“True,” Jasper conceded, rising with fluid ease. “But I did knock, albeit once. Then I remembered how tragically dull you become when brooding alone and thought it best to intervene.”
“As always.”
Mason poured them two fingers of brandy and handed his cousin one of the glasses, completely ignoring the smell, for rage seemed to have momentarily dulled his sense of smell.
“You’re looking serious,” Jasper remarked, swirling the amber liquid. “More serious than usual, and for you, that’s saying something. Is it your tenants? Some scandal I haven’t yet heard? Did the Dowager discover your secret collection of scandalous French poetry?”
“It’s none of those things,” Mason said dryly, leaning back in his chair. “And if Ididhave such a collection, it would be better hidden than your mistresses.”
“Touché.” Jasper raised his glass in salute.
He sniffed the brandy before drinking then took an exaggerated whiff as though detecting arsenic in the bouquet.
“Good God,” he gasped, pulling the glass back in alarm. “Have you taken to poisoning me? Because I’d prefer stabbing… it’s far less pedestrian.”
Mason took a drink from his own glass and promptly spat it back out.
“Soap.”
“Soap!” Jasper repeated in horror. “Youdidpoison me. You’ve turned recluse and begun experimenting on the last soul who still tolerates your company.”
Mason muttered a curse under his breath and stood, stalking toward the sideboard. “I had bloody forgotten. I should have Hargrave’s head for allowing this.”
“Oh, leave the poor man alone. He’s had to put up with you for years. What’s a little homicide between friends?” Jasper rose and followed, still examining his glass with theatrical dismay. “Wait… no. This wasn’t Hargrave’s doing. He’s too old. This… this smells like youthful incompetence.”
Mason said nothing, pouring the ruined brandy into the basin with unnecessary force.
Jasper’s brow arched. “Ah. A maid?”
“No,” Mason grumbled.
“A footman? Don’t tell me you’ve hired a valet who moonlights as a scullery maid?—”
“My mother has a new companion.”
Jasper paused. “Ah.”
Mason shot him a look that dared him to make more of it. As always, he did.
“Well, that explains it,” Jasper said with a snap of his fingers. “Iknewsomething had unsettled you. I thought perhaps you were grappling with questions of mortality or, worse, responsibility. But no, this is far more serious.”
Mason crossed his arms. “It’s not serious.”
“No, of course not,” Jasper agreed smoothly, raising the ruined glass in a mock-toast. “It’s only that your mother has brought into your home a bright-eyed, tragically earnest young woman with an apparent vendetta against dust and perfectly good liquor. One who clearly stirs something in you since you’ve been scowling more than usual—which is truly saying something, given your standard expression resembles a storm cloud mid-tantrum.”
“There isnothingstirred,” Mason snapped. “She is an utter chaos of a woman who leaves half-done embroidery in the dining room and sings to the dogs in the morning. She… she arranged my ledgers by color, Jasper.Color.”
Jasper’s eyes lit with delight. “So, she’s clever, too. What a horror.”
Mason exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair.
“Perhaps you simply need to get it out of your system,” Jasper mused, examining his fingernails. “Kiss the chit. End the madness. Then go on with your very serious life of glowering in libraries and judging my choices, although they are your own, too. You just hate to admit it, old boy.”
The words were meant in jest. Mason knew that. And yet… something inside of him, low and primal and utterly furious, rose at the suggestion, not at the idea of kissing Cordelia but at the thought of her being just some dalliance.
Jasper, to his credit, noticed at once.
“Easy,” he said, lifting his hands in a symbol of mock surrender. “It was a jest.”
