Page 13 of The Truth About Dukes
“I rather thought the sovereign was charged with upholding the dignity of the realm,” Neville replied, pretending to sort through his correspondence, “or perhaps the military, though they do a wretched poor job of it.”
Phoebe stomped across the library, her footfalls thumping on the new carpets. “Do not jest with me, Neville, not on a topic of this magnitude.”
Neville had yet to figure outwhatexactly that topic was. Phoebe had summoned him home from York several days ago with a cryptic note. He had only that morning been able to leave his legal duties and return to his country seat. On occasion, Phoebe’s tempers blew themselves out if she was left to her own devices for a few days.
This was apparently not such an occasion.
“Dearest wife, for a lowly solicitor much pre-occupied with the press of business, please do explain which monstrosity has you in a pet now.”
She bowed her head, the picture of feminine martyrdom. Phoebe had married down all those years ago. An earl’s daughter accepted the suit of a promising young solicitor only if enormous pots of money were involved. The pots of money were more or less intact, mostly because of Neville’s abilities as a lawyer, but with each passing year, Phoebe’s irritability grew.
Afternoon sun caught the dusting of powder on her cheeks, intended to hide the approach of middle age. He’d seen her pulling a gray hair from her head last week, and she spent enough on creams, tinctures of youth, and restorative lotions to beggar a sultan. Phoebe was not yet forty, but to Neville she was taking on the qualities of a bitter old woman—and he knew not how to make her happy.
“We have all been deceived,” Phoebe said, gazing off at some vast horde of aggrieved innocents that existed only in her imagination. “The lot of us, from the lowest potboy at the posting inn to the neighbors, very likely to Vicar Sorenson himself. The Duke of Rothhaven allowed us all to believe his younger brother—Nathaniel—was the titleholder. I expect you to see the family prosecuted for perpetrating such a monstrous fraud.”
Neville refrained from laughing only from long experience dealing with clients. They wanted the impossible for free, they expected miracles for a pittance, and most of them believed any injustice they suffered was the worst outrage ever to befall mortal man or woman.
“Phoebe, might we think this through?” Neville considered pouring himself a brandy from the decanter on the sideboard, but the hour was early, and Phoebe would disapprove. “We have our standing in the community to consider, and whoever the real duke might be, he is aduke.”
“What matters our standing in the community when an outrage of this magnitude will go unpunished?”
Insight dawned as Neville studied Phoebe’s pinched features and glittering gaze. She’d been a pretty young woman and was still an attractive lady, but she had borne him no children, and—to give credit where due—not for lack of trying. She’d miscarried twice and delivered a stillborn son at seven months.
That a ducal family’s supposedly deceased heir should pop out of the bushes as casually as a hare returning to his favorite clover patch would affront her sorely.
“I understand your concern,” Neville said, “but we must think of our Sybil. Your niece is on the verge of making a very advantageous match thanks to your good influence. Lord Ellenbrook would hardly look with favor upon Sybil’s connections if I took up a suit against His Grace now.” And what would the cause of action be? Aristocratic eccentricity was hardly grounds for a lawsuit.
The fire in Phoebe’s gaze dimmed, her lips pursed. “Ellenbrook would not break an engagement. You could sue him for breach of promise if he did.”
“But he has not proposed, has he?” Ellenbrook had followed the proper steps in the proper order: impressing Sybil with his agreeable company, approaching Neville to ask if addresses might be paid, and then resuming the impressing-and-agreeable-company part.
Last week, Ellenbrook had departed for his hunting box some miles to the west. He was due to return in a fortnight or so, and the household—the female part of the household—expected a proposal would follow.
“You must trust me on this,” Neville said, taking Phoebe’s hands. “I have seen too many young people fall out of love once the settlements come under discussion. I can do my part for Sybil, and I’m sure her dear papa will do his, but Ellenbrook’s family might regard our efforts as insufficient.”
Phoebe had such lovely hands. Graceful, soft, not so much as a freckle to mar their perfection.
“I want to argue with you,” she said. “I want to shout and pace and behave in a most unladylike manner, but you raise a valid point. Ellenbrook looked kindly on Lady Althea—he very probably pitied her that harum-scarum family of hers—and now she is to marry Lord Nathaniel.”
Phoebe’s gaze became speculative. More than once she had seen how to settle a difficult case on the basis of social standing, family pride, or some other non-legal consideration. She had a streak of guile, did Phoebe, and Neville truly admired that about her.
“Missing heirs have seven years to challenge an inheritance,” Neville said. “The previous duke died less than six years ago. That means the older Rothmere son still has time to officially challenge his younger brother for the title.”
“Lord Nathaniel—I don’t like even speaking his name—made it clear at Lady Althea’s ball that he has no interest in keeping the title. Had himself announced with only the courtesy title, presented his brother to us all as the duke. I suspect that dreadful woman is to blame for this scandal.”
The currentdreadful womanwas Lady Althea Wentworth. A succession of similarly unfortunate females had suffered Phoebe’s opprobrium over the years, including, occasionally, her closest acquaintances.
“Let’s take some time to reconnoiter the situation,” Neville said, kissing the backs of his wife’s hands. “You excel at that, and Ellenbrook must come up to scratch before your concerns draw any public notice. I will set the clerks to researching missing heirs, while you make the appropriate overtures to the new duke.”
She withdrew her hands and he let her go. Phoebe was not an affectionate woman by nature, which was appropriate, given her breeding, but she was loyal and shrewd and Neville loved her dearly. His business had prospered in large part because she knew everybody in the local surrounds worth knowing and knew their secrets as well.
He would never burden her with a declaration of his sentiments—she’d be horrified at such vulgarity from her own husband—but he also knew she blamed herself for their lack of children.
A complicated woman, his wife, much like the law was complicated.
“We must not wait too long before we act, Neville. The shock of this great deception will wear off, people will go on with their lives, and a significant injustice will become so much old gossip.”
The significant injustice was that Phoebe had been forced by circumstances to marry into an untitled family for money. She’d been denied children, and she’d ended up presiding over the squirarchy of rural nowhere. Now the further injustice of advancing age approached, and of all things, not one but two ducal families were usurping Phoebe’s limited consequence.
