I have pledged to ensure.”
With Nick, it was ever a problem with the ladies. The predictability of this also gratified. “What manner of young lady? I’ve no need to take on one of your lightskirts, Nicholas.”
“She’s a decent woman. I’ve asked Della to invite her to Clover Down for the week, or until I can get free of Bellefonte. Her dear father, the Earl of Wilton, seeks to wed her to Hellerington, or somebody of that ilk. If she can’t secure such a match, the old man might procure a different sort of situation for her.”
Ethan didn’t bother to keep amusement from his face. “You are in the shining-armor business, it appears.”
“I am not, but neither can I leave somebody who is essentially helpless in harm’s way.” Nick’s pronouncement was made in tones of self-disgust, which Ethan allowed to remain unremarked.
“What am I supposed to do? Wilton is a nasty bugger, Nick, and I am not anybody’s heir.”
“Just escort Della and Lady Leah out to Clover Down,” Nick said, “and hang about until I come back from Belle Maison.”
“I can do that.” Ethan was surprised to see the depth of the gratitude in Nick’s eyes. “Christ, Nick, are you really so alone as all that?”
Nick’s gaze slid away, and Ethan had his answer.
“Your ladies will be safely tucked away in the country,” Ethan assured him. “Is there more you would ask of me?”
Nick was silent, and Ethan reached over and plucked Nick’s empty teacup from his hand.
“This is me, Nicholas,” Ethan said in low, impatient tones. “I accidentally branded your bony little arse, I was the first person to get drunk with you, and I wouldn’t know how to read if you hadn’t taught me my letters. What?”
“Come to his funeral,” Nick said, his gaze on his empty hands. “Not the service, if you don’t want to, but to Belle Maison.”
Ethan rose and ran a hand across hair slightly darker than Nick’s. “I did ask.”
He turned his back to Nick, staring into the fire as a plethora of emotions rioted through him—resentment, surprise, and something else. An elusive little bolt of warmth Ethan wasn’t about to examine too closely. Nick needed him, and for the first time in more than ten years, Ethan could help. The sneering, righteous rejection he’d practiced off and on for all that time was the last thing on Ethan’s mind.
“You don’t have to.” Nick rose as well. “I’m presuming, to put such a request to you.”
Ethan half turned and regarded his younger brother—his harried, tired, worried, very large younger brother who had gone into the shining-armor business, whether he admitted it or not. “I’ll go. I’ll escort Della and your damsel, and when Bellefonte goes to his reward, I’ll at least put in an appearance, if you’re still certain you want me there when the time comes.”
“I will,” Nick assured him, eyeing him grimly. “Beck is lying low in Portsmouth, Dolph and George will probably be skipping around from one house party to the next, you’ll be easy to reach, and…”
“And?”
Nick slapped riding gloves against his thigh in a slow, solid rhythm. “And of real use. To me. To the girls. They’ve missed you.”
Ethan said nothing rather than remark on all the letters he’d never received from his devoted sisters.
Nick turned his back and reached for the door latch. “God knows I’ve missed you too.”
And then he was gone.
***
“Wilton has made it plain that I’m to secure Lady Warne’s sponsorship for Emily, and that’s the only reason he’s allowing me to accept this invitation.” Leah ambled along on Nick’s arm at a decorous pace completely at variance with the panic building inside her.
“What aren’t you telling me, Leah?” Nick’s tone was pleasant, a gentleman escorting a lady on a casual ramble by the duck pond on a spring day.
She wasn’t telling him she was scared nigh to death, wasn’t telling him she needed his embrace with a desperation that qualified as pathetic.
“Wilton’s getting worse, Nick. He no longer seems to care what befalls me or who learns of it.”
Nick’s hand closed over hers in a warm, reassuring squeeze. “In two days’ time, you’ll be ensconced at Clover Down. Because I must away to Belle Maison, my brother Ethan will escort you, and you can pry all my boyhood secrets from him. We were incorrigible, of course…”
She let the soothing patter of his voice wash over her, let herself believe that a week in the country would work some miracle where Wilton was concerned. She also