to find the duke sprawled in a chair with a decanter at his elbow and a copy of Sporting News in the near vicinity.
Sometimes the Earl of Mayne joined them; either way the talk circled comfortably around horses and brandy. All tedious subjects such as women, financial affairs, and family were avoided, not from some trumped-up idea of secluding themselves from the world, but because those subjects were tedious. By their advanced age of thirty-some, women had proved to be (except in certain circumstances) fairly wearisome companions.
Money came to all three of them with supreme ease, and money is only interesting when it is in short supply. As for family … since his own had eschewed contact with him for years, Lucius viewed the turmoils of other people’s families with some, if lethargic, interest. But after Holbrook had lost his brother, they had stopped discussing family as well.
Thus when Lucius descended from his carriage at Holbrook Court, he viewed with some severity the butler, who conveyed to him the news that the duke had unexpectedly become guardian to the four nubile young daughters of Lord Brydone, and with even less pleasure did he receive the news that Lady Clarice Maitland and her devil’s spawn of a son were at the table. The presence of Mayne was the only mitigating light in this dismaying turn of events. Mayne must be planning to run his filly Plaisir in the Silchester Gold Plate, which would provide a good opportunity for Lucius to test the paces of his own Minuet, running in her first race.
But as Lucius pulled on a clean shirt in the chambers assigned to him (not, he noticed with disapproval, the room to which he was accustomed because that apparently had been given to one of the nubile young misses), he rather thought that he might skip the Silchester and leave his stable master and jockeys to do the job on their own. He had several sweet deals brewing in the city. And if the duke’s house was no longer a bastion of male comradeship and comfort – and the presence of females had undoubtedly changed it to something more starched-up and far less comfortable — he might as well abandon his intent to attend the race and return to London in the morning. Or at least to the estate he owned an hour or so from here. He hadn’t visited Bramble Hill in some four months.
His manservant Derwent bustled in the door, having obtained a bowl of shaving water from the kitchens. Derwent had taken this news even more poorly than had his master; the company of women was distasteful to Derwent at the best of times, and the presence of so many marriageable ladies in the house had thrown him into a flurry of acid comments.
‘Apparently they haven’t a stitch to their backs,’ he said, brushing up a warm froth of soap, preparatory to shaving Lucius’s face. ‘One can only guess at the endeavours the poor duke will have to go through to hoist four females onto the market, and none of them marriageable in the least.’
‘Are they unattractive, then?’ Lucius asked, gazing at the ceiling so that Derwent could shave his neck in a clean stroke.
‘Well, Brinkley didn’t describe them as strictly unattractive,’ Derwent said, ‘but they came with only one or two garments and those most repellent, if you can believe it. And Scottish, you know, without dowries. The accent is fatal on the market. The poor things would have to be very lucky to take.’
Derwent gazed anxiously at his master. One didn’t have to think hard to realise that the Duke of Holbrook would be desperate to bestow his wards on all and sundry … including his oldest friends.
Felton was lying back calmly, but Derwent had a sense of doom. Doom. His left eye was twitching, and that always signalled an unfortunate turn of events. His eye had twitched unmercifully the day that the Duke of York fell off his horse in the midst of a victory parade two years previous; and then there was July of last year when the master entangled himself with Lady Genevieve Mulcaster. Derwent had been unable to see to his left side for a month and was nearly struck down by a wagon and four horses on High Street.
‘Finished?’ his master asked, opening his heavy-lidded eyes.
Derwent jumped, horrified to find that his hand had paused in midair, thinking about the travails of marriage. Goddesses, that was how Brinkley had described Holbrook’s young wards. He sniffed. Goddess is as goddess does, and no woman could do well enough for the master. He patted Felton around the chin with a soft towel.
Lucius stood up and began tying a neckcloth in deft folds. ‘I’m considering skipping the Silchester races,’ he told Derwent. ‘Under the circumstances.’
‘Precisely!’ Derwent agreed. ‘The circumstances will be difficult indeed for the poor Duke of Holbrook. We would do better to leave immediately. I shan’t unpack your bags, sir.’
Lucius threw him an amused look. ‘I’m not in the market for a wife,’ he said gently. ‘I consider myself able to resist the charms of Rafe’s wards for a night or two.’
‘I would never venture to comment,’ Derwent said with an air of studied carelessness, as he helped Lucius shrug into an evening coat of superfine wool.
‘Good,’ Lucius said. But then he relented. ‘Still, I thought it kind to divert you from such wholly unpleasant and unnecessary thoughts, Derwent.’
‘Very kind,’ the valet said with dignity, opening the door. ‘Extremely so.’
‘I am quite certain,’ Lucius added, ‘that should I become ensnared in the parson’s mousetrap someday, it will not be due to the presence of a few inexperienced Scottish lasses left without friends and family and thrust on the kindness of poor Rafe.’
‘Without a doubt, sir,’ Derwent said. His left eye was twitching like murder.
His master peered at him. ‘Are you quite all right? Your eyebrow appears to be developing a life of its own.’
‘Yes, sir. I am quite all right.’ And Mr Felton left, for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter.
Derwent went over to the mirror and picked up the silver bowl of spent shaving water. But his attention was caught by his own appearance in the glass. His eye was twitching something mortal; the price of being a sensitive soul, as his mother always said. But his moustache was so fine as to draw attention away from any particular element of his face. It swept out from his mouth and ended in an innovation all Derwent’s own: a waxed spade shape on either side.
Alas, Lucius Felton was resolutely conservative when it came to dress. No moustache. No facial hair whatsoever, as a matter of fact. The most he would allow his valet to do was to sleek his thick blond hair back from his face in a style that was most severe.
Derwent sighed. It was his fate to be an artiste in the service of a man with no sense of fashion.
And now, possibly, Felton would take a wife. Wives meant the end of pleasant jaunts hither and yon, as the race season dictated. Domestic life! It was enough to drive a man to tears.
* * *
Lucius strolled after Brinkley into the dining room, hoping against hope that Rafe wouldn’t see fit to place him next to Lady Clarice. The very idea of Clarice Maitland made the hair stand on the back of his neck.
He found Rafe seated at the head of the table, looking much the same as usual. His neckcloth was tied in a careless knot, his hair stood straight up at the back, and there was a glass of brandy in his hand.
But the rest of the table – Lucius almost stopped flat in his tracks. Derwent had said Rafe’s wards were not unattractive? Not unattractive? A woman with hair of a deep golden colour looked up and smiled at him … and the smile was enough to make him bolt the room. And there was a dark-haired, blue-eyed one, with the expression of a passionate saint, one of those early virgin martyr types whose face burns with emotion. He just caught himself from stepping backward.
‘Lucius!’ Rafe called, beckoning to him.
He walked over, calculating how soon he could leave. It was a good thing that Derwent did not plan to unpack his valises. The last place he wanted to be was amidst a nest of marriage-minded young ladies: he had enough of that on his rare appearances during the season. ‘I am very sorry to disrupt you, under the circumstances,’