“Borrowed, my boy. I only borrowed it. Besides, you owe me your allowance for the next four years. Maybe I’ll take the stickpin as a small installment on the principle.”
A younger Cam might have stepped on Ash’s foot, dashed punch on his cravat, or at least lapsed into foul language. This Cam merely smiled sweetly.
“For your information, Ash, there are four unmarried Windham ladies remaining now that the ducal branch has all wed. All of Lord Tony Windham’s daughters are out, they’re all pretty, and they’re all well dowered. You’re simply too busy worshipping at the hem of Lady Della Haddonfield to inspect any other possibilities.”
“You stole my best reading spectacles is the more likely explanation.”
The music trilled along, Casriel remained among the ferns talking to some dark-haired fellow in a kilt, and still, Cam simply watched the passing scene, a smile playing on his lips.
“What have you done, Sycamore?”
Lady Della was on the dance floor, looking vivacious and delectable in forest green, and entirely too smitten with her partner, Viscount Effete-ton.
“Will brought home a steak from the club. When he went upstairs to dress, I took half of it to where I last saw my dog. I went around to the pub to ask a few questions, and when I came back, the steak was gone.”
No wonder Will so seldom smiled. Sycamore was an ongoing threat to the sanity of any family, and there were three more brothers just like him at home in Dorset.
“What if some of the pub regulars had followed the young toff around back?” Ash asked. “What if they’d decided to lighten his purse and relieve him of a few teeth? Could you not have at least taken me or Will with you?”
Lady Della twirled past again, not three yards from where Ash stood. This close, her expression was more desperate than gay, her eyes haunted rather than vivacious.
“You’re worse than Casriel,” Cam said. “Stop glaring at the poor woman. If I’d asked, would you have come with me to Bloomsbury?”
Ash could no more stop watching Lady Della Haddonfield than he could avoid applying the Rule of Seventy to an interest calculation.
“Of course I would have gone with you,” he said, “but, Cam, you must desist. Will has offered to help and he knows what he’s doing. I get the sense there’s more to the situation than you perceive. If Will advises caution, heed him.”
Regarding most situations, Will knew what he was about. Lady Susannah Haddonfield appeared to have even the great and rational Willow Dorning stumped.
“Is she nice?” Cam asked, popping something into his mouth.
“Is who nice?”
“Lady Della. She’s pretty.”
Good God, not Cam too. “What are you eating?”
“Peppermints. The punch can leave a fellow with rotten breath and yet he can’t very well stand around chewing parsley like a sheep in formal attire. I’d miss you, if you got married and set up a household. Will’s a lost cause, though. If you’re intent on raiding his wardrobe, you’d best help yourself now.”
The dance ended, mercifully, and Effington led Lady Della back to her brother, the Earl of Bellefonte.
“What in the sulfurous, stinking hell are you going on about, Cam?”
Cam passed Ash a tin that was probably intended for snuff. “Help yourself. I’m talking about Willow rolling about in the underbrush with Lady Susannah and two enormous dogs. In America, vines grow wild that can give you an awful itch. Will and her ladyship were growing wild and suffering an itch, without benefit of noxious greenery. I’ve never stood in the middle of a path getting a pebble out of my boot quite so long or so quietly.”
Ash took several peppermints, slipped one into his mouth, and three others into his pocket, then gave the tin back to Cam.
“That is Casriel’s snuffbox, you Vandal.”
“I’m borrowing it,” Cam said. “About time old Willow stopped acting like a monk, but in the very park? My virgin eyes!”
Lady Della disengaged herself from her brother, and crossed the corner of the ballroom that led to the grand staircase.
“Your eyes might be the only virgin territory left on you,” Ash replied. “The ladies’ retiring room is upstairs?”
“Ash, are you foxed? I’ll see you home, old chap. As many time as you’ve looked after me, a bit of turnabout is only the done thing. I mean, the ladies’ retiring room—you’ll give a fellow cause for worry, and the elders are apparently hors de combat, and even I know better than to—”
Cam’s concern was real, and quite gentlemanly, for a change. “Shut it, Cam. I’m not going into the ladies’ retiring room, I was merely—who is that dark-haired fellow crossing the dance floor?”
Cam peered around Ash’s shoulder. “Quimbey’s nephew, Jonathan Tresham. Travels a lot, but is home at the duke’s insistence. His Grace wants the succession ensured, but the nepphie’s not the type to be told what to do. Not the type to share a drink with a fellow either. I don’t care for him.”