all over the countryside at all hours of the day and night. He’ll find himself planted, one of these days.’
‘Not a bad way to go,’ Mayne said idly.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Rafe snapped at him. ‘If you’re to marry Tess, you’ll have to mend your ways. No more endearing yourself to married ladies and risking your neck.’
‘I vow to be a model husband,’ Mayne said, and there was such a deep strain of tedium in his voice that Rafe narrowed his eyes.
But Mayne continued. ‘I’ve given up married women, hadn’t you noticed?’
‘No,’ Rafe said bluntly.
‘Well, I have.’ He didn’t look up, just kept flipping a quill over and over in his long fingers. ‘Lady Godwin – and I never had her – was the last, and that was all of four months ago. So Tess will have me all to herself, such as I am.’
‘That’s not a bad bargain,’ Rafe said, his deep voice falling into the silence. ‘For all you seem to be inclined to think it so, Garret.’
Mayne looked up. ‘You know I loathe my Christian name, dammit.’
‘Using it always wakes you up,’ Rafe said. ‘Now you’re awake, I’ll have you ten to a hundred on a game of billiards.’
‘I’m off to bed,’ Lucius said, stretching.
‘Here’s hoping you find a chaperone by Sunday,’ Mayne said to Rafe. ‘I’ll have to elope with Tess if Clarice Maitland remains in the house long. The woman gives me hives.’
‘I’ll send a note to my Aunt Flora,’ Rafe said. ‘She lives in St Albans. Perhaps she could be here as early as next week.’
‘So I have your blessing, then?’ Mayne demanded. ‘I’m to start my courtship tomorrow?’
‘Unless you think it better to wait until Tess is out of her blacks,’ Rafe said.
‘Can’t,’ Mayne said briefly. ‘The Lichfield Royal Plate is in a month. If I’m to race Something Wanton -’ He shrugged.
‘An unseemly reason to rush posthaste into marriage,’ Lucius remarked.
‘Gentlemanly rubbish,’ Mayne said, draining his glass. ‘You remind me of all the sanctimonious bastards wandering around London, forever hinting that I’m a loose fish and not daring to say so to my face.’
‘And aren’t you?’ Lucius asked, his voice controlled.
Mayne considered it. ‘No. I’m lecherous, and I sleep – have slept,’ he corrected himself, ‘with a good many married women. But I’m not an ugly customer, although I’ll be damned as to why I have to defend myself to one of my oldest friends.’
‘Perhaps because you’re planning to marry a woman simply to get your hands on a horse and race it at the soonest opportunity,’ Lucius said.
‘There’s nothing irregular in that. Marriage is nothing more than a trading of assets, and Tess will receive far more than a horse from me. And I might say, Lucius, that all this talk of civility from you is hard to bear.’
Lucius’s jaw set. ‘Why so?’
‘You’re not exactly a slave to society yourself. You more than dabble in stocks; you damn near control the English markets. There are those who would think my irregular courtship is nothing to some of your irregular financial manoeuvres. Lord knows, no one bred with a silver spoon is supposed to engage in anything resembling commerce.’
‘I gather you agree with my parents’ estimation of acceptable activities,’ Lucius said. There was an ugly moment of silence, and then Mayne sighed.
‘I don’t give a damn what you do with your pennies, Lucius, and you know it as well as I do. And you’ve never given a damn whose bed I frequented either. So why are you suddenly making me feel like the devil’s spawn when all I’ve done is declare an intent to become respectable?’
‘At least you’ve both kept your figures,’ Rafe said morosely, ignoring the rage that had sliced through the room in the last moments. ‘My closest friends are a lecher and a merchant, but at least they — ‘
‘A charming threesome, we,’ Mayne broke in. ‘A drunkard, a lecher, and a merchant. The flowers of English society. At least we inherited our sins honestly … from our forefathers.’
‘My mother would not thank you for that reminder of my father’s birth,’ Lucius said wryly. ‘She decided long ago that my head for figures must have come from his side of the family.’
‘Your mother’s a fool,’ Mayne said, but without venom, turning up his glass for the last drops of brandy. ‘You’re the best of us, even if your father’s inheritance was his face and not a fortune. Ah, well, at least I’m reforming! First marriage, then children, and before you know it, I’ll take up my seat in Lords.’
Rafe doubted that. But it was true that Tess could hardly hope for a better match in a worldly sense, which was precisely the sort of things guardians were supposed to pay attention to. ‘It can’t be a public wedding,’ he said. ‘She’s still in mourning.’
‘Strictly special licence,’ Mayne said. ‘My uncle’s a bishop, y’know. He can give us the licence and do the ceremony, right here. You have a chapel, don’t you?’
‘All right, but Tess has to agree. I’m not forcing her into a marriage that’s too hasty to feel comfortable.’
Mayne gave him a faint smile. ‘That shouldn’t present a problem. God knows I’ve had enough experience making women love me. I’d give it two days at the most. A few compliments and some poetry should do it.’ He said it without boastfulness, simply accepting of his own place in the world and his own skills.
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