Entering the owners’ private quarters at the gentleman’s club Vitium et Virtus, Jake, Duke of Westmoor, stifled a groan at the sight of the other two founding members lounging in heavy leather armchairs placed around a low table. One of the two empty chairs was his. The fourth supported a small gilded box.
‘This was the reason you sent for me?’
Even seated, the brown-haired, brown-eyed Frederick Challenger had a military air. At Jake’s words he snapped to attention and glowered. ‘It may have escaped your lofty notice, Your Grace, but today is the sixth anniversary of Nicholas’s disappearance.’
Jake tensed at the use of his title. The significance of the date had indeed escaped his notice, busy as he was with the affairs of the Duchy, but he wasn’t about to admit it. ‘I thought we were beyond all this.’ He had enough reminders of loss at home without adding to them here. The one place he thought of as a refuge.
‘Sit down, Westmoor,’ Oliver, the other member of their group, said, his green eyes snapping sparks in his burnished face.
Jake sighed, but did as requested. Or rather ordered. If Oliver hadn’t been such a good friend... No. Not true. He had no wish to alienate these men, his oldest friends. Without them he might not have survived the loss of his father and brother.
He glanced on the gilded box on the other chair. It contained Nicholas’s ring, the last reminder of their missing founder of Vitium et Virtus. Could it really be six years since Nicolas’s disappearance? It hardly seemed possible. Back then, they’d scarcely achieved their majority. Now look at them. All three of them reaching the grand old age of thirty. The intervening years had passed in a heartbeat.
Yet the shock of finding a pool of blood in the alley outside Vitium et Virtus and Nicholas’s signet ring trampled in the dirt beside it wasn’t any less raw.
Oliver leaned forward and laid his hand palm up in the centre of the table.
‘You seriously intend to do this,’ Jake said.
The other two glared at him. Grudgingly, he placed his hand on top of Oliver’s, the warmth of another man’s skin odd against the palm of his hand. Frederick added his to the pile.
‘In vitium et virtus,’ they chorused like the bunch of schoolboys they’d been when they started this stupid venture. In vice and virtue. Even after all this time, the words sounded strangely lacking without Nicholas’s voice in the mix.
Withdrawing his hand, he picked up his brandy, lifting the glass towards the empty chair in a toast. ‘To absent friends.’
The others imitated his action.
‘Be he in heaven or hell—’ Oliver continued with the words they’d been saying each year for the past six years.
‘Or somewhere in between—’ Frederick intoned.
‘Know that we wish you well,’ they finished together. As if anything so nonsensical could bring their friend back.
They threw back their drinks, staring at the empty seat.
‘I was so sure he’d turn up like a bad penny before the year was out telling us it was all a jest,’ Frederick said.
‘If so, it would be in pretty poor taste. Even for Nicholas.’ Oliver said, his green eyes dark with the pain of loss they’d all felt since Nicholas’s disappearance. A loss Jake didn’t want to think about. There had been too many in his life. Each one worse than the last.
‘It would have been like him,’ Jake said, burying the surge of anger that took him by surprise. ‘Nicholas always was one for stupid japes. This club, for example.’
Troubled, he rubbed at his chin and felt a day’s growth of stubble. Hadn’t he shaved this morning? Surely he had.
‘I hear his uncle is petitioning the Lords to have the title declared vacant.’ Frederick rolled his empty glass between his palms. ‘Bastard can’t wait to step into his shoes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t do away with him so he could get his hands on the estate.’
Inwardly, Jake flinched, though he kept his face expressionless.
Oliver’s eyes sharpened. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Fred.’
Frederick’s ears reddened as his glance fell on Jacob’s face.
Apparently, his lack of emotion hadn’t fooled his friends.
‘Dammit, Your Grace. You know such a thing never crossed my mind.’
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Naturally not.’ But others had whispered words like murder behind his back. And it wasn’t as if he was entirely innocent.
The night his father and brother died came crashing back with a vengeance. The loss. The horror. The guilt. He leaned back in his chair, needing even that fraction of distance from the sympathetic glances of his friends.
A sympathy he did not deserve.
Oliver frowned at him. ‘You look like hell, Jake. When was the last time you had a haircut?’
He couldn’t remember. ‘None of your business.’
The sound of catcalls and hoots came from behind the thick oak door that separated their private owners’ quarters from the public rooms of the club.
Glad of the distraction, Jake raised a brow. ‘What is going on out there?’
‘It’s choose-your-partner night,’ Fred said.
Bell, the balding erstwhile butler, now manager of Vitium et Virtus, shot through the door. The noise level went up to deafening.
Bell’s face screwed up into an expression of worry. ‘Please, sirs. One of you needs to restore order. One of the gentlemen is insisting he wants five of the girls at once and none is interested. I’ve explained the rules, but he is being most uncooperative. Several other