“Not bloody likely. Not after watching how masterfully you fleeced Salksbury last night.”
Percy smiled. “I’m wounded. You know I never fleece my friends.”
“What are the stakes, then?” Thirkell asked.
“No stakes; I play for practice. My sister’s sweet on the apothecary and if I’m to dower her before the Season ends and all my partners remove to the country, I need to be at the top of my game.”
“Well, that’s no fun. Penny points?”
“Oh, do be quiet and listen to the concert.” Amy gave Thirkell a friendly shove. “You know how fond Nev is of Arne.”
Nev raised his head to thank her, and his attention was wrenched away from Arne’s aria by the sight of a slender, dark-haired girl in the box opposite, clearly shushing her companions. She looked across at the same moment, and their eyes met. The champagne seemed to go to Nev’s head all at once.
“I say, who’s Nev staring at?”
As if she could hear Thirkell, Miss Brown turned her attention firmly back to the orchestra.
Percy glanced across the lawn. “It’s that girl he was talking to at the Ambersleighs’ last week.”
“Miss Brown,” Nev supplied. “She likes music.”
Amy leaned out to peer across. The movement knocked a yellow curl out from behind her ear to fall distractingly over her cheek. “She’s pretty. Just your type too.”
Nev felt a rush of affection for Amy. She really was a great gun, and never jealous. He tucked the lock back behind her ear. “Mmm. Too bad she’s respectable.”
She swatted his arm. “She’s a deal more than respectable, you nodcock! She’s rich as the Golden Ball!”
“What?” Nev glanced back at the box opposite. Miss Brown, her eyes closed, looked to be entirely focused on Arne; but somehow his fingertips burned where they still touched Amy’s shoulder.
“Her dowry’s a hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds.” Amy was always better informed about these sorts of things than he was. “If you think she’s taken a fancy to you, you’d best snap her up before someone gets in ahead of you.”
“You don’t say,” Percy said. “What’s her father do?”
“He’s a brewer. Mrs. Brown used to be a friend of my mother’s, back when they were girls.” Amy sounded wistful, suddenly. “Wouldn’t me mum have liked to lord it in a fine house in Russell Square!”
Nev put an arm around her waist. “But then we would all be deprived of your note-perfect performance in Twelfth Night.”
Amy laughed, but she nestled closer. “Oh, you just like seeing me in breeches!”
“We all like seeing you in breeches,” Percy said, “but I think Nev here actually listens to the words.”
“You only listen to the words when no one else can understand them,” Thirkell grumbled. “Remember when he dragged us to Reading Hall for that ancient Greek stuff? It was bizarre.”
“It was authentic,” Percy said. “My trick, Thirkell.”
“It’s always your trick.”
Miss Brown was forgotten; Nev called for another bottle of champagne and another ham; and what with one thing and another, it was six in the morning before they left Vauxhall and stumbled back to Amy’s, singing a naughty ballad that had been popular during their school days at Trinity.
One of his mother’s footmen was waiting on the steps. Nev took one look at his face and had an abrupt, chilling suspicion that he was far too drunk to deal with whatever was about to happen. “What is it, Tom?”
“It’s James, my lord,” the footman corrected distractedly. “I’ve been waiting—I’ve got bad news—I’m that sorry, your lordship—”
“For God’s sake, out with it before you scare him to death!” Amy snapped.
James looked as if he would rather be anywhere than where he was. Nev felt pretty much the same.
“It’s your father, my lord. He’s dead.”
Two
It was past noon before Nev, feeling as though an entire orchestra was pounding out a discordant symphony in his skull, left Amy’s house for Berkeley Square. He remembered little of the previous night—or rather, earlier that morning—after James’s dreadful announcement, aside from confused impressions of vomiting in Amy’s roses and, to his surprise, sobbing drunkenly in Amy’s arms.
His eyes were dry now. He had loved his father, of course. As a little boy he had even idolized him, but that idolatry was long dead. Lord Bedlow had had a great deal of charm and been carelessly generous with his affection, yet he could never quite remember how old his children were or that strawberries made Louisa sick or that he had promised to take them to the fair that summer.