“How you feel now is how Rothhaven feels, all the time, every waking and sleeping moment. No canes for balance, no handy weapon, no means of safely crossing so much as an empty room, and yet he asks no quarter of anyone. He can be felled at any moment by a foe no one has ever vanquished, with no warning, no parlaying terms. You don’t know what he’s endured. You and anybody else in this family mock him at your peril.”

She held Stephen’s cane between them at eye level for one more moment, then shoved it at his chest and let herself out the front door.

Nathaniel was off admiring the figurative potting shed at Crofton Ford with his intended, and Robert had seized the opportunity to be unsupervised with Lady Constance. This was doubtless not the done thing. An unmarried lady on a neighboring estate, even a lady with whom Robert was acquiring a family connection, should reject an invitation to dine with him privately.

Lady Constance would not come because he’d asked her to, she would come for his garden—if she came at all. Robert paced before the hearth in the library, ignoring the stack of correspondence piled on the blotter. For the first time in his adult life, he was listening for the sound of coach wheels with something like anticipation.

Though as rutted and weedy as the drive was, how could a coach or even a gig navigate the path?

A tap on the door had him almost jumping out of his skin. “Come in.”

“Lady Constance to see you, Your Grace.” Thatcher pulled off that bit of formality very creditably.

“Thank you, Thatcher. You may tell the kitchen we’ll have our luncheon within the half hour.” Thatcher bowed, jacket for once neatly buttoned, the tufts of white hair at his temples combed.

“My lady.” Robert remembered to bow. “Welcome.”

Lady Constance strode into the room. “No lovebirds in the library today?”

“Nathaniel took Lady Althea over to Crofton Ford, where they will doubtless spend every moment on such pressing matters as landscaping, wallpaper, carpet, and furnishings.”

She’d worn a soft rose walking dress that fell in graceful folds from an embroidered bodice. The hems swished a little as she examined the room’s paintings one by one.

“Our siblings will spend every spare moment on a bed, you mean,” she said, pulling off her right glove. “And who is this fine fellow?”

“That’s Great-Uncle Ingleby. He was a favorite with the ladies but he never married.”

Her ladyship swiped a finger over the artist’s signature and leaned closer to the frame. “Was he fond of drink? His nose is a bit too red.”

“I have only a few memories of him. I believe the pigmentation to be accurate. Without a wife to moderate his appetites, he might well have been a sot.”