“I am under the impression, sir, that lawsuits take years to come to a hearing, so many years that Georgina might well reach her majority before you have a decision in the matter.”

“Then Deene will modify his petition to become her guardian rather than her custodian, or guardian of her property. He will not give up on this, though I’m not sure what exactly drives him. I have taken some steps to try to flush out his motivation, but they have been unavailing.”

Miss Ingraham studied her hands in her lap. “You have thought this matter through? You’re not inclined to make any concessions to his lordship?”

If there was anybody—anybody on the face of the entire earth—who might understand his position, it was the woman beside him. This realization was a little sad, but also heartening.

He would miss her, the quiet Miss Ingraham of the fine gray eyes and wonderfully pleasing figure. Georgina would miss her too, and that… gave him a pang.

“I’m not inclined to make any concessions at this point, but there will ensue some period of bargaining—I’m not sure how long. Deene hasn’t filed the papers yet, though he gave me to understand I’m to be served notice any day, likely in an intentionally public manner. You have some time to find other employment before the scandal actually breaks, though as to that…”

He fell silent. If he offered to pension her off, she’d take it amiss. Late at night after a few too many brandies, Dolan had contemplated learning the exact shape of Miss Amy Ingraham’s feminine form, and he had not censored himself for such imaginings. He was… male, single, in good health, and she was an attractive woman near at hand.

He did not admit to himself they were both lonely, but the realization was there. He was certainly lonely—if she was, she hid it well.

But a gentleman did not bother the help.

“I have been in your employ for several years now, Mr. Dolan.”

Dolan mentally prepared himself for a pretty little farewell speech, though the part of him still comfortable with a stonemason’s tools wanted to hit something with his bare, callused fists.

“I will give you the highest possible recommendation, Miss Ingraham, and do all in my power to see you properly placed and well compensated in your next position.”

“Will you?” She arched an eyebrow, her tone so dry and starchy Dolan risked meeting her gaze. “I am touched. Also puzzled.”

“Regarding?”

“Do you intend to win this lawsuit, or lose it? For if you intend to win it, then surely you will want to curry my favor, Mr. Dolan. I am the only party who can credibly testify that you have never in any manner neglected your daughter’s upbringing, that you are a doting—no, a loving and devoted—papa, that you would cheerfully die a thousand painful deaths for this one little girl, and yet you seek to disengage my services. This is quite, quite puzzling.”

She said nothing more, but left Dolan there beside her on the bench, rearranging the chess pieces he’d put on the board between himself and Deene.

“Miss Ingraham… Amy. I cannot allow you to be involved in… I have connections in Dublin, York, Edinburgh, Paris, even Boston, if you’d…” He fell silent, wondering how much she guessed, how much she knew, and if Deene had already tried to bribe her.

“What’s it to be, Jonathan Dolan? Will you win or lose, and don’t think to dissemble with me. I’ve seen you with your daughter.”

It took him long silent minutes to understand that he was being offered a sort of conditional friendship, a cooperation on a level he had not anticipated, from an ally he could never have approached directly, not about this.

He considered prevarications, outright lies, and near-truths, but…

Amy Ingraham had called him Jonathan. His mother had called him Jonathan, and his dear departed wife had—at least toward the end of their marriage—and now this quiet, sensible woman had used his given name and asked him for the truth. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, she’d linked her arm with his there on the bench.

“The truth, sir. I’ll know if you’re lying—just ask Georgina.”

To his very great surprise, and even greater relief, he did indeed tell her the truth.

* * *

“If you could define the problem, I might know better how to advise you to solve it.” Kesmore passed his guest a drink but doubted Deene was even aware of the glass in his hand.

“I’m mucking up my marriage, or my… something.”

“Most of us do, eventually. Unmucking it can be a cheerful undertaking.”

Deene’s incredulous expression suggested he could not envision his host being cheerful in any circumstances, but then, a lack of imagination plagued most new husbands when on the outs with their wives.

“Sit, Deene, and do not ignore your drink.”

Deene tossed back his brandy and dropped onto a sofa like a load of bricks. “Evie and I are civil, but she has it in her head I’m not to hold Dolan to account where Georgie is concerned. Lawsuits, particularly between family, are scandalous to my wife’s way of thinking.”

“They are scandalous to any sane person’s way of thinking, also tedious, uncomfortable, and expensive. Litigation has always struck me rather like tuning a fine watch with a stonemason’s hammer.” Kesmore appropriated a cushion from a wing chair and took a seat on the raised hearth, the better for the fire to cook some relief into the aching muscles of his back and leg. “I’ve yet to meet the Windham who flinched in the face of scandal, though, including most especially Their Graces. The lawsuit itself is not the entire problem.”

Deene scowled. “It took me a week to figure that out, though the lawsuit is certainly part of it. Evie will not countenance such a protracted and public scandal.”

“You endured a week during which, if I might be delicate, you did not enjoy the occasion of connubial bliss in the arms of your bride.”

Deene made a noise a lady would have described as a grunt and another man would have understood as unhappy assent.

“Who is holding out on whom, Deene?”

Deene studied his empty glass. “I’m not sure. I don’t make advances beyond the perfunctory, which she does not rebuff, but she doesn’t make advances either.”

“And a good time is had by all.”

This brought Deene’s head up, a battle light in the man’s blue eyes. “And when the fair Louisa takes you into disfavor, Kesmore, do you go charging forth into the bedroom, saber at the ready, risking all, only to have her freeze you with a look or a word?”

Kesmore pretended to fuss the pillow under his arse rather than smile openly at Deene’s misery. “It might surprise you to know, young Deene, that the fair Louisa, particularly on those rare and mistaken occasions when she has taken me into disfavor, generally wants me to come charging in with my saber at the ready. She is not a woman who finds a propensity for pretty talk a winning quality in her swain, and I am not a swain to disappoint my lady.”

“If I do ask Evie what she wants of me,” Deene said, glowering at the fire, “she will say, if I have to ask her, then I don’t understand what the problem is, or some such rot. Women speak in riddles when you most need them to be clear and direct.”

“Why do you need to be anything? Many a considerate husband goes for a week without pestering his wife, Deene. The ladies become indisposed, they get preoccupied, they… need their rest.”

Deene blinked. “I’m thinking of entering William in the June meet at Epsom.”

“Ah. A show of preoccupation. Brilliant strategy, one heartily endorsed by the most proud and unsatisfied husbands the world over. Why don’t you instead find a cozy, private moment between the sheets and ask your wife not about lawsuits or scandals, but if she’d like you to make love to her? Tell her you miss her more than you’d miss the beating heart torn from your chest, and nothing would bring you as much gratification as seeing to her pleasure.”

“What if she says no?”

“I didn’t say you should necessarily ask her with words—or expect her to see to your pleasure while you’re about it.”

Deene’s brows shot up. He was off the couch in the next moment and heading for the door. “Thanks for the libation. My regards to Lady Louisa.”

* * *

Deene had not filed his blasted lawsuit. Eve knew the papers yet resided in the estate desk, just as she knew with uncomfortable clarity that Westhaven had put his finger on a part of the real problem: Eve had married an honorable man, one who could not simply walk away from an obligation to his niece.

And yet, Eve could not merely accept that another man—however outwardly honorable—had taken her measure, seen how she could be exploited financially and socially, and used his intimate charms to achieve her complicity in his selfish ends.

Then too, she could not countenance Georgie growing into young womanhood amid a cloud of whispers and gossip, dodging the smirks and knowing glances of the other girls, sent invitations not out of graciousness but out of spite. This Eve truly, genuinely could not have endured, and she was certain it was an outcome Deene had not figured into his strategy.

The front door slammed, and Eve glanced at the clock. The hour was late enough that Deene might go straight above stairs, where she might have been waiting for him, but for having lost track of the time completely.

“Belt said you were nesting in here.”

Eve’s husband stood in the library doorway, looking windblown and tired—and devastatingly attractive. Also hesitant.

The hesitance tore at her spirit, and yet she understood it, too. “Deene.” She rose and crossed the room, holding out her arms so he would know they hadn’t yet descended to nodding at each other in greeting. “I thought perhaps you might stay the night in Town.”