His expression pinching to an oddly pensive look, Sheffield crossed the carpet and took a seat in one of the armchairs set by the hearth. “Perhaps I’m trying to change.”
“Well, that calls for a drink,” quipped Tyler as he moved to the tray of decanters on the side table. Sheffield was very fond of the earl’s expensive brandy.
Sheffield dismissed the suggestion with an airy wave. “No, no. I wish to keep a clear head.”
“Are you ill?” queried Wrexford.
“Ha, ha, ha.” Assuming an injured look, his friend slouched deeper into the pillows. “Actually, I was hoping to discuss something—” He stopped short as he caught sight of the waistcoat Tyler was carrying, and then started to laugh in earnest.
The valet fixed him with a pained look. “Pray, what’s so amusing?”
“The idea that Wrex might wear that.” Sheffield made a face. “Ye heavens, he would look like one of those peacocks from the court of King Charles I. You know, the ones painted by what’s-his-name, the flamboyant, good-looking fellow who was a great favorite with the ladies.”
“Anthony Van Dyck?” suggested the earl.
“Yes, that’s him.” His friend looked rather pleased with himself. “As you see, I didn’t sleep through every lecture at Oxford.”
Heaving a long-suffering sigh, the valet stalked out of the room.
Sheffield’s smirk lingered for a moment and then gave way to a more uncertain mien. “I daresay Lady Charlotte is feeling nervous about making her first grand entrée into Society.”
Another of Charlotte Sloane’s secrets had recently wrought a great change in her life. The daughter of an earl, she had been disowned by her family for eloping to Italy with a man beneath her station. And then, after becoming a widow, she had dared to forge an independent life for herself within the dog-eat-dog world of the lower classes through talent, grit, and determination. But the recent murder of her cousin—and the arrest of his twin brother for the crime—had forced her to step out of the shadows and back into the glittering world of the beau monde in order to find the real culprit.
Wrexford moved to the side table and poured himself a brandy. “I daresay she is.” He lifted his glass. “You’re sure you won’t join me?”
A curt wave dismissed the offer.
He shrugged and took a swallow, allowing the liquid fire to prickle against his tongue.
“What if it turns out that she hates this new life?” Sheffield rose and began to pace. “You know how she despises the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocracy. She’s already made some small compromises, but she’ll have to keep making even more changes to fit into her new world, and . . .”
His friend gave a troubled sigh. “And once you change, there’s no going back.”
“Change is an inexorable part of our existence, Kit,” he replied. “With every tick of Time, we’re moving ever closer to our mortality. Our lives are in a constant state of flux. Try as we may, we can’t stand still.”
“Thank you. That makes me feel ever so much more sanguine about the coming evening.” Despite the quip, Sheffield looked even more unsettled.
The earl sensed they were talking about more than Charlotte’s challenges. “The idea of change frightens us all, Kit.”
“Not you.” His friend came to a halt. “Nothing rattles you.”
Ah, would that it were so, thought Wrexford.
“You have the gift of sardonic detachment,” Sheffield went on. “You can laugh at the absurdities of our human foibles rather than find them terrifying.”
“Terror is also an inexorable part of our existence,” he said quietly. “To claim otherwise means there’s no blood pulsing through your veins.”
“But how—”
“Don’t fret over Lady Charlotte,” counseled Wrexford. An oblique answer, perhaps, to the real question his friend was asking. But Sheffield was a clever fellow. “She has courage, resilience, a sharp sense of humor.” He paused. “Most importantly, she has friends. Terror loses its power when you’re not facing it alone.”
An odd glimmer seemed to spark beneath Sheffield’s lashes. “Did I just hear you say a good word about the power of friendship and love?”
“Heaven forfend. You must have imagined it.” Wrexford quaffed another swallow of brandy. “But getting back to what you started to say a moment ago . . .” He quickly changed the subject, having no wish to pursue the topic of emotions. “You wish to discuss something?”
“Yes.” His friend looked away for a moment. “A rather important matter, in fact.”
“Ah.” The earl’s lips twitched. “I take it you’ve run through your quarterly allowance and wish to borrow some blunt for brandy and revelries.”
