Kevin, but Kevin’s lean strength and agility evened the contest. Both men’s shirts clung to their bodies with sweat. Since Chase was late, they probably had been at it for some time.
Nicholas saw him and signaled an end. They both walked over.
“You are looking too tidy, considering we are here by your invitation,” Nicholas said, taking a towel from an attendant and wiping his face and neck. “Off with those coats and Kevin here will go a round with you. He still has plenty of boyish excess in him even after two bouts with me.”
“I had to call on the aunts, and it took twice as long as planned because I had to learn all about their grievances against each other.”
“I’m surprised Agnes has not killed Dolores by now,” Nicholas said.
“She has come close, but has decided that throwing her out will work just as well.”
“Tell your father to lock the doors, Kevin. He is the only brother in town,” Nicholas said.
“She thought Whiteford House would suit her better,” Chase said.
Nicholas froze with the towel in the middle of a wipe of his face. He looked over its edge like a man just sentenced to the hulls. “I will go rusticate and leave the whole house to her if she invites herself to stay.”
“I may have convinced her that the house is still too uncomfortable for visitors and not up to her standards.”
“As it will remain for a very long time, if it spares me finding relatives on the doorstep.” He cast aside the towel. “Since you are still fully dressed, I assume you are too afraid of Kevin here to go at it with him. Make yourself comfortable while we wash.”
They aimed for the dressing rooms while Chase strolled around the perimeter of the room, watching fists fly and bruises rise. He regretted he had arrived too late to participate. He felt out of sorts when he did not regularly exercise. Last night with Minerva had removed the worst of that edge, but he still would have liked a round or two.
When his cousins returned both had been scrubbed and dressed and looked none the worse for their bouts. Kevin had a big smile on his face.
“A splendid idea, Chase, even if you missed it yourself,” he said.
Chase had arranged it as a way to get them both together without being too obvious. That it had distracted Kevin from his preoccupation with the will was an unexpected boon.
“A tavern or a club?” Nicholas asked while they left the building.
“A tavern,” Kevin said. “The White Swan, if you don’t mind. There is a horse being offered through them that my father asked me to see.”
They all mounted and rode east, then south toward the river until they reached the White Swan. Kevin asked about the horse at once, so they all went to inspect it.
Kevin proceeded to inspect it closely, from nose to tail. Nicholas and Chase did too. It was a horse, after all.
“How much?” Nicholas asked.
“Forty.”
“Expensive.”
“White ones usually are.” Kevin gestured for the groom to walk the animal around the yard. “My father favors them, as many do. They look so nice as a pair. Unfortunately, half of his white pair has taken ill, so he requires another.”
Nicholas began speaking, then shut his mouth. Chase could imagine what had almost emerged. Why is he asking you to look at the horse when he can do it himself? Apparently, Chase was not the only one arranging matters so Kevin did something other than brood.
“I’ll tell him to offer thirty and settle at thirty-five.”
They chose a table in the tavern and sent for ale. “We should make a day of it,” Nicholas said. “We’ll have a meal and drink too much, then go out looking for women this evening.”
“There is Lady Trenholm’s party tonight,” Kevin said. “Unfortunately, I cannot go with you since I declined.”
“Not those kinds of women,” Nicholas said. “Chase here has told me to find an inappropriate woman.”
“I am sure there will be some of those at her party too,” Kevin said. “I have some names. Father does talk a lot over his port.”
“If I attend a party, if any of us do so soon, people will consider it disrespectful of Uncle even if his will ordered us not to mourn. Furthermore, I would never get within ten feet of any of your father’s inappropriate ladies, because a pack of baying mamas would block me.”
Kevin laughed. “I suppose you have become the prize fox for their hunt