“You did,” Grey said, setting his half-empty glass on the tray of a passing servant. “At Coryell’s Ferry. I heard you. And I heard him,” he added. “He wasn’t having any of you then, and I doubt he’s changed his mind. Besides, what the devil do you think I could do about it, even if I wanted to?”

Percy’s smile remained, but his eyes crinkled in a way indicating that he considered Grey’s reply to be humorous.

“I had the pleasure of meeting your son in the summer, at Mrs. Prévost’s luncheon.”

No. For God’s sake, bloody no.

“And while I did indeed meet Mr. Fergus Fraser again briefly in Charles Town some little time ago, I had also the privilege of seeing General Fraser at close range during the pourparlers before Monmouth.”

“So?” Grey kept his own smile fixed blandly in place, though he was well aware that Percy could read in his eyes what he was thinking.

Percy blinked, coughed once, and averted his gaze, fixing it instead upon Mr. Fleury’s phantom leg.

“Bugger off, Percy,” Grey said, not unkindly, and went to fetch Mrs. Fleury’s tea.

The sense of warmth and faint sexual excitement remained with him, though, along with a disturbingly exhilarating sensation of Percy’s eyes on his back. It had been a good many years since he’d felt Percy’s touch, but he remembered it. Vividly.

He pushed the feeling firmly away. He wasn’t likely to succumb to Percy’s physical charms nor yet his clumsy blackmail. What if Percy did decide to go round telling the world that he thought William’s resemblance to a Scottish rebel general rather striking? It might stimulate gossip for a brief time, but William had left the army and remained an earl. His position couldn’t really be endangered. All William would need to do, should any question be asked of him, was to give the querent an icy stare and ignore them.

He was going to have to find out what Percy was up to, though, and why. A thread of heat ran down his back again, as though someone had poured hot coffee down his neckband.

Across the room, he saw Amaranthus’s long forefinger come to rest gently on William’s chest, pointing out something obvious.

HER FINGER RESTED—JUST barely—on the largest of the beetles on his waistcoat, a two-and-a-half-inch monster in brilliant-yellow silk with black-tipped horns. And, of course, tiny red eyes.

“Dynastes tityus,” she said, with approval. “The eastern Hercules beetle.”

“Really?” William said, laughing. “Dynastes tityus means, if I’m not mistaken, Tithean rebel. Was Hercules a Tithean?”

“A Titan, was he not?” Amaranthus tilted her head, lifting one brow. Her brows were soft but well marked, a darker blond than her hair.

“Yes. Perhaps that’s what the person who named this thing meant—but why rebel? Is this fellow known to be rebellious?” He looked down his nose at his chest—and Amaranthus’s long, slim index finger. Her wedding band glimmered on the fourth finger, and he took a deep breath that made her pointing finger sink slightly into the ochre silk. She smiled up at him, and slowly withdrew the finger.