“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat notably. “Well. Thank you.” He busied himself for a moment with a stack of papers that Hector had spent the day combing through. For all his father’s sins, he at least hadn’t left his estate in shambles for his heir, as so many profligate lords were wont to do.
“But,” Jonathan went on after a moment, not quite meeting Hector’s eye, “I confess a specific partiality to this house. It does not exceed my loyalty to Your Grace,” he clarified. “But I have spent many years in London, and it would feel strange to leave it.”
“Aye, I understand,” Hector said. He did, too. He was too new a transplant to the city not to keenly remember the discomfort of leaving behind everything he’d known. “I’ll not ask you to leave your home.”
There was a look in Jonathan’s eye that said that, with this easy acceptance, Hector had bought even more loyalty.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” he murmured with enough heart that Hector couldn’t summon any response beyond a curt nod.
It was strange to have an ally in this new place. Strange, but nice.
Hector regretted this thought before the evening was out.
He had spent most of the day ensconced in his study with Jonathan, pulling together the details of the house party. Throughout the process, Hector’s mind kept drifting to Clio.
If she accepted his suit, tasks like this would become hers to manage. Did she like this kind of work, the kind that Society misses, were practically trained in from birth? Or would she resent being strong-armed into a marriage that she hadn’t chosen?
He banished that thought. Surely any of these silly London noblewomen would be happy to be a duchess.
If he had a hard time seeing that description applying to Clio, well. He didn’t intend to dwell on it.
Jonathan was as good as any well-bred lady when it came to navigating the maze of London Society, however. Though it might have seemed impossible, by the end of the day, he and Hector had arranged nearly everything for the party that would begin several days hence.
By the end of it all, Hector wanted nothing more than to return to his bedchamber and sit in unmoving silence for several hours.
This was, of course, when the footman arrived with news that His Grace had a guest.
“Send them away,” Hector said irritably. It was late—gone ten o’clock in the evening—and he didn’t care if these Society fops were out until all hours of the night. He had kept country hours all his life, had risen with the dawn every day since he was eight years old, and he wasn’t about to give in to the slothful lure of Town life so quickly.
“Very good, Your Grace,” the footman said reflexively—but then, he did not move. “It is only, Your Grace,” he added hesitantly, then Hector shot him a questioning look, “I do believe that he has traveled some distance to see you.”
Hector was enormously tempted to dig in his heels and refuse to entertain anyone at this hour—especially since the footman had saidhe, which meant it wasn’t Clio, whom he might have accepted, even though it was blatantly foolish to do so.
But he supposed that this was the kind of thing that got a man a bad reputation among theton, and he would need every ounce of goodwill he could muster if he planned to oust his brother.
“Oh, very well,” Hector said peevishly. “Show him in.”
He braced himself for some self-important toady who simplyneededan audience with the duke, no matter the hour or anyone else’s schedules.
Instead, he got his closest friend in the world.
“Ramsay!” Hector exclaimed, shock loosening his tongue at the sight of his friend, whom he’d left several hundred miles north, fearing that he would never see him again. Yet here he was, Ramsay Becham, looking somewhat rumpled from travel but nevertheless greeting Hector with his usual irreverent grin.
“Were you really thinking about sending me away, Hec?” he asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
Jonathan looked tempted to faint dead away, though whether it was because the man had greeted a duke by a nickname or because he feared that Ramsay’s travel dust would get on the walls, Hector couldn’t be sure.
“I’m still thinking about sending you away,” Hector complained, though he felt his own smile spreading. “What the hell are you doing here, mate?”
Ramsay dug a parcel of papers out of his pocket.
“After you left, some mail came for ye, from some official solicitor type. I took the liberty of opening it, since you weren’t around to do it.”
Ramsay had always treated Hector like a brother, even though he’d just been another lad in the village, not officially a member of the family that had adopted Hector. It was therefore unsurprising to Hector that Ramsay had considered it fair game to read his post.
Jonathan, however, made a distressed sound.
Ramsay glanced in the butler’s direction, giving him an assessing glance.
