“None for me.” He’d cut back since coming to Yorkshire. Achieving true inebriation had honestly become difficult, requiring an alarming quantity of spirits. Jack Wentworth’s fate suggested that less drinking, not more, would be a prudent choice.

“I longed to get drunk,” Nathaniel said, retrieving the decanter from the sideboard and pouring two glasses. “I would dream of that mellow, semi-coherent benevolence, but didn’t dare indulge because Robbie—Robert, rather, or Rothhaven—could not get drunk with me. And what if he had a fit while I was three sheets to the wind?”

Quinn passed out seven cards to each player and set the balance of the deck in the center of the table. “Your staff could not manage without you in even that situation?”

“I didn’t want to find out, and then too, Robert does not drink but a single glass of ale or one serving of wine with a meal. I would have felt disloyal.”

Quinn saluted with his glass. “Here’s to sibling loyalty. What do you suppose Miss Abbott has to say that could not be said to the family members involved?”

“Constance is the girl’s mother,” Stephen replied. “Even if all Miss Abbott has to say is that the young lady has brown hair and a good singing voice, Constance deserves to hear that in private.” Though Miss Abbott had driven out from York on a Sunday likely to impart more than such simple details. “Did either of you happen to notice Neville Philpot’s reaction to His Grace’s seizure?”

“Philpot’s reaction to everything is usually to assess Lady Phoebe’s reaction,” Nathaniel said. “And Lady Phoebe is consumed these days with ensuring all goes well between Viscount Ellenbrook and Miss Price. What game are we playing here?”

“Quinn is a father,” Stephen replied. “He forgets how to play anything but matching games.”

Nathaniel arranged his cards. “We could play three-handed cribbage.”

Quinn hadn’t even glanced at his cards. “Stop being a barrister, Stephen. What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything, but I suspect trouble is afoot. Lady Phoebe has the pew across from and immediately behind ours, and she thus had a fine view of the duke’s difficulties. Vicar Sorenson confirmed that she was an irregular attendee. Rothhaven starts going to services, and lo, Lady Phoebe does too, dragging her devoted solicitor-husband with her.”

Nathaniel drank half his glass of brandy at one go. “The entire congregation had a fine view of Robert’s seizure, and I must tell you both, the situation bothers me.”

“Bothers you how?” Quinn asked.

“Robert can go a month without so much as a staring spell, particularly in high summer, when he spends the most time in his garden. He’s had three seizures that I know of in the space of little over a month. The other day, I’m fairly certain he had a staring spell as well.”