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Jane continued on through the bedroom and into the corridor, pausing at the top of the main staircase. “In that silk dress, with touches of gold and amber catching the candlelight, and the scent of gardenias wafting about your person, you will have three proposals before the supper waltz.”
Jane was trying to fortify Althea’s confidence, which was both pointless and dear. “I sent an invitation to Rothhaven. He has not accepted. Every bachelor in the shire could propose and I’d turn them down for one waltz with the duke.”
Who wasn’t a duke, not truly. Nathaniel was something more precious than a mere title, and Althea’s heart ached for him.
“So that’s it.” Jane proceeded down the steps, Althea’s admission apparently solving some mystery. “Then Quinn needn’t do anything but smile pleasantly and stand up with the wallflowers.”
“He will open the dancing with the ranking lady in the shire.” Lady Phoebe, very likely, which would leave Jane dancing with Lord Ellenbrook.
Assuming Nathaniel didn’t show up at the last minute. He hadn’t sent regrets, hadn’t even replied to Althea’s invitation, which made his position all too clear.
Somebody rapped on the front door just as Althea reached the bottom step. She opened the door instead of waiting for Strensall to do the honors.
“Vicar Sorenson, good day.”
The vicar wore riding attire well, though his smile was a bit anxious. “My lady, greetings. I apologize for calling on what I know must be a busy day, but I was hoping you could spare me a moment of your time.”
Jane watched this exchange rather than discreetly withdraw while murmuring about being needed in the nursery.
“Do come in,” Althea said, “and allow me to perform an introduction. Your Grace, may I make known to you Dr. Pietr Sorenson, our vicar, and my conspirator in schemes to alleviate poverty. Vicar, may I present Jane, Duchess of Walden, my sister-by-marriage.”
Sorenson handled the courtesies as if he met duchesses twice a week, and Althea was soon ringing for a tea tray and wondering what in all of creation could have inspired the vicar’s call. Nothing good, of course. She was sure it was nothing good.
Pietr Sorenson baptized infants who wouldn’t live out a week, he buried young people taken too soon, and he attended the final hours of much-loved elders. He handled the petty squabbles of the neighborhood without turning a hair and interceded with the magistrate’s more zealous applications of the law.
In Nathaniel’s experience, the vicar was not a man given to dramatics, but something had provoked him into calling at the Hall and pounding on the door until Thatcher admitted him.
“She’s waltzing into an ambush,” Sorenson said, striding into the estate office. “The parish’s most zealous benefactor, the person who has done more to safeguard the well-being of our poor, the woman who has turned her sights on remedying poverty in all of York itself, is about to be publicly maligned by a gaggle of gossiping biddies in her own ballroom. All because of some pretty viscount who hasn’t a clue he’s become the spoils of a rural matchmaking war. I vow, Rothhaven, serving on the Peninsula was less vexation than tending a flock of English Christians.”
Thatcher hovered at the door of the estate office looking all too interested in Vicar’s tirade. “Shall I bring up a tray, Your Grace?”
“No, thank you. Brandy appears to be in order.” Still Thatcher remained in the doorway. “You may be excused, Thatcher.”
“Very good, sir.” He shuffled out, leaving the door open.
When Nathaniel closed the door, Thatcher was peering at himself in the corridor’s nearest mirror, licking his fingers and arranging the shocks of white hair that sprang from above his ears.
Nathaniel poured Vicar a generous drink and allowed himself a half-measure as well. Beyond the window, Robbie pushed a barrow along the bed of roses in the walled garden. He wore an old straw hat and a workman’s garb, looking for all the world like an under-gardener rather than a duke.
But did he look happy?
“What has you in such a state?” Nathaniel asked, passing Sorenson his brandy.
“Not a what, a who—several whos. Lady Phoebe Philpot, the selfsame malicious meddler who happened upon you and Lady Althea in a harmless embrace, has taken it into her head that the entire shire should be apprised of the licentiousness she is certain she saw.”
Nathaniel set down his drink untasted. “She saw a mere kiss on the cheek between two people she’d be hard put to identify at such a distance, particularly when she hasn’t had a good look at me in years.”
Vicar tossed back about a quarter of his brandy. “Not to hear her tell it. She saw you and Lady Althea all but ensuring the succession in broad daylight, and she means to trumpet news of that shocking behavior from here to York.”
No profanity graced the English language sufficient to express Nathaniel’s ire. “How do you know this?”
“My housekeeper heard Lady Phoebe and Mrs. Elspeth Weatherby scheming over the poor baskets. Lady Althea gave the housekeeper’s nephew a half dozen pigs, use of Lynley Vale’s bullocks, and two years’ rent forgiveness on a little tenancy next to the moors. The lad longs to marry, and Lady Althea put that goal within his grasp. He’s far from the only young person whom her ladyship has spared from the mines and slums. Lynley Vale has hired ample staff from the village and her ladyship pays well. My housekeeper could not keep silent.”
“And neither can you. What do you expect me to do about this?” WhatcouldNathaniel do? Warn Althea to absent herself from her own ball? “Both of Lady Althea’s brothers are on hand, and they are not men to be trifled with.”
Sorenson tossed back another quarter of his drink. “You are not a man to be trifled with. For five years, you’ve thwarted the whole shire’s attempts to invade your privacy. You’ve managed a dukedom that prospers without the duke himself being in evidence. If you attended this ball, Lady Phoebe wouldn’t dare spread her spite.”
“She would spread it in the churchyard instead and likely already has.” All of this over a kiss, over a simple, sweetfarewellkiss. “I cannot attend this ball and you well know why, Pietr.”
