“One is from Dolores, who still tries to persuade me to be less strict about challenging the will. And one, unless I am mistaken—it has been so long since I received a letter from him that I can’t be sure—is Cousin Walter.”

“What does he want?”

“I have no idea.”

Chase lifted the letter. “Let us find out. May I?”

“Enjoy yourself.”

He unsealed the letter. Walter had the practiced flamboyance in his penmanship that one would expect of a man with a high opinion of himself. Lots of flourishes and unnecessary ink decorated the capital letters. Chase read the one-page missive.

“Hmmm.”

“I don’t care for that hmmm,” Nicholas said.

“You won’t care for this letter either.” Chase waved it in front of Nicholas’s nose. “He feels the need to advise you on your duties, which he proceeds to do in a very Walter sort of way. In particular, he scolds about your lack of a wife and heir.”

“Odd, since if I die today he becomes the duke.”

“Frightening thought. You will endeavor not to die today, or soon, I trust.”

“If I do, assume he did me in.”

“Anyway, he scolds. He reminds you of that duty. And, you will be overjoyed to learn, he has even helped out by finding a potential bride for you.”

“Hell to that.” Nicholas threw off the bedclothes and strode to his dressing room.

Chase positioned himself outside its door. “She is a lovely girl, he writes. Sweet and demure and of course virtuous in the extreme. Well-bred and better raised.”

“Of course she is,” Nicholas’s voice said. “She sounds boring.”

“Walter would think that a virtue. Let me see what else he admires in her. Ah, here is more. Apparently, she is related to his wife. Her niece. Her brother Viscount Beaufort’s daughter.”

Nicholas’s face showed around the threshold. “I have seen this girl if she is that relative. We met. She had the temerity to ask when I thought my uncle would die and I would become duke. Not in so many words, but that was the question being broached. When I said Uncle was so healthy he would probably live to ninety, she suddenly lost interest.”

“Well, she wouldn’t want to wait too long, would she? Clearly you have become interesting again.”

Nicholas’s response came garbled. Chase entered the dressing room to find him being shaved by his valet.

“I wonder what Beaufort has promised Walter if this marriage occurs.”

Nicholas pushed away the valet’s razor and tilted his head up to look at Chase. “Knowing Walter, I would assume enough to set up a trust that brings him at least a thousand a year.”

“At least.”

Nicholas submitted to the valet again. “Any news on the inquiry?”