He wondered if it would be bad form to turn around and run away.
“That pitcher’s almost empty,” Malcolm observed from his clutch of lads. “Shall I go buy us a new one?”
“Let me!” Rhys Caradoc exclaimed, popping up from his seat and rushing forward to grip both of Mal’s hands at the wrists as though to stop him from spending more coin. “I’ll get more glasses too. You relax and enjoy your reunions.”
“Oh,” said Mal, blinking a few times. “All right.”
Rhys slipped around Elias, a grin spreading on the former’s face as he flicked two golden cufflinks over his fingers, tossing Elias a wink in passing as he headed toward the bar, pocketing his take.
Part of Elias wanted to be amused by it, his eyes flicking back to Malcolm, who appeared blissfully unaware that he’d just been robbed as he chortled it up with his banker friends. The other part wanted to tattle on Rhys and ruin everyone’s fun.
He frowned.
He had grown up, hadn’t he?
He’d thought he had.
He never would have had that impulse back home in Hounslow. He enjoyed a night at the pub in Hounslow. He could relax there, could engage in revelry.
That had been the entire point, hadn’t it? Away from this, fromthem, he was his own man. He was perfectly impressive on his own merit. He had gotten good marks in school. He had chosen to enter the service to shine his reputation further, eventhough a peer in the military rarely gets to actually do very much beyond ceremonial presentation and quill scratching.
He hadtriedto become someone worth being. And all the while, some part of him had always known that no matter what he achieved elsewhere, he would still belong to this odd little constellation. And he would still be its dimmest star.
He gripped his teeth together and turned his head to observe the others, his eye catching Harriet’s from where she sat between Libba and Monica in the corner booth, her own ale held still to her lips as she listened to something one of the other women was saying.
“Here you go!” Ruby announced, shoving a pint glass in his hand. “Gulp it down, handsome. Maybe you’ll have a bit more fun once you’re a glass or three deep.”
“Ruby,” Errol chided, but without any real heat, accepting a second glass from her with a smile. “You know Rhys just robbed Malcolm?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ruby. “Shall we place wagers on how long it takes him to notice?”
“If he notices at all,” Errol replied with a chuckle.
“Come sit,” Ruby said, placing a hand on either man’s shoulders and steering them toward that same corner booth where Hattie was seated.
Elias grimaced and decided to take her advice, tipping the ale into his mouth as he walked and swallowing before he could taste it with any significant detail.
“So are you going to?” Monica Thresher was saying breathlessly to Libba Lennox. “Like old times.”
“It’s still early,” Libba answered with a wave of her hand. “More strangers need to file in first. I wish I’d brought Lem with me. This bit would sell even faster with him in tow.”
“Oh, it would, wouldn’t it?” Hattie answered, giving a little hiccup into her cup with a curve of her lips. “He looks just like a royal bodyguard from far-flung lands should.”
“Who’s Lem, then?” Ruby asked, falling into her seat again as Elias and Errol sorted out their own chairs. “And why didn’t you bring him with you, you selfish girl?”
“You wouldn’t appeal to his tastes,” Libba said soothingly to Ruby, who immediately scoffed.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I whet all appetites.”
“This is a game we used to play,” Errol said, leaning closer to Elias, gesturing at the women. “Libba chooses a tourist and convinces him that she is foreign royalty, in Brighton at Prince George’s invitation. It’s gotten as far as marriage proposals a few times.”
“Why would a foreign princess be in a middle-line pub?” Elias replied, baffled.
Errol just shrugged, chuckling. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever asked, but I suppose the unlikeliness of it only makes her pulling off the ruse all the more impressive.”
“Here we are!” Rhys announced, returning with two pitchers. “Ice cold and fizzy. Who needs a top-up?”
“Oh, me!” Hattie said, holding up her empty glass, her cheeks already looking quite pink by Elias’s estimation.“Os gwelwch yn dda.”
