rudely tossed it back before pouring another for himself, then pouring a third and passing it to his guest. “Shall I call you out, Bellefonte?”
“Don’t call me that.” Nick accepted the drink, downed it, and passed his glass back for a refill.
“What shall I call you?” Darius inquired in lethally soft tones. Nick surveyed him and saw a man who was several inches shorter than he, maybe a year younger, and decades better acquainted with bitterness.
“Leah would kill us both for dueling,” Nick said as he accepted the second drink from his host and tossed that one back as well.
“I will not suffer my sister to be hurt,” Darius said, “but losing one of us in a duel would no doubt hurt more than weathering some gossip. So…” Darius looked around the room. “Shall we sit and blast away at each other with civilized insults and veiled threats, or can you tell me why you’re being such an ass?”
If he hadn’t liked the man before, and respected him for his championing of Leah, Nick liked him thoroughly in that moment.
“We sit and enjoy your surprisingly fine spirits.”
Darius gestured to the couch for Nick, and took a well-cushioned chair for himself, letting silence stretch while Nick took a seat.
“You will look in on Leah?” Nick set his empty glass down on the table, wondering if Lindsey possessed enough decent spirits to get them both drunk.
“Of course,” Darius replied, his expression hooded. “But why are you doing this, if you can tell me? I suspected your affection for Leah was genuine.” There was a hint of sympathy in the man’s tone, and Nick dropped his gaze to his empty glass rather than face compassion head on.
“My affection for your sister is genuine,” Nick said, “but have you never made a decision, Lindsey, that rippled out across your life, having repercussions you could not possibly have foreseen? Have you never given a promise in good faith you lived to regret?”
“I don’t promise anybody much of anything,” Darius replied with a snort of humorless laughter. “I have regrets, though. I most assuredly do have substantial, relentless regrets.” He lifted his drink to sip, when the door to the library burst open, and a little boy came barreling straight for Darius. Darius quickly set the drink down and caught the child up in his arms.
“Dare!” the child cried. “She’s gone! I can come out now, and we can go for a ride!” Darius’s arms tightened around the child’s squirming body, and his gaze over the child’s shoulder became so fierce Nick felt relief they wouldn’t meet over pistols or swords.
Darius Lindsey’s gaze promised death to Nick, right then and there, should Nick offer any hurt or insult to the child.
“She is gone,” Darius said quietly to the child in his lap, “but we have another guest, John, so why don’t you make your bow?”
The bottom of Nick’s stomach dropped out as he gazed into young eyes so like Leah’s.
“John Cowperthwaite Lindsey,” the child piped cheerfully as he scrambled to his feet and bowed to Nick. “At your service, good sir.”
Nick rose and bowed to the child. “Bellefonte. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Then he squatted when he saw wee John’s stunned reaction to his great height. “But you can call me Nick, with mine host’s permission, as Bellefonte is not so friendly, young John, and I should like to make a new friend today.”
“Are you a giant?”
“Of course not,” Nick scoffed, still hunkered at the child’s eye level. “I am merely a fellow who ate all his vegetables, went to bed without a fuss every night, and bathed when nurse said I must. Darius was not quite as well behaved as I, at least when he was a boy.”
John eyed Darius, who was sitting as still and attentive as a hungry papa wolf. “Is that why Dare isn’t so big as you?”
“Quite possibly, though as grown fellows go, he’s on the tall side,” Nick said. “We mustn’t hurt his feelings when it’s too late for him to grow any more. Sit you down, John, and we will impress Darius with our conversation.” Nick hoisted the child onto his lap. “Now, my good fellow, tell me about your pony.”
John chattered on with the bright, happy oblivion of a well-loved child before a new audience, and Nick let go of some anxiety. Every child deserved to be loved, and this one had at least that in his favor.
Nick interrupted John’s description of his latest tumble from his