“Did you go to Dunfey Park?”
Angelika froze in her chair, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Now why would you ask that?”
“I saw you through the window,” Richard claimed. “I saw you walk past the line of popular trees.”
“Poplar trees,” she corrected. She sighed and added, “I suppose my walk did take me onto the Dunfey Park property.”
“Nurse says the duke is a recluse.” Although his attention was on his roast beef, Richard paused to regard her with a quizzical expression. “What is a recluse?”
Angelika considered how to respond. “Did nurse say anything else about the duke?”
Richard shrugged. “He doesn’t go outside. She says it’s because he’s ugly, even though he’s not old.”
Wincing, she made a clucking sound with her tongue. “A recluse is someone who stays indoors and prefers his own company, and it’s not nice to say someone is ugly.”
“Nurse says people go to him, though, so does that still make him a recluse?”
Placing her fork on her plate, she leaned forward. “What people?”
He shrugged again. “A man. He comes in a coach. Always leaves ’afore nurse—”
“Before,” she corrected him.
“Before nurse feeds me dinner.”
“How often?”
“Two times every month. Usually on a Friday. In the morning.”
Angelika blinked. “How do you know this?” she asked in alarm.
“I can see his coach from my window,” he replied. “He carries a leather case like Father does. Nurse says it’s his man of business.”
Remembering the nursery was on the top floor of the house, Angelika understood how it was her brother could see the duke’s property. But someone actuallyonthe property? “You can see that far?”
“With Father’s looking glass I can.”
“You’ve beenspyingon our neighbor?” she asked, her mouth open in shock. Why she hadn’t thought to use the looking glass for the same purpose had her momentarily flummoxed.
He nodded. “When nurse thinks I’m taking a nap,” he affirmed, finally stabbing a boiled potato with his fork after several failed attempts.
“Have you ever seen the duke?”
Richard shrugged. “Don’t know. Never saw anyone who was ugly, though.”
“Richard,” she scolded.
“Haveyouseen him?” he asked. Although he was keeping up his end of the conversation, he seemed more interested in the food on his plate.
Angelika remembered the man who had been watching her from the window. “I don’t think so,” she murmured. “But I think I should like to make his acquaintance.”
His eyes rounding in surprise, her brother said, “What if he is ugly?”
She shrugged. “I have done enough reading in my life to know that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” she replied. “I do believe the same goes for people.”
Richard didn’t appear convinced as he chewed. After he swallowed, he took a sip from his caudle and said, “Well, tomorrow is Friday, so you’ll have to wait until the afternoon.”
Blinking, Angelika was about to claim she had no intention of going to meet the duke without their father—surely the marquess and the duke knew each other—and then thought better of it. Perhaps she could meet him under different circumstances.
Unplanned planned circumstances.
