Page 89 of The Truth About Dukes
“Rothhaven, you stopped listening to me.” Lord Stephen spoke carefully, as if Robert held a loaded gun casually pointed at a live target.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You went around the entire arena three times at the canter, while I admonished you to sink your weight in your heels, and relax your elbows and all manner of whatnot. You ignored me.”
The joy vanished like a candle snuffed by a stiff breeze. “I did not hear you.”
Lord Stephen leaned against the horse, who was puffing slightly. “A staring spell?”
“Apparently so.”
Robert sat atop his horse as a chorus of emotions tried to join him in the saddle: Terror galloped at the front of the pack, eager to drag him back to a boy’s helplessness and confusion. Worry followed close behind, because this development must be conveyed to Constance, who had enough burdens already. Resentment—never far away—prepared to shove aside even the terror of falling, because the bloody illness had to taint every joy and hasten every sorrow.
“Well, then,” his lordship said, fiddling with Revanche’s mane, “I suppose we know the harness works.”
“You are uncomfortable,” Robert said. “I am sorry for that, but this is who I am. I have staring spells, I have seizures, and they are only the visible parts of my illness. The memory lapses, muddled thinking, the fatigue…they are equally burdensome. That others have to deal with any of it vexes me exceedingly. Walk on.”
A horse recovering from exertion should not stand. That commandment welled up from childhood, and Revanche was apparently happy to saunter forth.
“I’ve considered having my leg amputated,” Stephen said, both hands resting on the top of his cane. “You must not tell my family I said that, or they will haul me before a board of examiners.”
I am your family now.“If you can’t end your life, you’ll at least end your leg’s life?”
“The bloody thing hurts, Rothhaven.All the time, and it will only grow worse as I age. I can delay the inevitable by living in a Bath chair, but would you rather have twenty years shuffling around with your canes or forty years in a Bath chair?”
Were Robert not on horseback, idly circling the arena, had he not just had a spectacular staring spell, Stephen would very likely not be sharing these confidences—these frustrations.
“So why haven’t you made a date with the surgeon’s knife?”
“I have, twice. Canceled both times. The surgeons, fellows who learned a lot on the battlefield and were confident of their craft, talked me out of it. Infection is inevitable, and even a severed limb can cause pain. One of them opined that the problem is not my shinbone—he had some Latin name for it—but rather my knee. What a cheerful topic this is. You’d best canter him the other direction, and then I’ll fetch my mount so we can hack about the park.”
The riding out had started two days ago, at the walk, with short stretches of trot. “I want to canter up the drive,” Robert said.
Stephen resumed his perch on the barrel at the center of the arena. “Do you really?”
“The worst that can happen is apparently that I will have another staring spell, in which case, if you don’t instruct Revanche to halt, he will carry me back to the stable yard and halt himself.”
They tested the theory, with Stephen instructing the horse to halt mid-canter in the second direction. Revanche nearly sat on his tail, so attentive was he to Stephen’s command.
“Why aren’t you quaking in dread?” Stephen asked when a groom had been sent for his horse. “Why aren’t you leaving this arena, never again to return? You had a staring spell and didn’t even know it.”
The question had deeper significance, relating to Bath chairs, death, and tomorrow’s looming ordeal.
“Constance has had a letter from Ivy,” Robert said. “You will not interrogate her about it.”
“A letter from Ivy is good, isn’t it?”
“Not if the letter asks Constance to send coach fare, so the girl can run away again and this time run so far her uncle can’t find her.”
“And Jane wonders why I will never marry,” Stephen said, opening the gate so Robert could ride through. “Marriage leads to children, and any fool can see what a lot of nonsense children are.”
Stephen was the most devoted, doting uncle a niece ever had, and no sibling claimed a more loyal brother.
“Marriage per se does not lead to children,” Robert said, leaving the arena, “and I venture to guess that you are not a monk.” Nor was Stephen a coward, but he was terrified of the very sort of intimacy Robert so cherished with Constance.
“I am not a monk. That is an accurate observation.”
The next few minutes were taken up with arranging his lordship in the saddle and stowing his canes. Then Robert and Stephen sent their mounts ambling down the drive.
