“You remember her name.”

“Of course I do.” Ethan frowned while he propped his feet up. “How is she?”

“Sweet,” Nick said, his smile wistful. “Dear, more lovable than any female has a right to be.”

“It isn’t a matter of either a wife or Leonie, Nick,” Ethan said, his voice containing a hint of sympathy.

“For me, it has to be.”

“I have wandered this wicked world for the past fourteen years, Nicholas, searching in vain for a force equal to your stubborn will. Alas, you see before you a disappointed man.”

From Ethan, this was commiseration.

“We’ve wasted years, Ethan,” Nick said quietly. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Spare me.” Ethan sipped his drink with exquisite indifference. “Lest I confess to the same regret.”

They fell silent, each content with that much progress.

“You ought to just tell Leah about Leonie,” Ethan said. “Leah’s a tolerant woman and would understand. Other men have mistresses, by-blows, entire second families.”

“I more or less did tell Leah.” Nick knew he hadn’t fooled Ethan. To a brother’s ears, “more or less” left acres of room for prevarication. Entire shires and counties, in fact.

“What did Leah say?”

“I hurt her feelings, offering her only appearances when she knows my caring for another prevents me from offering more.” Nick frowned at his empty glass. He passed the glass to Ethan, who obligingly refilled it. “Leah didn’t reject the idea of marriage to me outright, but she still might. Don’t suppose you’d be interested?”

“Are you procuring for Leah now too?” Ethan asked pleasantly.

“That was mean, Ethan. Any husband will do for her. It doesn’t have to be me.”

“No woman should have to find herself wed to me, Nick. I have no title to pass along, and my wealth is all a product of that dreaded scourge referred to by your kind as trade. Leah is an earl’s daughter, and she could do better than me.”

Nick shook his head, which made the room swim a bit, though not unpleasantly. “No, she can’t. Her father will not dower her, she is plagued by old scandal, and she is too much woman for the average prancing ninny in search of a sweet young thing. Leah has been through too much to sit docilely stitching samplers while her husband gambles the night away.”

Ethan bumped Nick’s shoulder gently. “Correct me if I’m wrong. Isn’t that exactly what you’ve asked her to do, except—let’s not forget the details—you’ll be heating the sheets with your lightskirts—one hears you have a taste for plural encounters, though to the delight of all concerned—while she’s stitching the night away?”

“I hate you, Ethan.” Nick slouched down, sprawling against his brother in his misery. “I really do.”

“Drink your brandy,” Ethan said softly. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Seven

Inbreeding being undesirable beyond a certain point in any species, Nick had agreed to exchange bulls with his neighbor, David Worthington, Viscount Fairly. While Fairly’s bull was a mature gentleman content to propagate the species wherever the duty arose, Nick’s bull was a strapping young fellow of four, and while not mean, Lothario was obstinately attached to the herd Nick had first put him to as a two-year-old.

Lothario was also, fortunately, attached to the man who had hand-fed him as a calf, and thus it became necessary for Nick to personally escort Lothario two country miles to Lord Fairly’s estate.

Ethan cheerfully declined his brother’s invitation to share the errand.

“Something amiss?” Ethan asked as Nick slammed into the front hall looking once again harried.

“Oh, please.” Nick bounded up the steps. “Aggravate all you dare, Ethan, for there’s nothing I’d like better than to pound on somebody for a bit.”

“Didn’t enjoy your constitutional with Lochinvar?” Ethan drawled, grinning.

“It’s Lothario,” Nick shot back. “And no, for your information, waltzing with a lovesick bull who’s trumpeting his woes to the neighborhood is not how I’d like to spend a spring morning.”

Ethan could not resist emphasizing the divine justice of that. “The lovesick debutantes being so much better company?”

“At least they smell better, and when they step on my feet, they do not imperil my delicate bones.”

“But you and Lothario seemed so comfortable with each other,” Ethan went on blithely, because whether Nick admitted it to himself or not, he needed somebody other than any old fellow to imbibe with of an evening. He needed—after all these years, still—a brother. “You and the bovine struck me as kindred spirits, hail fellows, well met.”

“Bugger off, Ethan.” Nick glowered as they reached his room. “I got a damned note from Mrs. Waverly at Blossom Court.”

“And she would be?” Ethan closed the door behind them. A huge copper tub sat steaming by the hearth, and Nick began to wrench at his neckcloth.

“Leonie’s companion,” Nick bit out, scowling.

“You’re knotting the thing tighter,” Ethan said, batting Nick’s hands away from the cravat. Nick never did think clearly when he was worried. “Chin up and stop glaring daggers at me. What did the note say?”

“Leonie recognized the horses Val and Leah rode earlier today, and she is quite out of sorts to know I am entertaining a lady here and I have not bothered to call upon her to explain.” Ethan stepped back and went to Nick’s wardrobe, where he began assembling a fresh set of clothes while Nick stripped down to his skin.

“So you hadn’t told Leonie you were here?”

“I’m trying to get her accustomed to seeing less of me,” Nick said, heaving a martyred sigh as he lowered himself into the water.

“Is this attempt at self-restraint because you’re contemplating marriage?” Ethan pressed, bringing Nick a bar of hard-milled soap and setting it on the stool beside the tub. The soap smelled of sandalwood, and Ethan made a mental note to take a bar of it with him when they left.

Nick sniffed the soap and began to lather himself. “Marriage has nothing to do with it. Almost nothing. I’ve seen less of Leonie because our father is dying, and I will soon be called upon to manage the bloody earldom, and take my bloody seat in the Lords, and live at the bloody family seat… And I am bloody whining.” He fell silent and leaned back in the tub, closing his eyes on another sigh.

Ethan draped clothes over the foot of the enormous bed then drew a hassock up to the tub. Nick was not just worried, he was overwhelmed and alone with it—also confused regarding a matter of the heart, and that last inconveniently and irrevocably resurrected all of Ethan’s fraternal instincts.

“You already manage the earldom,” Ethan reminded him, settling comfortably, “and you won’t have to take your bloody seat until you’ve put in a period of mourning, and you can live anywhere you please, Nicholas.”

“For now,” Nick agreed, not opening his eyes. “Eventually, I won’t be able to spend as much time here as I’d like—hell, I can’t do that now—and with Leonie, changes that do not suit her are best introduced in the smallest, least noticeable increments.”

“Probably a sound strategy with any lady.”

“Speaking of ladies.” Nick squinted at his brother. “What are you doing for companionship these days?”

“I hardly have time to worry about it,” Ethan replied, realizing he was—somewhat to his surprise—telling the truth. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “You’re an uncle, you know.”

Nick’s gaze whipped to Ethan, who sat on his hassock, examining his hands.

“You have a child?”

“A couple of little boys,” Ethan said, still studying the same hands he’d had for more than thirty years. “They live at Tydings, raising hell, climbing out their bedroom window, harassing the daylights out of their tutors.”

“And when,” Nick asked very quietly, “were you going to introduce me to my nephews?”

Ethan rose from the hassock and paced off to gather up the clothing Nick had cast to the compass points. “I hadn’t really planned on it.”

“I suppose you haven’t told Bellefonte he is a grandfather twice over?” Nick only sounded angry. Ethan could hear the bewilderment beneath the indignation all too easily.

“I did not tell him,” Ethan said, wishing Nick hadn’t been so quick to spot this very oversight. “I planned on telling Della.”

Nick ducked his head under the water, came up, and began lathering his hair.

“Did Della get an invitation to your wedding, Brother? Doubtless, I must have misplaced mine, for I do not recall attending.”

“Nick…” Ethan eyed his brother, wondering why they were having this conversation now, when Nick was at his bath. Perhaps it was because that should have put Nick at a tactical disadvantage.

“Explain this to me, Ethan.” Nick went on scrubbing his hair, his voice deceptively casual. “Even given our estrangement, you could not drop me a note? Not when you got married, not when you had your firstborn or your second?”

“How do you know I married?”

“You would not sire a bastard, much less two,” Nick said, dunking again and coming up, sloshing water all around the tub.

“I did not sire bastards, but neither am I married as we speak.”

“You lost a wife,” Nick concluded, staring straight ahead and frowning mightily. “You did not think to inform me of this either?”

Ethan crossed the room and picked up one of the two pitchers of warm water sitting beside the tub. “Close your eyes,” he ordered then poured both pitchers over Nick’s hair.

Nick rose out of the tub and took the towel Ethan passed to him. “Talk to me, or so help me God, Ethan, I will start pounding on you, and pounding hard.” For some reason, that Nick offered this threat while very casually naked, his every bulging muscle in plain sight, made the menace more believable.