“Oh?”
“The idea is to get other gentlemen to take notice. If they wonder what an earl might see in an untitled woman like her with seemingly few prospects, they may be eager to console her when I break things off.”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “I take it your sister invented this scheme?”
Yates grinned. “She is indeed the creative one.”
“You’re a good man, Yates. One of the best, in fact, which is why I’ll even share my best brandy with you while we talk.”
“The 1776?”
Henry poured them each a glass. “Precisely.” He offered one to his friend, who took it with thanks. “I would advise you to take care regarding Miss Harlow, however. It would be a pity were she to get hurt.”
Yates looked a bit perplexed. “Hurt? Why on earth would she get hurt?”
Henry gave him the frankest look he could manage. “Because you are romancing her. It may not be real, but it is certainly real enough for the papers to wonder when you will officially announce your betrothal.”
“That is the point,” Yates said, and took a sip of his drink.
“I realize that, but what if she gets carried away with the allure of marrying an earl.”
Concern flickered in Yates’s eyes. “I had not considered it, Lowell.” He frowned. “She is an agreeable woman with whom I enjoy spending time or this would not have worked at all, but I can’t really marry her.”
“Why not?”
Yates stared back at Henry with eyes the size of saucers. “I—”
A hard knock interrupted their conversation. “Enter!” Henry shouted.
The door opened and Mr. Faulkner looked in. “The Duke of Tremaine would like to see you, sir. Shall I show him in or would you rather I ask him to wait?”
Uncertainty born from Viola’s reaction to Robert surfaced for a second. He buried it quickly, however, intent on making his own assessment of the man he’d once called a friend. “By all means, show him in,” Henry said. He met Yates’s gaze while Faulkner went to fetch the duke. “It will give us a chance to make up for lost time.”
“I wasn’t even aware he was back,” Yates murmured right before the door opened again and Tremaine entered the room.
He looked weatherworn, Henry decided. As if too much salty sea air had dimmed his luster. And flecks of gray were now starting to show on both sides of his dark brown hair. “Gentlemen,” he announced, striding to shake first Yates’s hand and then Henry’s. “It is good to see the two of you again.” He glanced around. “I have to say I’m surprised, Lowell. When I went to call on you at your house, your butler said I’d find you here instead. From what I gather, you own this place?”
“Bought the building three years ago and opened it to the public eight months later. I’ve been running it ever since.” Henry snatched up an empty glass and tilted it slightly. “Brandy?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Tremaine said. He lowered himself to the last remaining chair. “It’s impressive, Lowell. I’m glad to see one of us has had some success.” He glanced at Yates. “Though I’m sure you’ve had your fair share as well. You always were the lucky one.”
“I’m afraid my luck may have run its course,” Yates said. Henry handed Tremaine his drink. “Debutantes flocked to my side when I wasn’t interested, and now that I’m thinking of finding a wife there’s none to be found. Everyone’s getting married in quick succession.”
“Surely not,” Tremaine said.
“Well, Lady Gabriella is off the market and so are her husband’s sisters, Lady Amelia and Lady Juliette.”
Tremaine frowned. “They don’t sound familiar. Do I know them?”
“You wouldn’t. They entered Society two years ago when their brother inherited the title after the old Duke of Huntley and his sons all died.” Yates expelled a tired breath and leaned back further in his seat. “It’s a long story, which I’ll happily share with you some other time.”
“How intriguing,” Tremaine muttered. “According to what I read in the gossip column this morning, you’re supposed to be off to the altar soon with a certain Miss Harlow?”
“That’s just what people are supposed to think,” Yates muttered. “I’m only helping her get noticed while I wait for the woman I intend to marry. It’s taking longer than I would have hoped, however.”
Cradling his glass between his hands, Tremaine tilted his head as if in contemplation. “You shouldn’t feel too disheartened, Yates. Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it can be a bloody nuisance. Especially when you have the sort of wife for whom the world is ending if she can’t have her afternoon tea. Lord help me, I don’t know what I was thinking, getting myself leg-shackled to a woman who refused to eat from a plate that wasn’t made from bone china. She didn’t even leave the house for a year after arriving in Anguilla because she found the road too bumpy for comfortable travel.”
“It doesn’t sound as though she was cut out for life in the Colonies,” Henry said.
