“And what of His Grace?” Robert asked. “How did he react to your return?” If Quinn Wentworth had hurt his sister in any way, Robert would hurt him back. To betray trust when a prodigal came home broken in spirit and exhausted in body demanded punishment.

“Quinn was all that is decent. He’s always decent, because Jane expects it of him. Jane married him because he expects decency of himself. Here.” She sat up and tore the page free from the sketchbook. “It’s rough, but not a bad start. You are an interesting subject.”

Robert took the sketch with a sense of foreboding. He saw himself in mirrors, and when a man lived a reclusive life, his turnout became a low priority. He wasn’t exactly going to pot, but he did not ride, he did not fence, he did not—as Nathaniel did—strip off his jacket and cravat on occasion and join in with the laborers mending wall or clearing a drainage ditch.

On this occasion, though, Robert had donned company attire and acquitted himself as much like a duke as possible. That had been a challenge. His only pattern card for how a duke behaved had been an arrogant, self-interested father willing to consign his firstborn to hell for the sake of appearances.

Robert studied the image on the page in some surprise.

“Well?” Lady Constance asked, setting aside her sketch pad and pencil. “Will you sit for me again or have I given offense?”

The man on the page was a bit haughty, also proud—the sketch found the difference between justified pride in an ancient lineage and aristocratic arrogance. He shaded toward the first, but not entirely. He was no boy, this fellow, and he exuded a man’s physical self-possession and intelligence. He might not be precisely handsome—what mattered handsome?—though he would give a good account of himself in any debate.

The last, most intriguing aspect of the portrait was a hint of humor lurking deep in the eyes. An acceptance of life’s absurdities gained through firsthand experience. A man with that quality could be a tolerant friend, if somewhat irascible.

“You have turned me into a duke.”

“An accident of birth did that. I sketched the person who sits before me.”

Constance was an accomplished artist, but then, anything she undertook—from a disguise, to a sketch, to the study of pianoforte—would be done well.

She also knew how to respect a silence, how to remain still and quiet so an inspiration could steal forward from the shadows in a man’s head.

“You said I need a plan, my lady, for when an assault is made on my legal competence. You have given me a glimmer of an idea.” Robert needed solitude and time to work out the details, but he could feel them swimming in the depths of his imagination. Patient focus could lure them to the surface, and he was nothing if not patient.