"What?" Robert cast his gentleman's gentleman an aggrieved glance, "Why did you not tell me before?"
"Because then you would have then dawdled 'till dinnertime," the valet was the very opposite of contrite, "And if insulted, His Grace might finally followed through on his threat to disown you, and then I would be out of a job."
"Turncoat," Robert muttered, though he had some respect for the valet's sense of self-preservation.
"My lord, I am not cut out for a life of poverty," Balthazar shrugged, "And if I am not cut out for it, then you are surely even less so. Do you know how much a bar of that soap you have left to turn to mush in the bath costs?"
"No," Robert admitted.
"Then take my advice," the valet huffed, "And make haste to meet your father."
Robert made a great show of grumbling and rolling his eyes, but he did not dawdle. Balthazar was right, in that Staffordshire would find great insult in his son being late for an audience with him. And when insulted, the duke was liable to throw insults of his own about.
Robert briefly visited the breakfast room for a cup of coffee and to gather his wits together, before making for the library, where he found his father pouring over ledgers.
"Good morning, father," Robert said evenly, "I was not aware you were coming to town."
Staffordshire did not reply, his eyes keenly focused on the accounts and ledgers Robert kept for the estates. While Staffordshire retained control of the accounts of the main ducal seat, he had handed over the reins of the other estates to Robert—some twenty thousand acres, one thousand tenants, and forty dependents.
"You are handling things well," the duke grumbled, having finished combing Robert's work for any mistakes, "You must have hired a good man of business."
"The best," Rob ignored the veiled implication that someone else might be responsible for his good work and sauntered into the library.
Two leather Chesterfields faced each other by the fireplace and anyone else would have bid him sit, but not his father. No, Staffordshire remained seated at his desk—which had been Robert's desk, yesterday—and Rob decided that if he must remain standing, he would do so by the window.
"I read that you attended Almack's," Staffordshire grumbled, as he began to close the ledger books and tidy away the papers, "You can't imagine my surprise."
"I fail to understand how you are surprised," Rob rolled his eyes discreetly, "When you wrote a letter threatening me with disembowelment, disfigurement, and disownment, if I did not put some effort into finding a wife. Thank you for the list of potential candidates you also enclosed, Father, it was very helpful."
"Was it?" Staffordshire was cheered.
"Indeed."
The list had served as a very thorough guide for which ladies Robert needed to avoid like the plague, though there was no need for his father to know that. Rob's mind wandered elsewhere, as the duke began to prattle on about which families' young chit had made their debut this season and how suitable they might be for the title of Duchess of Staffordshire.
Rob resisted yawning, and instead he focused his attention on Cavendish House across the square. A carriage was parked nearby, but it was not so grand—and its driver not so young or well-outfitted—that it might belong to the earl.
Robert was so focused on Cavendish House, that he failed to realise his father had noted his distraction.
"Spying on thine enemies, eh?" Staffordshire boomed, having come to a stand beside him.
Robert started, and gave a weak smile in response.
"Merely keeping watch on the comings and goings of the square," Rob demurred, "Awful lot of riff-raff about these days, one can't be too careful."
"The only riff-raff to be found on this square lives in number ten," the duke replied, with a dark scowl across at Cavendish House. "Did you know that the Marquess of Pembrook tried to chisel me out of a fine piece of horseflesh in Tattersalls last year?"
"I did, for you've told me forty times," Robert answered, under his breath, but Staffordshire had developed an acute case of selective deafness and continued to retell the tale.
Robert "ummed" and "ahed" in all the right places—an easy task, for this was his forty-first audience to the story—while his gaze remained focused across the square.
A carriage had drawn up before number ten; a gleaming, new Landau, much like the one that Rob had spied in Tilbury Coachbuilders in Mount Street the week before. A liveried footman hopped down from his perch, and Rob gritted his teeth as he saw just who it was that emerged from the vehicle.
Lord Pariseau.
At the same time, the door of Cavendish House opened, and a dark haired girl slipped out—the young lady who had danced with Orsino at Almack's, if Rob was not mistaken.
As the pair passed, Pariseau offered a word of greeting, and Rob saw the young lady blush so red that she might have heated all of London for a month.
