part. In a heap of siblings that large and that male, one must be contrary or starve.” Not for food, but for notice, for consequence. “Ash was decent to me just often enough to prevent me from turning into the barbarian my brothers so often accused me of being. Witness, he was dispatched to ensure I did not fall on my arse with the Coventry, and he took on the challenge without complaint.”
Ash had also taught Sycamore how to smoke a cheroot—without inhaling—how to calculate odds playing vingt-et-un, and how to drink without getting drunk. Though as to that, Sycamore was already a bit tipsy. He finished the rest of his drink and set down the empty glass.
“What will you do about the settlements?”
“How is one brother decent to another?” Tresham countered.
The litany grew longer the more Sycamore contemplated the topic. “Ash explained things to me. How to deal with women, how to not follow in Casriel’s footsteps and become a father at too young an age. How to handle drink and avoid a wager I could not afford. How to wager shrewdly, though I cannot figure odds the way he can. What to expect at university. Why my mother didn’t like me.”
“Your mother didn’t like you? A woman of discernment, apparently.”
“She didn’t like anybody but her cronies,” Sycamore replied. “I needed Ash to point that out to me, and the poor woman did not like herself or her lot in life either.” How could she, when she’d been a widow without means whose dunderheaded sons rode roughshod over her sensibilities? “I thought I was smaller than my older brothers. Ash explained that I was exactly the same size he’d been at a younger age. I wasn’t smaller, I was simply younger, but to a boy of seven…”
Ash had shown him the doorjamb, whereupon Papa had pencil-marked the heights of several of the older brothers as they’d aged. Somewhere around son number four or five turning ten, the ritual had faded from family practice.
Tresham passed Sycamore his mostly full glass. “Does this lament have a point?”
Sycamore thought for a moment, the champagne having obscured that point. “Ash is my brother. He’s also my friend.”
Tresham’s gaze went to the happy couple. Della said something, and Ash bent nearer to hear her over the hum of conversation in the parlor. The doors had been folded back to open the space so it flowed into the music room, and a Haddonfield female was adding harp music to the general din.
Casriel had tried playing the harp to cheer Ash up over the course of a very long, dreary winter. It hadn’t worked.
The angle of Ash’s body as he leaned closer to his new wife, the utter focus he gave her words, while pretending to attend to the room full of guests, made Sycamore want to smash his champagne glass against the hearthstones.
You cannot have him. He belongs to me.
“One is not entirely comfortable with the admission,” Tresham murmured, “but I regard Della as a friend as well. She is fearless with me and loyal. But for Theo, I’m not sure I can say as much about any other living person.”
“Exactly,” Sycamore said. “Fearless and loyal. If she breaks his heart, I will… I don’t know what I will do.”
“And if he breaks her heart… the same. The question thus becomes, what can we do to ensure nobody’s heart is shattered unnecessarily?”
That was a backhanded invitation to conspire and the best news Sycamore had heard all day. “The newlyweds are off to a house party, and I have been invited to the same gathering.”
Tresham’s dark brows rose. “Have you?”
Invited was something of a fabrication. “Lady Wentwhistle was friends with my sainted mother. I am unwed, an earl’s son, gorgeous, charming, witty, an excellent dancer, kind to animals, fond of children, and—because all that doesn’t matter—notoriously randy and increasingly well to do. She allowed as how I would make a handsome addition to her gathering.”
“She feels sorry for you, or she has a goddaughter who hasn’t taken.”
“She has more godchildren than Napoleon had mistresses. Did your sister just kiss my brother?”
“And he kissed her back. Such is the nature of the institution, Dorning. Gratuitous affection, liking, babies. You mustn’t be jealous. Perhaps Lady Wentwhistle can fix you up with one of her goddaughters.”
“I am willing to take that risk, which tells you how worried I am for my brother.” And for Della. Not even the champagne could pry that admission from him.
Tresham took another pair of