“Hmph.” The old lady raised her quizzing glass—yes, definitely palsy; he could see the chain trembling against her bosom—and gave Amaranthus a fierce stare through it.

“That young lady don’t act much like she’s pining for him, does she?”

Frankly, she didn’t, but Grey didn’t want to discuss his niece-by-marriage with Mrs. Fleury, who had used her widowhood to advantage and was quite obviously an accomplished gossip.

“She bears up bravely,” he said. “Allow me to fetch you another cup of tea, ma’am.”

While on this errand, he contrived to pass within hailing distance of Amaranthus and William, who were chatting with each other beneath a large portrait of the late Mr. Fleury, bewigged and dressed in plum velvet. This fine impression of a successful merchant was slightly spoilt by the artist’s effort to add a prosperous paunch to an otherwise lean figure; the alteration had required a hasty adjustment to Mr. Fleury’s posture, careless overpainting causing it to appear that the gentleman possessed a ghostly third leg, which hovered uncertainly behind William’s left ear.

There was no impropriety in their poses at all, but he was strongly aware of a charged atmosphere between them. It was visible in the effort they made not to touch each other.

As Grey approached them, Amaranthus accepted a plate of cake from William with such delicacy of touch that he might have just fallen into a privy, whilst William smiled into her eyes with an expression that anyone who knew him could have read, and that Amaranthus certainly did.

Jesus Christ. Surely they haven’t … maybe not, but they’re bloody thinking about it. Both of them.

That was disturbing on multiple grounds. He quite liked Amaranthus, for one thing. And as William’s stepfather, he wanted to think the boy had been brought up better than to make addresses to a married woman, let alone his own cousin’s wife.

But he knew all too well the power of the flesh. Strong enough to be visible to Mrs. Fleury, at any rate.

“John,” said a soft voice behind him, and he stiffened.

“Perseverance,” Grey said, shaking his head as his erstwhile stepbrother came up beside him, smiling. “Never was a man so well named.”

“You’re looking well, John,” Percy said, ignoring this. “Blue velvet always suits you. You recall the suits we wore to our parents’ wedding?” The smile was real, deep in those soft brown eyes, and Grey was astonished and annoyed to feel it run straight down his backbone and tighten his balls.

Yes, he bloody remembered that wedding and those suits. And—as Percy so clearly intended—he remembered standing beside Percy in church as his mother married Percy’s stepfather, his hand and Percy’s touching, hidden in full skirts of royal-blue velvet, fingers slowly entwining, the touch a promise. One Percy had fucking broken.

“What do you want, Perseverance?” he asked bluntly.

“Oh, quite a lot of things,” Percy replied, the smile now reaching his lips. “But principally … I want to talk to Fergus Fraser.”