She glared at him as though she wished she could set him on fire by will alone, then walked away. He chuckled. He hadn’t been alone with her, but he could tell that, with her temperament, any husband who took her on was going to have his hands full. Did his uncle have any idea who he was marrying? Likely not. All he had likely seen was a willing young girl who could produce heirs, which was all he ever cared about.
A knock came, and he turned, rushing for the door, but the butler got there first.
I shall have to accustom myself to such ceremony and circumstance.
Back home in Edinburgh, he did not employ a butler. Of course, his mother and stepfather had one at their country house outside the city, where he had grown up. Yet, when he had taken up living by himself, he had done away with such frivolities. He could cook—because he didn’t know how even to boil water—and had employed a manservant and a maid, but a butler had seemed too much.
Now he stood with his arms crossed behind his back and watched as the butler ceremoniously opened the door and spoke to someone.
“His Grace is unavailable,” the butler—whose name Nathaniel could not recall—said.
“Are you certain? I saw his carriage around the back.”
“Julian?” Nathaniel said, then rushed forward, yanking the door open with such force that the poor butler leaped backward and let out a rather undignified gasp. “That is quite right,” he said, looking the man up and down as though that might conjure up a name.
“Bennett, the butler.”
“Right. Bennett. All is well. This is my good friend Julian Havisham, Marquess of Lynden. I shall handle it.”
“Very well, Your Grace,” the butler said and walked away.
Once he was out of earshot, his friend let out a chuckle. “Your Grace. Nathaniel, the Duke. Whoever thought it was possible?”
“Not I,” Nathaniel said. “Shall we go for a walk? I’d like to take a look around the place. I haven’t been here since I was a wee boy.”
They stepped out into the sunshine, and Julian looked him up and down. “You might want to stop saying things like ‘wee’; otherwise, the other peers will think you’re Scottish.”
“I am almost Scottish, anyhow.”
“You do not sound like it, nor do you have a drop of Scottish blood in you. A half-Scot for a stepfather does not make you Scottish in any way.”
That was true. Though his stepfather was half-Scottish, Nathaniel had grown up in a household full of English servants. Most of his parents’ friends had been English expatriates in Scotland, and he had retained an English accent at his mother’s insistence—just in case the dukedom ever did fall in his lap.
What would his mother say when he told her that he was now the Duke of Sinclair, despite all of his uncle’s machinations? She would be delighted. As would his stepfather. As for him? He would much rather not have touched the dukedom with a ten-foot pole.
“How come you are here?” he asked his friend.
“When I heard the news, I knew I had to come immediately. To die on his wedding day—that seems extreme, even for your uncle.”
“Well, his legacy is assured. At least now people will spend their time talking about how shocking his death was, not how miserable his life was,” Nathaniel said.
“You sound bitter,” his friend noted.
“I am. My uncle’s title and all its attendant obligations have brought me naught but misfortune. I enjoyed a most satisfactory existence until my father’s demise, whereupon I found myself commanded to Sinclair to assume the duties of heir presumptive.”
“I recall. That’s when we met,” Julian reminded him.
“The sole consolation amidst a procession of calamities. Do you recall how he was? Overbearing, impatient…” He shook his head.
“I recall. I was frightened of him—so much so, my mother wouldn’t let me come to Sinclair Estate anymore.”
“Indeed. I was so happy when Aunt Anne finally produced a son and I could go back to our little house,” he said, recalling how they had been dispatched like unwanted wares when his cousin Albert arrived. Of course, the following year, both Aunt Anne and Albert had died from the fever, making him heir once again. Fortunately, his mother had remarried by then, and his stepfather, Arthur, had stopped Uncle Bertram from summoning him a second time.
A good thing too, because soon wife number three had produced another son—a feat that cost the woman her life, but at least his uncle had what he wanted: a son.
One wife, many lost pregnancies, and another son later, Nathaniel had been pushed squarely to third in line—a more than comfortable position for him.
As he reminisced about his lengthy, winding journey, he took a breath. Hints of lavender hung in the air as he ran his hand through his hair, extracting bits of tree pollen that had lodged there.
