Page 81 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

The paths were still mostly given over to nursemaids and their charges, or old men walking dogs of equivalent antiquity at a leisurely pace.

As was her nature, Lady Oldbarrow moved through it at a pace that defied her years. She moved with elegance, her parasol tilted against the sun, and Anna kept step beside her. They had been walking for a quarter hour, and had covered, in that time, the Season’s more notable scandals, the iniquities of the current fashion for enormous sleeves, and they finally arrived at the question of Lord Wexford.

“He is a good man,” Anna said, which she’d said before, and meant no more now than she had then.

“He is a good man,” Lady Oldbarrow agreed. “Good men are not to be dismissed. I have known several in my lifetime. I married one.” She paused. “The first one, you see.”

“And the second one?”

“A great man. Considerably less comfortable to live with though. The two categories do not often overlap. At least in my experience.”

They continued to walk in companionable silence, a pair of ducks quacking loudly in the water beside the path. Despite the entertainment, Anna found her attention drifting where it had taken to drifting lately. Somehow even ducks in a small pond could not shield her mind from the Duke.

“You’re thinking about Frederick,” Lady Oldbarrow said, without looking at her.

“I was thinking about ducks,” she said too quickly.

“You were thinking about Frederick. I have been watching womennotthink about certain men for as long as I can remember. You havethatlook.”

Anna had no argument, and she adored Lady Oldbarrow too much to feign protestation.

“He is a complicated case,” Lady Oldbarrow said softly. “I have a particular fondness for him as his godmother… but I havenever been able to decide whether I understand him or simply understand the shape of what he won’t say.”

“He doesn’t say a great deal.”

“No, I suppose he does not. It is not entirely his fault.”

“No?”

“He has his father’s exterior, poor thing, despite all he has accomplished in spite of that legacy. He has his same polish. Very composed, very correct, everything in its place.”

“I see.”

“People looked at the old Duke and saw a man of excellent manners and excellent breeding and never thought to look further. People tend not to look inside a powerful man’s heart.” Lady Oldbarrow’s parasol turned once, slowly, in her hand. “I looked further though. I am old enough that I tend to.”

Anna waited, knowing from that Lady Oldbarrow arrived at her points on her own terms and at her own pace.

“Frederick was very protective of his mother,” she said as they reached a turn in the path. “More than the usual affection alone would account for. He was protective. And of Rachel, from a very early age, in a way that boys generally are not with younger sisters. That watchfulness.” She paused. “I tried, once or twice,to give him the opportunity to speak of his father. He never took it. He is stubborn.” A slight, dry smile. “You may have noticed.”

“I may have,” Anna said, carefully.

“I don’t know what happened precisely in that house, but I can imagine… I know what it looks like when a child has learned that composure is not a virtue but a survival, and I know what it looks like in the man that child becomes.” She glanced at Anna then, sideways and sharp. “It explains a good deal, I think. About why he keeps to himself, where he keeps himself. About why he has always been so guarded about what he allows himself to feel, and who he allows himself to feel it for.”

Anna was quiet. The ducks had resolved their dispute, or abandoned it, and the path ahead was empty and dappled with watery light.

“He will not say any of this himself, I should add,” Lady Oldbarrow said. “He would find a way to talk about estate management for three hours before he said any of it. But there are things worth knowing.”

“I think I understand,” Anna said.

“Good. Now tell me, when is your next outing with Lord Wexford?”

Thomas arrived at Frederick’s house on a Tuesday afternoon, turned down tea, sat down, stood back up again, accepted the tea after all, and then sat holding it without drinking it.

“You might simply say it,” Frederick said, at last. “Whatever it is.”

“I’m getting there.”

“You’ve been getting there for eleven minutes. I timed you.”