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Chapter Fifteen
Wilhelmina had read the letter twice and knew she would read it many more times.
“Bad news, Your Grace?” Sarah asked, her needle moving in a steady rhythm.
“I hardly know what to make of it.” Wilhelmina removed the spectacles she’d begun wearing for close work more than a year ago.
“Is His Grace in good health?”
“If Nathaniel were suffering an ague, food poisoning, and a festering bullet wound, he would admit to being slightly under the weather, no more.” In that, he was like his father. All quiet frustration and determination, though Nathaniel—thus far—hadn’t his father’s arrogance or temper.
Robbie had had a seizure by the river. Nathaniel’s description had been oblique, mentioning only avalued member of the household, but his code was easy for a mother to decipher. Robbie had apparently made a regular habit of leaving Rothhaven’s walls. He’d not told his brother of his adventures, and he’d nearly come to grief as a result.
“What do we know of a Lady Althea Wentworth?” Wilhelmina asked.
Sarah put down her embroidery hoop. “Little, besides what every common gossip knows. The Wentworths rose to prominence more than five years ago, when the oldest brother inherited the Walden ducal title. He already had significant wealth as a result of successful banking activities, but there was that business with Newgate too.”
“Lady Althea is fromthatWentworth family?” The ducal heir had been imprisoned—wrongly, or so the story went—and nearly executed. The College of Arms had named him the successor to the Walden title, and society had been faced with the conundrum of what to do with a ducal family of exceedingly humble and colorful origins.
“The very one. The duke has a younger brother and a male cousin, but no heir of the body as yet.”
“The family is from York, are they not?” Wilhelmina had known the previous Duke of Walden, a spry old gent who’d smelled of camphor and put little store in decorum for its own sake. Her husband had avoided him—His Grace of Rothhaven had had no real friends, only toadies and sycophants—though His Grace of Walden had held an estate adjoining the Rothhaven family seat.
“ThoseWentworths were from the wrong part of York,” Sarah said. “The present Duke of Walden’s inheritance of the title was quite the scandal, and he chose some preacher’s widowed daughter for his duchess. She’s managing quite well, from what I’ve heard.”
“The Duchess of Walden who sits on the Committee for the Betterment of Unfortunates Formerly in Service is a preacher’s daughter?” That made sense, given what Wilhelmina knew of Her Grace. Jane, Duchess of Walden, was gracious, dignified, and put a bulldog to shame when it came to her causes.
Exactly as a duchess should be.
“What’s the news from home?” Sarah asked, rising and stretching, her hands braced on the small of her back. “Please say we can make a visit. My patience with polite society is exhausted and the Season has barely begun. If I must listen to one more fortune hunter lament his unjust fate or one more dowager discuss her dog’s flatulence, I will go mad.”
Robbie had recovered from his mishap, but Nathaniel’s letter had hinted at other problems. Thatcher required minding, the housekeeper was having trouble with her knees, Mr. Elgin wanted more help in the stable now that two of the oldest lads had been pensioned. Treegum was having a quiet, prolonged tantrum over the notion of extending the walled garden to the orchard.
A plan concocted years ago with the best of intentions was unraveling, and Lady Althea Wentworth had breached the citadel of Rothhaven Hall’s secrecy at the worst possible time.
“If I go north,” Wilhelmina said, “you need not accompany me. You can jaunt off to Paris, take the waters, or visit the seaside. You are due for a holiday.”
Sarah speared her with an uncharacteristic scowl. “What makes you think I’d prefer Paris or Bath to my own home shire? I haven’t been back to Rothhaven for ages, and with you, when the topic of going home arises, it’s always next year, next summer, perhaps, and maybe.I am homesick,Mina. I miss the wide-open sky, the green of the dales, the fresh air and soft accents. I miss our people and your Nathaniel.”
Sarah, who never paced, who never raised her voice, was nearly ranting. “How you’ve racketed about all these years,” she went on, “never laying eyes on your own only surviving son…I can only conclude that the late duke was a horror, and you avoid Rothhaven Hall because memories of your marriage are more miserable than even the pain of being separated from your offspring. I’m sorry for that, but I miss Nathaniel and can think of no reason why he’d not like to see your old cousin.”
Wilhelmina could think of a reason. He stood two inches over six feet, grew fearful at the sight of the moors, and refused to drink coffee or ride in an open coach.
“I hadn’t realized how you felt,” she said slowly. “I appreciate your honesty and I do miss Nathaniel terribly, though you are right about the late duke. I at first thought him dignified or shy, but when we took up residence at the Hall, he forbade me to venture into his wing of the house for anything less than a sighting of the French fleet. I assure you, I would have greeted the fleet rather than trespass on my husband’s infernal privacy.”
For all his coldness as a husband, Rothhaven had been free with his favors outside of matrimony. Wilhelmina had wished his paramours the joy of his company too.
Sarah flopped onto the sofa beside Wilhelmina. “Then why shouldn’t we return to the Hall? Your dower house is less than half a mile from the manor. If we send word ahead, Rothhaven can see that the dower apartments are aired and put to rights before we arrive. He will have his privacy and we can behome.”
Oh, dear. Oh, ballocks and Bedlam.This could not end well, and yet, Wilhelmina did very much miss her sons. Every hour she missed them, worried for them, and wished she could do more than keep a discreet distance and pretend a contentment she did not feel.
Then too, this Althea Wentworth person was an alarming development, inviting herself and her sows onto Rothhaven land, befriending a man whom she doubtless believed to be a duke…But perhaps not. Althea had been an “aid in the sickroom” when Nathaniel’s valued member of the household had fallen ill.
What sort of woman could scale the ramparts Nathaniel and Robbie had defended for years? Why bother, when Nathaniel had, like his father before him, cultivated a reputation for overweening arrogance?
“I’m not saying yes,” Wilhelmina said. “I will consider the idea, and let Nathaniel know we might pay a visit. Planning such an excursion will take time.”
“Nonsense. If anybody knows how to get from one place to another on the king’s highway, it’s you. I’ll need a day to pack and send a few regrets on your behalf, the staff here will require some instructions, and we can be on our way by Saturday at the latest. I do wonder if Everett Treegum will ever find himself a wife. He had a delightful sense of humor.”
