Quinn gestured to the rocking chairs before the hearth. “One suspected you and His Grace were not strangers. As asylums go, that place was commodious.”

Constance took a seat with a sense of relief. Quinn was no longer trying to evade the topic, meaning he’d found a means of reconciling himself to the situation.

“That hospital was only commodious on the outside, Quinn, and that was by design. Soames fancied himself a physician of the mind, and used his patients to experiment on, but the worst torment those people suffered was shame and rage that their own families had put them there.”

Quinn leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In his profile, Constance saw both the handsome, determined youth he’d been, and the fierce old fellow he’d become, but she also saw her brother. A good man, not perfect, but well worth loving.

He set the chair to rocking slowly. “One of the worst torments I ever faced was coming home to find that my baby sister had left my house. Rothhaven’s father discarded him, you discarded us. You discarded safety itself, and while I can guess at some of your reasons, I’ve never asked you why.”

“I was upset.” The grandest of understatements. “I was afraid.”

Quinn turned his head to gaze at her. “Of me?”

Oh, Quinn. “Not of you, Quinn. Never of you. Of what would follow. I was not thinking clearly. You might say I was addled.”

The silence that bloomed was a little sad, but mostly peaceful. Constance could have this conversation with her brother now because Quinn was a father and a husband, no longer a young man ruthlessly determined to build his fortune and damn anything and anyone who stood in his way.

“If you are thinking clearly now,” he said, “you will agree to two conditions. I know you can marry Rothhaven without my blessing, but that would disappoint Jane. Let’s avoid that if we can, shall we?”

“I’d rather not disappoint anybody.” Ever again.

“First, with respect to the settlements, I will ensure your money remains in trust outside the ducal estate. Rothhaven will understand why.”

“Because you think he’s half mad.”

“Because I don’t know him, but at any point, somebody could decide an inquiry must be made on behalf of the Crown regarding his fitness. If a guardian of Rothhaven’s property is required, I will of course offer my services in that capacity, but generally, the more disinterested a prospective guardian is, the more likely he is to be appointed. I could conceivably inherit some unentailed property from Rothhaven through a deceased sister, for example.”

Men and their machinations. “Not if his will says otherwise.”