“Sit you down, Nicholas. We can talk more later, if you find you want to. I’m not sure I do. State your business.”

“I can hardly recall my business,” Nick growled.

Ethan waited him out.

“I need some help,” Nick said at length, his tone truculent.

Not at all what Ethan had expected—though he wasn’t sure what he had expected. “What manner of help?”

“I’ve been called to Belle Maison, but there’s a young lady here in Town whose safety I have pledged to ensure.”

With Nick, it was ever a problem with the ladies. The predictability of this also gratified. “What manner of young lady? I’ve no need to take on one of your lightskirts, Nicholas.”

“She’s a decent woman. I’ve asked Della to invite her to Clover Down for the week, or until I can get free of Bellefonte. Her dear father, the Earl of Wilton, seeks to wed her to Hellerington, or somebody of that ilk. If she can’t secure such a match, the old man might procure a different sort of situation for her.”

Ethan didn’t bother to keep amusement from his face. “You are in the shining-armor business, it appears.”

“I am not, but neither can I leave somebody who is essentially helpless in harm’s way.” Nick’s pronouncement was made in tones of self-disgust, which Ethan allowed to remain unremarked.

“What am I supposed to do? Wilton is a nasty bugger, Nick, and I am not anybody’s heir.”

“Just escort Della and Lady Leah out to Clover Down,” Nick said, “and hang about until I come back from Belle Maison.”

“I can do that.” Ethan was surprised to see the depth of the gratitude in Nick’s eyes. “Christ, Nick, are you really so alone as all that?”

Nick’s gaze slid away, and Ethan had his answer.

“Your ladies will be safely tucked away in the country,” Ethan assured him. “Is there more you would ask of me?”

Nick was silent, and Ethan reached over and plucked Nick’s empty teacup from his hand.

“This is me, Nicholas,” Ethan said in low, impatient tones. “I accidentally branded your bony little arse, I was the first person to get drunk with you, and I wouldn’t know how to read if you hadn’t taught me my letters. What?”

“Come to his funeral,” Nick said, his gaze on his empty hands. “Not the service, if you don’t want to, but to Belle Maison.”

Ethan rose and ran a hand across hair slightly darker than Nick’s. “I did ask.”

He turned his back to Nick, staring into the fire as a plethora of emotions rioted through him—resentment, surprise, and something else. An elusive little bolt of warmth Ethan wasn’t about to examine too closely. Nick needed him, and for the first time in more than ten years, Ethan could help. The sneering, righteous rejection he’d practiced off and on for all that time was the last thing on Ethan’s mind.

“You don’t have to.” Nick rose as well. “I’m presuming, to put such a request to you.”

Ethan half turned and regarded his younger brother—his harried, tired, worried, very large younger brother who had gone into the shining-armor business, whether he admitted it or not. “I’ll go. I’ll escort Della and your damsel, and when Bellefonte goes to his reward, I’ll at least put in an appearance, if you’re still certain you want me there when the time comes.”

“I will,” Nick assured him, eyeing him grimly. “Beck is lying low in Portsmouth, Dolph and George will probably be skipping around from one house party to the next, you’ll be easy to reach, and…”

“And?”

Nick slapped riding gloves against his thigh in a slow, solid rhythm. “And of real use. To me. To the girls. They’ve missed you.”

Ethan said nothing rather than remark on all the letters he’d never received from his devoted sisters.

Nick turned his back and reached for the door latch. “God knows I’ve missed you too.”

And then he was gone.

* * *

“Wilton has made it plain that I’m to secure Lady Warne’s sponsorship for Emily, and that’s the only reason he’s allowing me to accept this invitation.” Leah ambled along on Nick’s arm at a decorous pace completely at variance with the panic building inside her.

“What aren’t you telling me, Leah?” Nick’s tone was pleasant, a gentleman escorting a lady on a casual ramble by the duck pond on a spring day.

She wasn’t telling him she was scared nigh to death, wasn’t telling him she needed his embrace with a desperation that qualified as pathetic.

“Wilton’s getting worse, Nick. He no longer seems to care what befalls me or who learns of it.”

Nick’s hand closed over hers in a warm, reassuring squeeze. “In two days’ time, you’ll be ensconced at Clover Down. Because I must away to Belle Maison, my brother Ethan will escort you, and you can pry all my boyhood secrets from him. We were incorrigible, of course…”

She let the soothing patter of his voice wash over her, let herself believe that a week in the country would work some miracle where Wilton was concerned. She also let Nick draw her once again into the privacy of the willow bower on the far side of the pond.

“You are pale, lovey,” Nick said, wrapping his arms around her. “Your eyes are haunted, and fatigue shows around your mouth.” He bent his head and brushed his lips over that mouth. “You must not fret. All will be well.”

When he held her like this, Leah could believe it—Nicholas seemed to believe it, but then, his father hadn’t murdered his betrothed, and all but promised to deliver him, bound hand and foot, into a life of abject depravity.

She let herself cling to him for just a few more minutes, storing up the sandalwood scent of him, the heat of his tall body, the solid muscles enveloping her, and then she forced herself to step away.

“For two more days, I can manage, Nicholas. I’m not usually inclined to such dramatics.”

The look he gave her was searching, far more serious than his usual genial expression. Meeting his gaze, Leah was struck in a whole different way with how very attractive he was, and how male. The woman he married had best guard her heart and guard it well.

The breeze stirred, teasing a lock of blond hair across Nick’s brow. They were still in the sheltering embrace of the willow branches, so Leah allowed herself to smooth that errant lock back into place.

“Two days, lovey, and then Ethan and Lady Warne will kidnap you from your tower. Wilton won’t risk anything drastic when he knows you’re expected by a dowager marchioness at week’s end. Be strong for two more days.”

He kissed her again, a sound smack on the lips. One of his kisses for courage—though what did it say about her, that she was starting to catalogue the kisses of a man whom she had no intention of marrying?

Six

It nearly killed Nick to leave Clover Down without stopping in at Blossom Court, but he’d learned years ago that Leonie was a creature of routine. She loved him, and he loved her, but that meant he loved her enough that if she wasn’t expecting him, he could no longer disturb her peace by just dropping by.

When he did reach his father’s side, he was glad he hadn’t tarried on the way.

“What took you so infernally long to get here, boy?” Bellefonte’s voice had lost volume but not bite, Nick noted as he mentally armored himself for this interview.

“One doesn’t leave Town in the middle of the Season without having to send out regrets, confer with solicitors, and make other arrangements.” He met his father’s gaze, but it was an effort. The old man was losing ground, and that, not the earl’s temper, his displeasure, or his infernal meddling, was what bothered Nick most.

I’m losing him. Nick wandered around the overly warm, camphor-and-books-scented study, the better to avoid looking at his father. We’re losing him. Nick would never again be a little boy who could throw himself into his father’s arms and feel small and protected, knowing a robust, if irascible, father would defeat all demons and slay all dragons.

“Perhaps one doesn’t.” The earl’s scowl eased. “You’re too skinny, Reston.”

“Too much dancing.”

“Not enough dancing. You’ve brought me no sweet young thing for my approval.”

“I’m considering a few possibilities,” Nick said, “but I figure you’re too stubborn to die until I find the right lady, so there is no real hurry.”

“Cheeky.” The earl grinned fleetingly. “You get that from me, but don’t be too cocky, my boy.”

“Of course not.” Nick nodded graciously and forced himself to take a seat opposite the desk that now seemed to dwarf its owner. “I want this marriage business over with probably more than you do.”

The grin evaporated. “You don’t make sense. Of all my lusty boys, you are the lustiest of the lot. Word is you’ll swive anything in skirts—unlike your nancy brother, George, by the way—so what’s the delay in finding a countess?”

“In the first place,” Nick said pleasantly, “I do not swive anything in skirts, but am, rather, very choosy about my partners. In the second place, keep your beak out of my personal business, or I’ll dawdle until June to make a selection and let her choose the wedding date. In the third place, not just any woman could take on the family you’ve created, my lord, much less your rather generously proportioned heir.”

The earl waved a bony, mottled hand. “Marry some bovine parson’s daughter, my boy. You know I believe in the occasional outcross.”

“I will consider that advice,” Nick said, his tone somewhere between bored and pleasant.

“See that you do,” Bellefonte snapped. “This dying business is tedious, young man. I do not relish becoming an ugly, odoriferous old stick, and I would be done with it sooner rather than later. Your dithering wears on me, sir.”

Nick suffered that hit, as it hid a genuine plea for haste and for understanding.

“So how fare you, Father?” Nick asked, all hint of posturing gone.

Bellefonte smiled thinly. “I do not suffer, particularly, except that indignities bring a pain all their own. I am not bedridden yet, though, so you have some time. I truly do wish only to see you happy.”

“One would never accuse you of having any other motivation,” Nick drawled, returning the smile.

“And as to that brother of yours…” Bellefonte shoved the momentary sentimentality aside with another dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m going to formally acknowledge him.”

Nick went still, not having seen this pronouncement coming.

“You haven’t told Ethan,” Nick surmised. “Don’t expect me to tell him. This is between the two of you.”

“Don’t preach to me, Nicholas. I know how to deal with my own children.”

“By sending them all away,” Nick said. “You wanted to spare them the ordeal of watching your decline.” A final, poignant display of patriarchal kindness.

“And spare myself the pleasure of being watched as I decline,” the earl added. “I’ve unfinished business with you and your brother.”

Your brother, Nick noted, meant Ethan, as if those other three young men were something else.

“So finish it.” Nick fell silent, waiting and wondering what in the world his father had to say to him. In recent years, they’d gotten better at bickering, taunting, and insulting their way through difficult matters, such that what needed discussion was in some-wise discussed. So what did that leave?

“I owe you and Ethan an apology,” the earl said, spearing Nick with a glare. “I was wrong to separate you all those years ago, and more wrong for how I went about it.”

“Apology accepted,” Nick heard himself say, though inside, in his chest, his vitals, his brain, a shivery feeling came over him. “Will you be joining us for dinner? I’ve brought one of Moreland’s sons with me from Town.”

“Bother that.” Bellefonte rummaged in a drawer of the desk. “My hands shake so badly, eating is no longer pretty, if it ever was.”

“You had exquisite manners,” Nick said softly, knowing his own delicacy at table was gained by following his father’s example. “Is this why you’re turning into a shadow?”

The old man banged the drawer shut. “Assuredly not. It’s because I’m fretting over the succession, you insolent, thoughtless, self-centered puppy.”

Only his father had ever called him a puppy and managed to make him feel like one.

“Of course.” Nick rose, his smile genuine. “Then you won’t mind if I have a word with Nita and the cooks regarding your menus.”

“Listen, pup.” The earl struggled to rise, and Nick let him. Pure cussedness got the old man to his feet, and love of a good scrap had him leaning over the desk, bracing himself on gnarled knuckles. “You will not go telling Cookie to feed me beef tea through a damned straw. The day I can’t chew my own food is the day I stop eating.”