Page 38 of Never a Duke
“She has had to be, as I suspect you have had to be. Tell me about your missing lady’s maids.”
Rothhaven had a way of making a command sound like an invitation, and Rosalind found herself settling into the wing chair and recounting the facts for him. She’d polished off a cup of tea and a piece of lavender shortbread before Ned peeked into the room.
“I should have known,” he said. “Rothhaven, good day.”
“Please join us,” the duke replied. “Her ladyship sought an understandable respite from the melee. Stephen and Constance were in good form, I take it?”
Ned took the place on the sofa beside the duke. “Oh, of course, and Abigail is very much up to their weight. Lady Rosalind, I’m sorry they offended you, but I assure you, no insult was intended.”
Theyhadoffended Rosalind. “I am unused to such rumbustious company. No offense taken.”
Rothhaven passed Ned a cup of tea. “You sent them off on various goose chases, I take it?”
Ned glanced at Rosalind a little sheepishly. “Let’s say they are pursuing peripheral theories.”
“You manage them, and they don’t even realize it,” Rosalind said. “Don’t you ever want to tell them all to go to blazes?”
Ned and His Grace both seemed amused by her question. “All the time,” they said in unison.
“And they,” His Grace went on, “grow similarly exasperated with us, and yet, our mutual regard is great as well, else we could not so effectively annoy one another. One learns to see the good intentions and ignore the vexatious deeds, for the most part.”
“They mean well?” Rosalind asked.
“They do,” Ned said. “They invariably do, and I would not have consulted them had I not thought them capable of true aid at some point. Shall I escort you downstairs, my lady?”
Rosalind wanted to linger in His Grace’s company, to bask in the warmth of his calm, and in his dry humor and clear affection for a family Rosalind didn’t particularly like.
Also his obvious regard for Ned.
“Here is how you go on,” Rothhaven said, rising and extending a hand to Rosalind. “You enter from stage left on Ned’s handsome arm, and you smile at him as if you’re enjoying some secluded path at Vauxhall on a lovely night. Thank the assemblage for their efforts and suggest to my darling wife that you and she take in the latest exhibition at the Royal Academy. Forget about dragging her around to the shops. I will be in your personal debt if you can endure the Academy’s offerings in my stead, and I always pay my debts, Lady Rosalind.”
Though his smile was slight, Rothhaven’s eyes conveyed warmth and a genuine request for aid.
“Are you managing me, Your Grace?” Rosalind asked, taking the duke’s hand and rising.
“Of course not,” he said. “You strike me as a woman who has had more managing than she can sanely tolerate. I well know how that feels.”
How could he possibly…? Rothhaven’s earlier comment came back, about having made an undignified exit from polite society in childhood. Rosalind was sure that departure had not been Rothhaven’s choice.
“Have you any advice regarding our investigations, Your Grace?”
Rothhaven walked with Rosalind to the door, Ned on her other side. “I can tell you this, my lady. Those missing women need you to keep looking. You might be too late to save them, but if Ned’s suspicions are correct, a scheme is afoot. That scheme will continue claiming victims until somebody puts a stop to it. The Wentworths are annoying in their vigor and outspokenness, but you could not ask for more loyal allies, and in this, I speak from experience.”
He bowed over her hand, as courteously as if they were parting ways after Sunday services. “My advice is topersist. When you are daunted and overwhelmed, persist anyway. The ladies are counting on you, as am I.”
Rothhaven delivered part of that speech while regarding Ned rather than Rosalind. Ned bowed to the duke before taking his leave and escorted Rosalind from the room.
“There isn’t another duke like him in the whole history of the aristocracy,” Ned murmured. “Jane claims Rothhaven and Walden understood each other from the moment they met.”
“And yet,” Rosalind said, pausing at the top of the stairs, “you and Rothhaven had the same rapport, didn’t you?”
“I respect him.”
“You like him and you trust him, and he likes you. I suspect he doesn’t like many people.”
Ned gazed back at the closed parlor door. “Rothhaven is one of the kindest people I know. Constance says that early in life he chose compassion over judgment, and I can see what she means. Rothhaven is nobody’s fool, but neither is he haughty or arrogant.”
“Early in life, he apparently lost his family and his home, just as you did. Of course you and he would have much in common. You have also chosen compassion over judgment, but I cannot like the extent to which the Wentworths trespass on your good nature. Will you accompany Her Grace and me to the exhibition?”
