“As if week-old articles about York’s latest society ball could upset anybody’s humors. Walk with me to the orchard.”

Across the terrace, two new footmen were setting up the noon meal, aided by a very young kitchen maid. Staff generally did not like employers hovering, and new staff were probably even more self-conscious.

“I have not been to the orchard in years.” Robert inventoried his reaction to this prospect, and found dread, anxiety, and resentment. Next to those predictable nuisances was a growing impatience with his own limitations. “I might well fail to complete the journey.”

“This time you might not, but eventually, you will.” Lady Constance marched to the end of the garden where the door in the wall had once upon a time loomed in Robert’s mind like a portal to the edge of the world.

She kept right on going, and once again, he followed her. Months ago, on a foggy autumn morning, he’d begun experimenting with what lay beyond the garden door, navigating as far as the river. He left the garden only when the mist was so heavy as to obscure anything like a horizon. The thicker the fog, the better he liked it.

A world where he could see only a dozen feet ahead—and could not be seen himself beyond those dozen feet—had suited him splendidly. This sunny spring day, with damned birds chirping and an arrogant hare loping off toward the river, had no appeal at all.

“Come,” Lady Constance said, extending her hand. “We will speak of the project you invited me here to discuss.”

Robert winged his elbow at her—that was the conventional gesture offering escort, if memory served—but she instead took his hand in hers, her grip warm and firm.

“We have missed the cherry blossoms,” she said. “But the plums should be in their glory. Tell me of your project.”

Constance was humoring him, jollying him into taking the first few steps on the path to the walled orchard. Robert knew it, she knew it. He went with her anyway, because he had at least as much right to be on that path as the wretched hare did.

Make small talk. Distract yourself. “I would rather return to the garden. We can discuss the project there.”

“I would rather wear breeches. I often do, when I paint. Skirts get in the way.”

Picturing Constance Wentworth in breeches was, indeed, a distraction. “I have decided that if I’m to be the Duke of Rothhaven, I must behave as a duke. I must look like a duke, speak like a duke.”

“Quack like a duke?”

“Don’t be impertinent.” He failed utterly to suppress a smile. “I can no longer indulge my eccentricities, confident in the knowledge that my brother will carry on in the ducal role. A duke sits for the occasional portrait.”