Robert strolled casually over to Charlotte. “I take it this is the rest of the house party?”

She had to tip her head back to look at him, bumping her nose on the side of her hood. “Only those who weren’t afraid to brave the cold. The faint of heart decided to stay in and toast by the fire.”

Despite himself, Robert’s frozen lips cracked into a smile. “After all these years, you still speak like a book.”

“That’s because she generally has her head buried in one,” put in her friend, with equal parts affection and scorn.

“I like books,” said Charlotte disingenuously. “They’re so much grander than real life.”

“Certainly grander than this lot,” snorted her friend, sounding more like the Dowager Duchess than the Duchess herself, but she ruined the effect by raising a hand and acknowledging the enthusiastic halloos of the gentlemen, several of whom seemed quite delighted to see her. Two men broke off from the group, starting forwards in their direction, one considerably ahead of the other.

The man in the vanguard might, just might, have been Freddy Staines. He was certainly of the same type. His coat possessed enough cloaks to garb a small Indian village and his many watch fobs jangled like a dancing girl’s bracelets as he walked. His light brown hair had been brushed into careful disarray before being topped with a high-crowned beaver hat. Rings jostled for precedence on his fingers, a signet ring bumping up against a curiously scratched ruby in an overly ornate setting.

“Miss Deveraux!” he exclaimed, before adding, as an afterthought, “Lady Charlotte.”

He raised his glass in a toast to the two ladies, sloshing mulled wine over the side in the process. It made a sticky trail through the mud on Robert’s boot.

No, decided Robert. It wasn’t Staines. This man’s skin was too fair ever to have weathered an Indian summer, and the pronounced veins beginning to show along his nose suggested a prolonged course of heavy drinking with the best smuggled brandy London had to offer.

He eyed Robert arrogantly through a slightly grimy quizzing glass. “And you are?”

“This is Dovedale,” Miss Deveraux said bluntly, before Robert could get a word in edgewise. “It’s his mistletoe you’re cutting.”

“Good Gad! You’re Dovedale?”

If a duke fell in the forest, there was no doubt that the entire ton would hear it. The mention of his title commanded universal attention. Conversations stopped. Baskets dropped. Even the dogs ceased barking, except for one spaniel who yipped out of turn before whimpering into silence.

Robert sketched a wave. “Hullo. Carry on.”

“Makes me feel like I ought to curtsy,” murmured Tommy.

Silencing him with an elbow to the ribs, Rob turned back to the other man. “Yes, I am Dovedale.” The name felt clumsy on his tongue. “And you are?”

“Frobisher. Martin Frobisher.” Suddenly the man was all eagerness to please. Letting the quizzing glass fall, he stuck out a gloved hand, noted the sticky splotch of spilled wine that marred the surface, rubbed it hard against his leg, and held it out again. “I believe our families are distantly connected. . . .”

“Through Adam, perhaps,” drawled the man behind him. “I can’t conceive of any connection closer.”

Frobisher’s cheeks mottled, but, surprisingly, he refrained from retaliating in kind. With a quick, sideways look at the other man, he subsided into obedient silence.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” said Robert neutrally.

The newcomer wafted a languid hand in greeting. “Sir Francis Medmenham, at your service. Like the rest of these louts, I am passing the holiday season on your largesse.”

With his gleaming boots and large gold signet ring, he made a very unconvincing mendicant. His appearance accomplished that towards which Frobisher only strove, his coat boasting a restrained three capes, his hair brushed into a perfect Titus, and his hat brim tilted just forward enough to provide a rakish air without obscuring his vision.

The name poked at Robert’s memory. “You haven’t been in the army, have you?’ he asked.

“Me? No. I might sully the shine on my boots. My valet would never forgive me.”

“I wish you would,” grumbled Frobisher. “Then he might finally defect to me.”

Medmenham looked the other man up and down with chilling disinterest. “I don’t think so.”

Frobisher scowled, but was still.

“It’s just that your name sounds familiar,” said Robert.

Medmenham’s lips curled in a thin smile. “You’re probably thinking of my illustrious relations — the Dashwoods of Medmenham Abbey.”

“Good God,” said Robert. “So that’s it.”

“What’s it?” asked Charlotte innocently.

“Nothing,” said Robert quickly.

At least, nothing his cousin ought to know about. Medmenham Abbey had, in the previous century, been home to a group of devoted debauchees known sometimes as the Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe, sometimes as the Monks of Medmenham — in short, the Hellfire Club. Robert’s father, who had tottered drunkenly on the edge of polite society by virtue of his position as son of the second son of a duke, had once been invited to their revels. He enjoyed recalling the occasion in lurid detail while in his cups. There had been strange initiation ceremonies and underground chambers dedicated to mysterious rites, most of which seemed to involve wine and women, generally in that order. As far as Robert could tell, it boiled down to nothing more than wenching with a fringe of the occult.

It was, however, exactly the sort of organization with which a certain Arthur Wrothan specialized. Wrothan had run his own version of the Hellfire Club back in Seringapatam, pandering to the jaded palates of the officer set. Having firmly turned down his first invitation, Robert hadn’t been asked again.

“I have a rather well-known house,” said Sir Francis smoothly. “An architectural gem of its time.”

“Really?” said Charlotte innocently. “How nice.”

“Oh, it is rather,” agreed Sir Francis genially. “We have lovely parties.”

“I’m certainly glad you could join our party,” Robert broke in smoothly, shifting so that he stood between Medmenham and Charlotte. “Are you passing the entirety of the holiday at Girdings?”

Medmenham observed the new arrangements with quiet amusement. “Ten lords a-leaping and all that rot. Sorry — I forgot that it’s your rot, now. No offense meant, old chap.”

“None taken,” said Robert, echoing his tone of urbane detachment. Charlotte, he noticed to his relief, had been distracted by the task of extracting her friend from the company of Mr. Martin Frobisher. From the practiced way with which Charlotte looped her arm through her friend’s and gradually eased her away, he gathered that this was not the first time that particular maneuver had been effected. “You’ll have to acquaint me with the other leaping lords. I’m afraid I’ve been abroad a very long time.”

“Have you been on the Continent?” Medmenham inquired, his eyes roaming idly over the rest of the party. In the shifting light of the torches, Charlotte was shepherding her friend away across the clearing, towards a very large young man in a cravat patterned with pink carnations, who appeared to be attempting to cut down a tree with the blunt side of his saw. “I hear there are still bits of Italy that are habitable, despite Bonaparte’s best efforts.”

“No,” said Robert shortly. “I was in India.”

“Ah.” Medmenham looked him full in the face. “You must know Freddy, then. Lord Frederick Staines,” he clarified.

Robert plastered on his best expression of worldly ennui. “I’m afraid I know him only by reputation.”

“I needn’t ask what that is,” said Medmenham, with casual scorn. “Freddy always was too dim to know which tit to nurse from.”

Robert raised an urbane eyebrow. “So you’re friends, then.”

Medmenham’s lips quirked in appreciation. “Old Freddy has his redeeming points.”

“Such as?”

“A talent for collecting . . . interesting people.” A red ring glinted on Medmenham’s gloved hand as he lifted his handkerchief delicately to his nose. It looked, thought Robert, uncommonly like the ring he had noticed on Frobisher’s hand as well. “And a perpetually open purse.”

“A useful person to know.” What had seemed like mere scratches on Frobisher’s ring were more deeply etched on Medmenham’s. The incised lines took up the entire surface of the stone, curving in a series of overlapping curlicues. When seen right side up, the whole came together as a stylized flower that Robert recognized from thousands of temple carvings. One could scarcely go anywhere in India without seeing the representation of a lotus.

It was not, however, a flower generally favored for pictorial purposes in England, at least not that he could ever recall. The only recollection he had of the lotus flower prior to India was classical in origin, the island of the Lotus Eaters in Homer’s Odyssey, where the inhabitants dreamt their days chewing on the opiate leaves of the lotus.

“I shouldn’t think you would be wanting for blunt.” Medmenham ran an appraising eye over the huge urns that towered along the roofline of the jutting wings of Girdings. “How many tenants do you have?”

Robert supposed he must have tenants, but it wasn’t an item with which he had acquainted himself. He had made a point of never taking any income from the estates that accident had tossed his way. They were not, as far as he was concerned, really his. But that certainly wasn’t something he was going to share with Medmenham.

Instead, he shrugged, like any other bored young man of the world. “Who keeps count?”