“Julius is very welcome to attend to his own affairs,” Dominic said from the doorway. He had a bottle in one hand, three glasses—perfect, clean, long-stemmed crystal—in the other. “Champagne?”
They talked and drank. It was dreamlike. A warm room, unimaginable comfort that the other two took for granted, and Harry, so simply happy, chattering on about his new life, his plans for the future, his unexpected windfall courtesy of the woman he hadn’t married. The phrase “Julius says” recurred about every three sentences. After a while Silas caught Dominic’s eye when Harry said it and was hard put not to laugh.
They talked about the six bills too, Harry darting glances between Silas and Dominic as if unable to believe they wouldn’t go for each other’s throats. He was a little respectful of Dominic, a little cautious. He saw the formidable Tory, Silas supposed, the face Dominic presented to the world. He didn’t know the truth. That was for Silas.
And Dom had been right about the clothes on some odd level. Silas’s respectable appearance was part of this dream where he sat in a warm room talking radical politics to gentlemen who listened and answered and cared what he thought. Where he was with Dom and Harry too, and it was no more than natural to be so.
They ate cold chicken, some sort of fish in some sort of jelly, whatever else was on the table. In other times the food might have been a rare treat, but it was nothing compared to the company. Dominic had opened a bottle of Hermitage, the vintage they’d had before, which Harry tossed back without noticing and Silas sipped slowly because he never wanted to forget the taste of this night.
They were drinking port in the study when the knock came to the door. Silas and Harry both twitched.
“Who the devil— I’ll attend to it.” Dominic got up. “Stay here.”
Silas glanced at Harry, who returned a questioning, tense look. Surely he hadn’t been followed here. He’d been bloody careful.
“What in the name of perdition do you want?” Dominic demanded from the hallway.
“You so often tell me to be more interested in my fellow man, dear Dominic. Regard me interested.” That in an ironic, well-spoken voice, and Silas needed no more than the sudden light in Harry’s eyes to tell him who the visitor was. Dominic clearly didn’t feel the same enthusiasm, launching into a low-voiced argument rather than bringing him in.
“Silas?” Harry asked. “Will you—would you meet Julius? Only if you’d like to, but, well, I’d like you to.”
The whole evening was madness anyway. “Why not?”
“It’s all right, Dominic,” Harry called, and a moment later Dominic, looking annoyed, entered, followed by the most foppish man Silas had ever seen in his life. He was slim, and pallid as a white rat, all cheekbones and breeding. He had on a waistcoat that looked like it had worn out a seamstress’s fingers for the fancy broidery, a stupidly complicated neckcloth, breeches you’d need to cut off with a razor blade, and like Harry, a jewel twinkling in his earlobe, his a diamond to Harry’s sapphire. In Silas’s estimation, he looked bloody ridiculous. Harry’s smile could have lit the room on its own as he entered.
The dandy glanced at Harry with a little twitch of the lips, then extended his hand to Silas. “Mr. Mason, I deduce. Julius Norreys. I believe we owe you a debt for keeping Harry out of trouble for some years.”
“If only he’d reciprocate,” Dominic put in, while Silas shook the offered hand and grunted some sort of response. “Julius, what are you doing here?”
“Curiosity,” the dandy replied without shame. “Also, reconnaissance, and warning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The dandy glanced from Dominic to Silas. “Forgive my impertinence, but I understand you gentlemen had a narrow squeak recently.”
Dominic’s face hardened. “And how do you know that? As though I need ask. Curse it, Julius—”
“Don’t blame me, he’s not my valet. A raid on Millay’s, in pursuit of you, I believe, Mr. Mason.” The dandy’s eyes were a very pale frosty blue. “Richard is angry, Dominic. That put others at risk, in a house that he has spent a great deal of money to make as secure as possible for all of us.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Dominic snapped. “I’ve taken steps, and we won’t be returning in any case.”
“But Mr. Mason is here now.” He glanced from Dominic to Silas. “Oh, curse it. You should—both of you—be aware that Richard is considering having Mr. Mason removed from England.”
“I beg your pardon?” Dominic said. “What did you say?”