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One corner of his mouth quirked up and he said, “We shall have you all shined up in no time, sir.”

What followed was a fortnight in which Simon found himself at the center of a flurry of fittings and fabric, poking and prodding. He had seen a play once, years ago, in which the main character was a girl being raised by poor but goodhearted laborers. Through some twist of fate he’d forgotten, it was discovered she was secretly the sister of a duke. A clever bit of stagecraft showed the process of transforming her from peasant to peeress. She stood on a contraption of some sort that rotated slowly while an army of servants fussed and flapped and exclaimed even as the orchestra spun up a frenzied crescendo.

Simon felt, these recent days, as if he were that unfortunate girl. He hadn’t realized that the process of, to use Janes’s phrase, getting him all shined up, was going to be so arduous. It was an odd mixture of excruciatingly awkward and deadly boring.

But then, suddenly, it was done. The orchestra faded out, the world stopped spinning around him, and Janes stepped back, beaming, and said, “Voilà.”

But then he stepped forward again. “Allow me to make one final adjustment.” He took Simon’s spectacles off—he had been summoned from his library, where he’d been reading, and he hadn’t thought to take them off himself. “You have very striking brown eyes, if you don’t mind my saying, sir.”

“I don’t, and I thank you.”

It was the night of the party, and Simon was standing in his chambers on a small platform in front of a series of mirrors Janes had installed. He had tried on many iterations of new costumes, Janes having had more than one tailor coming and going from the house in recent weeks. But this was the first time Simon was wearing all his new clothing at once. He had had shining new Hessians, too. And he’d submitted to a haircut and a shave—that must have been what Janes had meant when he’d suggested making over Simon’s countenance in addition to his wardrobe.

A rap on the door heralded the arrival of a footman. “A letter from your mother, my lord.”

“I’ll take that, thank you,” Janes said, smoothly, plucking the letter from the silver tray on which it rested. He raised his eyebrows at Simon as he tucked the letter into his pocket. He was seeking permission to destroy it.

Simon granted it with a small nod.

His mother had begun writing, making a case that they ought to set aside their differences. Since he’d been spending so much time with Janes, what with the flurry of fittings, Janes had noticed Simon’s distress as he’d read the first of her letters.

“The interesting thing about correspondence,” he’d remarked to Simon, “is that it is a two-way activity. One person posts a letter. But for the act of correspondence to be complete, the recipient must elect to read it.”

Astonished, both at the content of Janes’s speech and the equanimity with which it was delivered, Simon had asked him to get rid of the letter, and now the valet did so as a matter of course. Simon didn’t even open them, an act—or, more properly, an abstention—he found entirely liberating.

“In fact,” Janes called after the retreating footman, “in the future, will you please deliver letters to his lordship from her ladyship to me, and I shall see them properly routed.”

The footman, after looking at Simon for confirmation and receiving it, retreated, and Janes went to the fire, threw the letter into the flames, and said, “Now that that’s been properly routed, let us return to the matter at hand.”

The matter at hand being Simon’s attire. In truth, Simon was a little overcome. A fortnight ago, as they embarked on their mission, he would have said that he and Janes did not entirely trust each other. Now, the man was an ally. In fact, Simon suspected—hoped—he was on his way to becoming a true friend. But Janes would not want to hear such a sentiment, so Simon said something else, in a language Janes would appreciate. “These boots are awfully comfortable.”

“I broke them in myself, my lord.”

“Goodness. That was above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Was it, though? Or is concerning myself with the state of your boots exactly my duty?”

Simon chuckled. Now that he and Janes were friendly, their relationship could withstand a certain amount of good-humored ribbing. Janes never smiled—Simon hadn’t seen another of those half smiles he’d been graced with the day he’d tasked Janes with remaking him—but there was a wryness about him that he allowed to come through in flashes.

Simon regarded his reflection. The mirrors were arranged so that if he angled his body sideways, he could see both his front and his back. Janes had put him in cream breeches, a black waistcoat, and coat of deep blue superfine. The coat was too bright to be called navy but fell short of being royal.

“I never would have chosen this blue, yet it suits me, I think.”

“I noticed that when the tailor came with swatches that it flattered your complexion.”

Janes had embraced his charge: smartening Simon up without making him into a popinjay.

“I must say, if you’ll forgive me the vanity, I look rather well.”

“You look extremely well, my lord.”

“Janes, do you remember the time my brother Michael got foxed at a party—I think it was given by one of the neighbors at Galecroft, but I can’t be certain. I was very young and only know the story second hand, as a kind of family lore. To hear it told, he came home with a gash through his coat that looked like it had been inflicted by an exotic animal of some sort, one not native to our shores.”

“Oh, I remember that occasion. And I remember that coat.” Janes placed a hand to his heart. “I remember it fondly.”

“Well, I hope to return to you with my new clothing intact, but I thought I ought to warn you that it is possible that this party might yield some … drama.”

Aha! There was a half smile!