“This is a disaster,” Hawthorne muttered.

“It’s simply another leaking roof,” Ash countered, though if Hawthorne pronounced something a disaster, it likely was. Ash’s trip to the posting inn the previous day had proven awkward and ended with Mrs. Pletcher promising to have a discussion with Mr. Pletcher.

Discussions did not leaking attics repair.

“This is a roof that’s been leaking for some time,” Thorne said, peering at the attic’s ceiling. “Why the hell doesn’t the housekeeper tour the attics once a quarter as Mama used to?”

“Because we haven’t a countess on the premises to tour the attics with the housekeeper.” Increasingly, all roads led to acquiring a countess.

Grey would come home when he had a countess, and the myriad debates and decisions relating to management of the estate would fall to him. The tenants would direct their endless stream of woes to him. The task of calling upon neighbors would be taken in hand by the countess, and no more time need be wasted discussing the weather, the crops, or the upcoming assembly with anybody who cared to demand Ash’s time in the family parlor.

Oak was too shy to entertain callers on his own and was usually busy with a painting. Valerian worked on his book by the hour. Thorne had no small talk.

“We might not have a countess at the moment,” Hawthorne said, scowling at the water stains and peeling plaster on the attic wall, “but we have common sense. Dorning Hall is ancient. The house cannot maintain itself, and just because an attic is empty…”

He stalked off, having to duck beneath the massive roof beams. They at least looked to be holding firm.

“We’ll replace a few slates,” Ash said. “Clean the gutters, inspect the drainpipes. The roof will stop leaking. The wall will dry.”

“Do you know what properly quarried slates cost? Do you know what it takes to get those slates up to the rooftop? How many men we’ll need to undertake the labor? And it’s not a matter of tossing a few leaves from the drains and gutters. You think the gutter on this side of the house is causing the problem, but the water has found some means to travel by stealth from the other side of the house. A worn soffit, a bad join between the south wing and the east. One does battle with and for a house this old, and Grey knows where all the latest skirmishes were fought.”

Latest meaning in the past century, no doubt.

“Then we’ll have Oak draw Grey a diagram of the problem and an estimate to put it to rights. I’ll tuck in a little explanatory note, and you will add a lecture reminding him that the sooner he finds us a countess, the more likely the house is to be standing when he brings his bride home.”

Hawthorne ducked through the low door that led to the stairway. “Valerian is our writer. What does that leave for him to do?”

“He is our charmer. He will recruit assistance from the local tavern and churchyard.”

“We cannot pay anybody for anything remotely resembling assistance.”

“Why should we have to?” Ash pulled the attic door firmly closed. “We make hay with our neighbors, we shear with them, we harvest with them and dig out drainage ditches with them. We send anybody who asks whatever exotic medicinals they might need at no charge, and every family in the shire gets a generous basket from us at Christmas whether their rent is paid or not. Every wardrobe in the county is scented with our sachets. Our herb woman has the best inventory in the realm. Name me one other peer whose family does as much for their tenants and neighbors.”

Thorne pushed the door open. “Let the air circulate, and the wall might begin to dry out. I cannot name you another earl who matches Casriel for generosity and fair dealing with his tenants, and you know it. Papa set a certain standard, and Casriel honors that standard. Times are changing and not necessarily for the better. I respect that Casriel does what he can for our neighbors, but we can’t fix a leaking roof with a tisane.”

Grey did what he could for the neighbors, the family, the local church, and the staff. “If the House of Lords ever gets him to sit as chairman of some damned committee, we’re doomed.”

Thorne started down the steps. “Without a countess, we’re doomed anyway, though we needn’t fear the House of Lords will abduct him. Casriel is a countryman at heart, and he’s doubtless doing the pretty, bowing and smiling over perfumed, gloved hands as we speak, but Dorset Hall is his first responsibility. He’ll find us a wealthy countess or die in the attempt.”

“He shouldn’t have to go to such extremes.”

Thorne paused on the landing. “As long as you and I and that pair of fops known as Oak and Valerian spend most of our days racketing about the Hall, pretending to be busy and productive, as long as Sycamore kicks his handsome heels pretending to manage a gaming hell while in fact running up bills at the tailor’s and bootmaker’s, Casriel must marry wealth. In his shoes, any man would do the same.”

“Any honorable man.”

“And Casriel is honorable.”

“Do you ever wish he weren’t such a paragon of duty and selflessness, Thorne?”

They reached the floor of the house where the brothers’ apartments were. Each brother had his own suite of rooms, and all of them had lovely views of the Dorset countryside. The Hall was beautiful, considered from the right perspective, though Ash was growing to hate the place.

“I wish Casriel would play the harp again,” Thorne said. “I wish he would laugh. I wish he’d go to London because a change of scene can be a pleasant diversion, not because he must parade himself before this Season’s crop of heiresses while ignoring the stink of sewers that flow like rivers. I wish he’d find a damned countess who could give him some babies to love and spoil and maybe even distract him from the purgatory that the earldom has become.”

For Thorne, that was a third-act monologue. “The Hall needs a countess,” Ash said. “Grey needs a wife.”

“And I need a drink.”

Drinking solved nothing. Ash had learned that lesson in a very hard school.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ash, Mr. Hawthorne.” Rawley, their butler, had come up from the floor below. “Vicar is paying a call. I’ve put him in the guest parlor.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” Thorne asked. “The damned man never stays less than an hour and can imitate a plague of locusts over the tea tray with convincing enthusiasm.”

“I do apologize, sir, but he heard your voices from the foyer. He knows you are on the premises, and we have turned him away twice in the past two weeks. I did escort him to the guest parlor with all due haste, but he has good hearing.”

Ash had been dodging Vicar in the churchyard for the past two Sundays. Grey was responsible for dealing with all matters relating to the local living, another duty the right countess could ease.

“I’ll pour him a cup of tea,” Ash said. “But, Rawley, you will tell the kitchen to send up half the usual tray, and in thirty minutes—not thirty-five, not forty-two—you will interrupt to inform me of pressing matters requiring my attention at the home farm.”

“I would not advise that, sir. As the earl himself has realized, the home farm is in the direction of the vicarage, and you will find yourself escorted thence by your guest. Better to have a pressing issue at the estate brewery. The vicar knows little about how beer and ale are made, and our brewery lies in the opposite direction of the village.”

“The brewery it is,” Ash said, “and then I’ll want to send an express to the earl in London.”

“Another express, sir?”

“Another express.”

Rawley withdrew, descending the steps at a decorous pace.

“Where are you going?” Thorne asked as Ash took off down the corridor.

“Even I know receiving a man of God with cobwebs in my hair isn’t done. I wish Grey had never gone to London.” And I wish I hadn’t had to leave.

“Not quite true,” Thorne said, falling in step beside him. “You wish he was back from London. We all do. When you write that express, tell him to snabble the first available heiress and hurry home.”

“I’ve already told him that. Twice.”

“Tell him again.”

The maid held up the latest creation from Madam Batiste, a soft green evening dress designed to show off slightly more of Sarah’s attributes than was proper for a woman in her first Season.

“I must try it on. Mama, get me out of this rag.”

“If the green requires alterations,” Mama said, rising from the sofa, “you can wear the blue. Bartles, you may be excused.”

The maid folded the dress back into its box, curtseyed, and withdrew. Now Mama would start with her scolds and lectures, unless Sarah took the floor first.

“I cannot wear the blue. I wore blue to Lady Brantmore’s do, and I wore blue to the most recent card party.”

Mama’s hands on Sarah’s hooks were slower than Bartles’s would have been. “Lord Casriel favors blue waistcoats, my dear. He might think blue dresses are a flattering attempt to complement his attire.”

“That is precisely why I must not wear blue. He should be complementing my choices, not the other way around. For the rest of our married life, I will be bound by vows to honor and obey him. In courtship at least, he ought to be honoring and obeying me.”

Mama paused in her unhooking. “Has he danced a supper waltz with you?”

“He’s a gentleman, and gentlemen must dance with both the plain and the pretty, or they aren’t allowed to dance at all. I’m pretty, and he danced with me, thus he was required to dance with less-attractive women at some point.”

Mama resumed her progress down to the middle of Sarah’s back, though holding still while Mama delivered her little sermon was excruciating.

“Has his lordship walked you home from services?”

“Why would a peer of the realm bother with an antiquated custom even the yeomen no longer put much stock in?”

Mama finally got to Sarah’s waist, about which Sarah was not merely proud, she was unapologetically vain. Bartles knew how to cinch in a corset, and the result of a small waist was a bosom that appeared more generous by comparison. Gentlemen did have their little aesthetic preoccupations, after all, and the Creator had neglected to fill Sarah’s bodice as well as she might have liked.

“You’ve been interviewing yeomen, to know their habits of late?” Mama asked. “Lord Casriel owns a good patch of Dorset, so when he walked Lady Antonia home from church, he might well have been indulging in an antiquated custom of some import to him.”

Sarah turned. “He walked Lady Antonia home?”

“Arm in arm, conversing as they strolled along and tarried in Grosvenor Square. You were too busy twirling your parasol at Lord Dentwhistle to notice. Casriel and Lady Antonia made a handsome couple.”

“You needn’t be nasty, Mama, or leap to unjustified conclusions. Perhaps Lady Antonia lives in the same direction as his lordship. Perhaps they share an interest in Italian opera. Help me get this dress off.”

“Lord Casriel hasn’t been seen at the opera yet this Season, that I know of.”

Sarah held still while her mother gathered up skirts and underskirts, carefully raising them over Sarah’s waist. This ritual—dressing and undressing—was vaguely annoying. Little children needed to be dressed and undressed. Why did fashion require that grown ladies also have assistance with any wardrobe worth wearing in public?

Though having a maid on hand to deal with pins and ribbons and to take away wrinkled clothing was ever so convenient.

“So Casriel doesn’t care for a lot of caterwauling from warbling sopranos and well-fed tenors,” Sarah said. “Neither do I.”

Mama lifted the dress over Sarah’s head. “His lordship might not care for you, Sarah Quinlan.”

Why must Mama make that suggestion when Sarah wore only her stays and shift, her meager endowments so clearly pushed up into a semblance of abundance?

“All the gentlemen like me. I’m an Incomparable. Lord Dentwhistle told me so.”

“Dentwhistle is a fortune hunter whose grandfather beggared the family with foolish investments. Are you losing weight?”

“Why do you ask? Do I look too skinny?” Sarah turned this way and that, considering her figure in the cheval mirror. The white of her underlinen washed out her complexion and made her dark hair look garish.

I look like a tall, pale, gawky girl. Not confident like Lady Antonia, who truly was tall and gawky. Not generously rounded like those blasted Arbuckles. Not confident, well rounded, and pleased with life, like Lady Canmore.

“You do look a little tired,” Mama said, holding up the green dress. “You’ll have time for a nap before we go out tonight.”

Children napped. Sarah obligingly ducked her head and held out her arms so Mama could get her into the green dress. The silk fabric felt deliciously cool and expensive, and the fit was exquisite.

“Tonight,” Sarah said, examining her reflection, “I shall cast a lure at Lord Casriel.”

Mama knelt to straighten the drape of the underskirt. “What an original approach. I’m sure no young lady has ever cast a lure at him. Perhaps instead of drawing and pianoforte, those expensive finishing schools should teach young ladies how to angle for trout.”

“Mama, I believe you are in need of a nap. Lord Casriel might not understand the language of the fan or the glove. I will have to be subtle but clear.”

Mama rose. “Sarah, you must not convince yourself that Casriel will trot to your side because you crook your finger and wink. Lady Antonia enjoys a much higher station than you. The Arbuckles are from older wealth than you and are considered pretty. They can also aid each other should one of them attract his lordship’s notice. While you…”

Mama sighed, a sound of exasperation and disappointment.

Over the Arbuckles? The Arbuckles? “They are not prettier than I am. They are in their third Season.”

Mama tugged the dress’s bodice upward, which was futile when the waist was so snug. “But, Daughter, even the Arbuckles are more of Casriel’s ilk. Their mother’s father is a baronet. Do you truly want to spend most of your life in Dorset? You know little of managing a country house.”

Why must Mama ruin everything lately? Sarah’s joy in the new dress was melting away like the beeswax tapers in a ballroom chandelier.

“Do you think my situation is easy, Mama?” Sarah paced away from the mirror, loving how the silk swished about her ankles and punctuated an angry mood. “You have never endured a London Season. You have never had to stand still for fittings that take hours, never had to befriend women who would as soon knife you in the back as turn pages for you at the pianoforte. I want an earl, and I shall have an earl, and not just any earl. An earl who needs my money will be much easier to manage than one who condescends to offer for me out of a mere passing attraction.”

Mama’s gaze was on the empty mirror. “The money belongs to your father, and one does not embark upon marriage as if it’s a mercantile venture. Many aristocrats take that approach, and a sorrier, sadder lot of human beings you will not find on this earth. We who have had to work for our bread are more discerning than that sort, more genuine. Casriel seems like a decent man, but I’d rather you find a fellow whose motive isn’t simply to expand his selection of waistcoats.”

Members of the peerage were ruthless about marriage and wealth, which was wonderful. If they weren’t, Sarah would never have had a chance at a title.

“I like that some people can approach marriage pragmatically,” she said. “Sentimental foolishness fades, while a fortune and a title are permanent comforts. I have the fortune, Casriel has the title, and I like him well enough.”

He wasn’t too handsome, wasn’t too old, wasn’t too flirtatious. Casriel would be biddable and grateful, and he’d be polite to Sarah’s parents when necessary.

More than she was able to manage lately.

“Sometimes,” Mama said, picking up Sarah’s discarded day dress, “I don’t like you. Be careful, Sarah. You lack the stature to compromise a man like Casriel, and all your father’s money cannot rescue your reputation if you throw it away on a lure that misses its mark.”

Folding up the dress as any maid would, Mama looked old and weary, though she was barely forty.

“I hadn’t thought to compromise his lordship.” The notion was intriguing. To trap a famously well-mannered man by using social convention made all the sense in the world. Casriel would probably thank her for sparing him a lot of bother dancing with the wallflowers.

“If you misstep with Casriel, you will find yourself sewing samplers in Cheshire for at least the next five years, Sarah. Your father will not be made a laughingstock, no matter how generous he is with you otherwise.”

Mama’s mouth was in a pinchy line. Mauve shadows formed half circles beneath her eyes.

I will never look like her. Never, and this time next year, I won’t have to listen to her either.

“Mama, you worry for nothing. His lordship needs to marry money, and I am happy to become his countess. That’s how these things are done.”

“That is not how your father and I did it,” Mama said, moving toward the door, “and we manage well enough. I’ll send Bartles to help you out of your dress, lest you wrinkle your new frock prancing before the mirror.”

Mama closed the door softly, though she had as usual managed to have the last word.

For now.

“My priorities have changed,” Grey said. “Instead of looking for a lady with handsome settlements, I now search for a prospective countess who’s an expert on repairing roofs.”

In fact, since spending a long afternoon in Lady Canmore’s bed last week, Grey had been searching for his sanity, while dodging eligible young women. He’d found safety among the wallflowers, widows, and dowagers and avoided the near occasion of heiresses.

Then Ash’s letter had arrived.

“The hour is early,” Tresham said, pausing to sniff at a rose. “Have you been at the brandy, Casriel?”

“I cannot afford to be at the brandy. Dorning Hall, the edifice in which my family, forty inside servants, and another thirty outside servants shelter, has developed a serious leak in the roof of the east wing, which, naturally, is where the family quarters are.”

Tresham sauntered along the garden path, a mastiff trotting at his side. “I thought tenant cottages were famous for leaking roofs?”

“Infamous, and because tenants are forbidden to make improvements to structures on their leaseholds, landlords must perform the needed repairs. I was caught up—I was almost caught up—with the tenant cottage and pensioner cottage repairs.”

“You can’t simply patch a few holes and hope for dry weather?”

The dog paused to lift its leg on a bed of blooming daisies.

“This is England. Summer is as close as we get to dry weather, so the roofs must be repaired now, and no, a patch job seldom works. Dorning Hall will beggar me if the damage is as bad as Ash thinks.” Finish beggaring me.

“So close off that wing, dismantle it while you can salvage plenty of bricks for resale, and plant a few more trees on that side of the house. In a hundred years, nobody will notice that your façade lacks symmetry. It’s an ancestral pile. They’ll call it charming and unique.”

They’d call it an architectural failure courtesy of the present pathetic excuse for an earl. “Shall we lop off a wing of the Quimbey family seat, Tresham? Sell off the windows and hinges to the builders swarming around London? Is that any way to husband a heritage that’s centuries in the making?”

“Let’s sit. Caesar is in the mood to investigate today.”

Caesar being one of the Quimbey household’s canine behemoths. Tresham settled onto a bench, while Grey paced the garden walk.

“Then the vicar,” he said, “who well knows the Dorning family circumstances, reports that the church is also in need of a new roof. Not a mere repair either. A new roof. If the previous vicar had installed standing seam tin as Papa had advised, we would not have this problem. But no, a church must be beautiful, said the holy man who is supposed to counsel us against vanity. The church must have a slate roof, and not twenty years later, the damned thing is growing moss on the north side and leaking perilously near the fourth earl’s organ.”

Tresham was smiling at his dog.

“Not that sort of organ,” Grey muttered. “Married life has made you easily distracted.”

“I am not the poor fellow who is so beset by a lack of roofing slates that he cannot sit still on a beautiful spring day. You knew when you arrived in London that marrying a fortune was your objective. You knew your roofs would eventually leak. Your fields must eventually be marled. Your ditches and drains cleared, your daughter dowered.”

The day was beautiful only to those trapped in London. Here, a fair day meant a yellowish tinge to the sky for much of the morning and a pervasive hint of grit and smoke in the air. When the wind was wrong, the stink off the river made even the clearest of London days unbearably odoriferous. No wonder Londoners suffered so many lung ailments and chest colds.

“Despite the challenges you face,” Tresham went on, “at last week’s soiree, I saw you evade both the Arbuckles and Miss Quinlan. You didn’t even stand up with Lady Antonia, but instead danced with every wallflower ever to sprout in Mayfair. Theodosia is concerned for you.”

The dog sniffed at Grey’s boots, then wandered over to sit at Tresham’s knee.

“A gentleman dances with a variety of partners, if he dances at all.”

“You haven’t danced with Lady Canmore lately.”

Oh yes, Grey had. He’d danced with her in countless dreams. He’d conversed with her in more imaginary discussions than any ballroom could contain. He’d pleasured himself to memories of time spent in her bed, and he was counting the hours until the next half day.

Thirty-six, give or take a few, minutes. “Lady Canmore and I are friends.”

Tresham and the dog gave him the same pitying look. “You are smitten, and just when your resolve to marry an heiress is being tested, the roof threatens to cave in back home. If you need a loan, you have merely to tell me.”

Despair nearly felled Grey, for offers of loans were made only to friends in the direst circumstances. Tresham’s estimation of the Dorning fortunes had apparently eroded from not that bad to nearly hopeless.

“That offer is most kind of you, Tresham, also embarrassing as hell. If I accepted your loan, when my income and expenses barely balance, how would I repay you? I’d simply dig a hole for my son or heir to dump his prospects into.”

“Peers cannot be jailed for debt. You pay back what you can when you can.”

Grey took a seat on the hard bench, though he wanted, badly, to kick something—his own backside, for example.

“Peers cannot be jailed for much of anything, which is why a titled man’s honor must be sufficient to ensure that he commits as few injustices as possible. He may blunder and stumble, but to willfully exploit the privileges of his station is contemptible.”

Tresham pulled gently on the dog’s ears. Willow, the Dorning family expert on canines, claimed dogs liked that. When Addy tugged on Grey’s ears, it certainly inspired him to wagging his tail and panting.

God save me.

“Casriel, you are the soul of social savoir faire, and yet, you are barely making sense. Is Lady Canmore inspiring you to blunder and stumble?”

Grey took off his hat and set it on the bench. “A gentleman does not bandy a lady’s name about.”

“Theodosia called on Lady Canmore yesterday. Every other word was ‘Casriel this’ and ‘his lordship that,’ punctuated by blushing silences. If she’s bandying your name, then you can certainly keep a concerned friend informed of your worries.”

Addy had perhaps mentioned Grey twice, and one of those mentions would have been prompted by Tresham’s wife. Still, blushing silences were all too credible. Grey, in fact, was blushing while Tresham and his damned dog watched.

“Like that, is it?” Tresham said.

“I have created an impossible situation,” Grey said. “I care very much for her ladyship, and yet, duty compels me to seek marriage with a woman of means.”

Tresham gave the dog a final pat to its massive head. “You can’t cut expenses?”

“Dornings are thrifty. There are too many of us for any profligacy. By the time I’ve lent Will a bit in a lean year, aided Sycamore to get his club on its feet, kept Oak, Thorne, Ash, and Valerian in new boots and riding horses, paid for the parish living, done a bit for charity, looked after my pensioners, caught up Tabitha’s bills—”

Tresham held up a hand. “I recall your ledgers. An heiress is the necessary solution if you can’t either cut expenses or increase revenue, and the sooner you get your hands on her money, the healthier the earldom will be.”

Grey should have stood, thanked Tresham for his damned keen insight, and taken himself away to kick stone walls and curse all leaking roofs. Instead, he remained on the bench.

“My difficulty is that a man is expected to get his hands on his wife from time to time, not simply on her fortune. This is an obligation which I no longer believe to be within my abilities.”

The dog cocked his head.

“You are in love,” Tresham said gently. “You are smitten with Lady Canmore, and you cannot fathom being intimate with another.”

“Cannot fathom… cannot even theoretically admit the necessity. And yet, marriage entitles a woman to expect certain attentions from her husband. I’m not sure why else a wealthy female would take a husband, much less a man whose household includes four grown brothers, not a one of whom can seem to recall that his boots do not belong on the furniture. That reminds me. How is Sycamore faring at The Coventry?”

“You should ask him.”

“I have, and he’s predictably evasive, suggesting he’s in over his head, floundering, and making a bad situation worse. He excels at putting a good face on a disaster, but charm alone will not pay the bills.”

The dog wandered over to the fountain, stood on his back legs, and took a noisy drink from the water splashing down from the stone pineapple.

“Sycamore has changed some practices at the club,” Tresham said. “I think he could use a brother or two at his side, but it’s not my place to tell him that. He seems to be managing.”

Grey rose rather than hear more bad news. “When he seems to be managing, when he’s doing his best impersonation of a young gentleman in control of his affairs, that’s when he’s usually top over tail in trouble. Thank you for letting me rant and pout like a toddler.”

Tresham eased to his feet. Since marrying Theodosia, the Quimbey heir was more relaxed. He moved more slowly. He smiled more. He was a more congenial host at his monthly Lonely Husbands evenings, and he could occasionally be seen hacking out with Mrs. Tresham on fine mornings.

The changes were modest, visible mostly to friends or family, but Tresham was thriving in the married state. Clearly, husband and wife shared the day’s gossip with each other. They spent the occasional evening at home together, and they even stood up with one another for the first waltz of the evening.

Grey envied his friend with an intensity no gentleman could admit to and no honest man could deny.

“What will you do?” Tresham asked. “You cannot offer for a woman in bad faith. One could—some men could—but you, Casriel, cannot. You are also incapable of dissembling where Lady Canmore is concerned, and my best guess is that your feelings are reciprocated.”

Don’t say that. Don’t think that. Don’t even hint that. “Her ladyship’s first husband was a less-than-ideal match for her. She does not view remarriage enthusiastically.”

The dog climbed into the fountain with a great splashing leap. The water wasn’t deep enough to submerge the entire mastiff, but Grey envied the beast his simple pleasures.

Tresham smiled as the dog behaved like a twelve-stone puppy. “Have you considered asking Lady Canmore to marry you?”

Only a thousand times. “I dare not. If she answered in the affirmative, where would that leave us? I can offer her only poverty and disgrace.” And if she accepted his offer, they’d be in a damned, hopeless mess, as opposed to a merely wretched coil.

“Theodosia says Lady Canmore’s means are modest, Casriel. I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps her ladyship will tire of me.” If that happened, Grey would retreat into the role of fond memory and wish the lady well. Then he’d get roaring drunk and kick whomever and whatever he pleased, starting with the vicar and finishing with Papa’s headstone.

The dog bounded from the fountain and had the grace to shake vigorously while still some yards off. A dog’s life was uncomplicated, his comforts inexpensive and easily found. One of Caesar’s few obligations was to attend Georgette, Will’s equally stupendous lady mastiff, when she paid her visits.

Oh, to be a hound rather than a peer of the realm.

“Lady Canmore will not tire of you,” Tresham said. “She hasn’t spared another man so much as a glance since Lord Canmore went to his reward. They were reported to be a love match, you know. If she’s put aside his memory to favor you with her company, you are more than a passing fancy for her.”

She’d put aside her heartache where Canmore was concerned, or started to. That Grey had been her confidant was more precious to him than all the slate roofs in Dorset.

“And she is much more than a passing fancy to me,” Grey said.

“Could one of your brothers perhaps attach an heiress?”

One of Grey’s brothers—Ash, by name—was much taken with Lady Della Haddonfield, to whom Tresham had a discreet family connection. She was not an heiress. Ash had engaged the lady’s affections to all appearances, and then scarpered back to Dorset, leaving the woman no explanation.

Grey had his suspicions regarding Ash’s motivations, but Ash’s reasons were his own. He was surrounded by family at Dorning Hall, and that was for the best.

“The only brother with sufficient charm to win an heiress,” Grey said, “is Sycamore, and he’s much too young to embark on such an objective. Oak is retiring by nature, Valerian a dandy without means. Thorne is charmless and unrefined of sentiment. I at least have a title to offer. The fortune-hunting is best left in my hands.”

Tresham delivered a thumping pat to Grey’s shoulder. “Perhaps one of those brothers will provide you with your heir. It’s the least they can do, considering the sacrifice you’re contemplating.”

Tresham saw Grey to the back gate, the damp dog panting un-fragrantly at his heels, and then Grey was making his way alone through the shaded alleys. The alleys were free of debutantes and matchmakers, which he’d discovered of necessity in the past two weeks.

Alleys were a good place for a man to walk and worry.

In every regard other than consummation of the vows, taking on a wife was arguably a prudent move. The countess would assist with managing Dorning Hall and the earldom’s social obligations. She’d take meals with the family. She’d incur some expenses, but also—Grey hoped—provide a guiding hand for what remained of Tabitha’s upbringing.

None of which told Grey how he could possibly perform as a husband was expected to on his own wedding night.