The Truth About Dukes Read online

  He continued putting shorter books to his left, taller to his right. “Now she’ll have to actually peruse her collection of tales for a change but without having to endure the sight of disorder. What tale are you about to tell me?”

  “Your promise first.” Constance could withstand a raised voice from anybody except her brothers.

  “I will not shout,” Quinn said, jamming Robinson Crusoe next to Pilgrim’s Progress. “I will not pace about as the hyenas in the royal menagerie do when feeding time approaches. I will not clench my jaw like a man striving to spare his dear sister bad language. Satisfied?”

  “Thank you.” Constance stood behind a stout rocking chair, though putting furniture between her and her brother betrayed how nervous she was. Damn Jack Wentworth for that.

  “I have reason to believe Rothhaven will approach you about offering me his addresses.”

  Quinn left off dis-arranging the storybooks. “I beg your pardon.” Quinn alone of Jack Wentworth’s children had never begged anyone for anything. He wasn’t begging now.

  Constance met his glower, having endured the same fusillade many times before. “I am well past marriageable age, His Grace is of an appropriate station, and his suit will be agreeable to me.”

  “Rothhaven is half mad, Constance. Bad enough that our sister is marrying into such a family.”

  She shoved the chair aside. “You snob. You perishing hypocrite. Don’t make me ashamed of you.”

  If she’d slapped him, Quinn could not look more surprised. “I seek to protect you from an unfortunate union, and you insult me for it?”

  She wanted to do much more than insult him, but the moment called for reason. “You and Jane are tolerated because of your titles. Doors must open to you, but everywhere you see judgment, veiled censure, and hostility—from people who don’t know you at all.

  “Those people know the gossip about your upbringing,” Constance went on. “They nearly killed you with their determination to cling to petty prejudices where you’re concerned. They have never exchanged a word with you. They nonetheless think you unfit to break bread with them because once upon a time—to survive—you did honest work with your bare hands.”

  She’d crossed the room to face Quinn directly, lest he evade her by moving away.

  “Go on.”

  “All of society judged you unfairly, Quinn, even as they trusted you with their fortunes and called upon you for loans. No matter how brilliantly you manage their wealth, they will nonetheless judge your children and your grandchildren. For yourself, you don’t care, but what about for your daughters? And now you judge Rothhaven, having barely any acquaintance with him. You deem him half mad, putting more credence in gossip and ignorance than in the evidence of your own perceptions.”

  Quinn set aside Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “Rothhaven has fits, Constance. He’s afraid of a sunny sky. His own brother has said as much. Rothhaven won’t imbibe but a single glass of spirits at a time. He has no friends, no connections. He’s never been to Town and he likely will never go, not even to make the acquaintance of his sovereign. That much coach travel would un-man him. Is this the sort of father you seek for your children?”

  She nearly did slap him for that, but Quinn had spoken quietly, pleadingly.

  “Rothhaven is honorable and kind. He is intelligent and well read. He cares for his family, his staff, and his tenants. If he’s afraid of a sunny sky, his courage is sufficient to overcome his fears, for he escorted me from the Hall to the orchard and back again without incident.” And he’d proposed to her in that lovely, sunny orchard, and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

  Quinn took a stuffed bear down from the bookshelf and sniffed it. “But could he have escorted you to York yesterday?”

  “Stephen dreads that assignment, Quinn, and you never censure him for shirking it.”

  “Stephen cannot walk from shop to shop all day. Rothhaven could if he pleased to.”

  “Because an ailment of the mind is less real than a lame leg? When Stephen’s problem was melancholia rather than lameness, did you dismiss the malady as of no moment?” Quinn had not, in fact, taken effective measures in Stephen’s case until the situation had become dire.

  The baby stirred in her bassinette, and Quinn was immediately tucking the blanket up around her.

  “We should take this discussion elsewhere,” he said, placing the bear at the baby’s feet. “We must not wake the princess or her mother will somehow know of it and cut short her own nap.”

  We will finish this discussion here and now. “If you fell prey to shaking fits tomorrow, Quinn, would you love your daughters any less? Would you be less of a father to them, or would your disability make you even more devoted to their welfare?”

  He gave the blanket one last twitch. “You should have been a barrister, and that is not a compliment. When I am a feeble old relic, half blind, deaf, and toothless, I will love my family with the last of my breath and the ferocity of a dragon, but Constance, you deserve peace, a man who can give you contentment, not a fellow who has demons of his own to battle.”

  What worthy man or woman didn’t have the occasional demon to battle?

  “I met Rothhaven when I ran away. He is more formidable than you give him credit for, Quinn. Most people consigned to a madhouse for ten years wouldn’t live to tell the tale, much less recount it coherently.”

  Quinn gestured to the rocking chairs before the hearth. “One suspected you and His Grace were not strangers. As asylums go, that place was commodious.”

  Constance took a seat with a sense of relief. Quinn was no longer trying to evade the topic, meaning he’d found a means of reconciling himself to the situation.

  “That hospital was only commodious on the outside, Quinn, and that was by design. Soames fancied himself a physician of the mind, and used his patients to experiment on, but the worst torment those people suffered was shame and rage that their own families had put them there.”

  Quinn leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In his profile, Constance saw both the handsome, determined youth he’d been, and the fierce old fellow he’d become, but she also saw her brother. A good man, not perfect, but well worth loving.

  He set the chair to rocking slowly. “One of the worst torments I ever faced was coming home to find that my baby sister had left my house. Rothhaven’s father discarded him, you discarded us. You discarded safety itself, and while I can guess at some of your reasons, I’ve never asked you why.”

  “I was upset.” The grandest of understatements. “I was afraid.”

  Quinn turned his head to gaze at her. “Of me?”

  Oh, Quinn. “Not of you, Quinn. Never of you. Of what would follow. I was not thinking clearly. You might say I was addled.”

  The silence that bloomed was a little sad, but mostly peaceful. Constance could have this conversation with her brother now because Quinn was a father and a husband, no longer a young man ruthlessly determined to build his fortune and damn anything and anyone who stood in his way.

  “If you are thinking clearly now,” he said, “you will agree to two conditions. I know you can marry Rothhaven without my blessing, but that would disappoint Jane. Let’s avoid that if we can, shall we?”

  “I’d rather not disappoint anybody.” Ever again.

  “First, with respect to the settlements, I will ensure your money remains in trust outside the ducal estate. Rothhaven will understand why.”

  “Because you think he’s half mad.”

  “Because I don’t know him, but at any point, somebody could decide an inquiry must be made on behalf of the Crown regarding his fitness. If a guardian of Rothhaven’s property is required, I will of course offer my services in that capacity, but generally, the more disinterested a prospective guardian is, the more likely he is to be appointed. I could conceivably inherit some unentailed property from Rothhaven through a deceased sister, for example.”

  Men and their machinations. “Not if his will says otherwise.”

  “Valid point. Nonetheless, Lynley Vale marches with Rothhaven Hall, and thus I am not disinterested in Rothhaven’s estate. I could divert his water for my benefit, allow my flocks onto his fields, and so forth. I want your money protected, in part because it might be the only money you and His Grace can claim.”

  “I see your point.” Quinn had a gift for strategy, and he was right: Rothhaven would understand this measure and agree to it. “What else?”

  Quinn rose. “You must tell him about the situation that sent you fleeing to the moors, Constance. He deserves to know the whole tale, and before he takes the public step of courting you.”

  Constance remained in her seat because she did not trust her legs to hold her up. “Of all people, I thought you would understand why discretion is in order. It was nearly half my life ago, Quinn. In all the years since, we’ve heard nothing. No breath of scandal, no hint of repercussions.”

  Quinn prowled over to the bassinette again and peered down at his youngest daughter, his expression unreadable.

  “Jane and I did not have an auspicious beginning as husband and wife. I was condemned to die, she hadn’t a groat to her name, and her father was more of a worry than a comfort. We were not at our best, but we agreed to be honest with each other. We agreed to show each other that much trust and respect. I did not keep my side of the bargain very well at first. My motives were above reproach, but I disappointed the woman who’d trusted me with the rest of her life.”

  He left the infant dreaming her baby-dreams and headed for the door. “If you value Rothhaven’s esteem, if you truly mean to have a marriage with him and not simply a union of convenience and appearances, then you must put your situation before him in all its details. Whatever else is true about Rothhaven, he’s honest. You say he’s no coward, and I believe you, but neither are you a coward, Constance. Far from it.”

  He waited, hand on the door latch, as if Constance was supposed to say something to such an odd, touching, backhanded compliment.

  “It’s old news, Quinn. Years old.”

  “If it’s of so little import, then telling your prospective husband should make no difference. The hardest lesson I had to learn when I married Jane was to match her for honesty and courage. My duchess is awake, and I must convey this development to her, if that’s allowed?”

  “Yes, you may tell Jane, but please don’t mention this to Stephen yet. I’ll tell Althea, though I suspect Nathaniel is already aware of the situation.”

  Quinn aimed a look at Constance, half over his shoulder. “Do you like him, Con?”

  “Very much. We argue, we discuss, we plan.…I like him very much, Quinn.”

  That seemed to satisfy Quinn for the moment. He slipped through the door, closing it quietly, leaving Constance to the company of the sleeping baby. She was tempted to pick up the child and steal a snuggle, but waking a sleeping baby was never well advised.

  Instead Constance put a question to her small, dreaming niece. “How did Quinn know that Jane was awake?” Because he had known. Somehow, he’d known.

  The cat, a long-haired black monstrosity named Monteverdi for his operatic tendencies, was acting oddly. This did not bode well for Robert’s plans, but Monteverdi often acted odd when the lady cats in the stable were feeling amorous.

  “I am feeling amorous,” Robert muttered, scratching the cat’s furry shoulders.

  Monty yawned and padded across the library desk to lick Robert’s chin.

  “My, what foul breath you have.”

  Another lick. Then a chin-butt. Robert gently pushed the cat to the side of the desk and, for the fortieth time in twenty minutes, consulted his pocket watch.

  “She’s late.” Though only by five minutes, which was nothing, but was Constance more likely to be late when she was accepting a proposal or when she was rejecting that proposal? Robert rose to admire the view of the garden—not to pace—and Monty leapt from the desk to nearly trip him.

  “Go to the stables, you wretch.”

  The cat batted gently at Robert’s boot and let out a yowl.

  “None of that.” He’d picked up the beast, intent on turning it loose in the garden, when Thatcher tapped on the open door.

  “Company, Your Grace. Lady Constance Wentworth to see you.”

  Robert held the cat away from his body in the vain hope that no black cat hair would find its way to his attire. Lady Constance appeared at Thatcher’s elbow before this awkward posture could be remedied.

  “I told Thatcher he needn’t announce me. What a splendid kitty.” She sidled past Thatcher, whose stoic expression hid the pain of a man too long denied the office of announcing callers. Lady Constance wore her old straw hat again today—Robert was becoming fond of that hat—and dropped her gloves on the sideboard.

  “The splendid kitty is demanding attention,” Robert said, opening the terrace door and nudging Monty out of doors with his boot. “He’ll enjoy a call on the stable. Thatcher, that will be all.”

  “No tray, Your Grace?”

  Constance put a sizable reticule down on the blotter. “No tray, and His Grace and I do not wish to be disturbed.”

  Was that good news or bad news?

  Thatcher bowed and drew the door closed behind him as he left.

  The past three days had revealed that Robert’s patience, a skill he’d honed with bitter intensity over years of confinement, was out of practice. He’d told himself to set aside the issue of his marital prospects. He’d made his offer, and the lady would agree or not. He’d tried to focus on plans for repairing the drive.

  On his mother’s plans for refurbishing the dower house, though those plans would doubtless change when Her Grace returned from Paris.

  On reviewing the settlements negotiated for Nathaniel and Althea.

  On the growing stream of correspondence offering him awkward congratulations for not being dead—without putting it quite like that.

  He might as well have been in a protracted staring spell for all he’d accomplished since bidding Constance farewell.

  She brushed a glance over him, a fulminating look that presaged loaded verbal cannon and fixed bayonets. The cat mrrrralphed outside the door, batting a paw at the glass.

  “I have considered your offer,” Constance said. “I am inclined to give you leave to pay me your addresses.”

  “I am pleased.” Also relieved as hell, though Robert also knew a conditional acceptance when he heard one. “Do go on.”

  Yooooowl. Bat…bat…bat.

  “Perhaps we should join him in the garden.” Her ladyship picked up her reticule and made for the door. “The light is better out there anyway.”

  Robert retrieved her gloves from the sideboard and met her at the door. “Whatever else you have to say, Constance, just tell me. A long engagement, a special license, that year in Paris…Tell me, and if it’s within my power to accommodate you, I will.”

  “You’d come to Paris with me? Travel by coach and ship and so forth?”

  “Yes.” Robert had given this some thought, when he was supposed to have been laying out annual beds for the drive. He and his duchess could sail from Hull to Le Havre and cut out some of the overland travel.

  “You will be my wife, the woman who has forsaken all others to stand by my side. I traveled thirty-two miles by coach with Nathaniel when I was in worse health than I am now, albeit I was drugged at the time. I would need to keep the shades pulled in the carriage, and I’d rather travel at night under a waning quarter moon, but yes. I would come to Paris with you.”

  “London?”

  Robert considered the question as the cat batted away at the glass. They could sail almost all of that distance, and for some reason, the prospect of a coastal seascape was less intimidating than the prospect of parallel ruts undulating endlessly over the English countryside. Perhaps the sound of coach wheels was to blame.

  “I will journey with you to London, if I must. As my wife, you could well risk your life in childbed. I can face the horrors of the capital to show my face at court.” That was hope speaking, uncharacteristic optimism.

  “I detest London. I like you.”

  I more than like you. “The sentiment is assuredly mutual in both regards, and yet, you hesitate to give me your answer.”

  “I want to sketch you.” She swished through the door, across the terrace, and down the steps.

  Robert followed, bemused. Constance hadn’t said no to his proposal, but she certainly hadn’t said yes. Perhaps this was a taste of married life, learning to read a sort of uxorial code.

  “Will the bench do, my lady?”

  “The bench will do nicely.” Constance fished a sketch pad from her reticule, stuck one pencil behind her ear, brandished another—brandished, that was the word for it—then took the far end of the bench. “Have a seat and think ducal thoughts.”

  Robert had no sooner done as she’d bid him—thinking of his prospective duchess was very ducal—when Monty popped up onto the bench.

  “Shameless beggar.”

  Constance fell silent as Monty circled on Robert’s lap, purred, demanded to be scratched, and otherwise spoiled the moment.

  She took up her pencil and made a few passes at the page. “I told Quinn that you would ask him about paying me your addresses. He was reasonable, considering he was surprised. Cat, settle or I will sketch you with horns.”

  The cat walked across Robert’s lap and dug its claws into his thigh.

  “Shall you have a long courtship with all the trimmings, Constance? I’m already steeling myself for the ordeal of divine services. I could flirt with you in the churchyard, share a hymnal, the usual silliness.” Though how much better if he could waltz with her at an engagement ball or even at a local assembly? How much more impressive if he could take her out driving in a fancy gig?

  Maybe someday.

  “I understand why a shorter engagement makes sense,” she said, “and I don’t need any silliness. What ails that cat?”

  “He’s lonely, I suppose.” Or he sensed a seizure in the offing. Nothing to be done about it if that was the case. Robert picked up the cat and cradled him against his shoulder, which seemed to be what the dratted pest wanted.