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“She is very fond of felines,” Viola said. “Perhaps her name led to her interest in them. I think she has two or three cats.”
“I can answer that after the endless supper at your ball,” the duke said. “She has three cats named Wynken, Blynken, and Nod after the nursery rhyme. She also has a collection of ceramic felines. I will never marry a person who collects objects of any kind.” He frowned and looked at her. “Though I suppose I could be convinced. Do you have any collections?”
“No, but my pet crow, Barty, does. He has a terrible habit of stealing bright shiny objects.”
“Hairpins?”
“Oh, hairpins would be fine,” Viola said, laughing. “We found a diamond earring in his cage after a harvest ball at Lindow, and no one had the faintest idea whose it could be. He was terribly affronted when we took it away. He adores one of my sisters-in-law, Lavinia, because she has a ready stock of spangles and never fails to bring him a new one.”
“Lavinia’s husband is a friend of mine,” Wynter said. “I can well imagine that she would share her spangles with your crow.” He paused and then said, “My father was a collector, which means that he was more akin to a crow stockpiling spangles than to Lavinia.”
His jaw had tightened, and Viola decided that he must have truly disliked his father. “I presume the late duke didn’t steal other people’s jewelry?” she asked. “The way the Earl of Kimp plans to steal a gargoyle, and the way that Barty steals buttons?”
“People were generally willing to hand over their wheelbarrow for a sovereign or two,” Wynter said. “But I believe that if the late duke had seen an unusual barrow standing on its own, he would have absconded with it.”
“Wheelbarrow?”
“We have fifty-five. I keep them in the country,” he said.
“Why on earth would His Grace have wanted that number?”
“Some have a wheel in the middle and others have wheels at one end,” he said. “One comes from China, and several from Rome. If you have a need for garden equipment, I could give you a wheelbarrow. Or five.”
She gurgled with laughter. “I think the gardens at Lindow have no shortage of their own carts. Was your father’s collection limited to wheelbarrows?”
“I have a large number of statues of Greek deities fashioned from marble, a room full of stuffed birds, and another filled with chiming clocks.”
“You mustn’t let your future wife know about the collections when you’re courting her,” Viola said. “A room full of stuffed birds?” She wrinkled her nose. “Next you’ll tell me that he was collecting butterflies. I cannot abide people who think it is worthwhile to kill animals merely for display.”
His eyelids flickered.
“He did!” Viola cried.
“My father wasn’t a kindly man,” the duke said, as casually as if he had remarked on the weather. “I’ll take your advice, though, and rid the estate of his collections before I bring home a bride.”
“You could keep a wheelbarrow,” Viola suggested. “And perhaps one or two Greek gods, if they are the good ones. In the nursery, we preferred Roman gods.”
“I’ve never looked closely enough to assess their characters.”
“Where do you keep the pantheon?”
“In my library.”
“You need a wife who doesn’t bore you into retreating to the library to contemplate ancient history.”
“I am the sort of man who is often found in the library by choice,” he said. “Do you think that poses a problem to marital harmony?”
“It would for Joan,” Viola said. “After our debut was delayed for a year, I thought she might spontaneously combust, since there is nothing she loves more than going to an event every night, if not two or three. She distracted herself by flirting with every unattached gentleman who walked through the castle gates, calling it practice.”
“I am very glad that I didn’t pay a visit to Lindow Castle in the last few years,” the duke said.
The tone in his voice rang unmistakably true.
Which was reassuring.
It wasn’t that Viola thought that Wynter had any real resemblance to the duke from her first ball, but like that gentleman, he was very large.
He said he liked short women—remarkable!—but she had always avoided tall men.
