A flash of something that looked like pain passed across his cousin’s face, so quickly Max wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it. ‘That was a long time ago, Mama.’
Sorrow softened her features. ‘Perhaps. But a mother never forgets. In any event, after all those years in the army, always throwing yourself into the most dangerous part of the action, I’m too delighted to have you safely home to quibble about the lack of notice—though I fear you will have to suffer through the house party. With the guests already arriving, I can hardly call it off now.’
Releasing her son’s hands with obvious reluctance, she turned to Max. ‘It’s good to see you, too, my dear Max.’
‘If I’d known you were entertaining innocents, Aunt Grace, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet Alastair here,’ Max assured her as he leaned down to kiss her cheek.
‘Nonsense,’ she said stoutly. ‘All you Ransleigh lads have run wild at Barton Abbey since you were scrubby schoolboys. You’ll always be welcome in my home, Max, no matter how … circumstances change.’
‘Then you are kinder than Papa,’ Max replied, trying for a light tone while his chest tightened with the familiar wash of anger, resentment and regret. Still, the cousins’ unexpected appearance must have been an unpleasant shock to a hostess about to convene a gathering of eligible young maidens and their prospective suitors—an event of which they’d been unaware until the butler warned them about it upon their arrival half an hour ago.
As he’d just assured his aunt, had Max known Barton Abbey would be sheltering unmarried young ladies on the prowl for husbands, he would have taken care to stay far away.
He’d best talk with his cousin and decide what to do. ‘Alastair, shall we get that glass of wine?’
‘There’s a full decanter in the library,’ Mrs Ransleigh said. ‘I’ll send Wendell up with some cold ham, cheese and biscuits. One thing that never changes—I’m sure you boys are famished.’
‘Bless you, Mama,’ Alastair told her with a grin, while Max added his thanks. As they bowed and turned to go, Mrs Ransleigh said hesitantly, ‘I don’t suppose you care to dine with the party?’
‘Amongst that virginal lot? Most assuredly not!’ Alastair retorted. ‘Even if we’d suddenly developed a taste for petticoat affairs, my respectable married sister would probably poison our wine were we to intrude our scandalous presence in the midst of her aspiring innocents. Come along, Max, before the smell of perfumed garments from those damned chests overcomes us.’
Thumping Max on the shoulder to set him in motion, Alastair paused to kiss his mother’s hand. ‘Tell the girls to visit us later, once their virginal guests are safely abed behind locked doors.’
Max followed his cousin down the hallway and into a large library comfortably furnished with well-worn leather chairs and a massive desk. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to leave?’ he asked again as he drew out a decanter and filled two glasses.
‘Devil’s teeth,’ Alastair growled, ‘this is my house. I’ll come and go when I wish, and my friends, too. Besides, you’ll enjoy seeing Mama and Jane and Felicity—for whom the ever-managing Jane arranged this gathering, Wendell told me. Jane thinks Lissa should have some experience with eligible men before she’s cast into the Marriage Mart next spring. Though she’s not angling to get Lissa riveted now, some of the attendees did bring offspring they’re trying to marry off, bless Wendell for warning us!’
Sighing, Alastair accepted a brimming glass. ‘You’d think my highly-publicized liaisons with actresses and dancers, combined with an utter lack of interest in respectable virgins, would be enough to put off matchmaking mamas. But as you well know, wealth and ancient lineage appear to trump notoriety and lack of inclination. However, with my equally notorious cousin to entertain,’ he inclined his head toward Max, ‘I have a perfect excuse to avoid the ladies. So, let’s drink to you,’ Alastair hoisted his glass, ‘for rescuing me not only from boredom, but from having to play the host at Jane’s hen party.’
‘To evading your duty as host,’ Max replied, raising his own glass. ‘Nice to know my ruined career is good for something,’ he added, bitterness in his tone.
‘A temporary setback only,’ Alastair said. ‘Sooner or later, the Foreign Office will sort out that business in Vienna.’
‘Maybe,’ Max said dubiously. He, too, had thought the matter might be resolved quickly … until he spoke with Papa. ‘There’s still the threat of a court-martial.’
‘After Hougoumont?’ Alastair snorted derisively. ‘Maybe if you’d defied orders and abandoned your unit before Waterloo, but no military jury is going to convict you for throwing yourself into the battle, instead of sitting back in England as instructed. Some of the Foot Guards who survived the fighting owe their lives to you and headquarters knows it. No,’ he concluded, ‘even Horse Guards, who are often ridiculously stiffrumped about disciplinary affairs, know better than to bring such a case to trial.’
‘I hope you’re right. As my father noted on the one occasion he deigned to speak with me, I’ve already sufficiently tarnished the family name.’
It wasn’t the worst of what the earl had said, Max thought, the memory of that recent interview still raw and stinging. He saw himself again, standing silent, offering no defence as the earl railed at him for embarrassing the family and complicating his job in the Lords, where he was struggling to sustain a coalition. Pronouncing Max a sore disappointment and a political liability, he’d banished him for the indefinite future from Ransleigh House in London and the family seat in Hampshire.
Max had left without even seeing his mother.
‘The earl still hasn’t come round?’ Alastair’s soft-voiced question brought him back to the present. After a glance at Max’s face, he sighed. ‘Almost as stubborn and rule-bound as Horse Guards, is my dear uncle. Are you positive you won’t allow me to speak to him on your behalf?’
‘You know arguing with Papa only hardens his views—and might induce him to extend his banishment to you, which would grieve both our mothers. No, it wouldn’t serve … though I appreciate your loyalty more than I can say—’ Max broke off and swallowed hard.
‘No need to say anything,’ Alastair replied, briskly refilling their glasses. ‘“Ransleigh Rogues together, for ever,”’ he quoted, holding his glass aloft.
‘“Ransleigh Rogues,”’ Max returned the salute, his heart lightening as he tried to recall exactly when Alastair had coined that motto. Probably over an illicit glass of smuggled brandy some time in their second Eton term after a disapproving master, having caned all four cousins for some now-forgotten infraction, first denounced them as the ‘Ransleigh Rogues.’
The name, quickly whispered around the college, had stuck to them, and they to each other, Max thought, smiling faintly. Through the fagging at Eton, the hazing at Oxford, then into the army to watch over Alastair when, after the girl he loved terminated their engagement in the most public and humiliating fashion imaginable, he’d joined the first cavalry unit that would take him, vowing to die gloriously in battle.
They’d stood by Max, too, after the failed assassination attempt at the Congress of Vienna. When he returned to London in disgrace, he’d found that, of all the government set that since his youth had encouraged and flattered the handsome, charming younger son of an earl, only his fellow Rogues still welcomed
