Page 6 of A Duchess Disciplined

“In all likelihood,” Elias said. “I am surprised that you know that much.”

“Why?” Catherine asked.

“Because I was…” Elias trailed off. “We did not talk often after Mother and Father died.”

Catherine privately wondered if the sudden responsibility of becoming the Duke of Reeds and being responsible for three younger sisters had driven him apart from his old friend. Sometimes, the weight of her brother’s sacrifices struck her very strongly, and Catherine felt a spark of sorrow for her brother being burdened with such a powerful responsibility and at such a young age.

“Do you wish that you had?” Catherine asked.

Elias shrugged. “Sometimes, I suppose, but perhaps, it is for the best that we no longer kept in touch with one another. His Grace had a reputation for being reckless.”

“Be careful,” Dorothy said quietly. “You also have a reputation for being reckless.”

Silence fell over the table, and Catherine was quite sure that they all had similar thoughts. A shiver jolted down the path of Catherine’s spine when she thought of her brother—usually a man who smiled easily and readily—with his features set in grim determination as he went to fight a duel for the sake of his honor.

After a long moment, Elias cleared his throat. “Well, I have yet to offend anyone that badly. Dorothy, you need not worry over me. I may be impulsive, but so are most young men. I would never do anything that might result in shame or harm coming to our family.”

Dorothy plucked at the lace edging the right sleeve of her gown. “That is easier said than done,” she said. “You are a young man, after all.”

“The late Duke of Sarsen did not have you to ensure that he was careful,” Elias said. “If he had a good sister, I do not imagine that he would have been quite as reckless.”

Dorothy bit her lip and looked askance.

“This is William,” Elias said, his voice edged with something melancholy.

Catherine glanced between her siblings, desperate to smooth the tension between them. Although none of them really fought in earnest, Catherine still found that the icy disagreements made her uneasy.

“What can you remember about him?” Catherine asked. “Was he a menace like you and Thomas?”

Elias frowned and absentmindedly flipped a card between his fingers. “Truthfully, I cannot recall much about him at all. We have exchanged pleasantries during the Season, but beyond that, we have communicated very little. I am uncertain if we have even shared a real conversation with one another.”

“Perhaps, it is some venture that his father undertook with ours.” Dorothy sounded reluctant, and Catherine suspected that her sister would have preferred to discuss Elias’s reckless streak. “Or perhaps, an investment of some manner.”

“If it was that, I would surely know about it,” Elias said. “I have spent a great deal of time looking over our father’s ledgers. There is not a penny unaccounted for. And if I missed some substantial sum, surely you would have noticed.”

While Elias was impulsive in some regards, like with the female company he chose to keep, he was utterly meticulous in others. One such area was the ledgers. He checked them as often as his solicitor did, and when the numbers did not match what he calculated, he enlisted Dorothy’s aid. Her acumen for numbers was unrivaled.

“A mystery,” Bridget mused. “How exciting!”

“I would not be too excited,” Catherine replied. “I imagine that it is something dreadfully boring. If it was an exciting matter, he would have told us.”

“In all likelihood, yes,” Elias said, straightening his spine. “Regardless, I suppose that we should prepare to greet His Grace tomorrow. He will solve our mystery readily enough.”

“It would have been nice if he had afforded us a little more time,” Dorothy said. “Then, we might have been able to properly prepare.”

“Perhaps, we ought to turn him away,” Catherine said. “Or maybe it would be best forusto find some other engagement. That might dissuade His Grace from being so inconsiderate in the future.”

“We shall greet him with grace,” Elias said.

“Yes,” Dorothy agreed. “Another man’s impropriety is not just cause for abandoning our own.”

Catherine shook her head. Sometimes, she did not understand why her siblings remained so insistent on embodying perfect behavior. Who would be the wiser to their true motivations if they decided to take an unexpected trip to Bath? No one.

What was the harm, then? They could avoid this unexpected visit, return the duke’s impropriety in kind,andkeep the family’s reputation intact. It all seemed quite obvious to Catherine.

“I do not anticipate that Sarsen will expect much,” Elias said. “If His Grace is a reasonable man, he will realize that we did not have sufficient time to prepare for his arrival.”

“Because ofhisbehavior,” Catherine said. “He chose to invite himself to the estate. He ought to be grateful that we are making ourselves available to him.”

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