He wasnotjealous. He was simply noting that a man with agreeable conversation and a good florist had been given access to something he had not earned.Hewas the one she had kissed. The Viscount could not lay claim to that intimacy, and Dominic found that he despised the idea of him ever doing so, at all.
He thought about the way she had looked at the card Chesham had left, standing in Fairmont House’s entrance hall. He thought about how often, in the past month, he had arrived at Fairmont House at one minute past the hour on some thin errand and found reasons to stand in the doorway longer than dropping off a boy required.
No, he wasnotjealous. The whole situation just struck him as extremely audacious, and that was the end of it.
He gave it no further thought for two days, and then on the third morning, he called his secretary in and gave him the Viscount’s name.
The report came back Thursday, sealed, before breakfast.
There was nothing notably irregular in the Viscount’s finances. What his secretary had found instead was a story, the kind that circulates between men at certain clubs and never quite dies because the men who were present keep it alive.
In the autumn of 1813, Chesham had been called out by Lord Archibald Fenn over a debt of honor. He had accepted. He had named his second, confirmed the location, and confirmed the hour. The location was Chalk Farm, the hour was four in the morning, and Fenn had arrived at both on time.
Chesham had not.
He sent a note that afternoon citing a sudden indisposition. Fenn had accepted this in public. In private, by the account of three men who were at White’s when Fenn returned from Chalk Farm alone, he had been brief and entirely clear about what he thought of the explanation.
The story had followed Chesham at a distance of a few months and a few rooms ever since. Not close enough to ruin him. Close enough that it was always there, behind the pleasant manner and the well-cut coats, being quietly repeated by men who had heard it from men who had been there.
Dominic folded the report and set it on the desk. He looked at the courtyard below the window. Grey, still, a stable boy crossing with a bucket, the morning going about its business without him.
He thought about Chesham in Annabelle’s drawing room, eager to hear Annabelle play the piano.
He pocketed the report. Lord Arbuthnot was hosting that evening, and Chesham had confirmed his attendance at Mrs. Laing’s last week. He went downstairs and called for his coat.
By nine, the drawing rooms were warm, and the east terrace had been given over to air and quiet conversation, and it was there that Dominic found them: Chesham at Annabelle’s left, closer than the space required, her glass in her hand, her head tilted at something he had just said.
Dominic crossed the terrace. “Chesham.” He reached the balustrade and settled one hand on the stone, speaking without much preamble. “I believe you know Archibald Fenn.”
Chesham turned. “Your Grace.”
“I ran into him at White’s this week. He spoke of you.” His voice was easy. “Something about an old appointment that never came off. Chalk Farm, I think he said. He seemed to feel the explanation he received at the time had been somewhat insufficient.”
The torches along the rail threw warm light across the flagstones. Chesham’s color had gone in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. His chin came up.
“I don’t see what that has to do with the present company,” he said.
“Nothing at all,” Dominic said pleasantly. “I merely thought you’d want to know he was asking after you.”
Chesham looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at Annabelle. His manner hardened past pleasantness entirely.
“I see that you are very well attended, Lady Annabelle,” he said. The warmth of the drawing room was entirely gone from his voice. “I wonder that you require it.”
Annabelle frowned, “Lord Chesham?—”
He gave a short, stiff bow. “Goodnight.”
He was through the door before either of them spoke. Dominic looked at the garden below: the dark shapes of the flower beds, the smell of something beginning to bloom in the warm air.
Annabelle counted to three, then she turned.
Dominic was at the balustrade with his back half toward her, one hand on the stone, looking out over the darkened garden as though he had merely stepped out for air. The torchlight caught the right side of his face. He did not turn.
“That was deliberate,” she said.
He turned then. “He was called out two years ago and didn’t show.”
“I see.” She kept her voice level. “And you felt it appropriate to deliver that here. On Lord Arbuthnot’s terrace. In front of his guests.”
