the local congregation as she came home from an entertainment in York. Her coach passed by as we parted the other morning.”
Parted, meaning kissed each other farewell like the doomed lovers they were.