Page 44 of Never a Duke
Ned knew something too.
He knew he would never return to this place. Not for any scrap of information, not for the pleasure of watching Tryphena squirm under the weight of a lifetime’s fear and guilt. Not even for the profound gratification of seeing her arrested for her many crimes would he return to this hell.
He had proved what he had come to prove here and had nothing to gain by subjecting himself to more of Tryphena’s cruelty.
Billy gave him the barest nod. Ned did not return the gesture. He stood out on the walkway, breathing the relatively fresh air of a chilly spring night. When he returned home, despite the lateness of the hour, he ordered a hot soaking bath.
Before leaving for the bank the next morning, he instructed his housekeeper to give the clothes he’d worn the previous night to the first beggar she came across on market day.
***
“I was hoping I’d see you here.” Rosalind smiled behind her glass of punch, though the entire room should have noticed how pleased she was simply to behold Ned Wentworth.
“I am a regular fixture at Her Grace’s at-homes,” he replied. “I get a break from bank business, Her Grace has a tame bachelor on the premises, and before I leave I pay a visit to the nursery. Shall we admire the garden?”
Rosalind set her glass on the tray of a passing footman, a sizable blond specimen who was nearly the twin of the second fellow gliding regally among the guests.
Ducal consequence was subtly evident in Her Grace’s formal parlor, from the matched pair of Viking footmen to the exquisite bouquets perfuming the air. Harp music drifted gently through the open folding doors of the adjacent music room, and guests chattered in convivial groups.
“The garden would be delightful,” Rosalind said. “Her Grace introduced Mrs. Barnstable to some physician-viscount, and they are in raptures over the topic of nerve tonics.”
Mr. Wentworth led her from the parlor and across the corridor to another parlor, this one clearly informal. An enormous mastiff rose from the rug to greet him with a sniff to his hand.
“This is Hercules,” Mr. Wentworth said. “He is Abigail’s sworn vassal. The garden here is much larger than what he enjoys at home, so he bides at the ducal residence frequently. Hercules, come.”
Man and dog passed through French doors onto a back terrace blessedly devoid of guests. The day was fine, not quite hot, and the dog took off at a lope down the steps.
“He’s going to pay his respects,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Walden and I buried Her Grace’s late pet, Wodin, in the back corner of the garden. Hercules supervised that undertaking.”
“You andHis Gracedug the grave?” Surely he did not mean that?
“Walden dug graves for a wage in his youth. The job is not as simple as you might think. If the grass and whatnot is to grow back, the bottom dirt must be replaced first, and so forth. His Grace has buried any number of family pets, and says the exertion helps ease the upset of a loss. For Walden, digging the grave was a way to be of use to his duchess and their girls. The ladies did treasure that dog.”
“And you?” Rosalind asked, as Ned escorted her onto a walkway of crushed shells. “Did you treasure that dog?”
He gazed out over the garden, to where Hercules had disappeared beneath towering rhododendrons.
“Pathetically so. That beast saved my sanity, when I thought I’d expire of boredom or the sheer strangeness of wearing livery. I was His Grace’s tiger for a time, then a clerk, then I had various duties at the bank. Throughout those years, regardless of my station, Her Grace would occasionally demand that I take Wodin out for some air.”
“Wodin was your friend.” Rosalind did not know what to make of such a conclusion. Ned Wentworth was personable, well spoken, well educated, handsome.…Why would he favor the company of a dog? And yet, what better company was there than a loyal canine?
“When I went up to university,” he said, “I wrote letters to Wodin in my head. The letters I sent to Their Graces, to Stephen or the sisters, were polite drivel about natural philosophy and the symbolism in Greek mythology, but to the dog, I poured out my woes.”
“I missed my mare like that,” Rosalind said, linking her arm through his. “No amount of begging could induce my father to send her off to school with me.Too expensive, Rosalind. Stop whining, Rosalind. Don’t be impertinent, Rosalind.” This topic had nothing to do with kidnapped maids, but it mattered all the same.
“Let me guess,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Your brothers’ ponies were packed off to public school with them.”
“Horses, not ponies. Neither George nor Lindhurst went to Harrow until they were fourteen, and a fourteen-year-old boy must have a proper horse. Also a valet and tutor and regular baskets from home.”
Rosalind and her escort had ambled some distance from the house, to a rose arbor covered in greenery. “Something has made you sad,” she said. “Do you miss the dog?”
“Let’s sit, my lady. Why do you say I am sad?”
“Your eyes, the quality of your quiet. You are self-possessed to a fault, but something troubles you today. If you are quitting the inquiry into my missing maids, you need only say so. You have already been of immeasurable help.”
“Will you quit the inquiry, my lady?”
Rosalind thought back to the previous week’s encounter with His Grace of Rothhaven. “I won’t want to.”
