“I believe we share a few common ancestors.”
“You believe?” she asked.
He scowled. “If you want a more specific pedigree, you’ll have to checkThe Correct Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland.”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “I suspect we share a few ancestors with a good portion of theton.” She glanced sideways. “Besides, I don’t care a whit about his pedigree.”
Hetsked. “Radical.”
“Markham!” she scolded. “Be serious. I know nothing about this man, and he told me he’d asked for your permission to marry me.”
“Already?” Markham let out a long-suffering sigh and rubbed his forehead. “Very well. Let’s see…what can I tell you? Everyone I know also knows Bromton, or of him, at least.”
“I didn’t.” She studied him. “Ohhhhh, I beg your pardon. By everyone, you meanmenof your acquaintance.”
He ignored her point and continued, “At Eton, Bromton was held up as an example of what a young peer should be, and he’d left years before.”
“So, this paragon peer just happened to choose you to take under his wing?”
“That’s vulgar. We’re friends.” A partial smile ghosted Markham’s lips, as if he remembered something particularly amusing. “Then again, they do call me pup from time to time.”
“Theycall you pup?”
“Bromton and his friends—Lord Farring and Lord Rayne.”
“How lowering,” Katherine said.
Markham shrugged. “I don’t really mind. It’s not like they treat me any differently than they do one another.”
“Bromton can call you pup, but I cannot call you Percy.”
Something dark flashed in Markham’s eyes. “All in the tone, Kate, dear.”
Mmmm. Could it be she had nicked her little brother’s consequence more deeply than she had intended? Did he actually care about his ruined sister’s good opinion? She tucked the thought away for another time.
“Where did you meet Bromton and his friends?” she asked.
“Gaming hell.”
“Lovely,” Katherine groaned.
Markham groaned right back. “Don’t be such an ape-leader. I gamble with restraint.”
“I’m sure you go whoring with steadiness and sobriety, too,” she replied.
“We never gowhoringat all.” He jostled her shoulder. “Brom’s really gotten under your skin, hasn’t he? You are in rare form tonight; your vocabulary alone would be enough to shock the thread from the needles of a ladies sewing circle.”
She pursed her lips in a rotten expression. She was exceptionally angry. And frustrated. Still, she felt more alive than she had in years.
Yet another thought she did not wish to examine.
“Back to the gaming hell, please,” she said primly.
“They invited me to join as their fourth.”
“Who invited you?”
“I don’t remember. Rayne, I think. After that night, we went gambling in one another’s company so often, we acquired names. Brom is Spades, Rayne, Diamonds, Farring, Clubs.”
