“Childhood in a colony,” Wesley said.
Valemount nodded slowly. “And is he staying with you in England?”
“If he likes.” Why was Valemount asking all of these questions? Was there a chance he knew Sebastian’s true identity and was toying with Wesley, or was he simply curious?
Lord Valemount pursed his lips. “Handsome fellow, at any rate. Seems popular with the ladies.”
“Don’t I know it,” Wesley muttered.
They passed the dining room and entered the back corner of the ground floor, where the marquess had his gun and billiard rooms. There was a sharp crack of billiard balls knocking into each other, followed by a man’s curse.
“Sounds like we weren’t the first to have this idea.” Valemount walked past the gun room and stepped intothe billiard room instead. “Well, well, well. Not surprising to find you two here.”
In the billiard room, Lord Ryland, a baron with a country estate not far from Wesley’s in Yorkshire, was smoking a cigar with a pool cue in his other hand. Sir Reginald, a baronet notorious for enjoying gambling without skill, stood at the billiard table, glaring red-faced at the white ball.
Valemount clapped his hands together. “Gentlemen, you’ve started without us.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ryland said dryly. “I’m not sure you could call whatever Reginald’s been attemptingbilliards.”
“Don’t you have more screeching progeny to create?” Sir Reginald said irritably, which, given that Ryland had ten children under the age of twenty, was possibly fair. “Fine, what are you doing here? I thought you were in America.”
The billiards room had a large marble fireplace on one wall, surrounded by mounted animal heads and flanked by a taxidermied bear on its hind legs, which Sebastian would have had some choice feelings about. Just beyond, the wall was lined with windows with their curtains tightly drawn. “Our ship docked last night,” Wesley said, surreptitiously moving past Valemount, as if he wished to study the trophies.
A footman in servant’s livery quietly stepped into the room, a box of cigars in his hand, and offered the box first to Valemount, then to Wesley. Wesley grabbed a cigar at random. “It’s a bit stuffy in here,” he said to the footman.
“I can open a window, my lord,” the footman offered.
“You want a window open?” Sir Reginald said. “On this ghastly night?”
“The country air is good for all of us,” Ryland said, as the footman opened the curtain on the nearest window.
The glass was black with night, reflecting the room back like a mirror. Wesley kept his expression carefully neutral. Hopefully Arthur and Brodigan were out there and could get a look inside.
“Speaking of country air.” Valemount took a drag from his cigar. “Fine reminded me that I’m well behind Thornton in hunts this year and it’s already December. Are we game for one in Dartmoor?”
Wesley’s eyebrows went up.
“Brilliant,” Sir Reginald said. “I’d join you tomorrow.”
A chance to visit the Valemount ancestral country home, knowing the first duke had certainly been a paranormal, couldn’t be passed up. But—
“To Dartmoor tomorrow, then!” Valemount gestured at Wesley with his cigar. “I can see what you’re thinking, Fine,” he said, though Wesley very much doubted it. “The hounds will get the fox, it’s true, but there’ll be plenty for you to shoot.”
“I haven’t gotten out on a hunt for weeks and Charlotte adores Nora. We’ll come.” Ryland put the cigar between his teeth as he stepped up to the table. “You’re a cracking good shot, aren’t you, Fine? I’d like to see that.”
Wesley inhaled from the cigar. “Well—”
“I’m certain Geoffrey will join us, and you can’t let your cousin show you up,” Valemount said. “And bring your friend Don Sebastian. I bet he’s never seen the hounds go mad for a scent. He’ll love it!”
Oh no. No no no, Sebastian wasnotgoing to love this, Sebastian was going to throw abloody fit. “He’s—er—a bit of soft touch for the animals, actually—”
“Soft for animals?” Sir Reginald blinked, like Wesley had said something incomprehensible. “Why?”
“No matter,” Valemount said, waving it away. “We’ll bring him round. This will be a treat.”
This was going to a fucking disaster.
Chapter Sixteen
