“Are you going to stand there gawking,” Bellefonte asked when he’d batted his manservant away, “or come sit in the light where I can pretend to see you?”

“I’ll stand,” Ethan said, but he moved closer, understanding his father was constitutionally incapable of asking for consideration.

“Suit your arrogant, silly self.” The earl balanced himself carefully on the desk and slowly lowered himself onto his favorite chair, landing with a soft plop and a sigh. “Now then, why have you come here, robbing me of my slumbers, when we both know we’ll end up yelling and wishing this might have kept for later?”

“You are running out of laters,” Ethan said, trying to keep his tone brisk. “One must accommodate this inconvenience.”

The earl grinned, making his drawn features look skeletal. “So accommodate, and tell me why you’ve come back. I know you’ve been lurking about the place for the past couple of days. Nita has been looking like the cat in the cream to have you underfoot.”

“Matters between you and me need further resolution.”

“You want to bellow and strut and reel with righteousness?” The earl waved a veined hand. “Well, have at it. I can’t hear or see to speak of, so you’ll only be wearing yourself out, but I suppose you’re entitled.”

“Why would I be entitled?” Ethan pressed, the injured boy in him unwilling to give up his due.

The earl met his eyes squarely. “Because, lad, I made grievous, compound mistakes with you, for which I am sorry. There, can we dispense with the tantrum now?”

Ethan lifted an eyebrow. “That is a declaration of remorse, which does not quite rise to the level of an apology, but no matter. I’ve a modicum of remorse of my own.”

A large modicum, if there was such a thing.

“Oh?” The earl’s tone was a masterpiece of lack of interest, but his aged body sat slightly forward, and his eyes tracked Ethan’s expression like a sinner eyed salvation.

“Oh.” Ethan lowered himself into a chair across the desk from the old man and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Their names are Jeremiah and Joshua, and they are your grandsons, born to me and my late wife, five and six years ago.”

The words started up that damnable ache in Ethan’s throat. The boys would not care that the earl was old and skinny and grumpy. They would love him for the stories he told and his sly, irreverent humor.

They would have loved him.

“No matter my quarrels with you,” Ethan said more quietly, “I should not have kept your only grandsons a secret from you. To do so was to commit a version of the same folly you visited on me when you sent me away.”

For long, silent moments the earl said nothing, merely held his peace and kept his head down. Were he a younger man, a healthier man, Ethan knew he’d be indulging in a tantrum, roaring and reeling and making the servants shudder with his outrage. But he was old, frail, dying.

“I am too damned tired to rise from this chair for something as petty as a display of pique, which would impress you not one bit. Have you miniatures?” the earl asked when he finally met Ethan’s eyes again. Silently, Ethan passed two gold-backed miniatures across the desk, then slid a candle nearer to the center of the desk as the earl peered at the likenesses.

“Going to have your hands full with these two,” the earl said with relish. “They have your stubborn chin, Ethan, and the same light of mischief in their eyes you used to sport. Tell me about them.”

When the earl ran out of energy to ask further questions, he sat back, still studying the little paintings.

“I’m glad you told me,” he said at length. “If Della or Nick knew, they kept your confidences.”

“Nick did not know.”

The earl nodded. “Good of you.” He pushed the miniatures back across the desk, straightening with effort.

“Keep them,” Ethan said gently, his eyes saying what they both knew: It was a loan, to be redeemed after the earl’s death.

“Believe I shall,” the earl said. “And I shall extract a price for guarding them for you.”

“Oh, of course.” Ethan felt humor and an oddly welcome respect for his father’s wiliness. “Name your price.”

“Your brother informs me of his intent to ask for this Lindsey girl,” the earl began, all paternal nonchalance. “Will she do?”

That Bellefonte would seek this information from Ethan was touching. That Ethan would provide it, proof the age of miracles had not entirely ended.

“I like her,” Ethan said. “More to the point, she likes Nick and doesn’t view him as just a means to a title. He doesn’t scare her or awe her or sway her with his charm.”

The earl frowned. “And Nick? Why is he choosing this one, when her past is checkered, she’s not young, and he can’t dazzle her with his usual weapons?”

“I think he trusts her. Trusts she will be grateful enough for his protection to keep her vows and take his interests to heart.”

“So she’s honorable,” the earl concluded. “That will have to do, but, Ethan?”

“Sir?”

“I fear in my dotage, or perhaps in anticipation of an interview with St. Peter, I am growing dithery. I have pushed your brother mercilessly to find a bride before I die, when I myself did not marry until I was considerably older than Nick is now.”

“You were a younger son.” The defense came out unbidden, though it was the simple truth.

“And Nick has three other brothers, though we can’t really count on George to contribute sons to the House of Haddonfield, can we?” the earl groused. “I did not have to demand so vociferously that my heir take a bride, and now that Nick’s marriage is close at hand, I am wishing Nick had chosen for himself, not for me.”

And thus, the ground became boggy with conflicting loyalties. “I don’t think Nick regards himself as very promising husband material. Had you not cornered him with a promise, I doubt he would have chosen any bride at all.”

The earl smiled. “There is that. The boy is a damned stallion with the ladies.”

“He has that reputation,” Ethan said. “He’s curbed his enthusiasm while he’s seeking a bride.”

“Maybe. Nonetheless, I want to extract the proverbial deathbed promise from you, Ethan.” Never was such an endeavor so gleefully posited.

“You may try,” Ethan replied coolly, knowing the earl expected no less of him.

“Resume the job I took from you in your youth.”

“What job would that be?”

“Guard your brother’s back. If I know him, he’s charging into this marriage headlong, with all sorts of fool notions and no clear sense of the institution’s proper purpose. Keep him from making a complete hash of it, would you?”

“I made worse than a hash of my own marriage, ergo, this is not a promise I feel qualified to make.”

“You married the wrong woman,” the earl concluded dismissively. “This Lindsey girl has potential, as does Nick.”

“So I’m to what?” Ethan shoved to his feet. “Serve as some sort of Cupid? A fairy godmother to my little brother in his Society marriage? You know I wouldn’t promise any such thing. Nick has more experience dealing with ladies than I will ever have.”

Than he ever hoped to have, come to that.

“You are simply to be his friend,” the earl said, sitting back with a sigh that was the embodiment of subtle parental histrionics. “Don’t let the estrangement I created keep you from each other, not when Nick will be dealing with my death, his eternally dear but squealing sisters, a new wife, and that pack of buffoons we refer to as the Lords. Nick will find a title brings with it a peculiar brand of loneliness, and he’ll need you every bit as much as he did as a boy.”

The earl’s words held no posturing or attempt at manipulation. He was just a papa, trying to see to his children’s happiness in a future they would face without him. And in truth, the earl had read both sons accurately.

“I will be Nick’s devoted brother, to the extent he will allow it.”

“Perishing lawyer.” The earl scowled at his son with what Ethan knew damned well was affection. “Fair enough. Now go scare him and tell him I want to see him, and I don’t have all night.”

“Pressing engagements?”

The earl grimaced. “Wait until you are old, boy. You’ll learn the tyranny of the chamber pot, see if you don’t.”

And now, Ethan did not want to go. Not even so far as the comfortable chambers down the hall. “I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“Off to Town, no doubt,” the earl said briskly.

“Would you like to be closer to the fire?”

“I would. Why don’t you bring the fireplace over here?”

“That would likely be less trouble than getting you to accept assistance,” Ethan muttered. “Up you go.” He took his father’s arm and boosted him to his feet with a hand under the opposite elbow, then kept his arm around his father’s waist as the old man tottered across the room.

“There is no accurately conveying the bitter depths of the indignities that befall a proud man in old age,” the earl said, pausing before the cushioned chair at the hearth. “I know I should be grateful for each day…”

“But it’s a qualified gratitude,” Ethan suggested. “Like many of life’s blessings are qualified.”

“Just so.” The earl weaved a little on his feet and clutched Ethan’s hand. He weaved more and reached his bony arms around Ethan’s waist. “But don’t worry about me, boy, and don’t worry for yourself. You’ll do fine in this life, and I am proud of you.” He held on in Ethan’s embrace with a ferocity belied by his frailness, before repeating, “You’ll be fine. I know you’ll be just fine.”

“Guard those miniatures for me,” Ethan said, carefully lowering his father to the chair.

“Oh, of course.” The earl wheezed a laugh. “With my life, you may depend upon it. My very life. Now be gone, and fetch Wee Nick.”

“Good night, Papa.”

The earl’s lips quirked as he withdrew the miniatures from his pocket. “Good night, Son. Safe journey.”

* * *

Nick and Ethan pushed the horses, and they made Town by early afternoon, bringing the sun with them, much to Nick’s relief. He declined Ethan’s invitation for lunch and barely tarried in his own mews long enough to pass the reins of his mare to a groom, before taking off at a brisk pace for the park.

He was going to be quite early, at least an hour, but he needed the time to gather his thoughts. At his town house there would be correspondence to deal with, bills to pay, petty squabbles to sort out between the maids and the footmen, menus to look at, invitations to sort, and God knew what other trivia to take up his time and clutter his mind.

Leah would put him out of the misery of his uncertainty one way or another, and he needed to think.

Nick found his usual bench and settled himself upon it. His favorite duck waddled over, honked at him, and waddled away in disgust when it became apparent no food would be forthcoming. A breeze stirred the water, the swan glided by, and gradually, impression by impression, the peace of the day seeped into him.

There were nice spring days, and then there were glorious spring days. Somewhere between Kent and London, the day had turned glorious. The temperature was perfect—neither hot nor chilly, but just comfortably, agreeably right. Colors were brilliantly clear, in the flowers, the shimmery green expanses of lawn, the reflections on the pond, the greening trees. No creature could dwell in such a day without feeling blessed, and Nick was no exception. His gaze fell on various aspects of his surroundings—children chasing a ball, a loose dog chasing the children, governesses in their drab attire trying to visit while keeping their eyes on their charges. He shifted to take in more of the passing scene and became aware of something not quite in harmony with the tranquility of the whole.

A woman was walking across the green from Nick’s bench—but she moved too quickly, her head down, her body radiating tension. She was well dressed, but on either side of her were men garbed in the rough wool of the working class, each man with a hand clamped on the lady’s upper arm.

Trouble in paradise, Nick thought, just as his mind registered what his eyes were trying to tell him: Leah!

He was on his feet, bellowing, pelting across the grass and turning all heads. Anger that Leah should be handled roughly right in public warred with gut-clenching fear that Nick wouldn’t reach her in time.

The men trying to drag Leah with them stepped up their pace, but hearing Nick’s voice, she began to resist more strenuously. He reached her just at the gate nearest the street and hooked a massive arm around the neck of her closest assailant.