At that precise, benighted moment, Sir Jasper emerged from the stairway and sauntered along the corridor.

He nodded at Lord Percival. “My lord.”

“Sir Jasper.”

Jasper paused and ran an insolent gaze over Esther while she stood silently by the sideboard. Bad enough to be ogled, but it hurt to endure such treatment where Lord Percival could see it. Esther did not know whom to hate for that hurting—Jasper, Lord Percival, or herself.

Sir Jasper took himself off after a pointed look at the tea tray. Had she been alone, Esther might have ducked back into the maid’s stairway and had a good cry.

Percival Windham turned an inscrutable gaze on her in the ensuing silence. “Esther Himmelfarb, was that weasel bothering you?”

The question held such quiet ferocity, Esther wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She nodded, because whatever else was true about Percival Windham, he hadn’t blamed her for Sir Jasper’s weaseling. “I should have known better than to use the maid’s stairs. He is a predictable nuisance.”

“You will not blame yourself for his bad behavior. Come along.” Lord Percival picked up the tea tray like it weighed nothing and winged an elbow at Esther. “You look tired, my dear, but I know you aren’t lurking in gardens of a late hour.”

Esther took his arm, recalling the muscles there only when she wrapped her fingers around them. “How could you know that?”

“I’ve made the kitchen garden my private retreat, but I’ve also repaired there in hopes of continuing our previous conversation. One needs allies. Witness your encounter with Sir Weasel.”

And because Percival Windham had dubbed himself Esther’s ally, she had his escort right to the door of Lady Zephora’s chambers. He even went so far as to take the tray into the sitting room, causing a flurry of billing and cooing among the ladies gathered there in morning attire.

Esther took a window seat, watching while Lord Percival dodged invitations to walk, to ride out, to share a private archery lesson with this young lady, or a meal alfresco with that one. As she contemplated a duke’s son having to duck and leap his way through a series of morning greetings, it occurred to her that for him, there was risk lurking not just at the top of the maid’s stairs but on every hand.

Which made the notion of him retreating to the kitchen garden, alone but for the moonlight, a very intriguing thought indeed.

* * *

“These things grow more tedious each year.” Lord Morrisette fastened his falls, missing a button on the left side. “The difficulty is the ladies make up the guest lists, and we gentlemen are left like orphaned pups, seeking any available titty, as it were.”

Percival did not respond to his host’s observation. The ladies had withdrawn, leaving the gentleman to make use of the chamber pots and the decanters, in no particular order.

“Any titty is better than no titty,” somebody observed from the opposite corner.

A philosophical discussion ensued as to the ideal shape for the female breast: large, small, soft, firm—all had their enthusiasts.

“The real quesh-tion.” Lord Morrisette blinked at his glass. “The more pertinent in-quire-ree is what shape ought the ideal female orifice follow? The assembled company will be pleased to know I’ve made a study on this.”

Spoons were rapped against glasses amid a round of cheers and jeers.

Percival hooked Tony by one elbow. “Let’s get some air, shall we?”

They left the room—ostensibly to smoke, to pass gas out of doors, or to chase housemaids—as a vote was proposed regarding the advantages of the inverted wine glass shape over the champagne flute.

“I thought nothing could be as stupid as drunken soldiers far from home and in need of a sound swiving, but I must revise my opinions.” As they headed away from the sound of male laughter, Tony sounded impatient, an odd circumstance for him.

“This is Kent,” Percival reminded him, steering him toward the stairs. “There is no greater concentration of the wealthy and aimless on the entire planet than in this county at this time of year.”

“So you’re not enjoying all the married women, chaperones, ladies’ maids, and other offerings? I could swear Hector Bellamy was trying to entice me into bed the other night with a chambermaid thrown in as sop to convention.”

Tony clearly did not find this amusing—neither did Percival. “You’re handsome, blond, and almost as tall as I am,” Percival replied, then directed Tony toward the kitchens. “I know a place where we won’t be disturbed, accosted, or propositioned.”

“As long as it’s not Canada.”

They emerged into the moonlit kitchen garden, only to spy Esther Himmelfarb seated on the bench against the wall.

She rose immediately and bobbed a curtsy. “My lords, I’ll bid you good night.”

Before Percival could signal Tony to take himself off, before he could detain the lady with anything approaching a witticism, she hared away amid a cloud of fragrance and maidenly shyness.

“Pretty girl,” Tony remarked, settling onto the bench. “She grows on one. Gladys said we ought to keep a lookout for her.”

Percy took the place beside him, though he couldn’t help cursing himself for bringing Tony along to this destination at this hour. “When did the fair Gladys pass along that sentiment?”

“We correspond, discreetly of course.”

One tended to underestimate Anthony Windham. Tony offended no one, he invited confidences, and—perhaps his greatest attribute—he was also capable of keeping them.

“What would you think of acquiring Esther Himmelfarb as a sister-in-law?”

Tony was silent a long time, which was better than had he burst out laughing.

“Her Grace would make her life hell,” he said eventually. “His Grace would accept her.”

An accurate assessment, as far as it went. “And you?”

Another protracted silence broken by the serenades of crickets, who knew nothing of titles and sang for their true loves every night.

“She’d do, Perce. You aren’t the frivolous younger son you were five years ago. Canada sorted you out, or something did. Miss Esther would follow the drum, did you ask it, and Her Grace would have to choose her battles with that one.”

“No, she would not.”

Tony’s observation and Percival’s own reply brought some order to the chaos of a man contemplating—seriously contemplating—holy matrimony for the first time. Percival sat forward on the bench, his elbows braced on his knees.

“At first, I merely thought myself smitten with Miss Himmelfarb’s good looks and self-possession. She’s so irreproachably Teutonic about the chin, you know. Stirs a man’s instincts, that chin.”

Tony maintained a politic silence, so Percy continued to work out his logic with words. “Esther Himmelfarb is lovely, but she’s also canny, and she’s resourceful. These are qualities to admire, qualities a lady with a title needs if she’s to manage well.”

And now it was time for an officer to gather his courage and confide in his little brother. “She said Starkweather had been judged by a court higher than the military, and I must not argue with its decision.”

“You told her about him?”

Percy nodded. The crickets sang, the scent of rosemary wafted on the breeze, and what had been a hunch in Percy’s mind, an instinct, solidified into an objective. “I came upon her after Layton had been pestering her on the stairs, and Tony, I had all I could do not to flatten the man right then and there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Insightful question. “Because until my ring is on her finger, such behavior would redound to Esther’s discredit… I’m also not sure she’d accept me.”

“And that,” Tony said slowly, “is why she would make an excellent Duchess of Moreland, should the day ever come.”

“Precisely. I must woo Esther, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about it.” The admission lay between them, a puzzling anomaly in their long history of late-night conversations wherein Percival typically parsed Tony’s confusions and blind turns.

“Bit of a puzzle,” Tony said, “when a gal don’t flirt, carry on, or cast any lures. You could try kissing her.”

“I expect Jasper Layton has made the same attempt, and likely others have as well.” She slept with a chair wedged under her door latch, considered all food and drink suspect, and trusted none of the ladies to guard her back, for God’s sake. A frontal assault was not going to win the lady’s heart.

“Sometimes answers come if we’re patient,” Tony said. “I’m waiting for Gladys to turn twenty-one.”

“How much longer?”

“Another bloody year, and her mama is making noises about an excellent match in the offing. Makes it difficult to twiddle one’s thumbs here in Kent when one’s love is twiddling hers back in Town.”

“So you write letters and twiddle and swill Morrisette’s brandy.”

“You’ll expect me to keep an eye out for Miss Himmelfarb, too.”

The image of Jasper Layton eyeing the lady with undisguised lust rose in Percival’s mind. “I’ll keep an eye out for her as well, and as for the wooing part, maybe something inspired will come to me.”

* * *

Percival Windham was the most aggravating specimen of an aggravating gender ever to attend an aggravating house party.

Why would he have brought Lord Tony to the kitchen garden, when he’d all but invited Esther to tryst with him there? Perhaps tryst was stretching it a bit—stretching it a lot—but a brother was a brother, and Lord Tony hadn’t shown any signs of departing the garden.

Esther had had two more days to observe Lord Percival, though from a distance. Ever since she’d appeared in Zephora Needham’s sitting room on Lord Percival’s arm, a silent conspiracy had arisen among the eligible young ladies. They might plunge daggers into one another’s backs in their attempts to win Lord Percy’s notice, but they were united in their determination to keep Esther from his lordship’s company.