“Your grace,” Harry said, with that wicked smile he always used when using an honorific.

Thomas started to scowl at him for his cheek, then almost laughed. If he only knew.

“Pretty eye, there,” Harry said, quite conversationally. “Always did like the royal purple.”

Thomas thought of ten different retorts, but in the end lacked the energy to bother with any of them.

“A pint?” Harry asked.

“Of your best.”

Harry pulled the pint, then set it down on the bar. “You look like hell,” he said baldly.

“Warmed over?”

“Not even that,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Your grandmother?”

Harry knew his grandmother well.

“Among other things,” Thomas said vaguely.

“Your fiancée?”

Thomas blinked. He hadn’t given Amelia much thought that afternoon, which was remarkable, considering that he’d nearly tupped her in a meadow just six hours earlier.

“You have one,” Harry reminded him. “About this high…” He made an indication in the air.

She was taller than that, Thomas thought absently.

“Blond,” Harry continued, “not too buxom, but—”

“Enough,” Thomas snapped.

Harry grinned. “It is your fiancée, then.”

Thomas took a swig of his ale and decided to let him believe it. “It’s complicated,” he finally said.

Harry immediately leaned against the bar with a sympathetic nod. Truly, he was born to the job. “It always is.”

As Harry had married his sweetheart at the age of nineteen and now had six little urchins tearing through the small house he had behind the inn, Thomas wasn’t completely convinced that he was qualified to offer judgments on matters of the heart.

“Had a bloke in here just the other day…” Harry began.

Then again, he’d surely heard every sob story and sad tale from here to York and back.

Thomas drank his ale as Harry nattered on about nothing in particular. Thomas wasn’t really listening, but it did occur to him, as he sucked down the last dregs, that never in his life had he been more grateful for mindless chatter.

And then in walked Mr. Audley.

Thomas stared at his tankard, wondering if he ought to ask for another. Downing it in under a minute sounded rather appealing just then.

“Good evening to you, sir!” Harry called out. “How’s your head?”

Thomas looked up. Harry knew him?

“Much better,” Audley replied.

“Gave him my morning mixture,” Harry told Thomas. He looked back up to Audley. “It always works. Just ask the duke here.”

“Does the duke often require a balm for overindulgence?” Audley inquired politely.

Thomas looked at him sharply.

Harry did not answer. He’d seen the look that passed between them. “You two know each other?”

“More or less,” Thomas said.

“Mostly less,” Audley added.

Harry looked at Thomas. Their eyes met for barely a second, but there were a hundred questions in the exchange, along with one astoundingly comforting reassurance.

If he needed him, Harry would be there.