“When I am duke, then.” The words were a whisper, as though if he spoke them in truth, he’d curse them all. “When I am duke, I shall keep us all safe. Us and all of the Garden. I shall take his money. His power. His name. And I shall walk away and never look back.” The words circled around them, reverberating off the trees for a long moment before he corrected himself. “Not his name,” he whispered. “Yours.” Robert Matthew Carrick, Earl Sumner, heir to the Dukedom of Marwick.
