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Althea rose and strode off. “Heerasedyour brother? Blotted out the life of his own son?”
“Noted Robbie’s death in the family Bible, ten years to the day from when my brother was sent away. His Grace was nothing if not thorough. I suspect he gave Robbie ten years to outgrow his illness, which Robbie failed to do.”
Althea whirled, her swishing skirts making the tulips bob. “Your father was a thorough devil. I cannot believe…but then, Yorkshire might as well be Cathay as far as most of London society is concerned, and many a family secret has been buried on the moors. How did you learn that your brother yet lived?”
Nathaniel wanted her back by his side, wanted her hand in his, but he also wanted to see her reaction when he told her the last of it.
“I almost didn’t find him. Thank the blessed powers for small mercies, my father died less than three years after telling me Robbie was gone. Lung fever, oddly enough. I went through the usual rituals of investiture, took my place in the House of Lords, and prepared to get on with my duties. One of those duties was tending to the family finances.”
Althea bent to brush her hand over a greening border of lavender. “Nobody keeps a secret for free, do they? Dr. Soames wanted his thirty pieces of silver.”
“My father had paid an annual fee—a staggering sum—and the next installment came due. Either Soames was so backward as to fail to note the passing of a duke or he assumed I would continue my father’s scheme. He reported that ‘Master Robbie’ continued to thrive in his care. Robbie was the rightful duke, a grown man, and Soames wrote about him as if he were a fractious schoolboy.”
Althea peered up from the flower bed. “Your rage is without limit?”
“Rage is too tame a word. When I went to retrieve my brother, he was furious too. He’d written to me over and over, and I’d never responded.”
“You never received the letters.”
“Soames admitted to Robbie that he didn’t send them, and that’s the only reason Robbie agreed to leave the place. He hadn’t been out of doors in years, hadn’t so much as sat by an open window. His world was books, an old violin, the other residents. He learned French from one of the guards, he memorized enormous quantities of Shakespeare, he read newspapers from all over the world, and he experimented endlessly regarding the metes and bounds of his illness, but he also grew…”
“Eccentric,” Althea said, resuming her place on the bench. “He became peculiar. How could he not when he’d been all but imprisoned, and by his own father’s hand?”
“He wasn’t simply fearful beyond the walls of his prison, he was terrified. He felt safe only behind a locked door with the windows nailed shut and all the curtains drawn. He could not bear to be touched. He had to bathe in absolute solitude behind more locked doors, a thought that gives me nightmares. He subsisted on meat, cheese, weak tea, and greens. When I first brought him home it was early spring, and he had the beginnings of scurvy. No duke has ever before had scurvy, but my brother…”
Nathaniel fell silent, because Althea did not need to hear the details. Nobody did. The general description was bad enough.
“But I found him by the river, Rothhaven, far from any locked doors. He has apparently made considerable progress.”
Althea would focus on that. “Robbie first left the walled garden six months ago, but finding the courage—the very great courage—to take that step required years of effort. He cannot abide the thought that he might someday have to be the duke. I promised him, before he left that vile prison Soames referred to as an asylum, that I would never force him to leave Rothhaven Hall, and that I will play the duke as long as he needs me to fulfill that role. Those are promises I shall never break.”
Stephen Wentworth tottered into Althea’s parlor, put his canes in one hand, and bowed to Millicent McCormack as extravagantly as he was able. He had realized years ago that a lame man had to flirt boldly or not at all, lest his overtures be taken as a serious attempt at winning a lady’s favor. When he was forward about his teasing and bantering, he was viewed as charming rather than pathetic.
“Mrs. McCormack, at long last I behold the wonder of your smile. How I have missed you.”
Hehadmissed her. She was the auntie Stephen had never had, the pragmatic, kindly soul who could defuse tensions with a slightly naughty or too-honest remark. She took the Wentworths as she found them, which was more than he could say for most of the world.
“Lord Stephen!” She popped to her feet and gave him a jaunty curtsy. Nobody with any sense hugged a man who was perpetually unsteady on his pins. “What a pleasure—and a surprise—to see you.” She kissed his cheek, bringing Stephen the scent of peppermints. “You might have at least allowed Strensall the pleasure of announcing you.”
“And spoil the surprise? I think not. Let’s do have a seat. I am knackered beyond bearing from too many hours on the North Road.”
From crossing muddy inn yards ever so carefully, dealing with narrow stairways with too few landings, and—when it all became too unbearable—spending miles in the saddle on rented hacks with gaits akin to those of a foundered pony.
“Tea, my lord?”
“Bless you, yes.” One of the joys of visiting Althea was her chef. Monsieur Henri took every tray and plate as an opportunity to prove the superiority of French cookery and, without fail, he succeeded.
“What brings you north, my lord?”
“You know how prone I am to wandering.” Travel had become a habit, though since finishing a Grand Tour with Cousin Duncan, Stephen had questioned whether the habit served any purpose.
“I know you are prone to sticking your lordly nose into any corner or cranny that piques your curiosity. Have you any new patents in train, my lord?”
The tray arrived, though Althea did not. Mrs. McCormack steered the conversation from one flattering question to the next, but she never got ’round to explaining her employer’s absence. The tray was nearly empty before Stephen even noticed that odd omission.
“So where is my sister?” he asked, offering Mrs. McCormack the last jam tart.
“Out and about, my lord. Tell me how your nieces go on. If Lady Althea misses anybody in London, it’s the children.”
