Mary had stopped asking questions. That was the worst of it. No more updates about Tommy at his study door. No more invitations to visit the nursery. She managed the household, sat across from him at dinner, discussed candle prices and gardenplans, and treated him with the polished courtesy of a hostess entertaining a guest she expected to leave soon.
She never asked where he went at night.
Evander told himself this was what he wanted.
“Evander.” Quentin snapped his fingers. “You have been staring at that glass for a full minute without drinking it. That is either a crisis of conscience or a digestive complaint, and I am not qualified to treat either.”
Evander picked up the brandy. He did not drink it. He turned the glass in his fingers and watched the amber catch the lamplight.
“How is the bride?” Quentin asked.
“I did not come here to discuss my marriage.”
“Of course not. You came here to brood in a leather chair and ignore expensive brandy. Far more productive.” Quentin leaned back and crossed his legs. “Have you spoken to her today?”
“We spoke at dinner.”
“About what?”
“The household accounts.”
Quentin winced. “The household accounts. Evander, you married a beautiful woman three weeks ago, and you are discussing household accounts. This is why I worry about you.”
“Don’t.”
“Someone must. You will not.” Quentin sipped his brandy. “How is the child?”
Evander’s grip on the glass tightened. “Growing. Mary says he’s gained nearly a pound. The physician is satisfied.”
“Mary says.” Quentin tilted his head. “You have not seen for yourself?”
“I see him.”
“From the corridor.”
Evander’s eyes flicked to his friend. “Who told you that?”
“No one told me. I know you.” Quentin set his glass down and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The charming ease he carried like a costume fell away, and beneath it was the man Evander had known since they were boys. The one who saw too much. “You have a wife and a child in your house, and you are treating both of them the way you treat your tenants. From a distance, through intermediaries, with quarterly reviews.”
“Tommy is not my child.”
“He might as well be. Richard is gone, Evander. Four months gone. And until he comes back, that baby has you, and you are standing in hallways.”
Evander said nothing. The fire crackled. The viscounts argued about a filly in the third race at Ascot.
Quentin sat back. “You mentioned Mary three times in as many minutes. The physician’s report came through her. The baby’s weight came through her. The household accounts came through her.” He picked up his glass. “For a man who did not come here to discuss his marriage, you seem unable to discuss anything else.”
“You are reading too much into it.”
“I am reading exactly enough.” Quentin finished his brandy and stood. “Go home, Evander. Sit in the nursery. Hold the baby. Talk to your wife about something other than candle prices.” He clapped Evander on the shoulder. “Before she stops waiting for you to.”
Quentin left. Evander sat with the untouched brandy and stared at the fire and thought about a woman who had stopped asking him to visit the nursery, and how the absence of that question had left a gap he had not expected to feel.
He set the glass on the table, collected his coat, and walked out into the night.
He did not go home.
The boxing ring occupied the cellar of a warehouse in Southwark, down a flight of stone steps that smelled of mildew and sweat and old blood. Evander had found the place two weeks ago through one of the Bow Street runner’s contacts, and he had returned three times since, each visit peeling back another layer of the life Richard had been living before he disappeared.
