*
Will could spot one of his brothers from a great distance, knew each one from his walk, his posture, the gestures used in conversation. Will could also identify his brothers from the clothes they wore, for those clothes often belonged to him.
“Lovely jacket, Cam,” Will remarked as he came even with Ash and Cam on Brook Street. “Surely, that’s a new acquisition. No unraveling seams, no stains, no thin patches on the elbows. The style is severe for you and the cut somewhat loose, but sober. I like it.”
“Ash took my best coat,” Cam said, twirling slowly on the walkway. “I look more like a banker in your clothing, Will. Thanks for the loan.”
They’d steal Will’s horse except nobody else could ride the mare when she was in a mood. They’d steal Will’s boots, except he was usually wearing them.
“Clean, understated, well-tailored attire really does flatter you,” Will said, mostly in hopes of making Cam feel guilty. “You might try asking before you appropriate it, though.”
“Cam is your brother, and you don’t lock your wardrobe,” Ash said. “That’s an invitation to borrow. Be glad I at least made him surrender the contents of your pockets.” Ash passed over a folded document that Will stashed out of sight before Cam could snatch at it.
“What inspired you both to stir before sunset?” Will asked.
“I’m hunting for my dog,” Cam said, gaze roaming over the nearby square. “A great brute with a gash over one eye. Smooth brindle coat, not quite full grown.”
“You haven’t a dog, Sycamore,” Will said. “If you want a dog, I can find you one that will bring some manners to the equation, not a street mongrel that snacks on rats and garbage all day.”
Though the street mongrels often had good sense and enjoyed reliable health.
“My boy isn’t a mongrel,” Cam said. “He’s a bloody great mastiff, and some fool was stealing him and making a bad job of it.”
Ash’s gaze was resolutely to the fore. In the square across the street, children played with balls, housemaids flirted with footmen, young swells lounged about talking in groups, looking smart and useless.
While Will’s responsibilities never seemed to end.
Sainted gamboling puppies. “I am on my way to pay calls, you two,” he said. “I do not have time to deliver the appropriate lecture on England’s property laws, which are quite strict. You are the one stealing the dog if you assume possession in the absence of legitimate ownership.”
“You never listen,” Cam said. “I know what I saw, and you’re not the only one who can grasp when an animal’s miserable. The dog was being stolen and beaten. The idiot trying to haul him down the alley didn’t even try asking the dog to come, didn’t offer a single treat, and yelled at the poor creature so half of Mayfair might have heard.”
Beating a dog was unproductive, disgraceful, and just plain ungentlemanly. Beating a dog that weighed more than many grown men was also stupid as hell.
“Cam is right,” Ash said. “The dog was in the hands of a fool. You don’t own a dog that size without some notion of how to manage it.”
While Will, increasingly, had no idea how to manage his brothers. “What did you do, Cam?” For he’d done something, and Ash hadn’t been able to stop him.
“I followed them for about a mile, though it wasn’t a pretty mile. The dog had a lot of fight in him, but he was quick too, and dodged most of the blows. They stuck to the alleys, and ended up on a back street toward Bloomsbury.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Will said, for his appointments mattered to him, as did shepherding his brothers in the opposite direction from Bloomsbury. “Tell me the rest of it, Sycamore.”
“Not much else to tell,” Cam said, jamming his hands in his pockets. “The man dragged the dog halfway across the West End, then tied him in an alley behind a tavern. When nobody was around, I tossed the poor blighter a bit of cheese, told him he was a good fellow, then untied the rope securing him. He gave me a great lick across the cheek, then bounded off. I let him go because I didn’t want anybody to see me with him.”
The dog might have killed Cam. Might have delivered fatal bites, might have created a commotion that drew the owner and his friends from the tavern, and seen Cam hanged or transported for theft.
“Sycamore,” Will began in his sternest tones, “what you did was very, very—” Ash caught Will by the arm when he might have marched right across Upper Grosvenor Street. With that hand on Will’s arm came a glance. Cam meant well. He’s trying his best. I didn’t know what to do.
Dogs needed no words to convey their sentiments to one another, but humans seldom paid the same degree of attention to their own kind.