The Truth About Dukes (Rogues to Riches #5) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,9
sofa and positioned himself so he was caught in both light and shadow. The effect was intriguing, for the illuminated portion of his face conveyed a detached aristocratic mask. Dignified, a little impatient, like Wellington eager to return to his troops.
The shadowed portion of Rothhaven’s countenance was more complex. He looked out on the world with not merely a sense of disappointment, but rather, with the certain knowledge of betrayal. Sadness, anger, possibly resignation…
Constance’s pencil began to move, and she bestirred herself to recollect Rothhaven’s question. Conversing with a subject was a skill most portraitists developed of necessity, and he’d asked about…
“I never thought to be parted from Althea at all,” Constance said. “We are allies, comrades in arms—or in ball gowns. Nobody in the whole of London knows exactly what leaps and stumbles I’ve made to arrive where I am, save Althea.” Even Althea did not know the whole of the tale, but she hadn’t needed the details. She’d had the rough sketch, and that had been enough.
“So how is it,” Rothhaven asked, “that your sister tarried in Yorkshire long enough to capture Nathaniel’s heart while you went to London for the usual social whirl?”
His eyebrows were intriguing. The slight swoop gave him an air of expecting answers even when no specific question was on the floor.
“Althea indicated that she no longer needed or wanted my companionship. We spent the Yuletide holidays together at my home, Thorndike Manor, where Althea passed most of the time reading in her room. She was visiting me less and less, and extending fewer invitations for me to visit her. I knew something was afoot when she declined to go shopping with me in York as the New Year began. Then it became apparent that she needed me to go to London.”
“Needed you to go to London? Does anybody ever need to go to London?”
Such disdain, from a man who’d likely never left Yorkshire, and yet, his question was insightful too.
“Althea needed me to make the journey south without creating a fuss, to arrive at Quinn and Jane’s home in the usual course, pretending that Althea’s choice was of no moment. As it is, they didn’t leave her alone for long, did they?”
His eyes…a mere pencil sketch would never do justice to a gaze that complicated. Rothhaven was both calm and turbulent. Distant and intensely present. To study him made Constance thirsty for a glass of wine—or something stronger.
“Your sister will not depart for Crofton Ford out of any distaste for your company, my lady. I all but told Nathaniel to leave the Hall.”
His nose was easy. A proud beak, worthy of his title. The line was straight—no boyhood breaks or brawling—and gave his features an implacable quality. Rothhaven would be polite, even considerate, but he would not back down from a fight.
What had he…? “Why send away the brother who loves you so? Why not allow him to make those choices?”
“Because Nathaniel loves me so.”
His mouth was another challenge. Not quite grim, particularly not with the slight ironic quirk he gave it now.
“You sent your brother away, because he would never abandon you, given a choice.”
“He would stay by my side out of guilt, because the falling sickness can run in families—my father was apparently prone to it—but Nathaniel is free from it. His is the guilt of any family member faced with an afflicted sibling. He sees my suffering and cannot put his own interests first.”
Constance had to make several tries to get his lips right, and still…Lord, she wanted a glass of wine, or—how long until sunset?—brandy.
“Is it Nathaniel’s guilt you are managing or your own, Your Grace? You cannot help an infirmity that has afflicted you since boyhood.”
“True, but I can help the extent to which that infirmity casts a pall over my brother, at least for the present. He deserves a few happy years.”
Constance had been studying her subject long enough to attempt his chin and jaw in one smooth line. More resolution here, and maturity. Rothhaven was not a boy, not a pretty youth, and yet he was attractive.
“Why only a few happy years?”
A bleakness came over Rothhaven’s expression, quickly chased off with that ironic smile. “I was hidden away for more than a decade because my condition makes me unfit for the title. When some impecunious distant relation or meddling neighbor decides that my father was right to remove me from the line of succession, Nathaniel will find a way to blame himself. He will take up