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“Thatcher put the invitation on the top of the stack. Of course I saw it.”
“And you think I should attend her ball? I have so far not publicly held myself out as His Grace of Rothhaven, not since discovering you lived. I ride around on Loki, I sign correspondence with a signature that’s identical to yours, but I never claim tobeRothhaven.” Which was likely of no legal significance when Nathaniel tacitly encouraged everybody to assume he was still the duke. “If I attend that ball, there is no turning back, Robbie. No pretending I was unaware my own brother was declared dead in error.”
Robbie rose, the flickering sconces bringing out his resemblance to their late father. “If you refuse to go, if you refuse to let me wander away to a life of quiet obscurity on the moors, then you will have become worse than our father. You will have incarcerated both of us, rather than only me. I can adjust to the notion of being Mr. Smith. I’ll hire a pretty, friendly housekeeper, and content myself with reading, music, and tending a walled garden. You and I will correspond as you and Mama do, and you will marry Lady Althea. Compared to what I endured previously, that is a lovely little existence.”
A thousand retorts sprang to Nathaniel’s mind: At the first seizure, Robbie’s staff would flee. They’d steal him blind in the hours when he was groggy and muddled after a fit. They’d gossip about him and start talk that he was deranged. They’d determine who he truly was and do worse than send threatening notes.
“A plain Mr. Smith who doesn’t get out much,” Robbie said, “can suffer the falling sickness with much less drama than can a duke who’s afraid of the open moors, Nathaniel. It’s time to move on to the next phase of the deception.”
Nathaniel remained seated, weary in body and spirit. “I cannot protect you if you attempt this new charade, and I will never be the duke in truth.”
“She loves you, Nathaniel, and I love you. I’ve lived in obscurity for most of my life. I’m used to it. Plase say you will consider my suggestion.”
This wasn’t a suggestion. Robbie’s proposal was an abdication of hope.
“At least, Robbie, while you’ve been here at the Hall, you have been who you know yourself to be. The staff and I recognize you for the firstborn Rothmere son, and you need never pretend otherwise. Leave here, and you must perpetrate a fiction that grows heavier and more complicated with time. I know of what I speak, and I advise you to reconsider.”
“My thanks for your opinion.” Spoken with all the gracious forbearance of a very patient and determined duke.
Robbie finished his wine and left, and Nathaniel had never—never in all the years of managing a vast falsehood, never even when he’d believed Robbie dead—felt so alone or so angry.
“Perhaps we ought to send Lady Althea our regrets,” Elspeth said, emptying the basket before her and rearranging the sacking in the bottom so it didn’t show above the wicker sides. “If we pretend we don’t know of Lady Althea’s wanton acts, we are tacitly approving of them. Why are we giving the poor perfectly good sacks?”
The sacking, as Phoebe well knew, was intended to make the baskets look fuller without adding strain to a donor’s generosity.
“Everybody needs a sack on market day.” Phoebe tied a short length of twine around a small bundle of dried lavender. The string wasn’t quite long enough to fashion a bow, but then, the poor did not need bows. Being poor and without much coin, they probably didn’t need sacks on market day either.
Thank heavens one could pray that the poor developed the fortitude their unfortunate circumstances so often required.
“I am glad you have given the matter of Lady Althea’s ball some thought, Elspeth, for I confess the very question you raise has vexed me exceedingly. You need lavender for your basket.”
“Why do the poor need a lavender sachet?” Elspeth asked.
Not even a sachet, for sachets required cloth or lace. “To keep bugs away from their hovels, I suppose.” Then too, every proper squire’s garden had a lavender border, so the pile of dried flowers had been free. “I fear if we decline Lady Althea’s invitation, Their Graces of Walden will learn of it.”
Elspeth put together a spray of lavender from the bundle in the center of the table. The church assembly room was the best place for the charitable task of putting together poor baskets—dried lavender could make quite a mess—though the chairs were exceedingly hard.
“Their Graces of Walden are only the nominal host and hostess,” Elspeth said. “I can’t believe they will trek all the way up to Yorkshire to watch a bunch of yokels hop about in evening clothes and swill punch until the moon sets. Pass me the twine.”
Phoebe obliged and paged through the improving tract that was also being gifted to the unfortunates of the parish.In lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves…With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.…Holy Scripture offered such comforting words.
“Their Graces of Walden have left London,” Phoebe said, “and the talk is, they are journeying north, not that our decision should rest on whether your daughters or my niece have an opportunity to stand up with a duke. We must be guided by conscience. Not so much lavender, Elspeth. We have eight baskets to fill.”
And any left over would go home with Phoebe for use in her linen closets.
“Conscience says we decline the invitation of a woman with loose morals,” Elspeth replied. “My girls will be disappointed if we don’t go, but they understand the need to safeguard their reputations. Is this too much lavender?”
“A bit less.” Phoebe stashed the tract into the nearest basket. “I believe duty compels us to attend Lady Althea’s ball, much as the prospect troubles me. These are rather large jars of marmalade.”
Pandora Biddle was as generous with her marmalade as she was sparing with the sugar her recipe called for. The stuff was downright bitter, which might be why nearly every manor in the shire had donated a jar, minus Pandora’s Christmas label.
“The poor have too many children,” Elspeth said. “They need large jars or there won’t be enough marmalade to go around. I would like to see the ballroom at Lynley Vale, and that nice Lord Stephen was ever so gracious to my girls in the churchyard. He barely limps at all, though I doubt he dances. It’s not his fault his sister is a strumpet.”
Seeing Althea Wentworth labeled a strumpet by the neighborhood gossips had required all of Phoebe’s patience, endless cups of tea, and much genteel fretting over the morals of today’s young women. Phoebe had been determined, and knew how well rural neighbors valued propriety—and good gossip.
“You raise a very significant consideration, Elspeth.” Phoebe arranged a cast-off tea canister beside the pamphlet in her basket. The canister was empty, but pretty in a cheap, slightly dented way. “The Wentworth family as a whole cannot be criticized for the actions of one wayward sister, but that is not why I suggest we make the sacrifice of attending her ladyship’s ball.”
“You are thinking of Sybil,” Elspeth said, tucking her few sprigs of lavender into the side of a basket. “Ought we to put some food in these baskets? The poor are legendarily hungry. A potato or two?”
