“I should hope not,” he said, his gaze fixed on the street. “Will your mother be angry you went on a drive with me without her supervision?”

Alice couldn’t help it. She laughed. “No. I daresay she’ll jump for joy when she learns of it.”

“Fair enough. I am surprised she left, though. By all accounts, she is quite protective of you.”

“My father needed her and she never refuses him. He rarely asks her for anything.”

“My mother was much the same way.” His expression turned wistful. “When my father was alive, they were practically inseparable.”

“Is she still with us?”

“Indeed, she is. Living in London and haranguing me about grandchildren.”

She smiled, imagining this poor man enduring a mother anxious for grandbabies. “I suppose every mother of an unmarried duke feels the same.”

“Perhaps, but mine is especially concerned, seeing as how I am an only child.”

“Ah. The heir and all that.”

His mouth tightened ever so slightly. “Exactly.”

“Does it bother you? The pressure, I mean. The weight of the title and carrying on the legacy?”

He blew out a long breath. “I’d be lying if I said no. I certainly wouldn’t be in America otherwise. There are a hundred tasks awaiting me back in England, not the least of which is a leaky roof on the estate in Yorkshire.”

Which was why he needed to quickly marry an heiress.

And unless Alice managed to screw things up on this outing, there was a chance that heiress might be her.

Chapter Eighteen

The shabby boardinghouse was hardly a high-end residence. Men loitered on the stoop as night approached, their clothes tattered, bottles in hand, while they argued with one another and cussed at the pedestrians on the walk. Kit frowned. Forrest Ripley had more money than most men in the city. Why on earth was he staying here?

Kit hadn’t seen his friend since their dinner in April, little more than two months ago. Forrest arrived drunk and finished three whiskeys before the first course was even served. The night had gone downhill from there. At the end of the meal, a waiter helped Kit carry Forrest to the carriage, and Kit drove his friend home. Not long after, Preston took Forrest to the Adirondacks to dry him out, but Forrest escaped and ran off to Chicago.

They all had demons—Kit, Harrison, Preston and Forrest. None of them had families to brag about, and some scars never healed. It was what drew the four of them together in college, made them such close friends. However, Forrest had taken a turn in the last six months, going from a man who liked to drink to a man who insisted on staying drunk. Kit was worried.