“A spicy one,” the earl commented. “And about as open as a miser’s purse. You show only surface; the rest is hidden deep.”

“Indeed?” the viscount drawled. “Well, if you say so. However, I agree I’ve found that tossing gossips warm red meat keeps them full and happy, and not likely to ask for more.”

The earl smiled. He was more than a decade older than the viscount, but they’d been friends since they’d met the year before at the earl’s adopted son’s wedding. The Viscount Haye had turned out to be the long-lost half brother of the illegitimate Daffyd, whose wedding it had been. The earl and the viscount had found much in common and become friends. This puzzled the earl’s friends and amused the viscount’s cronies, because two more dissimilar men were hard to find.

Leland, Viscount Haye, was a wildly successful womanizer. He loved women and they loved him, but he was resolutely single and lived in high style, entertaining females of all classes and conditions. The earl was still in love with his late wife, and only occasionally formed brief relationships with discreet women.

Geoffrey Sauvage, Earl of Egremont, was bookish, reclusive, a man with a gentle nature. The viscount Haye was said to be amazingly trivial, but also enormously fashionable and in demand, even though he possessed a cutting sense of humor.

They couldn’t have looked more different. The earl was a solidly built, muscular, middle-aged gentleman of medium height, who still had his thick brown hair, strong white teeth, and a face that was deemed handsome even though it was unfashionably tanned.

The viscount had just passed his thirtieth birthday. He was tall and very thin, with a long, bony, elegant face, and was languid and affected in speech and movement. But his lean body was deceptively strong. Most people he knew didn’t know that, or that he could move with killing force if needed, because most of the time he used only his killing wit.

They were different in age, face, and manner. But the two men got along splendidly.

The earl had discovered that the viscount’s care-for-nothing manner concealed a sympathetic heart and a strong sense of justice. He appreciated the viscount’s sense of humor, agreed with his politics, and was aware that the younger man hid his true nature except when with friends. The earl’s own son and adopted sons were among those few, and since he missed his newly wed sons, the earl was glad for the viscount’s company. He found it stimulating.

The viscount thought of the earl as the father he’d not only never had, but never expected to find. He appreciated the older man’s experience of the world, compassion, and quiet wisdom.

And so the viscount was surprised to find the earl in the green room at the theater, because that was where men went after the play to make assignations with the actresses and dancers, most of whom were for sale, or at least for rent.

He raised a thin eyebrow in inquiry.

The earl knew what he was asking. “Miss Fanny La Fey, the star of the play, is an old friend of mine,” the earl said. “I came to congratulate her. Nothing more.”

Leland glanced over at a startlingly bright-haired woman in a gown so flimsy that her modesty was preserved only because of the crush of admirers surrounding her. He raised the eyebrow higher.

“We’re friends from the bad old days,” the earl explained, “She and I met on a distant shore. She’s a rarely determined young woman. I’m happy she also found her way safely back home.”

“Ah!” Leland said. Both eyebrows went up. He hadn’t known that the actress had been in prison.

The Earl of Egremont had been wrongly accused of a crime before he’d come into the title he’d never expected to inherit. He and his son had been sent to Botany Bay. They, and two young men the earl befriended in prison and took as wards, had served their sentences and returned with him when he claimed his title and the vast fortune that went with it. The earl had already made a fortune for himself through investments, and now was one of the richest men in England. He’d been the talk of the town, and considered slightly scandalous because of his past. But London gossip faded like cut flowers, and now, a year later, he was accepted everywhere.

But he seldom chose to go anywhere that Society did.

“I’ve congratulated her,” the earl said. “I was just on my way out. I won’t keep you if you’ve business here.”

“Oh, but that business can’t be done here, my lord,” Leland said easily. “It can be arranged, but not completed. Credit me with some sense of propriety. So if you’re going anywhere interesting, I’d be pleased to accompany you.”

“I was thinking of a warm fireside, a glass of port, and an early bedtime,” the earl said with a sigh. “But I’m promised to Major Reese tonight, for a late dinner at his club. Care to join us?”

“And fight those battles in the colonies all over again with him? Lovely fellow, but I think not. I respect his zeal and regret his lost limb, but there is a limit to how many times I can enjoy vicarious warfare.”

“Yes, but he’s an old friend and I’m bound to oblige him. How about luncheon at my house, tomorrow? We haven’t spoken for a while.”

“Not for at least a week! Yes, I’d like that.”

“I’ll see you then,” the earl said, bowed, and asked a footman for his coat.

“My lord!” a sultry, thrilling, voice called. “Not leaving so soon, are you?”

“My dear,” the earl said to the star of the evening’s play, who had left the group of gentlemen she’d been with. “But you were surrounded by admirers. I just wanted to be one of them and then leave you to your well-deserved applause.”

“Old friends mean more than casual observers,” she said, but her kohl-rimmed eyes glanced over to the viscount.

“This is my dear friend, Viscount Haye,” the earl said. “Leland, may I present Miss La Fey?”

“You not only may,” Leland breathed, looking down at the actress intently. “You must. Please believe that I am more than a casual observer,” he told her, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. “I am an enraptured one. As who would not be? Your performance was miraculous. Your presence here, next to me, is even more so.”

She smiled. “Are you leaving, too?” she asked.

“Not if you don’t wish me to.”

She stared up into his amused eyes, and shivered slightly. “I don’t wish you to. But I am occupied with well-wishers and can’t snub them. Can you wait until I do the pretty with all those I must?”

“I can,” he said, one hand on his heart. “If you will be half so kind to me.”

“We shall see. I’ll be back soon,” she promised, and gave him a long, smoldering look before she went back to the crowd of men waiting for her.

The earl shook his head. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t know that I did. I think it’s this new cologne, actually… My lord?” the viscount asked with an exaggeratedly casual air. “Care to tell me just why she was incarcerated?”

The earl grinned. “No. That should make your evening more interesting. Just-I wouldn’t suggest getting her annoyed. Or if you do, then I suggest you not drink anything that she doesn’t. Good night then,” he said cheerfully. “See you tomorrow. I hope.”

The viscount bowed. “So do I. Good to know you look after me so well,” he said with an ironic smile. But it was a wide one.


“Good, you’re just in time,” the earl said after Leland gave his beaver hat and greatcoat to a footman, and came into his host’s study, rubbing his hands together.

“Oh, ‘good,’ indeed,” Leland murmured as he went to the fireside and held his hands up to it. “I’ve seen cold days in springtime, but this one is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Thames froze over again.”

“In April?”

“I said I shouldn’t be surprised, which is not the same as saying I expected it. It’s freezing out there. Still, nothing would keep me from a meal prepared by your chef. The fellow could name his price at Carlton House.”

“Yes, but they’d have to take him there in chains,” the earl said.

“The way they took him away from London the first time?” Leland asked with a tilted smile.

“Now, now. You know his history is not mine to divulge. He did his time in Botany Bay, and now is free as you or I: past forgotten, future being made. Speaking of émigrés… how did you and my old friend get on last evening?”

“ ‘Now, now,’ indeed!” his younger friend said. “I am a gentleman. I never discuss my dealings with a lady, or a female who aspires to be one. Suffice it to say it was a pleasant interlude for both of us. She’d no reason to be angry with me. And so,” he added too casually, “since I never infuriated her, I couldn’t tell: Why exactly was she sent to the Antipodes?”

“She was there because she was a fair hand with a lethal flying object, or so I was told.”

Leland laughed. “Score one for you! I took your bait and ran with it. Though we parted on amicable terms, she must have thought me a strange fellow, because brave I may be, but I didn’t dare take wine with her.”

The earl sketched a bow, though his eyes twinkled. “Forgive me. Will you accept my apology in the form of a seat at my table? We’re having your favorite soup, lobster, squab, beef, and fresh green peas! They’ve come from a hothouse, but I’m promised they taste as if they came from heaven.”

“For half that menu,” Leland said fervently, “you could stab me through the heart and I wouldn’t complain. So long as you let me sop up the gravy as I fell.”

They were laughing when the butler came in, clearing his throat.

“Luncheon ready, is it?” the earl asked.

“Not quite, my lord. But you have a visitor.”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“The young woman vowed you’d receive her.” The butler looked down instead of at his employer. “She said I’d be out on my ear if I didn’t let her in.” A fraction of a smile appeared on his usually stolid face. “You know her, m’lord,” he said, his accents slipping. “As do I. She’s from… the old country, y’see.”