Quinn set aside Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “Rothhaven has fits, Constance. He’s afraid of a sunny sky. His own brother has said as much. Rothhaven won’t imbibe but a single glass of spirits at a time. He has no friends, no connections. He’s never been to Town and he likely will never go, not even to make the acquaintance of his sovereign. That much coach travel would un-man him. Is this the sort of father you seek for your children?”

She nearly did slap him for that, but Quinn had spoken quietly, pleadingly.

“Rothhaven is honorable and kind. He is intelligent and well read. He cares for his family, his staff, and his tenants. If he’s afraid of a sunny sky, his courage is sufficient to overcome his fears, for he escorted me from the Hall to the orchard and back again without incident.” And he’d proposed to her in that lovely, sunny orchard, and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

Quinn took a stuffed bear down from the bookshelf and sniffed it. “But could he have escorted you to York yesterday?”

“Stephen dreads that assignment, Quinn, and you never censure him for shirking it.”

“Stephen cannot walk from shop to shop all day. Rothhaven could if he pleased to.”

“Because an ailment of the mind is less real than a lame leg? When Stephen’s problem was melancholia rather than lameness, did you dismiss the malady as of no moment?” Quinn had not, in fact, taken effective measures in Stephen’s case until the situation had become dire.

The baby stirred in her bassinette, and Quinn was immediately tucking the blanket up around her.

“We should take this discussion elsewhere,” he said, placing the bear at the baby’s feet. “We must not wake the princess or her mother will somehow know of it and cut short her own nap.”

We will finish this discussion here and now. “If you fell prey to shaking fits tomorrow, Quinn, would you love your daughters any less? Would you be less of a father to them, or would your disability make you even more devoted to their welfare?”

He gave the blanket one last twitch. “You should have been a barrister, and that is not a compliment. When I am a feeble old relic, half blind, deaf, and toothless, I will love my family with the last of my breath and the ferocity of a dragon, but Constance, you deserve peace, a man who can give you contentment, not a fellow who has demons of his own to battle.”

What worthy man or woman didn’t have the occasional demon to battle?

“I met Rothhaven when I ran away. He is more formidable than you give him credit for, Quinn. Most people consigned to a madhouse for ten years wouldn’t live to tell the tale, much less recount it coherently.”