Aldric clasped his hands behind his back, a posture he’d adopted from early childhood and couldn’t seem to shake despite knowing it gave him an air of arrogance and disapproval. “One does not throw one’s lot in with the Gents. You pick your members; everyone knows that.”
The three gentlemen watched him ever more closely.
“Would you like to?” Stanley asked. “It would mean Digby here would be the only one of us at Cambridge without a title to look forward to, but I think he can manage to endure the humiliation.”
Digby offered Stanley a look of dry annoyance that held more humor than anything. He spoke to Aldric though. “The intelligent one in the group arrives from Eton next year.”
“You all have roles to play, it seems.”
Lord Jonquil nodded. “Stanley’s job is to make certain we have adventures. I ensure we laugh a great deal while undertaking them. Digby attempts to make us look dashing through it all.”
“Emphasis onattempts,” Digby added.
“And Kes, our brain, as it were, tries to keep us from looking like idiots in the process.”
“Emphasis ontries?” Aldric asked.
They laughed. He didn’t generally make people laugh. It wasn’t a bad experience; it was simply unfamiliar.
“What would I do in this brotherhood of yours?”
“Based on what we’ve just watched,” Stanley said, “you’d likely be charged with keeping us from doing anything too unwise. I was ready to simply break Baker’s nose, but your approach proved far more effective.”
“And Digby likely would have objected to the blood ruining your ensemble.” Aldric shrugged.
“I like him, Stanley,” Digby said firmly.
I like him.Something he had never heard from his own brother.
“Care to be the strategist among us?” Lord Jonquil asked. “Keep us from going on foolhardy and ultimately doomed adventures?”
Aldric shrugged. He wasn’t sure what he thought. It would be nice to have some friends, but these three were more like family to one another. Family wasn’t something Aldric was particularly good at.
Silent looks passed between them, and before Aldric knew what was happening, Digby and Lord Jonquil had taken themselves off, and Stanley alone remained with him.
“We won’t force you into anything,” Stanley said. “I doubt we could anyway.”
“You couldn’t.” If Aldric’s tendency toward bluntness sat wrong with Stanley, it didn’t show.
“We also don’t make the offer lightly,” Stanley said.
“You singled me out suddenly after a bit of verbal jousting with Baker and offered membership in what is considered a rather exclusive friendship.” Aldric eyed him doubtfully. “That feels quite lightly made.”
Stanley smiled broadly. His were the sort of features that settled naturally into an expression of happiness and amusement. It was actually a rather nice thing. Mother had been the same way, but her smiles had come less frequently toward the end.
“You think this has been the impulse of a moment.” Stanley shook his head. “At the risk of sounding uncomfortably awkward, I’ve been watching you, Lord Aldric Benick. I know perfectly well that you have been watching us too. You observe, evaluate, and formulate approaches for everyone and everything that you encounter.”
It was an entirely accurate assessment.
“The Gents don’t often add to our numbers. But the three of us have been wanting to ask you for weeks. We weren’t certain you would be interested or consider us important enough to indulge.”
“Because I am the son of a duke?” If only they understood how little value that actually gave him. Even in his own family, it meant almost nothing.
“Because you give the distinct impression of not being particularly interested in forging these kinds of connections.”
Aldric had a tendency to keep himself, which meant few people understood much about him. Only Mother ever had. Yet Stanley Cummings had neatly dissected Aldric and accurately described what he had found.
“I do not have connections like yours,” Aldric said. “It is a brotherhood; anyone can see that. I don’t even have a brotherhood with my actual brother.”
