Page 11 of A Duke Too Far (The Way to a Lord's Heart 4)

“Her ladyship plays chess,” Nathaniel said. “Also cribbage and backgammon. You might consider calling upon her from time to time. Take your curate and he can visit with his cousin while you enjoy a game with her ladyship.”

Sorenson began putting the white army away. “And how does the Dread Duke know such interesting details about a woman who can’t be bothered to make small talk? I’ve tried charming her in the churchyard more times than I can count, and while she’s never quite rude, she never engages in friendly chatter.”

She doesn’t know how.“Does she attend the assemblies?”

“Maybe one or two a few years ago. Not lately.”

Because she had no escort, very likely. What was wrong with her family that they all but banished her to the moors and dales?

“Perhaps you ought to invite her, Sorenson. You’re the vicar, the professional good Samaritan.”

“Oh, right. Then I’d be seen singling out an unattached lady for special attention. The pastoral committee would soon be taking wagers on my marital status. In theory, I could offer for such a woman, being nominally a gentleman, but the match would be considered a mésalliance, and besides, Lady Althea isn’t at all drawn to me. Why don’t you court her?”

The question was offered half jokingly, so Nathaniel dredged up a smile. “Take a wife? A dread duke rather loses his cachet if he’s been snabbled by a duchess, don’t you think? If ever I give up my freedom, I’ll need far more inducement than a wheel of cheese.”

Sorenson paused in his tidying up, the white army still half on the field.

“Is it freedom to limit Your Grace’s company to the retainers who’ve known you since boyhood? Is it freedom to seldom leave the grounds of your estate by day, and always at a dead gallop? Is it freedom to deny yourself an occasional jaunt down to London, where you might speak for Yorkshire in the Lords? How long has it been since you’ve seen your mother?”

Nathaniel could put Sorenson in his place with a single look—acknowledge, disdain, dismiss—but theeffortof posturing as an unapproachable duke was simply too great at such a late hour and for so little purpose.

“Her Grace and I correspond regularly, and the Hall was not a happy abode for her. And for your information…”

I paid a call on Lady Althea and enjoyed her company tremendously.If anything made Nathaniel want tojaunt down to London, it was the notion that her ladyship rode into battle alone, year after year, against a legion of petty bullies. How would any prospective husband get to see the wit and determination in her if she remained a target for polite society’s poison arrows?

“For my information?” Sorenson prodded.

“Lady Althea is lonely,” Nathaniel said, rising. “When you decline to call upon her, you slight your duty to a member of the flock. She wasn’t raised here, she has no friends in the neighborhood, and her family apparently neglects her. You can spare her an hour over a cribbage board, Pietr. She’ll stuff you with excellent fare and probably trounce you to boot.”

Sorenson rose as well, his drink in his hand. “I do so benefit from being on the receiving end of a sermon from time to time, and you aren’t wrong. You have a flair for a scold.”

Lady Althea was a prodigy at delivering scolds, did she but know it. “The next time Squire Annen and his lady invite you to dine, suggest they invite her ladyship. You know how to introduce the newcomers, and yet you’ve been remiss with Lady Althea.”

“Now you’re my social conscience, Rothhaven?”

Now Nathaniel was angry. Contrary to his reputation, his temper seldom bothered him. He played a part—the growling, arrogant master of the Hall—and he did so for good reasons. He was careful never to confuse the role with the real man.

But on Lady Althea’s behalf, he was angry, and that was reassuring. “Some people choose solitude. Others are banished to it. Lady Althea has done nothing to deserve banishment.”

Sorenson took a leisurely sip of his drink. He wielded agreeableness with the same skill Nathaniel applied to ill humor and hauteur, and the vicar was a shrewd man.

“What did you do to deserve banishment, Rothhaven? A man who truly sought solitude wouldn’t put up with my chess, much less make a weekly pilgrimage across the fields for it.”

Sorenson had never come this close to overtly judging Nathaniel’s choices before. “I won’t be making that pilgrimage again until autumn,” Nathaniel said. “And to answer your question, I have been banished as punishment for the great transgression of having been born, as you well know. I’ll bid you good night and see myself out.”

He collected Loki from the little stable and carriage house at the back of the vicarage grounds. Loki tried shying at a few moonshadows on the way home, though his heart wasn’t in the mischief.

“You needn’t cheer me up,” Nathaniel murmured. “We can enjoy a pretty spring night for once if we please to.”

The horse apparently agreed. Thus it was that as the path curved past Lady Althea’s park, Loki sauntered along at a tired trot, while Nathaniel pretended to ignore the single illuminated window on the corner of Lynley Vale’s second floor.

“Who could that be?” Constance paused in the rearrangement of her shawls long enough to cock an ear toward the park. “Sounds like a lone horseman.”

“The Dread Duke going home from his weekly call upon the vicarage,” Althea replied. The hoofbeats echoed across the darkened park in a slow, even pattern. Perhaps His Grace was in a contemplative mood. “More brandy?”

“No, thank you. I must moderate my consumption in anticipation of the ordeal ahead.” Constance tossed back the last of her drink and set the glass on the table. Althea and her sister were enjoying their nightcap on the balcony off Althea’s sitting room, swaddled in shawls against the evening chill.

“Why go to London at all?” Althea asked, leaning her head back against the cushions. “Why subject yourself yet again to ridicule, gossip, and slander?”

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