“That will be all, Brampton, though have the kitchen send up a tray. Marriage has apparently put his lordship off his feed.” Dolan waited until the butler had withdrawn before turning an expression with a lot of teeth—and no welcome whatsoever—on his guest. “How is it you know my butler’s name?”

“They all know one another’s names, Dolan. It’s what we overpay them for.”

Dolan did not roll down his shirtsleeves, though Deene had the sense it wasn’t an intentional rudeness; it was instead a function of having been caught off guard by an opponent.

“How’s Georgie?”

Dolan’s brows rose. “Still protesting her French lessons, though she has an aptitude for them. You may use that against me in court: I force her to learn French by withholding my granny’s Irish lullabies from her.”

“You had a granny? I am astonished to find you were not whelped by some creature sporting scales and breathing fire.”

Dolan fiddled with a gleaming silver penknife. “Insult my sainted mother, Deene, and a lawsuit will be the least of your problems.”

“My apologies. I meant only to insult you.”

Except he hadn’t, exactly. Antagonize, of course, but not quite insult. If Evie would not countenance a lawsuit, she’d certainly not countenance a duel.

Dolan brushed his thumb over the blade of the penknife. “I was under the impression a gentleman—using the term as loosely as present company necessitates—plotting to do murder on the field of honor generally slapped a sweaty riding glove across his opponent’s chin before witnesses of similar rank.”

“I cannot challenge you to a duel, Dolan, though every day you draw breath offends me.”

“Oh, of course. Because I married your dear sister, whose hems I was not fit to kiss, though I certainly paid enough to have them trimmed in lace. You’ll not be seeing your niece very frequently if this is the tack you take, Deene. A bit more charm is wanted or some lordly attempts at groveling—one’s in-laws ought to be a source of amusement at least.”

“I don’t see Georgie at all as it is, Dolan. I have nothing to lose.”

This point must have struck Dolan as valid. He rose from his desk, his expression thoughtful. It remained that way until a lavish silver tray fit for the highest tea before the highest sticklers was brought in and set on the desk.

“You will please pour,” Dolan said. “I haven’t the knack.”

This was not said with any particular sneer or smirk, and it set the tone for an oddly civilized session of tea, crumpets, sandwiches, cakes, fruit, and cheese.

“There is an issue between us,” Deene said when the tray had been decimated. “You made my sister miserable, and you are not the best resource to have the raising of her daughter.”

“You are so confident of your facts, Deene. One would envy you this, except the quality is an inherited reflex of inbred aristocracy and not a function of any particular wit or study on your part.”

Dolan had a way with irony—the Irish did; the Scots did as well.

“You are telling me Marie went into your loving arms at the altar and never once looked back? You are telling me she consented to marry you of her own free will? You are telling me she was happy and well cared for married to you?”

“She was a minor at the time of the wedding. Her consent was neither needed nor binding, and I have been patient with your rudeness long enough. You may either leave or state your reasons for imposing on my fast-dwindling and unlikely-to-be-repeated hospitality.”

The moment became delicate, all the more so for having to seem otherwise.

“I am prepared to leave here and go directly to White’s, where I will place the following wager in the book in legible script: I propose a match race, my colt against yours, the stakes to be as follows.”

Dolan listened, then sat back and rubbed his chin.

“You would make these terms public, Deene?”

This was the crucial moment, when Dolan’s shrewdness and social ambition had to blend and balance so the choice Deene wanted Dolan to make became the choice Dolan grasped as his own device.

“You would not trust my word any farther than you could throw me, Dolan.” Deene shot his cuffs and fiddled with a sapphire-encrusted sleeve button.

“Would you trust mine?”

Deene wrinkled his nose. “Marie accused you of many things, but dishonesty was not among them. Your reputation, plebeian though it is, is one for veracity.”

“Such flattery, Deene… I can only return the compliment. You are a pompous, arrogant, overstuffed exponent of your most useless and only occasionally decorative class, but if you give me your word you’ll abide by the terms laid out here today, then I will give you my word as well. Neither of us would be served by visiting notoriety on Georgina’s situation.”

Deene thrust out a hand. “Done. On the terms stated.”

Dolan had a firm handshake, and somewhere along the way, somebody had explained to him that the gentleman’s handshake was not an exercise in breaking finger bones.

“When shall we do this, Deene, and where?”

“There’s a practice course not two miles from Epsom, and I’m thinking the week before the June meet. Much later, and the heat can be oppressive.”

He should have been more casual, should have kept his cards closer to his chest, but to let the matter linger was going to wear on Eve and see the horse overconditioned.

“Last week in May, then, with the social crowd still preoccupied in Town. The alternative would be July, when the house parties start up, or after the grouse moors open in August.”

Dolan was watching him, no doubt gauging from Deene’s reaction just what the state of King William’s conditioning was.

“Suit yourself, Dolan. I was going to enter William at Epsom—anybody with ears has heard that much in the clubs.”

“May, then. I’ll be having a look at this course before I agree to turn my pony loose on it, Deene. Dirty footing or rotten timber serves no one.”

“Now you do attempt to insult me, Dolan. I thought Greymoor might head the ground jury.”

“A ground jury? This isn’t exactly a Jockey Club match, Deene.”

“Nor is it merely a lark between two gentlemen.”

Dolan appeared to consider the point. “Greymoor and two fellows of his choosing, one from your set, one from mine.”

“Fair enough.”

“And, Deene? This match will be conducted as if it were a lark between two gentlemen. I want a damned crowd to see you go down to defeat, a big, not entirely inebriated crowd, the titled half of which is going to line my pockets every bit as much as you are.”

“But of course.” Deene had the sense this boasting was where the real posturing had begun. “We’ll make it the usual holiday, and see who goes down to defeat before whom.”

Dolan smiled again, but this time, the expression reached the man’s eyes. It struck Deene that had he wished to, Jonathan Dolan might have been a charming man, even handsome in his way.

“I’ll see myself out, Dolan, and wish you best of luck.”

“Oh, and the same to you, Deene. You’ll need it.”

A beat of silence went by, during which Deene suspected he was to ask again after his niece, perhaps even ask to see her. He did not ask; Dolan did not offer.

Deene took his leave, trying to formulate how he’d convey this development—some acceptable version of this development—to his wife.

* * *

“What is this?” Eve looked at the shreds of paper in her lap, and the red string among them.

“That is my promise to you, Eve.”

Deene stood over her where she sat at breakfast. Since they’d last made love a week ago, it was as close as he’d come to her, even in bed.

“Your promise?” Eve glanced up and noticed that the footman typically assigned to tend the sideboard was nowhere to be seen. “What promise is this?”

“We’re at a stalemate, Wife.” Deene moved off and closed the door to the breakfast parlor. “You cannot countenance a lawsuit. I cannot abandon a promise made to my sister. I am promising you I will not now, I will not ever, resort to litigation to keep my promise to Marie.”

He looked very fierce but also guarded. The guardedness kept Eve from throwing her arms around his neck in relief.

“I am very pleased to hear this, Deene. Can we discuss this?”

“What is there to discuss?”

He took the seat at the head of the table, which was at Eve’s right elbow. The way he snapped his serviette across his lap only confirmed Eve’s sense that their problem was intensifying, not resolving.

“How will you keep your promise to Marie when Mr. Dolan does not allow you to be a proper uncle to our niece?”

Our niece. Deene speared Eve with a look at her word choice, a look laden with incredulity and maybe even—God help them—resentment.

“Are you sure you want me to answer your question, Eve? If I do answer, you might like it even less than you liked the idea of a perfectly legal civil suit brought by legal intermediaries and resolved by a judge according to rules of evidence, statute, and case law.”

The tea Eve had begun her day with started rebelling in her belly. “I do want you to answer the question, Deene.”

But Eve wondered what he could say that she’d want to hear? That he’d decided his niece meant nothing to him? That his niece meant less than his wife? Was this what Westhaven had been intimating all those days ago? Was Eve angling for some assurance of her place as foremost in her husband’s affections?

Was she still that insecure? Still that much afraid her past controlled her future?

“There is to be a friendly little match race between Dolan’s colt and King William. A sum of money has been wagered, all quite symbolic and good-natured.”