“I wouldn’t underestimate Jonty’s idleness, but it may be a case of an irresistible force and an immovable object. You’re probably best off leaving them to it, I agree. Where are you going to live?”

Pat made a face. “I don’t yet know. I’m unsure whether I want a small place of my own or to find someone to share with. I’m going to stay with my old governess—remember Miss Adler?—for a few weeks after the shooting, as a sort of experiment in living with people.”

“Isn’t Jonty people?”

“Barely.”

“Fair,” Bill agreed. “It’ll be something of a change for you.”

“Can’t be helped.”

Bill looked sympathetic, but didn’t press the topic. “Any candidates for companionship?”

“Nothing as yet. I haven’t looked awfully hard.” She hesitated, then decided to say it. “The other thing is, I was toying with the idea of setting up a shooting school for ladies.”

“I say!”

“It’s just a thought. You needn’t mention it to anyone.”

Bill gave her a reproachful look. Alone among her brothers, he had never turned a private confidence into a matter for public ridicule. “Of course not. That is a thought. Do you have the funds to set things up, or will you need a loan?”

“I haven’t done the sums yet. And it depends on where I might settle.”

“Well, call on me if you need a hand. You’d definitely need to be somewhere a bit more central than Stoke St. Milborough. Er, are you thinking of moving to London?”

“Absolutely not,” Pat assured him, and noted the tiny relaxation on his face. If she had been metropolis-minded, everyone would have expected her to set up household with her bachelor brother. Bill was sufficiently laconic for her liking, never interfered, and wouldn’t expect to be looked after, but sharing his life and affairs with a sibling evidently appealed to him as little as London did to Pat. He had always been reserved to a fault about personal matters. “I’d need somewhere reasonably close to a city, but still with a bit of wildness to it.”

“You’re an outdoor soul,” Bill agreed. “You really ought to marry some landowner with a tumbledown house and acres of land that don’t pay. You could spend half the year managing his estate back to health, and the other half striding the moors with a rifle.”

That sounded perfect, apart from the marriage. “I think most landowners in that state would rather have an heiress.”

“Jimmy certainly would,” Bill said, then caught himself. “Sorry. That wasn’t charitable.”

“Yes, I heard he was engaged. One of those whirlwind affairs, wasn’t it? Olivia said his fiancée is a daughter of industry.”

“She certainly is. I suppose that sort of fortune covers a multitude of sins.”

“Does it need to?”