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Blake held up a hand and rose from the chair. “If you’re—”
“What the devil are you reading?” Ashford demanded, pulling out the chair opposite, sweeping back his tailcoat and sitting. He placed his hat and gloves upon the table, obscuring the gold lettering on the front of the book.
He should have flipped the damned thing over. Sinking back onto his chair, he motioned to the butler. “Something strong please, Hammond.”
After his mother had descended upon him, eyes shimmering, squealing so loudly about his engagement that he’d scarcely been able to understand much between the wordsengagementandgrandchildren, he should have broken out the alcohol. Now Ashford was here, staring at him as though he’d sprouted a second head, he most certainly needed a drink.
“Have you fallen recently?”
“Fallen?” Blake echoed.
“Because the only reason I can think for you reading...” He shoved his gloves off the cover of the book, “floriography is because you have hit your head and are utterly addled.” He leaned back and eyed him with such frankness, Blake felt rather like a specimen being studied. “Been anywhere with low beams recently? Fallen from a horse perhaps?” He turned to Hammond. “Heard any bumps in the night?”
The butler ignored Ashford and set out the crystal glasses and poured a generous helping of whisky before setting the matching decanter in the middle of the table.
Blake would have to remember to thank his butler for his taciturn behavior later.
“I have not hit my head,” he insisted. “Nor fallen from a horse. There is nothing wrong with me, Ash. I am in perfect health.”
“Then why are you reading books like this?” He jabbed a finger to the leather bindings. “And proposing to Lady Demeter Fallon?” He shook his head vigorously. “I nearly fell off my own damned horse when I heard the news. I called Lady Fossbury a liar.”
“Well, the woman has been known to stretch the truth.”
“Yet this time, it is true!”
“It is,” he admitted.
Ashford took a long drink, emptying the glass down to the tiniest sliver of amber liquid then set it down with a thud so hard Blake feared for the antique crystal. “I warned you, Blake. I told you things would not end well. What is going to happen to the poor girl when you call things off and she’s left utterly ruined? No man shall touch her again.”
“They’d be fools for one,” Blake muttered, “but it does not matter. I am not going to call things off.”
Ashford paused halfway through pouring another drink. “You are going to go through with it?”
“Not exactly.”
His friend gave up with the decanter and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have been acting strange ever since we came to London. I can only think it has to do with Demeter.”
“Well—”
“She’s a fine woman and I shall not see her hurt.”
Blake scowled. “Since when do you care for her feelings? You’re not her brother.”
“I’m not blind either. She’s attractive, sweet, damned clever, and—”
“You stay away from her,” Blake snapped.
“Blake.” Ashford fixed him with a hard look. “I’m not the one going ahead and getting engaged. I am still wonderfully and perpetually a bachelor. However, that does not mean I want to see the girl hurt. I know you, Blake, perhaps better than you know yourself.”
“That’s not true,” he muttered.
“No? Well then, do you know why you are reading a book about flowers?”
“It’s...” Blake blew out a breath. “Well, it’s...” He snatched the book and leaned back on his chair to shove it on the nearby bookcase. “It’s just a blasted book.”
He never should have bought the damned thing but when he’d seen the title in the front of one of the London bookshops, he had been unable to resist.
“You love the girl.”
