Mantis grazed his fingertips along the raised ridges along his cheek. At least a professional instructor would refrain from leaving scars on his pupil.
“I’ve a new throw I could teach you. What are you doing presently?”
“Not today, Manningham,” Conner shifted his gaze to the stairs. “I’m to meet with my father now. Mother likes me to keep him appraised of all the things I am learning.”
How had his father sired two boys so unalike one another?
Mantis wouldn’t give up on Conner. If practicing the ancient arts had helped him, as a damn-near simpleton, there was no telling the advantages someone like Conner could gain.
Mantis doubted he’d have survived if not for the discipline.
“Are you excited to go to Eton at the end of summer?” At school, Mantis had discovered precisely how important hitting balls around actually was. Physical prowess, arguably, made a man more powerful than any title—at that age anyhow. “You’ll want to make friends there.”
Conner merely lifted his chin. “They will like me. They will have to like me.”
If Conner entered the all-boys school with that attitude, the lessons he learned might be both humiliating and painful.
Mantis reached out, and despite Conner’s attempt to avoid his hand, scrubbed the ridiculous part out of his hair. “Much better,” he laughed. His brother was also going to have to find a new hairstyle because adolescent boys could be merciless indeed.
“Not well done of you, Manningham. Mr. Rudolph shall have to repair it now.” The tightly wound child turned all starch and vinegar as he backed away, scowling.
“Not so fast,” Mantis stopped him. “I won’t be living here any longer.”
“You’re leaving?” Conner’s scowl, Mantis knew, was his way of showing some disappointment.
“I’m not going far.” For now. “I’ll be staying at Knight House. After I marry, I’ll provide my wife with her own home.”
“Are you taking Cornell? To your new house in Mayfair?”
“Yes to both.” Regardless of where Mantis lived, he’d make arrangements to spend time with this boy. “You aren’t going to miss me, are you?”
Conner twisted his mouth into a grimace. “Not at all.” But then he added. “You will visit, won’t you?” Even after Mantis resided elsewhere, he’d make time for this boy.
“I’ll do even better than that. You can stay with me any time you wish.”
Conner mulled this information over and then shrugged. “Very well.” He dashed down the stairs but then stopped and turned, “Don’t forget to tell mother where you live.”
Much later that night, seated around a felt-covered table in Greystone’s study with Westerley, Chaswick, Stone, Greys, and even Blackheart making an occasional appearance, Mantis felt the importance of good friends even more acutely. These men had all come into his life around the same time—when he was only slightly older than Conner was now.
And even though half of them were either married or on the cusp of being married, much like himself, he would lay down his life for any of them.
Or he would have before…
Because—
Felicity.
“Are you in or out?” Stone Spencer, due to marry only one week following Mantis and Felicity’s nuptials, met his gaze from across the table, cocking one brow.
In answer, Mantis tossed three coins into the pile.
These men were like brothers to him, but the nature of that brotherhood was shifting.
Westerley had already announced he would be bowing out before the hour grew too late. He had no desire to keep his countess… his wife, waiting. And Chaswick, married to one of Westerley’s sisters now, was no different.
Although, Mantis glanced at his timepiece. It was nearly two in the morning already.
Hopefully, their respective wives would be forgiving. Once the whiskey had begun dulling their faculties, sense of time dulled as well.
