His mama mustn’t be pleased about it”

“No, I gather she’s not, especially now,” Adam said. Then there’s Ronald Gaskin, definitely a fortune hunter. Harlow sent him to the roundabout.”

“Adam,” Elizabeth said, reproving him on his language. He merely grinned at her.

“George Duncan,” Ariel pressed on. “I do think he really cares about her, even now.”

“Mayhap,” Adam said. “And then there’s Sir Osbert Hyatt.”

“That round little dandy?” Geoffrey said in disdain.

“Everyone knows he’s always pockets to let,” Adam said.

“I wonder if he has something to do with her disappearance,” Charles said, entering the conversation for the first time in a while.

Adam gave him a long look. “I doubt that, dear boy. He’s more concerned with his clothes.” His smile faded. “In any event, no one will want her now.”

“Poor girl,” Charles said softly.

Adam gave Charles another searching look, making him uncomfortable. “Yes. Do you go to Lady Hathaway’s rout tonight?” he asked, and the conversation became general. It was still about ton events, though, so that Charles drifted away, content simply to be in this room, in this house. There were arranged marriages aplenty, he heard, some marriages of convenience, even some love matches. It meant little to him. He would never marry, there was no doubt of that. Nor would he ever fit into ton life again. He had, once. He had been a dashing young officer wearing the green uniform of the 95th Rifles, pretending to be self-deprecating that his uniform wasn’t scarlet, to all the pretty girls who were making their come- outs. There was a reason, though, why he’d bought his colors in that particular regiment. He was deadly with any firearm, shotgun or pistol or rifle, and he knew his services were needed. That was something the pretty young debutantes didn’t know. That the uniform didn’t protect a man was something only another soldier would understand.

Someone was watching him. Charles’s instinct for danger, for sensing a possible enemy, had been finely honed in Spain and Portugal. Casually looking up, he saw Geoffrey assessing him from across the room. Charles returned the look with a sardonic smile. Geoffrey, he suspected, was about to act, not only as the head of the Kirk family, but as an older brother. There was irony in that. As boys growing up, they had not been close.

Their guests had made their farewells before Geoffrey approached him. “Come to the library with me for a drink.”

Ariel looked up from her knitting. “Geoffrey, do you intend to play the heavy-handed viscount again?”

“’Tis what I am.” His face softened as he looked down at his wife, as he briefly touched her shoulder before moving away.