Page 23 of The Truth About Dukes
The undersigned invites your ladyship to a meal al fresco to discuss a project of mutual interest. I remain, your most obed serv,
R
Was theRfor Rothhaven or Robert? His Grace had not overtly offered Constance leave to use his given name, but he had used hers.What is your real dream, Constance?Perhaps someday she might tell him. Today she would join him for a meal al fresco.
A ducal picnic. Her first, and probably his first as well.
“You look pretty.” Stephen made that observation as if puzzled by his own conclusion. “Rose is a good color for you.”
Constance selected a plain straw hat from among the choices hanging on pegs in the foyer. “Thank you. Are you about to follow up with one of your damning-by-faint-praise insults?”
“Such as, what a shame your fancy has been caught by a man who doesn’t often leave his own property?”
She fashioned the bow of the bonnet ribbons off-center, then untied the ribbons and left them trailing. “What a shame my younger brother is a snob. Could you teach a horse to stand whenever his rider trembles in the saddle?”
Stephen shifted his grip on his cane—he was using only one today, a sign his leg wasn’t paining him too badly. “Of course. It would take a few days, possibly a fortnight, and the right horse, but I could do it. Why should I?”
“Because you are bored, because doing a good turn for a neighbor is gentlemanly, because I ask it of you.”
He slouched back against the wall. “That last part gives me pause. You never ask for anything, Con. You simply take what you need, do without, or demand your due. You areaskingon Rothhaven’s behalf. This troubles me.”
Stephen was being protective, for which Constance wanted to smack him with her reticule. “He will never ask for himself. He’s too much like you.”
That salvo merited a raised eyebrow. “Stoic? Long-suffering? Self-sufficient? He’s cowered behind his castle walls for years, needing his brother to play the dress-up duke in his stead. We are nothing alike.”
She tried angling her hat the other way. “Some people need walls to feel safe, some people lean on a sword cane for the same purpose.” She pulled on her gloves, then took them off again. One did not call upon a duke with one’s bonnet ribbons trailing.
“My bad leg isn’t my fault, Constance.”
“Your lame leg is only part of your problem. Jack Wentworth is the other part. What if Jack hadn’t been your father, but rather, your jailer, and your own father put you into his keeping and then had you declared dead? Would all the walls in England be enough to keep you safe?”
“They would not be enough to keep mesane,” Stephen said with uncharacteristic gentleness. “Rothhaven was kept at that asylum for more than a decade, Con. A place for crazy people.”
Althea must have let that slip. Unwise of her. “Where do you think I went all those years ago, Stephen? A nunnery?”
He became fascinated with the painting hanging behind Constance’s left shoulder, a dull landscape of sheep and hills under a sky of puffy white clouds.
“You went to finishing school,” he said. “Young ladies from well-to-do families attend finishing schools.”
“I went to finishing school after I came back. Where do you think I was when I went missing?”
A hint of the vulnerable adolescent showed in Stephen’s eyes, though he was well past twenty years old. “Quinn said you could take care of yourself, and you apparently did.”
Quinn would investigate Rothhaven simply because Althea was marrying into the Rothmere family. Constance could save her brother a bit of time and provide Stephen some worthwhile intelligence.
“I did nottake careof myself. I could not. I’d been too long away from the streets and I’d grown too well fed and well kept. My instincts dulled, my looks improved. I found work as a maid at a private madhouse. Rothhaventook careof me.”
The consternation in Stephen’s gaze was as gratifying as it was rare. “Hekeptyou?”
“Do men think only of swiving?He kept me safe.He warned me which staff to avoid, when to stay off the back steps, how to hide my coin. He played the violin when he knew I was faltering. He read to me. Poetry, drama. He was barely sane himself but he kept me sane until Quinn found me.”
“But how did you…?” Stephen’s gaze narrowed. “You were a maid at the private hospital out on the moors. Rothhaven was apparently an inmate of the same establishment where you were a menial. You worked from dawn to midnight, slept in a cold garret on a straw pallet, and nearly starved. Why? I don’t understand why.”
And Stephen must understand every puzzle even if he had to destroy the puzzle to find its secrets. “Will you teach a horse to stand when the rider has a shaking fit in the saddle?”
“Give me a fortnight.”
“Thank you.” She tied her ribbons off-center, pulled on her gloves, and prepared to dine al fresco with a gentleman for the first time.
