Page 55 of The Truth About Dukes
Robert embraced his beloved, the joy vibrating through her resonating with his own. He’d been the exile, the imperfect son banished to the shadows. To see mother and child reunited would heal that wound somehow, and make right so much that had been put wrong.
“I’m glad,” he said, as Constance nearly squeezed the stuffing from him. “I could not be happier.”
Walden watched this scene with a furrowed brow, then directed a groom to take Miss Abbott’s vehicle to the carriage house.
“All over again,” Quinn said, “I am the incompetent older brother who was too busy worshipping at the altar of mammon to notice that my own baby sister was in harm’s way.”
Stephen watched Quinn pace the length of the game room, a display of pique Stephen would never be able to indulge in. Over the Sunday meal, Quinn had been the gracious host, while Althea and Jane had shared hostess duties. Miss Abbott had joined the family at table, and for the eternity of the weekly feast, all the talk had been of the weather, the crops, and—when matters had grown desperate—the new posting inn being built on the northern end of York.
When the meal had finally concluded, Constance and Rothhaven had closeted themselves with Miss Abbott. Jane and Althea were swilling tea or stirring a cauldron in Althea’s parlor, and the gentlemen, minus His Grace of Public Fits, had been dispatched by Her Grace to enjoy a manly game of cards.
In his present mood, Quinn ought not to be trusted with a round of darts.
“You feel inadequate as a brother,” Nathaniel Rothmere said as he prowled about the room opening cupboards and drawers like a snooping parlor maid. “At least you didn’t leave a sibling stranded on the moors for years, dependent on a physician whose notions of good care included starvation, restraints, whippings, purges, and ice baths. Where the hell do you keep your playing cards?”
“In the drawer of the card table,” Stephen said.
“Your card table has no drawers.”
Quinn crossed to the table in question. “It’s a puzzle table, with all sorts of hinges and hidden compartments. Stephen designed it.”
“Press on thefleur-de-lis,” Stephen said, from the depths of a comfortable reading chair. “The drawer will open. To see you feeling helpless simply breaks my heart, Quinn. Must be terribly frustrating.”
That comment should have provoked at least a thunderous scowl. Quinn merely sank into a chair at the card table.
“You are not helpless, Stephen, but I take your point. Rothhaven’s reserves of patience doubtless approach biblical proportions. To be afflicted with seizures, having no idea when they will strike, no control when they do…and to simply carry on. I am as impressed with his fortitude as I am worried for our sister.”
Nathaniel slapped a deck of cards on the table. “Rothhaven will spoil Constance within an inch of her life. He will dote and fuss, he will build her a palatial dower house, he will kit out the Hall to accommodate her every whim and fancy. Are we playing cards or not?”
Stephen voted not, because weighty matters required discussion.
Quinn picked up the deck. “If Jane looks in on us, we must appear to be enjoying one another’s company, or trying to.”
Nathaniel angled a chair away from the table. “Jane or Althea.”
Stephen shoved to his feet, collected his canes, and took the proffered seat. “I am an uncle again,” he said. “Nobody thought to acquaint me with the details of Constance’s situation. I can understand withholding the information from a moody boy, but I am more than of age and in a position to aid my sisters. The family continues to ignore the resources I could have brought to bear on the problem.”
Stephen staged this pout in part to distract Quinn from his fraternal guilt, and in part because Nathaniel needed to become acquainted with his in-laws. For better or for worse and all that.
Wentworths didn’t engage in polite sniping, they came out with fists swinging, verbally.
“What resources do you have that I lack?” Quinn asked, taking up the deck and shuffling.
“Tact, subtlety, a devious mind, charm, a sense of humor. What are we playing?”
Nathaniel took the third chair. “What are we drinking?”
“Help yourself to the brandy.” Quinn finished shuffling and began dealing. “I wouldn’t mind a tot. Stephen?”
“None for me.” He’d cut back since coming to Yorkshire. Achieving true inebriation had honestly become difficult, requiring an alarming quantity of spirits. Jack Wentworth’s fate suggested that less drinking, not more, would be a prudent choice.
“I longed to get drunk,” Nathaniel said, retrieving the decanter from the sideboard and pouring two glasses. “I would dream of that mellow, semi-coherent benevolence, but didn’t dare indulge because Robbie—Robert, rather, or Rothhaven—could not get drunk with me. And what if he had a fit while I was three sheets to the wind?”
Quinn passed out seven cards to each player and set the balance of the deck in the center of the table. “Your staff could not manage without you in even that situation?”
“I didn’t want to find out, and then too, Robert does not drink but a single glass of ale or one serving of wine with a meal. I would have felt disloyal.”
Quinn saluted with his glass. “Here’s to sibling loyalty. What do you suppose Miss Abbott has to say that could not be said to the family members involved?”
