“Why not simply ask your brother what had become of his niece? He’s rumored to be as rich as three nabobs. He could have waved his hand and located Ivy within a fortnight.”

“If you knew the torment my brother went through,” Constance began, “the risk my behavior caused to his business at a time when a fledgling bank was all he had, if you had any inkling how fragile a bank’s reputation is regardless of how exalted its owner becomes…If you knew how vile the peerage can be when they believe somebody of high station has faltered…His Grace of Walden did what he thought was best for Ivy at the time. When I had the ability to act on my own initiative, I took it. I do not expect my brother to fight the same battle for me twice, much less at peril to his own interests.

“Moreover,” Constance went on, rising to pace the faded carpet, “a small army of investigators and more than a little luck were required to find Ivy, because you have taken no legal steps to assume guardianship of her.” Constance rounded on Shaw and came to a halt. “She’s my daughter. Finding her was my responsibility, and now that I have found her, I don’t intend to let her go.”

Oh, blast and bedamned, that was the absolute wrong thing for Constance to say.

“And there,” Shaw replied, shoving out of his wing chair and grabbing his prayer book, “is the headstrong, disrespectful, self-centered nature that I vow I will not allow Ivy to develop. A worse influence on the girl I could not imagine than an arrogant aristocrat who swans across the village green, no respect for the family who has raised Ivy from birth. You assume that pretty dresses and silver teapots should mean more to a young woman’s well-being than a chance to serve God.”

Constance sent Robert a desperate look, as if she knew she’d taken a sharp wrong turn but could not find her way back to the right path.

Shaw glowered at Robert, as if he too expected mediation, placatory gestures, something, from the duke who sat like a useless clod on the lumpy sofa.

The peculiar, half-asleep, pins-and-needles sensation skipped down Robert’s arms and across his nape.

Say something. Do something.

“You abet this woman,” Shaw snapped. “What have you to say for yourself, Your Grace?”

Robert heard the words. He deduced from Shaw’s tone that he was supposed to reply. He perceived Mrs. Hodges coming through the open parlor door, a tray in her hands, and he knew that he was having a staring spell at the worst possible time.

“Yonder duke disdains to answer me,” Shaw said. “You may return the tray to the kitchen, Mrs. Hodges. My apologies for putting you to the trouble. His Grace and Lady Constance will be leaving.”