Which was, perhaps coincidentally, about the age his father decided he might be able to carry on a decent conversation.

It was also the age at which his father decided that Marcus must take the next step in his education, which was to leave Fensmore and attend Eton College, where all Holroyd boys began their formal educations. This turned out to be the most fortuitous and happy circumstance of the young boy’s life. Because what Marcus Holroyd, heir to the Earldom of Chatteris, did not have was friends.

Not a one.

There were no appropriate boys in northern Cambridgeshire with whom Marcus might play. The closest noble family were the Crowlands, and they had only girls. The next best family was landed gentry, which would have been acceptable under the circumstances, but their sons were of entirely the wrong age. Lord Chatteris wasn’t about to have his son consorting with peasants, so he simply hired more tutors. A busy boy couldn’t be a lonely boy, and besides, no son of his could possibly want to run wild across the fields with the baker’s rowdy brood.

If the earl had asked Marcus his opinion, he might have got a different answer. But the earl saw his son once per day, just prior to the evening meal. Their interview lasted about ten minutes, then Marcus went up to the nursery and the earl to his formal dining room, and that was that.

In retrospect, it was nothing short of remarkable that Marcus was not utterly miserable at Eton. He certainly had no idea how to interact with his peers. On the first day, when all the other boys were running about like (in the words of his father’s valet, who had dropped him off) a pack of savages, Marcus stood to the side, trying not to stare, trying to look as if he meant to stand at the side, looking off in the other direction.

He did not know how to act. He did not know what to say.

But Daniel Smythe-Smith did.

Daniel Smythe-Smith, besides being the heir to the Earldom of Winstead, had five siblings and thirty-two first cousins. If ever there was a boy who knew how to get on with other children, it was he. Within hours, he was the undisputed king among the youngest boys at Eton. He had a way about him—an easy smile, a happy confidence, an utter lack of shyness. He was a born leader—able to make decisions just as quickly as he made jokes.

And he was assigned to the bed directly next to Marcus’s.

They became the best of friends, and when Daniel invited Marcus home for their first holiday, he went. Daniel’s family lived at Whipple Hill, which wasn’t very far from Windsor, so it was easy for him to make frequent trips home. Marcus, on the other hand . . . Well, it wasn’t as if he lived all the way in Scotland, but it did take more than a day to get back to the northern reaches of Cambridgeshire. Plus, his father had never gone home for the minor holidays and saw no reason why his son should do so, either.