“Yes, Nathaniel, I do. I want to enjoy a pretty sunrise in the company of my soon-to-be-married brother. I want to clear my head with the fresh Yorkshire air. I want to give Constance a rest from fretting about me, and I want to put off, for a few moments, the ordeal of conferring with Walden and his duchess. Any more questions?”

“That woman is turning you into a duke.”

Robert ambled along the crushed shells of the drive, enjoying the sound of his own footsteps, enjoying the birdsong, enjoying the golden light shining over the land rolling away to the east. So precious, this freedom, and he might soon have to part with it.

“That woman is becoming a duchess, but she will always also be a mother who regrets bidding her firstborn child farewell. Ivy is in the care of a bachelor uncle, a man of God who is determined to move his household to Australia. He has booked passage for himself and the girl on a ship due to leave next month.”

“And this weighs on your mind more heavily than what Philpot and Weatherby are cooking up?”

Robert wandered over to a stone wall bordering a sheep pasture. Lynley Vale’s flocks had yet to be shorn, though that work would start soon. He found a smooth patch and used the wall as a bench, the better to watch the sun come up.

“You have the right of it: The situation with Ivy weighs on my mind more heavily than the lawyers intriguing against us. A child who feels abandoned by her family exceeds what my conscience can bear. I have all but begged Constance to set herself apart from me, to emigrate to bloody Australia without me if that will reunite her with her daughter, but she refuses to go. My duchess will not abandon me, and I cannot make myself abandon her.”

“Have you considered simply allowing Philpot to become your guardian?” Nathaniel shoved back to sit on the wall and posed that question casually—too casually.

“I did. You would prevent Philpot from his worst excesses, as long as you were extant. Walden would take a hand in matters, and my life would remain tolerable, at least in the opinion of most people. I would likely be confined to the Hall and its grounds, and some doddering old physician would suggest I be regularly bled, which would do exactly nothing to reduce the incidence of my seizures.”

“You know that?”

“Soames bled me every day for a fortnight at one point. The seizures grew markedly worse the longer he persisted with his experiment. Alexander threatened to notify an uncle of what was afoot—an uncle who was a member of the Royal College of Physicians—and the experiment ended.”

“And you would risk going back to that sort of life?”

“I am at risk for being sent back to that sort of life.”