“I shall do very well standing,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Aye, well—as I said, by the time they were all done with ’im, your brother was in a regular pucker, thinking as ’ow ’e wasn’t fit to fetch ’is father’s shoes, much less fill ’em. ’e lost ’is way for a time. Oh, ’e’ll be all right, but in the meantime, ’e managed to spend, or lose, more money than ’e can pay until probate is granted.”
Lady Helen’s eyes widened in dawning comprehension. “Ethan! Is that what it was all about—La Fantasia, and all the rest?”
“Aye, love, that’s what. La Fantasia was after ’im to marry ’er, and ’e felt played for a fool.”
“Thank God he saw past her wiles! Papa would be spinning in his grave—as would every Duke of Reddington who’d come before him!”
“Your brother ’as more sense than that, and more recognition of what’s due ’is name. Although,” he added, “it’s a wonder, what with your father treating ’im like a simpleton and you acting like ’e’s still in leading strings.”
“I never—!” Her husband regarded her with raised eyebrows, and she was obliged to amend her instinctive denial. “I suppose it’s true that I’ve always been a little protective of Teddy, especially after Mama died. Papa’s tongue-lashings can be brutal, you know.”
“Can they?” Sir Ethan asked with interest, having been on the receiving end of his grace’s temper on more than one occasion. “I’d never noticed.”
“No, for they always rolled off you like water off a duck’s back,” she recalled with a trace of envy. “But then, you were never dependent upon him. I can assure you, for his children it was quite different! It would have been better for Teddy if he’d stood up to Papa.”
He regarded her skeptically. “Would it really?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “Oh, it wouldn’t have changed anything—Papa would never have given in! But instead of defending himself, Teddy just—just withdrew.”
“There’s nothing wrong with walking away from a fight, ’elen,” Sir Ethan pointed out reasonably. “Especially when you know you can’t win. Sometimes the one ’oo walks away is the stronger man.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded, considering her young brother in this new light. “But Papa always took his passivity as a sign of weakness. When we were young, he used to say that it was a great pity I was not a boy.”
“I’ll ’ave to disagree with ’im there,” put in Sir Ethan.
Lady Helen gave him a speaking look, but refused to take the bait. “I own, I felt flattered at the time, although I never had the slightest desire to inherit the title. Looking back, though, I can’t even imagine how it must have made Teddy feel.”
“I can,” Sir Ethan said darkly.
“Well, yes, I suppose I can, at that. But you say he ran up debts. You paid them, I gather.”
“Aye, but only as a loan.”
“Which, I take it, he’ll pay back as soon as the will is probated,” she surmised.
“No. ’e’ll pay it back by working at the mill.”
“Oh yes, this is where we started, isn’t it? Ethan, you can’t put a duke to work in a cotton mill!”
“I don’t like to brangle with you, love, but I just did.”
“What can you possibly hope to accomplish, besides utterly humiliating him?” She raised a hand to forestall his answer. “And don’t speak to me of loans, for I know very well that no mill worker would earn the kind of money that Teddy could lose at White’s in an evening, not if he were to work in the mill for a hundred years!”
“Per’aps ’e’ll learn just that,” Sir Ethan said. “Per’aps ’e’ll value ’is in’eritance more once ’e sees for ’imself ’ow other men live. And while ’e’s about it, per’aps ’e’ll discover that ’e can do things ’e never thought ’e could, and that ’e’s not quite the fool ’is father always took ’im for.”
She considered this for a long moment. “Perhaps,” she conceded, although her tone did not sound optimistic. “I only hope you know what you’re doing. For my part, I still think he needs a wife.”
“Aye, well, maybe ’e’ll find one of them, too. Now,” he said in a very different voice, “are you going to ’ave a lie-down and rest before dinner, or am I going to ’ave to strip you and put you to bed myself?”
She turned away as if to rebuff this suggestion, but cast a coy glance at him over her shoulder. “I should like to see you try!”
Sir Ethan, nothing loth, accepted this challenge with alacrity.
NOT UNTIL AFTER DINNER did Sir Ethan turn his attention from family concerns to the business that had brought him to London in the first place.
“I’ve promised to meet Sir Lawrence Latham at Brooks’s tonight,” he informed his wife with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “I didn’t know at the time that you’d be ’ere, love. I can cancel, if you like.”
“You need not do so on my account,” she assured him, looking up from the note that had been brought to the table along with the sweet course. “The doctor’s wife says he has been called out to attend what may well be a deathbed, and cannot see William until tomorrow morning at the earliest. I confess, I am not entirely sorry. Now that the poor lamb is sleeping soundly, I should be extremely reluctant to wake him, even for the doctor to examine him. So you may leave him with a clear conscience.”
“It wasn’t Willie I was thinking of.”
She laid aside her serviette and rose from the table. “You may leave me with a clear conscience, too. I intend to go to bed early and sleep until noon.”
“And so you shall,” he promised her. “If the doctor should ’appen to call while you’re still abed, I’ll take ’im up to
