“Mary is well.”
“Mary is well. Two weeks ago, she was ‘the Duchess.’ Now she is ‘Mary.’” Quentin raised his glass. “At this rate, you’ll be using pet names by Christmas.”
“I will throw this drink at you.”
“You will not. It’s a twenty-year single malt, and you’re only allowing yourself the one. You’d sooner throw me into the fire than waste the whisky.” Quentin grinned. “Am I wrong?”
Evander felt the corner of his mouth twitch again and covered it with another sip.
Quentin had the rare ability to make him feel human in spite of himself. They had known each other since they were twelve years old, two boys placed in the same house at Eton, and Quentin was the only person alive who had seen Evander cry.
Once. At fourteen, after a letter arrived reporting his father had dismissed the last of the senior staff in a drunken rage. Quentin had sat beside him on the dormitory floor and said nothing for an hour, and then he had offered Evander half a stolen pie and told him his father was an ass, and the friendship had been sealed.
“Any word on Richard?” Quentin asked, his tone shifting.
“The Bow Street runner traced his debts to a boxing ring in Southwark. The bookkeeper there pointed me toward a pleasure house past Hampstead. I’ll go this week.”
“The arm came from the boxing ring, I take it.”
“The bookkeeper’s associates took offense to my line of questioning.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
Quentin nodded, as though three men in an alley were a minor scheduling conflict. “And they fared?”
“Worse than I did.”
“Good.” Quentin’s smile faded, and the easy charm gave way to something more serious. “Evander. You know I have to say this.”
“Then say it.”
“Richard may not want to be found.”
The fire crackled. Evander turned his glass on the table, watching the amber catch the light. He had considered this. Inthe small hours, lying awake with his stitches throbbing and the house silent around him, he had turned the possibility over and examined it from every angle.
“He left a child on my doorstep,” Evander said. “A child, Quentin. Whatever Richard wants, that boy deserves a father who is present and a mother who stays.”
“You’re giving him that. You and Mary.”
“I am not his father.”
“You’re the closest thing he has.” Quentin held up a hand before Evander could argue. “I know. You don’t want to hear it. But from where I sit, you have a wife who is raising that child as though he were her own, and you are spending your nights getting knifed in alleys looking for a brother who left because he did not want to carry the weight. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether finding Richard will actually solve anything, or whether it’s just another way of avoiding what’s already in front of you.”
Evander said nothing for a long moment. The fire settled. The billiard players argued about a foul shot.
“You know why I married her,” Evander said.
“I know why you told yourself you married her. I was at the wedding, remember? I saw the way you looked at her when she walked toward the altar.” Quentin took a long pull of his brandy.“You looked the way men look when they realize they’re in far more trouble than they planned for.”
“You are imagining things.”
“I am imagining nothing. I am observing. It is what friends do when other friends are being idiots.” Quentin set down his glass and leaned forward. “I have known you for almost twenty years, Blackholm. I have watched you manage an estate, a scandal, a brother who cannot stay out of trouble, and a household that would buckle under a lesser man. You are the most capable person I know. And you are using every ounce of that capability to avoid the one thing that actually matters.” He met Evander’s eyes. “You are afraid. I suspect you would not tell me of what, if I asked. But whatever it is, it is costing you more than it is protecting you.”
Evander stared at his friend. The fire threw warm light across Quentin’s face, and the easy humor had gone entirely, replaced by something steady and unflinching.
“When did you become wise?” Evander asked.
