Page 35 of The Truth About Dukes
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 likethat.
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 catmrrrralphedoutside 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?”
