Page 6 of Mr Winterbourne's Christmas

“It makes sense of course,” Jonny mused. “Lysander. The liberator.”

“What?”

“Fromλυσιςandανδρος.”

Adam rolled his eyes. Jonny was obsessed with the ancients. Kept talking about travelling to Greece of all places. Jonny who couldn’t manage half a day in a carriage without throwing up.

Adam tried to remember his schoolboy Greek. “I knowανδροςmeans man, but I don’t recogniseλυσις.”

Jonny grinned. “It meansrelease,” he said. “Don’t you think it apt?”

Adam rolled his eyes.

“In all seriousness though,” Jonny said. “I do believe he has unlocked that careful heart of yours. You’ve always kept it so scrupulously safe, and really, it only makes one shrivel up.”

Adam smiled sadly at his friend. “We are not all as brave as you, my dear. Men like us need to be careful.”

Jonny’s throat bobbed with emotion, and he averted his gaze, plainly trying to suppress his emotions. He’d come to Edgeley Park a fortnight ago, fresh from his latest heartbreak.

There was nothing careful about Jonny Mainwaring. Nothing prudent. Sometimes Adam worried about him terribly. They’d been friends since they were boys. Adam had been sent to a school at which every pupil had sneered at him for being the son of a mill owner—everyone apart from Jonny, that was. Adam’s father had taken him out of Leaholme House after a year, when he’d confessed his misery, yet his friendship with Jonny had persisted. By then his admiration of the other boy had been boundless, this fey creature, who lisped and minced and somehow had the heart of a lion. Jonny was the bravest boy Adam had ever met. Brave enough to stand up to all the other boys at school despite his physical slightness. Brave enough to befriend the filthy cit.

“It’s good to see you allowing yourself to care for someone,” Jonny said now.

“I’m not a complete boor,” Adam said gruffly. “I care for you, you know.”

“Oh, darling.” Jonny’s smile was crooked. “That’s terribly sweet, but I’m not talking about that sort of caring. I’m talking about falling in love, which I believe you havefinallydone with your Mr. Winterbourne and honestly I couldn’t be happier about it.”

He was positively misty-eyed now, so Adam pulled out his handkerchief and handed it over, watching silently as Jonny dabbed at his eyes.

“All right,” he said when Jonny was done. “I admit it. I’m in love with Lysander. And, I might add, it’s just as ridiculous a state as I imagined it would be.”

“Ridiculous how?” Jonny demanded, sounding almost offended.

Adam sighed. “He...takes up my thoughts. It’s exceedingly distracting.”

Jonny hooted. “Good heavens, is it interfering with your daily routine of making enormous pots of money?”

“It rather is,” Adam said dryly, and Jonny hooted again.

Just then, there was a discreet knock at the door.

“Enter,” Adam called. It was Fletcher, with the morning post, a sheaf of correspondence, mostly business-related by the look of it.

Adam quickly sorted through the letters, dividing them into piles. He paused at one, though, recognising the crest stamped into the red wax seal.

The Winterbourne seal.

He took up his letter knife, slicing through the hard wax and quickly scanned the few lines inside. The letter was from Lord Winterbourne himself—Lysander’s father. A man Adam hadn’t spoken to for over a year, since his brother Simon’s wedding to Lysander’s sister, Althea.

It was an invitation to Winterbourne Abbey. For Christmas.

Lysander was already going, his mother having made it plain to him in a letter some weeks’ ago that he was, once again, expected to make an appearance over the festive season. Adam had been disappointed that they would be apart, for the second Christmas since they’d met. He’d been hoping Lysander would stay with him at Edgeley Park this year. Had been looking forward to revisiting some of the traditions of his childhood with him—hunting out greenery and decorating his private sitting room with it, lighting the yule log, exchanging small gifts—but had reasoned that they could still enjoy at least some of these things before Lysander left.

But now, it seemed, they could be together after all. Not here, at home, but still together.

“Good news?”

Adam raised his gaze from the letter. Jonny’s expression was quizzical.