The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(4)

His father at least had the good grace to flush. He glanced at the handful of servants present, and taking that silent cue, the liveried footmen quickly filed from the room. “Dr. Carlson is amazed,” he said as soon as the door closed behind them.

“Oh, I would say he undoubtedly is.” Robert infused a dry edge to that retort, which raised a frown from his father’s lips.

“Regardless, we weren’t discussing my health.”

“Your abruptly restored health,” Robert amended, setting his glass down.

“But rather you.”

Had they? Robert really thought they’d been debating morning versus afternoon greetings. Alas, all conversations with his father inevitably followed the same, familiar trajectory.

“You are three and thirty, Robert,” his father began.

“I am aware of my age, Father. An age that I feel compelled to point out is still quite young.” Robert braced for the impending lecture. His father could spout on about finding his future duchess and doing right by the Somerset line, but Robert was quite content to continue to live the same roguish, carefree, and unmarried life he’d adopted in the past years.

Marriage and securing the family line were all endeavors he would see to. Eventually. When he did, there would be no shortage of prospective brides. Women, of the ton and the serving class, had all demonstrated a remarkable avarice for that vaunted title. For now, however, with his father very much alive, he was quite content living just as he’d lived for the past twelve years.

Twelve years to the date.

Instead of a well-structured argument, his father sat in silence, skimming his paper, and occasionally pausing to sip his coffee.

Robert drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair. He’d never sat down across from his father at a gaming table. His father vehemently disavowed all forms of gaming, often saying that if the current duke did take his pleasures there, the man deserved to lose his ducal shirt. The tight lines at the corner of his sire’s mouth, and the manner in which he leaned forward in his chair, hinted at a person who very much wished to say something.

“Do you know, Robert, the day you first noticed your sister’s nursemaid, I was not displeased.”

Robert stilled as his father’s quietly spoken pronouncement turned the table. He’d not spoken of Lucy in more than ten years, and then, only with his one friend in the world, Richard Jonas. He’d never breathed a word of his romantic affection for the fiery-haired servant, whom he’d intended to elope with, to anyone else.

In fact, mayhap he was the worst of the Denningtons in terms of wagering, for he would have wagered his very life that his father hadn’t even known about the young woman who’d captured his son’s heart. Unlike his commanding grandfather, who’d made it a point in life to control everything remotely concerning the family. A black, still-potent rage for that now long-dead patriarch gripped him.

“And when your grandfather came to me and told me he’d learned of your plans to elope,” he continued on through Robert’s silent tumult, “I was . . . happy.” He grimaced. “Perhaps that is why I’d failed to realize the implications of both his discovery, and my approval, of your relationship with Miss Whitman. The duke would have never supported such a match.”

No. He would have rather dueled the Devil than dare taint the Dennington line. Robert gave his head a disgusted shake. How very na?ve his father had been to that late duke’s evil. Then, hadn’t Robert himself been guilty of that same weakness?

The duke looked at him with sad eyes. “You are quiet,” his father needlessly observed.

“I did not realize you required a response,” he drawled, as the young man proceeded to pour him a cup. Time for a discussion about Lucy Whitman, and the late duke’s hand in Robert’s future, had long passed. Not that he cared to discuss that afternoon twelve years ago with this man, or anyone really. Even Jonas had received nothing more than a curt recounting of the lady’s treachery. The shameful details, he’d opted to withhold.

His father continued in too casual tones. “Then I believed this summer you’d chosen Lady Diana Verney.”

Ah, Lady Diana Verney. The Duke of Wilkinson’s cherished daughter. That supposition only proved how oblivious his only living parent had always been about his son. “Gemma Reed.”

The duke angled his head.

“I would have married Gemma Reed.” His sister’s bluestocking friend had, at the very least, been interesting when every other woman inspired tedium. In the end, the lady had married Robert’s best friend, Richard Jonas. Which was all rather fine. Robert’s heart hadn’t been engaged. And his heart had long since been protected—he’d intentionally hidden it away.

“You do not say,” his father said to himself.

Robert tipped back on the legs of his chair. “I’ve not ruled Lady Diana out as a prospective match. I just thought given her tender years, I would wait until she at least made her Come Out before I formally offered for her hand.”

Surprise flared in the older man’s eyes. “You do intend to marry Wilkinson’s daughter, then?” After all the less than discreet attempts at throwing Robert together with that young lady at the summer party, was it a wonder whom he’d ultimately settled on? “I had no idea,” his father said, and his mouth turned down at the corners.