The Truth About Dukes Page 21

  Constance unlaced her boots and set them beside Rothhaven’s. “Quinn is similarly disdainful of toadies, as am I.”

  “Lord Stephen designed this arrangement?” Rothhaven asked, when they were stretched out side by side under the blankets.

  “Stephen should have been an artificer. He likes solving puzzles. We have food and drink in the panel on your side.”

  “Good to know. Why, Lady Constance, how friendly you’ve become.”

  She’d snuggled up to Rothhaven’s side, though with both of them fully clothed, snuggling was more a theory than a reality.

  “Tell me about the legal process involved in prying Ivy away from Reverend Shaw,” she said. “What does it mean to have him declared unfit as a guardian?”

  Rothhaven looped an arm around Constance’s shoulders. “It means scandal, of course.”

  “And scandal is no sort of recompense for a man who has voluntarily provided for my daughter for the past seven years, even if Ivy isn’t particularly happy under his roof.” Compared to Jack Wentworth, Whitlock Shaw was probably a prince among uncles.

  “You make a valid point,” Rothhaven replied, “and as to that, I am firmly opposed to any initiative that blights my family escutcheon. For good and sufficient reasons, the Rothmere family is already considered eccentric, and my objective over the next few decades is to rehabilitate that reputation. Dragging Shaw into court, when he might well be doing better than most bachelor uncles would do with a stubborn niece, is to be avoided.”

  “You are thinking of our children. I love that about you.” Constance was growing fonder of rocking along in this marvelous coach too.

  “I am thinking of my own peace of mind and yours as well. It’s one thing to bring a by-blow to dwell under the ducal roof—men are expected to support their offspring, regardless of legitimacy—but it’s quite another to bring a legal action in the courts against a family member who has been more generous than many would be.”

  “You’re right.” Which meant attacking Shaw’s fitness would be a waste of time, and even if successful, such a suit could not put right all that Constance had put wrong. “What if she hates me?”

  A masculine sigh redolent of resignation wafted through the darkness. “Ivy may know little of you other than that you gave birth to her. We must proceed delicately lest your daughter take you into needless dislike.”

  “I know that, Rothhaven, but I am hopeful. For the first time in years, allow me to be a little hopeful.”

  “Hope makes fools of us all.” He rearranged pillows so Constance’s neck was at a more comfortable angle. “I hoped for years that my family would retrieve me from Soames’s madhouse. I would have given anything for an uncle to take me in when I was Ivy’s age.”

  “Even if that uncle was dragging you off to the Antipodes?”

  Another sigh, softer, more tired. “The settlement colonies are thriving, from all reports. Many sensible, sane, fit men are emigrating and taking their families with them.”

  Though Rothhaven would not be among them. Perhaps that realization had occasioned his initial sour mood. Shaw could take Ivy far, far away, and as long as Constance remained attached to Rothhaven, she could not follow her daughter to that distant, untamed land.

  “We have Sorenson’s letter,” Constance said. “We have Ivy’s best interests at heart. Shaw will listen to reason if he has any sense at all.” That was a prayer, or as close to a prayer as Constance could fashion in her present state.

  Rothhaven rolled to his side and spooned himself around her. “You want to be at your best if you are determined to meet your daughter. Try to get some sleep. The night will be long, and the ride bumpy.”

  Another metaphor. Constance closed her eyes, and managed to not sleep at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” Robert said, sidling up to Lord Stephen in the innyard. “You even smell like a peddler.”

  “I smell like my stout four-footed companion of the road, George the Fifth,” Lord Stephen replied, leaning heavily on a plain walking stick. “How is Constance?”

  “Anxious, hopeful, determined, braced for heartache.” As was Robert. “The facts in evidence regarding Miss Ivy and Reverend Shaw are discouraging. Have you learned anything?”

  Stephen wore blue-tinted spectacles, just the sort of odd touch that made him blend in more effectively than if he’d worn no spectacles at all. Otherwise, his attire was that of a man recently down on his luck. His clothing was worn and wrinkled but fairly clean and well made. His boots matched, and his neckcloth was neatly tied though devoid of starch.

  “The market opens at nine,” Stephen said, gaze on the green across the road where vendors were setting up booths and unloading wagons. “The housekeepers descend early in hopes of finding the best produce. Shaw’s housekeeper is a formidable female by the name of Mrs. Hodges. She does not suffer fools.”

  “Then you stand no chance with her.”

  Stephen tipped his hat to an older woman hustling past with a basket over her arm. “Why don’t you try to charm her, Rothhaven?”

  Robert had forgotten to tip his hat to the lady. Remiss of him, and one of a thousand mistakes he regularly made because in a madhouse, nobody wore a hat, much less used it for polite gestures toward passing women.

  “All of my charm,” Robert retorted, “is reserved for your sister. She’s waited years for this day.”

  “So she has. What’s your plan?” Stephen asked, casually propping himself against a hitching rack. “How do you see the morning unfolding?”

  Robert had spent much of the jostling, bouncing night considering that question. “Constance wants to introduce herself to Ivy before any other steps are taken.”

  “Con is afraid the girl will be snatched away,” Stephen said. “Afraid this will be their only chance to meet. What do you think?”

  “That a mother’s instincts are to be respected, though Constance is taking a great gamble. She doesn’t mean to present herself to Ivy as her mother, though Constance and her daughter bear a close resemblance.”

  “The risk being,” Stephen said, shading his eyes against the morning sun, “that if Shaw gets wind of today’s doings, he could be a proper arse about the whole business. Trying to buy him off or flatter him then will only make the situation worse.”

  Constance emerged from the inn. She wore a modest walking dress of brown velvet, no piping, no lace, no ornamentation, and yet, the quality of the fabric and the workmanship proclaimed it to be a costly garment. Her beaded reticule caught the morning light, offering another advertisement of her social standing.

  “Constance would be better off attempting to win Shaw’s approval without a duke on her arm,” Robert said.

  “If you were not on her arm, Quinn would be,” Stephen replied, a kindly observation, however grudging it sounded. “If Quinn weren’t a duke, he’d still be a banker awash in wealth or a man who escaped the gallows. When people are determined to be hateful, they can find any number of excuses for their meanness.”

  “True enough.”

  “I happened to overhear the blacksmith’s apprentice and his older brother enjoying their ale last evening.”

  The weight on Robert’s heart became heavier. “And?”

  “Shaw has put his house up for sale. He’s booked passage to the Antipodes for himself and his niece in about one month’s time. Nobody will miss him, but the whole village feels sorry for the girl.”

  “As do I, and I haven’t even met her.” Constance waved and stepped off the inn’s front porch, her stride confident, her expression cheerful. Robert fell in love with her all over, for the thousandth time. “She smiles when a lesser woman would be cowering in her room, clutching her handkerchief, and praying for a miracle.”

  “A lesser woman would never have thrown in her lot with you, Rothhaven.” Stephen took off his glasses and polished them on the sleeve of his coat. “Have I mentioned that breaking my sister’s heart will considerably shorten your life expectancy?”

  Despite all inclination to the contrary, Robert found himself taking a liking to Constance’s younger brother.

  “Nathaniel warned me that yours is a violent version of fraternal devotion. If you can tell me the name of the ship the reverend is traveling on, I can possibly buy it, and at least delay his departure.”

  “Impressive,” Stephen said, putting his glasses back on. “I hadn’t thought of that tactic, though if you delay Shaw’s passage, you will infuriate a man already predisposed to righteous ire.”

  “Nothing will part him from his anger, if he’s true to his type. By buying the ship, I might be able to give Constance a few more weeks with her daughter, particularly if Shaw’s house doesn’t sell and he grows short of funds.”

  “True,” Stephen said as Constance drew nearer. “I can buy the house and be slow to finalize the sale.”

  “That would save me the trouble. Let’s hope none of these machinations will be needed.” Robert tipped his hat to his beloved, and this close, he could see the anxiety clouding her gaze. “Good morning, my dear.”

  Stephen pushed away from the hitching rack to tip his hat and bow. “I’m off to befriend a lonely alewife, or at least sample her wares.” He paused, both hands resting on his walking stick. “You will have to fight for the girl, Rothhaven. I don’t know how to advise you regarding tactics. Charm won’t work, money won’t work. In court Shaw will be the poor, sincere preacher whose true vocation is thwarted by a bellicose duke.”

  “Then what will work?” Constance asked, threading her arm through Robert’s.

  Stephen tugged down his hat brim and surveyed the increasingly crowded green across the street. “I wish to hell I knew. Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges is over by the tinker’s cart, the tallish lady with the blue ribbon on her bonnet. She is Shaw’s housekeeper. I do believe that’s my long-lost niece at her side.”

  Robert covered Constance’s hand with his own. “Shall I escort you to her?” He was tired from a night without sleep, tired from worry, tired from racking his brains for a solution. Constance would not march up to the girl and announce their relationship, but hiding that relationship from Ivy could be a greater error than announcing it.

  That he was standing under the Yorkshire sun in a village square surrounded by strangers added to his burden, but if this was what Constance needed him to do, he’d do it willingly.

  “She’s my daughter,” Constance said. “I’ll manage this part. Will you wait for me?”

  “Always.”

  She walked away, shoulders square, while Robert trailed behind more slowly. He’d keep a respectful distance, but like Lord Stephen, he was prepared to shorten the life expectancy of any who interfered with Constance in this most precious and fraught moment.

  She was brave—God, was she brave—but courage cast out neither fear nor vulnerability. To stand as her champion, however imperfectly, was an honor. Once before, Robert had appointed himself her champion, and the decision had changed something in him for the better at a critical moment.

  Across the green, Lord Stephen was keeping an equally careful eye on the proceedings.

  He saluted under the guise of admiring the mighty oaks shading the green, and Robert returned the gesture. They might not secure a future for Ivy in the ducal home, but if the girl was willing, they would damned sure try.

  Constance had grown up in a household where mortal fear was a frequent caller. Jack Wentworth had been a fiend, and his exalted authority as a father meant nobody intervened to keep his children safe from his violence. Spare the rod, the neighbors had said, smiling with pious resignation and shaking their heads.

  Perhaps that’s why Constance had been so determined to thwart Dr. Soames, not because she’d seen oppression firsthand, but because she detested oppressors and all who ignored the oppressor’s evil. Jack had delighted in terrorizing his children, just as Soames had flattered himself that he was engaged in science rather than tormenting the afflicted people in his care.

  And that—the ghost of Jack Wentworth, of his violence toward and disgust with his own children—had sent Constance into the arms of the first man to show her any personal regard.

  How stupid she’d been, and how vulnerable. Seeing Ivy—tall, healthy, ready to enjoy a morning out on a pretty spring day—the last of Constance’s sorrow over her childhood faded to mere sadness. Jack Wentworth’s children had learned how to fight, to think for themselves, and to face any foe with head held high.

  No matter the sheer terror they might be experiencing within.

  The emotion Constance felt upon beholding her daughter had something of dread in it, and even touched the boundary of fear, but the overwhelming sentiment was profound joy. While Constance pretended to fish about in her reticule, she watched Ivy confer with Mrs. Hodges, point to a bookseller’s stall, and pat the older woman’s arm.

  Mrs. Hodges nodded and strode off in the direction of a greengrocer’s wagon, and the moment arrived for Constance to move her feet and make her daughter’s acquaintance.

  Rothhaven was ten yards off, admiring some sketches displayed by a caricaturist who’d set up his booth near the inn. Stephen was flirting with the alewife, a woman who looked to be twice his age and at least twice his weight.

  Still Constance could not make her feet move. Ivy wound through the growing crowd to cross to the bookseller’s, her stride confident, more than a few people smiling and nodding to her.

  Move. Constance could only stand in the shade of an oak and gape in wonder at her daughter. A sensation like faintness welled, but no shortness of breath or weakness of limb accompanied it.

  Rothhaven appeared at her side. “I’m in the mood to look over the bookseller’s offerings.” He put her hand on his arm. “Care to join me?”

  She managed a nod.

  “Breathe, my dear. You need not even speak to her, though she is a younger version of you to the life.”

  “She is?”

  “Your hair was more reddish when you were younger.”

  That Robert could offer this conversation in such a nonchalant tone was fortifying. Constance took a firmer hold of his arm as they drew nearer to where Ivy stood, nose in a book, apparently oblivious to all around her.

  “I hated wearing bonnets when I was her age. The sun was doubtless bad for my hair and my complexion. I didn’t care.”

  “Tell her that. She has the look of a young lady who could use a pleasant encounter with a friendly stranger.”

  “Robert, I’m…”

  “Afraid?”

  Some, maybe. Afraid of losing Ivy, which was old business. “I am awed. Look at her. She’s wonderful.”

  He stood very close, as if they were husband and wife exchanging a private word. “To feel that way about somebody is lovely, isn’t it? That they are wonderful simply for existing. Such sentiment fills the heart with gladness. Perhaps all parents experience that joy, but I know I felt the same way about you when you sneaked me that cheese all those years ago. This female, I said to myself, is a wonderful human being, somebody with the courage to act on her convictions, and what kind, sensible, marvelously devious convictions they were too.”

  Rothhaven might as well have wrapped her in a hug, right before all these strangers. “Don’t make me cry, or Stephen will deal with you harshly.”

  “I’m a-tremble with dread. She’s reading Byron, by the way. Looks like she’s enjoying all that clever twaddle too.”

  Constance dared a peek. “Reverend Shaw will never allow that girl to buy a book of Byron’s verse.”

  Robert smiled down at her, his gaze tired and loving and utterly at peace. He winked, then sauntered off to lean against a lamppost.

  Right. A pleasant exchange with a stranger it would be. Constance meandered over to the bookstall and picked up another of the volumes of Byron laid out on the table. She moved a few steps away and opened the book to a random page: Love will find a way where wolves fear to prey.

  “Do you enjoy Byron?” she asked, pretending to peer over at Ivy’s book. “I certainly do. He has the knack of being both sly and tenderhearted.”

  “Yes,” Ivy said, closing the book and holding it to her middle. “Byron says the things most of us haven’t words for, and he says them more clearly than we think them. You’re my mother, aren’t you? My first mother.”

  Ivy’s expression was guarded, but far from wrathful. She looked curious, hopeful, and oh, so vulnerable. Constance’s heart began beating so hard she put a hand to her sternum.

  “I have the very great honor to be the woman you were born to. How did you know?”

  “You look like me grown up, though you’re prettier. Mama Etta told me who my real mother was. Constance Wentworth, from a wealthy banking family that lived far, far from the West Riding. She said you cried when you gave me up, and that you would find me one day. I’m leaving for New South Wales in a few weeks, so I figured you’d better find me soon. Did you cry when Mama Etta fetched me from you?”

  Constance experienced the sensation of her heart breaking and mending in the same moment. You’re my mother, aren’t you? Of all the words to come from Ivy’s mouth, Constance would never have anticipated that question. Never have expected her daughter’s forthright curiosity to solve so many riddles and puzzles with simple honesty. Never have expected that Etta and James Wilson could have been so generous with the truth.

  “I cried when I parted from you,” Constance said, “cried for days, until I learned how to keep the crying on the inside, though I knew your Mama Etta and your Papa James would love you dearly. She cried the day you were laid in her arms.” That memory became less painful with the telling, less bitter.

  “Was my first papa a rotter?”

  What an extraordinary, wonderful person Ivy was. What wonderful people Etta and James Wilson must have been.

  “He was young and spoiled. You have his height and his beautiful hair. He did not survive to know of your birth.”

  “Was he a soldier?”