Nicholas’s lips parted in surprise. He did not like children—too many bad memories—found them delicate and alien. But the way Miss Tate was staring at the ground, tucking a strand of soft hair behind her ear, evidently wishing he would agree to come...
How could anyone deny her anything?
“Certainly,” he promised, feigning a confident smile.
Miss Tate beamed with joy again, and the lie felt worth the cost to his soul.
A play at an orphanage was far from the type of entertainment Nicholas usually enjoyed in London. The mere thought of the King’s Theatre made his heart ache.
But it seemed reasonable that by Christmastide, Nicholas would have found a way to leave Oxford anyway—or that Miss Tate would have forgotten all about him—or that, by some cruel twist of fate, she would have learned who hereallywas—or that they would never cross paths again.
Ayes, to satisfy Miss Tate today, to be forgotten about in a week. When she sent the invitation to his made-up address and received no reply in return, when she learned how he had lied to her, she would not be disappointed.
After all, she knew he liked to play pretend.
So when they said their goodbyes a few minutes later, he did what was most natural to him and pretended not to care.
CHAPTER FIVE
Aweek later, the private dining hall at The Pump Rooms hummed with the din of cutlery and the low vibrations of conversation.
Nicholas finished clearing his luncheon plate, buttressed on either side by his peers. They discussed the events coming out of Parliament over mouthfuls of food, bemoaning the state of things, like always. The Earl of Liverpool was a decently popular fellow, but what use were members of Parliament—even exiled ones like Nicholas—if they had nothing to complain about?
Nicholas sensed eyes fix on him from across the table at the mention of London. His brother Samuel sent an uncharacteristic scowl in his direction. He was still dressed in his traveling clothes, having only arrived in town an hour ago, directed to The Pump Rooms by Nicholas’s staff.
He responded with an angry look of his own, and Samuel laughed into his glass of water, setting it down with a little toomuch force once he was done, causing the other men to glance his way.
“Something to add to the discussion, Viscount Whitmore?” came the voice of Lord Gainsbury, an old friend of their father. “Has the present topic of conversation tickled you? It is rare for you to find yourself in Oxford these days. Perhaps all this politicking is wearing on those funny nerves of yours.”
The brothers exchanged amused glances. Samuel was not the only Whitmore man who kept his distance from Oxford. But Nicholas’s rank protected him from direct confrontation.
Samuel’s cheeks were filled with water, and he swallowed before speaking. “Not at all,” he said. “But how kind of you to think of my nerves. People so rarely do.”
Samuel leveled Gainsbury a look that turned the table quiet, his light green eyes so different from Nicholas’s eyes—from any Whitmore’s who had ever lived.
“If I am so frequently absent from Oxford,” Samuel pressed on, “as you haveso discreetlynoted, it is only because so much time here is spent as it is now: regurgitating what has already been said in a better town to the benefit of no one in the worse one. Continue, if you please. But know that the topic of Catholic emancipation has been discussed to death.”
“Well then, pray, My Lord. What would you have us discuss instead?” Gainsbury asked, visibly unimpressed by Samuel’s blasphemy. The others at the table looked nervously around.
“Anything, my good Lord. I am all ears,” Samuel replied, watching a waiter come over to refill his glass. “But if I were to suggest a new avenue of conversation, I say we could raise a toast in honor of the Duke of Avon’s return to Oxford. He has only been in London two weeks, hardly enough time to christen such a felicitous homecoming properly, no doubt.”
What game are you playing now?Nicholas wondered.
Samuel continued: “Not that I hear much from him these days, mind you. These are busy times for His Grace. Most distracted is he. Unable even to answer his correspondence. One might wonder what keeps him from the writing table...”
Nicholas looked up from his near-empty plate, chewing on the side of his mouth to suppress a smile. Samuel raised his glass in challenge. The other men toasted to the Duke of Avon. And if any of them noticed Nicholas choke a little on his drink with a laugh, they were good enough not to mention it.
Samuel parted his lips as though to say something else, but they were interrupted by the arrival of two gentlemen. The others at the table seemed to recognize one of them immediately. Gainsbury rose out of his seat to greet the new arrival as Nicholas watched on from his seat.
The older gentleman, Lord Gainsbury’s friend, was introducing a new student at Oxford who seemed to have some loose familial connection to him. The student was a young manwith a shock of wavy, wheat-blonde hair that would make him the envy of every wig-wearing lord nearby.
Samuel slipped to Nicholas’s side and sat in Gainsbury’s abandoned chair.
“Now the vultures are distracted with fresh meat, you and I should be heading off,” Samuel whispered. “You cannotseriouslywish to remain here another hour! There must be something back at Riverside for you to occupy yourself with—or if not there, then with me in town, like old times. Come, we scarcely speak while we are in London, but you have no excuse now.”
“You make it sound as though I purposefully avoid being in your company,” Nicholas muttered, dropping the volume of his voice. “Youare the one who keeps his distance from me.”
“Well, you are always gadding about with those ton fools, and you know how I despise them so. A distaste which is mutual, thank God.” Samuel squinted, teasingly. “Perhaps gadding about much too closely, if what I have heard is true. The Marchioness of Colmsburgh?Really, brother?”
