The Truth About Dukes (Rogues to Riches #5) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,6

was the duke, and they had done so at Robert’s insistence. As far as polite society knew, Robert had only recently returned to Rothhaven Hall, when in fact, Nathaniel had brought him home more than five years ago.

The man reclaimed from the asylum had been the furthest thing from a duke. Robert wasn’t convinced the years at Rothhaven Hall had seen all that much progress in a ducal direction either.

“What difference does the date make?” Nathaniel spread a pat of butter on his bread and took a second pat. “You aren’t the lucky fellow looking forward to your wedding night.”

In all the time Robert had been at Rothhaven Hall, he and his brother had never once quarreled. They discussed, they even debated in a theoretical sense, and one of them occasionally made an abrupt change of subject, but they’d avoided a true difference of opinion.

That feat was doubtless a testament to fraternal guilt on both sides.

“I am not looking forward to a wedding night, true,” Robert said, selecting the next smallest mushroom from among those on his plate. “I am instead facing responsibilities you have shouldered for years. I must meet with tenants who have long presumed me dead. I must deal with the awkward moments when somebody asks where I’ve been all these years. I must at all times present myself to be of sound mind, despite a lamentable tendency to stare off into space when I’m not twitching and shaking on the floor.”

Nathaniel put down his bread. “You are angry. I am sorry. I know that taking up the reins here will be a challenge, but you are ready for it.”

Whether Robert was ready or not, Nathaniel was too deserving of happiness to be denied a future with Lady Althea.

“I need a plan.” Lady Constance’s words had not left Robert’s mind since she’d uttered them. “Five years ago, you devised a plan to give me the time I needed to heal from that place, and I thank you most sincerely. I need another plan now, one that frees you to jaunt down to London and take your new wife shopping. Have you considered where you and Lady Althea will live?”

Nathaniel stabbed a third pat of butter, then beheld his bread and set the knife down, the butter still on it.

“I had assumed we’d dwell at Lynley Vale. Althea’s property is well appointed and shares a boundary with Rothhaven Hall.”

“I suggest you bide at Crofton Ford for at least part of the year.” Robert had given the matter much thought, and though the words were painful, Nathaniel looked intrigued.

“Crofton Ford is a good twenty miles from here,” Nathaniel said.

“I suspect a new bride wants a home she can consider her own. Not a property allotted from her brother’s ducal holdings, but her own hearth and haven. You hold the deed to Crofton Ford outright, it’s comfortable and closer to York. If your bride’s charitable projects take her into the city with any frequency, Crofton Ford is the more convenient property.”

Nathaniel poured himself more wine. “Are you banishing me, Your Grace?” The question was offered with a smile.

“Yes, in a sense. I have put more demands on you than any brother in the history of brothers, and you have never failed me. Go forth and be happy, Nathaniel. Provide me with lots of little nieces and nephews I can spoil and tell tales about your wicked childhood. Have the life you were meant to have before you learned that I was moldering away among the lunatics.”

“Two days ago, you did not want to attend Lady Althea’s ball. Now you’re holding the door for me and wishing me off on my wedding journey.”

Oh, God, the wedding journey. “Have you made those arrangements yet?”

“Althea has only just agreed to be my wife.” Another smile, even more fatuous than the last. “The wedding journey hasn’t been a priority. She’d probably enjoy Paris.”

Paris wasn’t too far away, not as far away as Rome, Lisbon, or Greece, for example. “If you are leaving on that journey in a mere few weeks, you had best begin planning it. These mushrooms are actually quite good. How is that possible?”

Their cook, a venerable relic from the last century, had neither skill in the kitchen nor any ambition to acquire same, but he’d never betrayed the family’s privacy outside the estate. That had mattered more than fancy dishes or an interesting selection of wines.

“Althea’s Monsieur Henri paid a call here yesterday,” Nathaniel said, “and I’m told some cooking and