“How many times have you fired the poor man?” Harry dropped into the chair opposite Adam’s. He always made himself perfectly at home in Adam’s book room, a presumption that drove Adam absolutely crazy.
Adam shrugged. “Six. Seven. And every time he sulks away like a lily-livered coward.”
“You didn’t pull a pistol on him this time, did you?”
“I have never pulled a pistol on Josiah Jones,” Adam insisted curtly. Harry looked doubtful. “I may have held an épée to his throat once or twice, but he was never in any real danger.”
“Didheknow that?” Harry asked with a raise of his eyebrow.
“The man may have been operating under a false assumption.” Adam leaned his head back casually, crossing his booted feet where they rested on a footstool. “Can’t imagine why.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with your less-than-pristine reputation, Adam. Rumor has it you’ve run through a few men in your time.”
“Rumor has it I’ve done quite a few things.” Adam rolled his eyes.
“Fought a duel on the floor of the House of Lords, for example,” Harry said.
“Ridiculous.”
“Shot the pistol out of a man’s hands in a duel, without so much as winging him,” Harry continued.
Adam nodded. “Twice.”
“Bested Gentleman Jackson.”
Adam smiled at the memory.Thathad been extremely gratifying.
“Bloodied Poisenby’s nose at a ball.” Harry was smiling. He’d been there for that now-famous occurrence.
“Brokehis nose,” Adam amended.
“Walked out of Lords in the middle of a speech by Addington.”
“The man was being obtuse,” Adam said.
“He was the prime minister,” Harry pointed out.
Adam just shrugged. The papers had spoken of little else for several weeks after his abrupt departure from the House of Lords that day. But he’d made his point.
“And you wonder why Jones thinks the worst whenever you’re angry with him,” Harry said with an ironic twist to his mouth.
“He’ll recover.”
“I hate to even ask,” Harry prefaced.
“Then don’t,” Adam answered.
Harry, as usual, ignored him. “Why did you let the man go this time?”
“He has apparently lost his mind.”
“How so?”
“Why are you so deuced curious?”
“You provide me with constant puzzles,” Harry answered. “What, precisely, has caused you to question your man of business’s mental capacity?”
“He gave me some advice—”
