at Rothhaven Hall.”
Rothhaven stopped before the next picture, an informal rendering of the previous Duke of Walden in his youth. His Grace had apparently been an approachable sort, for the artist had captured him leaning on a fence, his hand outstretched toward a leggy bay colt. The Dales in all their green glory undulated to the horizon, and a sky worthy of the Low Country masters billowed with fluffy clouds.
The image should have been one of bucolic joy, but Constance saw menace in the dark tree line bounding the pasture, and loneliness in the young duke’s hand, outstretched to a wary beast.
“Might we continue this conversation someplace less…empty?” Rothhaven asked.
“Empty?” The gallery was full of light and quiet as well as of pictures and elegant conversational groupings.
“Your ancestors stare from their gilt frames,” he said, gaze on Constance’s hand resting on his arm. “A different pair of eyes regards us every few feet, and yet the room echoes. The windows let in abundant light, but they also allow anybody with a spyglass and access to the fishing cottage to peer in. I would rather be someplace else.”
“You were serious when you said being out-of-doors makes you uncomfortable.”
“And I assure you, my lady, I am serious now.”
He was also avoiding looking at any of the paintings. “You were watched, at the hospital.” Constance turned toward the door, her arm still linked with Rothhaven’s.
“I was observed. I wasn’t supposed to find the spy-holes the good doctor had bored all over the walls of my chamber. When I did find them, I could not cover them up or he’d simply drill new ones and chide me for being ungrateful. I learned to tarry behind my privacy screen and drape towels in unusual locations.”
“You were ungrateful, to want the smallest measure of privacy?” Constance forgot to allow her escort to hold the door for her.
And Rothhaven apparently forgot to hold it for her. They left the gallery nonetheless, Constance scooting through the door ahead of him.
“The doctor observed me for my own safety,” Rothhaven said, “the better to treat my illness.”
“Except he didn’t treat your illness, did he? He simply poked at you as if you were a lizard in a jar.”
“A ducal lizard, so he poked carefully. Where are we off to now?”
“My sitting room. It’s on the east side of the house, so we’ll have less sunshine at this time of day, and nobody can spy in the windows. Why are you allowing Nathaniel to hare off to Crofton Dike, or whatever the place is called?”
Rothhaven would not be hurried, though Constance now felt a sense of urgency about their destination. Quinn, Jane, Althea, and Nathaniel were strolling in the garden, which was a polite way to say Jane was offering Nathaniel private instructions on the proper behavior of a husband toward his beloved wife. Once that lecture concluded, Rothhaven would be expected to accompany his brother back to the Hall.
“Nathaniel’s estate is Crofton Ford, a pretty little cottage of twelve bedrooms that came to him through a maternal aunt.”
“And are you banishing him to this cottage? Not very gracious of you, Rothhaven.” She led him into her sitting room and drew the curtains closed. “The couch will do.”
Rothhaven stopped two feet inside the door. “I beg your pardon?”
“The couch.” Constance waved a hand at the emerald velvet upholstered settee. “The green will pick up the color of your eyes, though all I have to work with at present is a pencil. If you take that end”—she nodded toward the corner—“you’ll be half in shadow, which will give me an interesting challenge for a three-quarter profile.”
Rothhaven remained right where he was. “Does one or does one not typically ask a subject’s permission before sketching that subject?”
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. If I’m sitting in the park, a sketch pad open on my lap, and a pair of dowagers are feeding ducks ten feet from my bench, I don’t bother the ladies with a request to continue sketching. I will give you any drawing I complete, and you may do with it what you please.”
The point of the exercise for Constance was to better understand the second duke to whom she would have a family connection. One ducal title had cost her severely. A second was a daunting prospect.
“Very well,” Rothhaven said, “I consent to sit for your sketch. Do I understand that you would rather your sister set up housekeeping closer than twenty miles away?”
He took the indicated corner of the