The room echoed with his sniffles. He’d have laughed if his lungs weren’t on strike.Where did the beauty go?He ought to apologize again for his sneezy outburst.
“Seb! You’re early!”
“Thomas, your ability to tell time is uncanny.”
He unrolled the scarf from his neck, the fringes frozen into miniature icicles that looked like sad lace.
The butler, McGulligan, took the soaked garment with a wince. “You’re even wetter than the new kittens in the stables after they fell in a puddle, milord.”
“Right, well.” A soaked cat. What a lovely image.
“Milord, where shall we deposit the barrels of oysters and baskets of Billingsgate fish?” the man asked, voice painfully dignified for someone holding shellfish.
Sebastian blinked. “Oysters and what?”
“For the engagement festivities,” the butler intoned, eyes narrowingin that uniquely Scottish acidity that said,This is beneath my station, but I will persevere.
“Bring them to the back,” Thomas said breezily. “There’s ice enough for the oyster platters.”
Sebastian trailed behind him toward the grand staircase. The whole household buzzed, the air full of floral soap and simmering sauces.
It all reeked of celebration. And not the relaxing kind.
He frowned at the row of ancestral portraits. Every earl of Thomas’s ancestry glared down at him as if to say,Try not to sneeze on anything valuable.
“You’ll want to change and come down to dinner,” Thomas said.
“Who’swe?”
“Everyone,” Thomas said, grinning. “The Expecting Party.”
Sebastian missed a tread, then caught it.
“Ashley is with child,” Thomas added, pride bright as a torch.
Sebastian found the banister and his voice. “Well. That explains the oysters.”
Good for him. Warmth for a friend, and a small, sharp tug beneath Sebastian’s ribs—find your own place, man.
Sebastian followed in a daze, water squishing from his boots with every step. The last time he and Thomas had been here, they were drinking port and debating the ideal saddle.Now Thomas was hosting… baby-themed buffets?
Everything in the castle was the same. His room hadn’t changed—same books, same drawer with his letterhead, same dent in the armchair where he read. But everything else? Different.
His best friend had grown up. And he was going to marry the love of his life, Ashley, and they were going to be a family.
Sebastian stood in the doorway, soaking and silent, while Thomas flung himself across the bed.
“So,” Sebastian said slowly, peeling off his socks, “an ExpectingParty is a thing now?”
“It is when Ashley says it is.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“You’re the first I’ve told.” He couldn’t stifle his smile. “But she probably told her friends, Charlene and Maddie. Sera and the prince haven’t arrived yet.”
Sebastian snorted. “How long has she—?”
Thomas coughed. “Let’s not talk about timing.”
