“Best fishing on any of the ducal properties. Across the way, there’s an excellent chestnut tree for climbing. It’s a good place to raise a boy.” He clearly spoke from experience. The house had been closed twenty years, had he said? That made sense. It would have been shut up after his parents died. It was difficult to imagine him ever climbing chestnut trees and splashing about in a stream. But even the most imposing of men had once been a boy.
