As a callow youth, he’d called her his Amaranth, an ancient mythological flower that never faded, changed or died. Everlasting.
Snorting, he flung his head back on the cushioned leather of a chair that shouldn’t even be his but for his brother’s misfortune and contemplated their encounter.
If he was to be truthful to himself, he had not felt…naught.
Instead a faint taste of something lost had endured, like drinking water from a glass that had previously held whisky.
A sadness for a life once dreamed of. A youth’s desire to travel, to discover new plants, to make love on the sands, Verity’s hair trailing over his chest.
Hell, they’d oft kissed in the orchard until his blood had surged, a tide that had known no shore, her satin skin pulling him under like a treacherous current, her sighs impelling his youthful lust and…
He shifted in the chair and wondered why she’d never wed after also jilting that poor sod Locksley for his bad teeth. And breath. Despite his large botanical garden.
Indeed, had she–
“For shame,” came a drawl from someone who’d not thought to knock, “no man should drink alone.” A slender figure then proceeded to the decanters, selected the finest and most costly smuggled Glenlivet and poured a bumper of a glass.
Miles just watched his cousin, Mr Alasdair Firth, and wondered if he was trying to kill him.
But then to inherit the earldom, his cousin would also have to remove his own brother. Which wasn’t so beyond the realms of possibility as the elder Jeremy Firth could be a fribble but even so…
“How are you, Dair?” His cousin had been calling in more of late for no actual reason that Miles could discern, and although he’d told him of the curious paintings, he’d stopped short of the recent mishaps.
Dair carelessly shrugged off his bottle-blue jacket, which must have cost a pretty penny, rambled the study and then paused to peruse the new canvas. “You’re too thin in this one.” He spun. “As for me… Won sixty guineas at faro. Beat Langton at fencing. And received an invitation no man could refuse from Lady Golbrook at Vauxhall. Not a bad week all in all.”
“Do you not wish for more from life?”
His cousin’s brow rose before it fell back into his habitual impassive façade. “What more is there? I have the essentials: Byron’s former chambers at Albany, a shared valet for the basics, and the stock of claret you gifted me for Christmas. I’m also at no one’s beck and call.”
“Unlike your elder brother with Aunt Mildred.”
“Poor wretch. Mother is in high dudgeon, by the by. Says she and Jeremy require a more substantial monthly stipend.”
“It’s substantial as it is.” Aunt Mildred had been left in such debt by her deceased husband having invested in a venture to export tea to India that she and Jeremy were now supported by the Stonewold coffers.
“Not substantial enough for her.”
“You never ask for anything, Dair.”
“I make my own way,” he said with a tip of glass.
Miles tipped his own. His cousin was slender but with a wiry strength that his skill for fencing had granted. Blond hair and ice-blue eyes caused many a lady to sigh, while his taciturn manner caused them to swoon.
But a restlessness forever gripped Dair and he meandered the study once more, seizing quills, checking ink pots and perusing the book upon the desk. He flicked a page and crumpled his lips up. “Why do you like all this…botany stuff?”
Oddly enough, no one had ever asked Miles that so he debated his answer. “From an early age, it fascinated me. The potential for such life within a minuscule seed. The conditions required for it to germinate. The blooming of such life. Not to speak of how new discoveries could help mankind. Just look at willow bark.” He polished off his whisky. “On campaign, it also became a comfort, the never-ending cycle of hope and life when all around me so much was being lost.”
Dair nodded. “A worthy endeavour then.” He straightened a clock on the mantelpiece before turning to sift through the plethora of invitations on the silver salver. He rocked on his heels. “Ah, the Thurstons’ ball is on Wednesday. There are a few families still in Town so you’d better attend and endear yourself to the debutantes left on the shelf at the end of the Season.”
With a frown, Miles propped his feet on the desk. His cousin had the right of it but grandiose ballrooms had never been Miles’ chosen habitat: he detested chitchat on the weather, abhorredthe endless bowing and loathed dancing slippers. He belonged in boots. “Keen to marry me off?”
“It’s your responsibility as an aristocrat to marry a deep-pocketed debutante. Your brother Cameron kept putting it off and look what happened.” Dair laid the Thurstons’ invite to one side and proceeded to wade through the others. “Though you weathered all those years on campaign with barely a scratch so you’re doubtless made of iron. And talking of deep-pocketed debutantes…” He now wafted an engraved cream invitation. “This is from the charming Mrs Tait. I met her a few weeks ago. A most pretty bundle of a widow.”
Miles scowled. “I’m tendering my regrets to that invitation.” And he wasn’t about to tell Alasdair it was due to the neighbours.
“What! If you’re hunting a wife, this is the perfect event. Mrs Tait always has the cream of the crop, including her own daughter. Six thousand a year and pretty as a peach. Not so much on the shelf at the end of the Season as holding it up.” Dair scanned the invitation. “Ah, a guest list too. Kane’s daughter is attending – her dowry is a stud farm and five a year. Lord Ludford. Lady Sefton – she’s a widow at twenty-four if you’re not keen on blushing virgins, and…bloody hell.” He pursed his lips. “How did she get the Scandalous Scarlet Spinsters to attend?”
“Who?”
