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Not Rothhaven Hall, which sat in the evening sun like a shipwreck beached on a lonely shore, but rather, the smaller version of the Hall that lay behind the rise of the orchard. No carts were parked before the Rothhaven dower house, no groundskeepers pushed barrows along the drive, but a lone black horse stood tethered to the hitching post.
The gelding whinnied to Althea’s mare, who trumpeted an answer.
“So much for a surprise attack,” Althea muttered, climbing from the saddle. She loosened the girth, knotted the reins, and tied the mare to the lady’s mounting block, low enough to permit the horse to lip at the overly long grass.
She spared a pat for the black gelding, who had about as much dignity as a puppy, then strode across the front terrace. As she raised her fist to knock, the door opened, revealing a glowering Nathaniel in his signature black riding attire.
“My lady, you should not have come here.”
She swept past him. “My lord, you should not keep a guest waiting on the steps.”
He closed the door behind her, the sound echoing in the otherwise empty foyer. Maids had clearly been busy, for Althea saw neither dust nor cobwebs, and the scent of beeswax and lemon oil was strong.
“You sent out invitations to a ball,” Nathaniel said, folding his arms. “Was that wise, Althea?”
No hug, no kiss, but then, what had she expected?
She pulled off her riding gloves and stuffed them into the pocket of her habit. “If you know the invitations have gone out, then you know that the nominal hosts are Their Graces of Walden, and that my role in the affair, along with Stephen’s, is secondary.”
And what a pile of work that had been, to reword dozens of invitations. Stephen had at least not gloated overmuch when Althea had conceded to his strategy.
Nathaniel glanced around the foyer, which boasted not a single tulip or dried rose, nor so much as a sketch on the walls.
“Are you to be invaded by family too?” Nathaniel asked.
“Show me the dower house,” Althea replied, unpinning the collection of feathers that passed for her hat. “And no, I am not being invaded, scolded, brought to heel, or otherwise chastised. Stephen and Jane assure me that when my family shows up to preside at my first venture as a rural neighbor, they are merely being supportive.”
One corner of Nathaniel’s mouth lifted. “I tell Robbie the same thing, frequently. Althea…”
He set her hat on a hook near the door, and such was the depth of Althea’s foolishness that she relished even the sight of Nathaniel’s back filling out the exquisite tailoring of his riding jacket.
“You need flowers in this foyer, Nathaniel. Bright colors, nothing formal. Set your gardeners to scything the verge to the drive and get a few pots of salvia onto the terrace. First impressions matter, and I hope your mother matters to you as well.”
He set off down a corridor that led to the left off the foyer. “How did you know Her Grace was visiting?”
“Your mother called on my sister-in-law.” The emptiness of the house was sadder even than the neglect Rothhaven Hall’s exterior suffered. No pretty little vases, no gleaming pier glasses, no domestic touches in a dwelling that was meant to be the comfort of a woman’s old age.
“When duchesses are conferring with one another, the realm is in peril,” Nathaniel said. “Nobody has lived here for two generations. My father used this manor only as a guesthouse for his rare shooting parties. Its best feature is that it has no view of the Hall.”
The library was small, more of a study, but then, books were expensive and fragile. If nobody lived in the house, storing unread tomes here would have been an invitation for mice to take up residence.
And yet, despite empty shelves and bare walls, the library was pleasant in a way more imposing chambers could not be. The hearth was large enough to generate significant heat, the French doors looked out over an old-fashioned formal garden that somebody had kept in trim.
“Move some of the tulips from your walled garden to that bed,” Althea said, gesturing to bare dirt surrounding a dry fountain. “Fill the fountain, and you will attract birds even if the water merely sits there. The flowers might attract butterflies, and the color will be cheering.”
Nathaniel remained across the room, where Holland covers had been folded and neatly stacked in a reading chair.
“Why have you come, Althea?”
Because I missed you. Because I am worried for you. Because you didn’t respond to my invitation.“Because you are making a mistake.”
“That’s what we Rothmeres do, apparently. We make mistakes. My father was terribly mistaken to put his son on a half-trained colt. He was even more mistaken when that son became injured and His Grace insisted the boy climb back into the saddle almost immediately. That’s how mistakes are. They have progeny.”
He crossed the room, his boots thumping on the wooden parquet floor. “Now you have joined in the mistaking, coming here when you know we’ve already been caught in one indiscretion.”
He glowered down at Althea, once again the Dread Duke, not an ounce of humor or warmth in his bearing.
Althea fluffed his cravat. “The mistake you make now is in trying to present your mother with a house so lacking in comfort that she’ll hare away to the south, never again inconveniencing you with her presence.”
