Chapter 1
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Garret wrapped his hand around the handle of a tankard of ale, holding his breath as he lifted it higher and higher.
Currently, he held six tankards full of ale balanced on the palm of one hand.
He intended to set the seventh on top of the tower without the others tumbling down.
As he lifted the tankard higher, his friends began to chant.
“Red, Red.” Their voices were hushed and reverent as they called out his sobriquet, but as the tankard neared the top of the tower, they grew more raucous. “Red! Red! Red!”
Garret placed the tankard on top of the tower, hesitated to ensure it balanced, then slowly released the handle, his hand hovering nearby in case he needed to adjust position.
The tower held, and his friends erupted in a cheer that filled the Blue Boar Ale House, drowning out the fiddle player attempting to entertain the other patrons with ballads.
“Eight! Eight!” Adolphus Fitzgerald called.
“I don’t know, Dolfy. Seven is my record.” Garret shifted his weight to keep the tower balanced. The muscles in his forearm screamed with the burden of the tankards and ale, but he maintained his focus.
“Break the record,” Benjamin Radcliffe began chanting. “Break the record! Break the record!”
Garret smiled. “Bring me another!”
His friends cheered. As soon as the noise died down, Garret felt a tap on his shoulder—the shoulder connected to the arm balancing the Tower o’ Tankards. “Sir? I have a note for you,” said a vaguely familiar voice.
“Later,” Garret said.
“It’s from your father, sir.”
“Set it on the table.” Garret watched the seventh tankard sway and adjusted accordingly.
“He said to put it in your hands, sir. The matter seemed urgent.”
“Urgent?” Garret turned his head, glancing at the footman standing beside him. Too late, he realized his mistake. The tower swayed and Garret couldn’t correct fast enough.
“Incoming!” Dolfy cried, and Garret’s friends scattered.
The footman was not so quick, and as Garret jumped free of the tumbling tower, the tankards and ale crashed to the floor at the footman’s feet.
When Garret dared look at the scattered remains of his magnificent tower, the footman stood dripping from shoulder to shoes.
He’d managed to hold the missive from Garret’s father far enough away that it was still reasonably dry when Garret snatched it from him.
The vellum had been folded and sealed with wax.
His name was written on the front in his mother’s lovely script. He tore it open and read quickly.
“I must take my leave,” Garret told his friends.
The Earl of Glenister never summoned him in this manner.
Garret and his brothers lived with the family in the Hanover Square town house.
His father might have simply said whatever he wanted over toast and tea at breakfast. A formal summons was unheard of, and Garret was already moving for the door before his friends could object.
Dolfy jogged to catch up with him. The tall, blond son of a viscount put a hand on Garret’s shoulder. “Is it serious, Red?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come back as soon as you can.” He squeezed Garret’s shoulder.
“I will.” With the sodden footman following at a distance, Garret stepped out of the tavern.
Summer had only recently unfurled its sail and set forth on the lazy blue lake of the London Season, but Garret immediately plucked at his coat, feeling the weight of the oppressive sticky heat.
Or perhaps he was overly warm because he was unnerved by the formal summons he held in his hand.
Truth be told, if the summons hadn’t been so ceremonious, he might have ignored it.
As it was, he felt like a petty officer ordered to the great cabin for a dressing-down by the captain.
What could he have done to receive such a missive with nothing more than Your presence is requested immediately written inside?
Fearing a hackney would be too slow in the congested streets, Garret strolled up New Bond Street, half his mind on what other antics his friends might get up to tonight—without him—and the other half on avoiding a collision with the swarms of people who always seemed to be about in Town.
As much as Garret appreciated the countryside in Ireland—the green coolness of it, the peacefulness—he thrived on the noise and movement in London.
Even if the weather was abominable today.
Someone called his name, and he spotted Killian crossing the street.
Garret paused and waited for his brother, younger by four years, to catch up.
Killian lifted his own summons when he reached Garret. “Don’t tell me you have one too.”
Killian’s envelope looked exactly like Garret’s. “Do you think all of us received one?” Garret asked as they began to walk toward the town house in Hanover Square.
“Probably. What’s this about then?”
“How should I know? I was at the Blue Boar with Dolfy, having a brilliant afternoon until this”—he shook the paper—“arrived.”
“I was at my studio. The footman just about broke the door down.”
Garret glanced at Killian, noting the paint splatters on his dark blue coat and in his auburn hair. He’d probably tried to ignore the knocking. Once Killian was painting, he often became so absorbed no one saw him for days.
They turned onto Brook Street and had a clear view of the red and white brick town house.
Garret noted his brother Daire loitering on the steps.
Daire looked a great deal like Killian—the green eyes and auburn hair—but he would not have dared show his face in public with paint on his clothing.
As usual, he looked as though he’d just come from Weston’s.
His neckcloth was starched, his coat perfectly fitted, and his boots polished.
“Are you the lookout?” Garret asked.
“No.” Daire glanced at his pocket watch. “I didn’t want to go in alone.”
“Isn’t Liam home?” Killian asked, referring to the eldest brother and the heir to the earldom.
“As I said, I don’t want to go in alone.”
Daire had a point. Though Liam was only two years older than Garret, he’d always seemed more like a parent than a sibling.
“Do you think Liam knows what this is about?” Killian stabbed a finger at his envelope.
Daire shrugged. “Even if he knows, he won’t say. I don’t suppose either of you have any ideas?”
“Ideas, yes,” Killian said. “Answers, no.”
Garret paused at the base of the steps, nodding to a vaguely familiar man passing by. “What ideas?”
“A summons like this”—Killian waved it in the air—“would only be warranted if one of us compromised a chit—”
“Not me,” Daire said.
“Nor I,” Garret said. He narrowed his eyes at Killian.
“I haven’t either,” Killian protested. “And I think we all know Liam is far too proper to ever do more than kiss a chit’s hand. Which means…”
“What?” Daire asked.
“Mariah has been compromised.”
“Mariah!” Garret smacked Killian on the shoulder. “She’s fifteen. She has not been compromised.”
“Why would you even think that?” Daire asked, smacking Killian’s other shoulder.
“Ow! Then you tell me what else would be serious enough to warrant a summons like this.”
“I don’t know.” Garret smacked Killian again.
“What was that for?”
“I’m still angry at the suggestion that Mariah has been ruined.”
“Now you’ve made me angry,” Killian said.
Garret knew what that meant and jumped back just in time to avoid the brunt of the blow Killian threw at him. Still, a portion of Killian’s fist connected with his jaw and earlobe, making him swear.
“Don’t start, Killian,” Daire said, but it was too late.
Garret reacted to the sting of pain by charging into Killian and knocking them both to the ground.
A passing footman jumped into the street to avoid the pair, and a group of men on the other side of the street paused and called out encouragement.
Killian landed on the ground with an oof but used the momentum to roll over. By the time Garret got his bearings, Killian was bent over him, fist balled and ready to blacken his eye. Daire grabbed Killian by the arms just in time for Garret to scramble away.
“What the devil is wrong with you?” Daire shot a glare at Garret as he struggled to hold Killian back. “You know his temper.”
“Why does no one ever worry about my temper?” Garret asked, wincing as he rose to his feet.
Killian tore loose of Daire’s hold, and Garret hunched protectively, preparing for the worst. But Killian glanced over his shoulder when the door to 24 Hanover Square thudded open and Liam Kildare, Viscount Westerley, stepped out.
“What in blazes are you doing?” he asked, voice low, tone frosty.
Liam was the only one of the family not born with a shade of red hair.
His dark hair, tall frame, and icy blue eyes gave him a formidable appearance.
The slice of his words caused even Killian to step back and look sheepish.
“Are you actually brawling on the street in front of the house like rogues in a common rookery gang?”
The group of men on the other side of the street took the opportunity to vocalize their displeasure at Liam’s interruption of their entertainment. Liam gave them a steely stare, and they quickly dispersed.
“He started it,” Killian said, pointing at Garret.
“I did not. You threw the first punch.”
“None of it would have happened if Killian hadn’t said Mariah—” Daire began.
“I don’t care.”
They went silent, even though Liam hadn’t raised his voice or moved. “Papa is waiting for you, and you’re already late.”
Garret saw Daire check his pocket watch again.
“Come inside, go directly to the drawing room, and don’t say a word.”
Killian grumbled but started up the steps, followed by Daire. Garret was last, and he had the urge to accidentally jostle Liam as he passed, just to knock him back, but Liam cleared his throat. “Don’t even think it, Gearoid Kildare.”