Ethan regarded his companion as Miller led their horses away. “Do you spread sedition like this among your peers?”

“Of course. It isn’t treason to speculate on methods of improving governance, though that’s hardly why I trotted up your lane.”

Ethan walked in silence beside the marquis, realizing the call wasn’t entirely social. With a sense of foreboding, Ethan escorted his lordship to the house, signaled a footman, and led his guest into the library. “One hopes you came to enjoy a cold drink and a little neighborly company.”

“One can hope that,” Heathgate countered when the door was closed, “but one would be attributing to me a delicacy of manners I lack.”

And the true Marquis of Heathgate subtly stepped forward.

“You don’t come bearing another picnic summons, do you? Pardon me. They are invitations, not summonses.”

“More like writs of habeas corpus, issued by the womenfolk.”

“Right.” Ethan did not smile, since having Heathgate in his home was not quite comfortable. He liked the man, respected him, and enjoyed his family.

And yet, he made Ethan… uneasy.

“Tydings is pretty,” Heathgate said, glancing around the room. “Greymoor claimed this was so, and was intrigued that you’ve achieved a graceful home without a lady in residence. Did your late wife take the place in hand?”

He was clearly stalling until the refreshment had been delivered, and Ethan was willing to delay whatever Heathgate came to tell him.

“Barbara was not much inclined to domestication,” Ethan said. “I’ve done what I thought necessary to the place, and thank you for the compliment.”

“I knew the lady.” Heathgate turned his attention to the view beyond the French doors. “You are kind to her memory.”

Ethan was not going to ask his neighbor in what sense he’d known Barbara. She’d taken lovers before and after they’d married, and she’d been a devastatingly attractive woman—physically.

Heathgate surveyed his host. “You are silent. I wasn’t one of her amours, if that’s what you’re wondering, but you probably knew exactly with whom she disported, where and when.”

“I kept close enough track of her,” Ethan responded, and then—thank God—the footman’s tap on the door provided a distraction. When Heathgate was ensconced in a cushioned chair, a cold glass of lemonade in his hand, Ethan settled in the opposite chair and consciously relaxed his shoulders.

Heathgate withdrew a thin sheaf of papers from his waistcoat. “You won’t want to leave this where it can be easily stumbled across by prying eyes.”

“What is it?” Ethan set the papers aside, sensing instinctively he did not want to know their contents.

“My notes, taken when interviewing Benjamin Hazlit regarding certain individuals I’d asked him to investigate.”

The idea of Heathgate and Hazlit coupled like hounds on a scent made Ethan’s blood run cold.

“This would be of interest to me?” Ethan wanted to toss the papers out the French doors, but kept his expression bland.

“I’ve already warned you Collins is back in the country,” Heathgate said. “I thought it prudent to know what he and his former associates were up to, so I set Hazlit to the task.”

“In God’s name, why?” Ethan rose, unable to maintain a cool facade. “It’s damned near twenty years in the past. Why do you insist on bringing this up?”

“I don’t know.” Heathgate sipped his drink, a man in no hurry to cease prying into Ethan’s old wounds. “Greymoor’s countess claims I have a cruel streak.”

“You surely didn’t discuss this with your sister-by-marriage?” Ethan’s voice was tight, and he let his temper show in the glare he leveled at his guest.

“I haven’t discussed your personal business with anyone. Not even Lady Heathgate knows the details, and I do not keep secrets from my wife.”

“I wish to hell you wouldn’t discuss this with me.”

“I don’t believe that’s so.” Heathgate rose and went to stand beside Ethan where he stared out his mullioned windows. “You don’t like what I know of the crimes against you, Ethan Grey, but you’d like it even less were you completely alone with the knowledge yourself. You’d begin to doubt your memories, tell yourself you exaggerated and embellished when you did not and you do not. Read those notes, my friend. Those jackals ambushed you once. You must not let them ambush you again. Think of your sons and your family.”

“I am thinking of my sons. What would you have me do? Turn myself in to the constable as a sodomite to implicate Collins in something easily dismissed as distasteful schoolboy nonsense?”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Heathgate put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder and just let it rest there. To be touched by another man while discussing Hart Collins was at once unbearable and oddly comforting.

Heathgate removed his hand, but apparently wasn’t done passing out advice. “There’s a middle ground between calling Collins out in some misguided attempt at revenge and ignoring him completely. The middle ground is to be informed and prepared, and thus to give yourself the upper hand if and when he acts. He has lingered longer in England this time than at any point previous, and no longer has the funds to debauch his way across the Continent.”

Ethan let out a held breath, his mind comprehending Heathgate was offering him wisdom, even if his body was more prepared for a fight. On some level, he’d been prepared for a fight ever since the day Collins had assaulted him as a boy in the Stoneham stables.

“We’re not boys anymore,” Ethan said. “What makes you think Collins is any threat to my peace of mind at all?”

Heathgate’s glacier-blue eyes gave away nothing. “I saw the condition they put you in, and that wasn’t schoolboy nonsense, and believe me, having attended Stoneham for four years, I saw plenty of nonsense. Something is wrong with Collins. He was tossed out of at least three other schools for either extreme violence or incidents similar to the one you were involved in. There’s probably a word for the kind of man he is, but if he were a horse, I’d put him down.”

“He did the same thing to others?” The heart in Ethan’s chest took up a heavy drumbeat, not dread exactly, but a sense of the moment bearing portents with far-reaching effects. “How many?”

“At least two others whom Hazlit spoke to personally,” Heathgate said. “Hazlit says Collins was engaged briefly, but the lady wouldn’t have him. And as quickly as Benjamin has assembled a very thorough report, the man has to be nigh notorious. Then too, Hazlit has some personal animosity toward Collins which I do not doubt goes back as far as your own. They’re both from Cumbria, though Hazlit keeps his antecedents quiet. You’ll read the notes?”

“I will.” The idea of Collins originating from the same shire as Alice made Ethan want to retch.

Heathgate continued to study Ethan. “You wonder if it’s ever going to completely go away, don’t you? You bury yourself in your commerce and immure yourself here in the woods of Surrey, and all the while, in the back of your mind, it lurks, waiting to pounce.”

“Do you expect me to admit that to you?” There were depths to Heathgate, and not necessarily happy ones.

“Oh, of course not.” Heathgate’s smile was humorless. “Whatever you’re dragging around, whatever memories you’re trying to ignore, they don’t learn their proper place until you turn around and stare them down.”

“Have you taken up hearing confessions too, your reverence?” Ethan’s tone was dry, just short of desperately disrespectful.

His guest’s expression was utterly serious. “My name is Gareth. I will thank you to use it henceforth, should we be informally private.”

Ethan’s eyebrows rose, for such an invitation was beyond peculiar—also blatantly flattering. As neighbors, someday Ethan might have been expected to address the marquis simply as “Heathgate,” but never by his given name. Only a brother might have presumed to call him by his name.

“I will read your notes, Gareth.” Ethan said the name carefully, feeling the strangeness of it, but thinking the name suited the very masculine specimen before him. “And you have my thanks for taking an interest in my situation.”

“I’m off, then. I’ve invited James and Will to ride out with me tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Amery might bring Rose if he can’t weasel out of it, but the boys learned you mean to take your two cubbing this fall, and so you see before you a doomed papa.”

When Heathgate dropped a subject, at least he dropped it entirely.

“Cubbing is harmless enough,” Ethan said as he walked his guest to the front door. “I have no appetite for true blood sport.”

“Neither do I, but Nick enjoys it, doesn’t he?”

“I think he enjoys a good gallop and a romp with the hounds. A man his size is not permitted to cringe at a grisly death, or to sympathize with poor Renard.”

“A man his size?” Heathgate’s gaze traveled Ethan’s length, which exceeded his own by a couple of inches.

“I am a veritable sylph compared to my brother. Just as you are ancient compared to yours.”

“Just so.” Heathgate pulled on his gloves. “My marchioness found a gray hair on me yesterday. Don’t have daughters, my friend. They age a man as sons cannot.”

“You’re a font of wisdom, at least today.”

“‘A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country,’” Heathgate quoted. “I have to dispense my wisdom where it will be appreciated—so see that you heed me.”

Ethan let him have the last word because, after all, the man had made sense—except for that blather about daughters. But rather than head back into the library and read the damned notes, Ethan turned the other way and sought his younger son. He had plans for his day, and his night, and reading sordid history did not comport with those plans at all.

* * *

The gentry were proving accommodating, suggesting to Baron Collins that he’d been remiss not to frequent English house parties in years past. While enjoying fine food, decent drink, and the occasional housemaid—or footman—Collins could keep an eye on Ethan Grey and meet easily with that handy tool known by the locals as Thatcher.

“I can’t be sneakin’ about like this,” Thatcher grumbled. “Miller watches me, and the work won’t do itself when I’m waiting for ye to come strollin’ along.”

“Stable work is completed before dark,” Collins retorted. “And I wasn’t about to risk hanging felonies without corroborating your characterization of Grey’s situation.”

“Ye done what?”

A handy tool often sported a dull blade. “Without making sure Grey is as rich as you say he is. Many a fine lord is living on credit.”

“He ain’t a lord. He’s a right bastard.”

“He’s a wealthy man.” An affront to the natural order, that was, when the scion of an old and noble house had to scrounge for accommodations while a lowly bastard prospered. “He will soon be much less wealthy.”

Except as Thatcher reported the routine in the stables, Collins realized the timing of his plans would be delicate. Ethan Grey’s stables were busy, with grooms on hand at all hours and the tyrant Miller overseeing every detail. Worse, the children were closely supervised, and Mr. Grey himself often in company with them—and having Grey about would not do at all.

“I shall be patient,” Collins decided. “I’ve waited nigh twenty years to put this particular upstart in his place. I can wait a bit longer.”

Thatcher shuffled away in the shadows, leaving Collins to study the edifice up the hill from the paddocks.

Ethan Grey had indeed prospered, and that… that simply wasn’t to be borne.

Seventeen

“I liked sleeping with you,” Alice announced when Ethan let himself into her room. The hour was late, approaching midnight, and she’d already donned her summer nightgown and wrapper, though the evening was decidedly more autumnal.

“I liked sleeping with you too.” Ethan smiled to see her already out of her clothes. She no doubt thought she’d foiled his desire to see her naked as she undressed, silly woman. “And I’m sure I’ll like it even more tonight.”

He drew her to her feet from where she sat at her writing desk and wrapped his arms around her. She was all warmth, soft curves, and fresh lemony fragrance, and Ethan felt arousal stirring just to be holding her. There was more to his reaction, too—a kind of mental sigh, to have achieved the sanctuary of her embrace.

“It isn’t too late to change your mind, Alice,” he whispered near her ear. “I won’t think less of you if you send me packing.”