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His tone was casual, but Nathaniel nonetheless heard the worry. Robbie had been abandoned by their father, and still—years after Robbie’s return to Rothhaven—Nathaniel’s loyalty was not a given in Robbie’s mind.
“My last call on the vicar for the season. Planting and shearing approach.” And the staff wasn’t getting any younger, meaning every able-bodied man was required to pitch in.
“Last week you paid a call.In the afternoon, if I’m not mistaken.”
And Robbie, in his usual fashion, had brooded on that development for days without saying anything. Now he was asking a question, and doubtless dreading every possible answer because dread had become part of his very nature.
“A neighbor’s breeding sows got loose and took a notion to inspect the walled orchard. They are a valuable herd, and I didn’t want her ladyship to worry about their whereabouts.”
Robbie rarely offered a direct gaze, but he did now. “You might have sent Elgin with a note. Were they Lady Althea Wentworth’s hogs?”
How did the true recluse of Rothhaven Hall know that? “They were, and they are back where they belong now, none the worse for having taken a constitutional.”
“Tell me about Lady Althea.”
When Robbie had first come home, he’d barely spoken. He hadn’t left his room by day for nearly a year, and he’d not gone outside for two. He’d read as if the printed word was food for the soul, until his room could hold no more books or newspapers. The library had been his initial destination beyond his room, but at first he’d ventured forth only at night and after being assured all the curtains were drawn.
His conquest of the walled garden had begun three years ago, and he’d confined his activity out of doors to that space ever since. At first, he’d sat out there sketching briefly on overcast days. Then had come the oils—a more complicated undertaking—and finally, the gardening by the hour. He’d left the house in the past year only to tend his flowers. Other than that, he never so much as went for a drive in the closed carriage or sat on the front steps with a morning cup of tea.
Now he was asking about a neighbor, and Nathaniel dared hope that was a positive sign.
“Lady Althea is a singular female. She manages her own household, though she’s neither widowed nor married, and from what I saw, she manages it very well.”
“What did you see?”
Elegance, an eye for beauty, spotless housekeeping. “Light, Robbie. Her home is full of light. Lots of windows, none of them boarded up or bricked over. The draperies pulled back, the mirrors abundant and polished to a high shine. Not so much as a smudge on the chimney lamps or brass fenders.”
Nathaniel had forgotten what that much light felt like inside a house.
“The opposite of Rothhaven,” Robbie said.
“Rothhaven is elderly compared to Lynley Vale. Keeping a shine on this place would take effort beyond what Mrs. Beaseley can spare us. Toast?”
“No thank you. Have we any more of that cheese?”
The last of the wheel Lady Althea had provided sat on the sideboard. Nathaniel fetched the plate and set it on the table. “This is Lady Althea’s cheese. She sent it over by way of apology.”
“A fine quality, to apologize when one has caused inadvertent hardship for others. What are her other attributes?”
Nathaniel waited until Robbie had taken as much cheese as he pleased—most of it—and speared one of the three remaining slices for himself.
“To be honest, I think she’s somewhat lost on the moors, Robbie. She wasn’t raised in the country, she has not enjoyed her London Seasons, and yet, she’s a duke’s sister. The squires and their ladies won’t presume to call on her, and she’s not quite sure how to call on them.” Like young people at their first tea dance, though Nathaniel couldn’t say that, because Robbie had never attended a tea dance.
Or a dance of any variety.
Robbie aimed another direct gaze at Nathaniel. “The moors are dangerous.”
That lesson was drummed into the head of every Yorkshire child from infancy. Every village had a tale of some toddler disappearing into a peat bog or a tippler wandering off into a snowstorm.
“Lynley Vale is quite safe,” Nathaniel said, “and in her way, Lady Althea is formidable. She not only raises the finest pigs in the shire, she’s well educated, employs a master chef, and is competent at both chess and cribbage.”
The curtains were drawn, as they were in every room save Nathaniel’s personal sitting room, which looked out over the endless sea of heather, gorse, and broom that covered the moor. A shaft of sunlight managed to steal into the breakfast parlor nonetheless. Robbie was Nathaniel’s elder by not quite two years, though he looked younger. His air now was that of a newly fledged scholar puzzling out a difficult translation.
“Youlikedher,” Robbie said. “You enjoyed calling on her.”
Robbie would never make accusations, but his observations could nonetheless have a challenging quality. That too was progress.
“I admire her fortitude, though that very trait is likely why polite society has been so cruel to her. She also offered a tea tray to make the gods weep.”
