Page 3 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

That was Jack. Always thinking in terms of battle and strategy.

“I am certain you are right,” she said, managing not to wince as she spoke the falsehood. Oh, she meant to give it all her best effort. But somehow, she no longer believed her best would be good enough. Perfection was, unfortunately, what her new life required of her. And Emily had little hope of achieving that.

Chapter Two

Having a dog the size of a small pony launch itself into one’s bed was the surest way to startle a man from sleep. Aside from physically dumping him out of the mattress or pouring water on his head. Wake-ups that Lyness Eastwood had experienced on multiple occasions while at school. Which, really, meant he did not mind Apollo’s giant paws on either side of his head as the massive boar hound licked his face.

“Roman!” he yelled, rather than scold the animal. It was not the dog’s fault that his master had trained him to do ridiculous things like this. “Can you not send a servant like a normal person?”

Roman leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “Can you not rise at a decent hour?”

“It is only ten in the morning.”

“It is one o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Oh.” Lyness finally pushed Apollo aside well enough to sit up. He squinted at the clock on the mantel, but the curtains were half-drawn and cast most of it in shadow.

“And even ten is late. We are not keeping London hours here, Lyness.” Roman came into the room. “Apollo, Komm.” The large dog jumped down from the bed and circled around Roman to then settle beside him, sharp ears perked up and ready for the next command. The dog was a towering beast, formidable in both size and bearing. Standing nearly to his master’s hip, he bore the unmistakable frame of the German mastiffs favored by continental sportsmen. His coat was a warm tan, short and gleaming, his frame all muscle and elegance. Apollo was a creature bred not merely for beauty, but for strength.

“You know it sounds exactly like the English ‘come.’ I bet he would even respond to that.” The German accent seemed entirely unnecessary. “Most of the commands sound like English words, in my opinion.”

“Yes, but then there are delightful words like⁠—”

Lyness raised his hands. “Do not do that here, when I am the only one for him to P-a-c-k-e-n.” The word for attack.

“Apollo would not touch you, Lyness. You know that.” Roman grinned and ruffled the fur between the dog’s ears. “Your pillows, on the other hand, would never be the same.”

Lyness climbed out of the bed and shrugged on a robe he’d left slung over a chair the night before. Belting it at his waist, he pulled the cord to summon his valet next. “I take it you came in search of me, and found me happily asleep, for a particular reason?”

“Why were you still in bed?” Roman came all the way in, taking the chair near the cold hearth as his own. Apollo stayed beside him, flopping on the rug at Roman’s feet. “You aren’t normally a layabout.”

That made Lyness pause. “Did I f-f-forget about something? A meeting? Did a letter come from the estate?”

Roman narrowed his eyes, for a moment looking even older than his thirty-two years. “No letter. No emergency. Though it’s rather telling that those were your first thoughts.”

Lyness rubbed the back of his neck. At only nine-and-twenty, he felt half his age when Roman gave him such a glare. “You sent your hound to assault me, Roman. One assumes urgency.”

“I sent him because I was tired of the housekeeper asking whether you’d been taken ill. She didn’t say it, of course. Merely mentioned you hadn’t requested breakfast or appeared in the dining room. Which I noticed hours ago.”

“Oh.” Lyness winced. “I was thinking.”

“Mm. In your sleep?”

“Restful thinking,” he muttered. “I sat up late copying a poem.”

Roman gave him one of his looks. The sort that some might call stern, but Lyness knew well enough meant only that he’d been taken off guard. And didn’t know how to react. Finally, slowly, his brother said, “You stayed up half the night. Transcribing poetry.”

“It was a good poem.” Lyness didn’t bother hiding his grin, though he felt Roman’s confusion keenly. “An older one. But the structure was beautiful. It reminded me of ivy, actually. The way it winds upward around old trees.” And he had tried to put that same feeling into his calligraphy, the ascendant and descendant loops of lettering mimicking vines and leaves.

Roman gave him a look. “So, you missed half the day to transcribe verse no one asked for?”

Lyness crossed to the window and pushed aside the curtain just enough to glance out. Gray skies. Rain clinging to the corners of the glass. “I should have told someone I meant to sleep in.” Lyness turned back to the room, catching his reflection in the glass. Hair tousled, dressing gown askew. “I will speak to Mrs. Gibbons. My apologies, Roman.”

His older brother shrugged and turned his attention to picking up the iron to poke at the banked coals in the hearth. “You haven’t caused a scandal. Merely a brief disruption in the kitchen. Disturbing nothing other than Cook’s sense of order.”

“If I shift my schedule, others must shift theirs. I can see how that would prove disruptive. That is all.”

Roman glanced at him briefly, then let out a slow breath. “You have been out of sorts since we returned from Town.”