Page 39 of Too Scot to Handle
Esther worried about the boys going bald when their father had not, and Percival knew better than to make light of her concern, though what did a man’s hair have to do with the price of brandy in the bedroom?
“Greetings, my boy!” the duke called, halfway down the stairs. “You are without reinforcements?”
“Bronwyn remained in the mews, petting cats, talking to horses, and getting dirty,” Rosecroft said. “I’m sure she’ll come inside to polish a bannister or two before my business is concluded.”
A duke maintained a decorous household. A grandpapa had all the best bannisters.
“She will pay her compliments to me and to the ladies in the library,” Percival said. “You’d think the women were planning to invade France, the way they’ve gone about preparing for this card party. How is your countess?”
Rosecroft was taller than the duke by perhaps two inches, and whereas Percival’s coloring was fair, his firstborn was Black Irish to the bone.
“Emmie thrives, despite all challenges.”
And because the countess thrived—Rosecroft devoted himself to that very objective—the earl thrived and their children thrived as well.
“The library is occupied by Her Grace and the nieces,” Percival said. “Why don’t we join Bronwyn in the mews?”
Rosecroft passed his hat, spurs, and riding crop to Hodges, the butler. Not by a flicker of an eyelash did the earl react to the duke’s request for privacy.
“We will be called upon to name kittens,” Rosecroft observed, “and reminded that kittens and puppies make fine playmates.”
“So they do,” the duke said. “In fairy tales.”
Percival’s true motive for choosing the mews was that Rosecroft loved horses the way young grandchildren loved a smooth, curved bannister. The equine was Rosecroft’s familiar. When he’d been a shy, tongue-tied boy trying to fit into a bewildering array of brothers and sisters in the ducal household, the horses had given him solace and room to breathe.
Also a place to excel beyond all of his siblings.
“Tell me of your outing in the park with Anwen earlier this week,” the duke said as they crossed the garden. “She appeared quite invigorated by her excursion.”
“We met Lord Colin, as she’d told me we would. Man knows how to sit a horse.”
No higher praise could flow from Rosecroft’s lips. “Good to know. What else?”
“His riding stock has some Iberian blood, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find Strathclyde draft a generation or two back. Fascinating combination, the hot and the cold, the light and the heavy. The Clyde horse is a magnificent beast, but so are the Andalusian breeds. The result of a cross is a beast that’s both—”
“Rosecroft.” The result of Anwen’s dawn ride was a son trying to prevaricate at a dead gallop.
Interesting.
“Anwen’s hat, if that’s what it’s called, came loose. Lord Colin was compelled by gentlemanly concern to help search for it.”
The old hat in the bushes ploy. “Not very imaginative.”
“They found the hat, as it were, after diligent searching.”
“You are smiling, Rosecroft. Does one conclude you are proud of your cousin for losing her millinery?”
Percival was. Anwen spent too much time in her sisters’ shadows, too much time being quiet and agreeable. For a Windham—much less a Windham with flaming red hair—that simply wasn’t right.
“Her hat was very small, Your Grace. Locating it likely took determination on the part of both parties.”
A mutual hunt for the hat, as it were, the only acceptable variety. “What do we know about Lord Colin, besides that he rides well, has excellent horseflesh, and a keen eye for a stray hat?”
“He owns a distillery—a legal distillery—and the product is considered exceptionally good quality. He’s particular about the barrels he uses to age the whisky. He doesn’t bottle a young whisky.”
“Something of an innovator, then. What was his military record?”
“Brave on the battlefield, excellent record as an artificer, and a first-rate strategist. He’d leave his campfires burning and one man behind playing fiddle tunes, while the rest of his company sneaked off to go raiding. The French fell for that ruse repeatedly. He bothered to learn Spanish and French, and he stayed out of trouble with his superior officers, for the most part.”
