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F reddie was having a good time; the wine was flowing, the cards were in his favour and the men he was playing with were consistently amusing, which is why Edward’s question made absolutely no sense.

‘I look perfectly well, thank you very much,’ Freddie responded to his brother’s query with the dignity of a man having the time of his life.

‘You look like you have stepped in something unpleasant and cannot get rid of the smell.’ There had been a time, relatively recently, that Freddie had not had to spend any time with his brothers.

Months could go by without laying eyes on one of them.

Those had been good times in his opinion.

Now he was surrounded by them and they were always asking tiresome questions, never giving him a moment’s peace.

Freddie’s opponent folded, leaving him the victor. He raised an eyebrow at Edward, who only smiled smugly at him as if he knew secrets to which Freddie was not privy.

‘Take a stroll with me.’

‘No, thank you. I am enjoying my time at the table.’

Edward sighed. ‘I need to talk to you about something serious and I would rather do it when we are out and about than at Glanmore House. ’

Freddie’s brothers had never sought him out to talk to him before.

He couldn’t remember a time when one of them had needed the other, or at least admitted to needing the other.

There had been plenty of time during Freddie’s childhood when he had been desperate to have one of his brothers stand by him, but it had never happened.

If Freddie ignored this request, then he’d be sliding back into behaviour he had been trying to put behind him.

Freddie’s opponents looked relieved as he stood and joined his brother.

The two of them left the gaming room and made their way into the packed ballroom.

Annoyingly, Freddie’s eyes immediately landed on Emily.

It was as if his brain were deliberately trying to torture his body by constantly throwing her into his path and making him feel things, yearning, desperately pathetic things that his mind would certainly not be on board with.

Unfortunately, the wine he had imbibed had robbed him of what little good sense he had and his body was in control.

That could be the only explanation for that wild compliment he had given Emily earlier.

He may as well have handed her his heart and told her to stamp on it.

Obviously, the half a glass of wine he’d had before he had said it to her had been very strong indeed; there could be no other explanation for the complete loss of his wits.

‘Miss Hawkins is having a lovely time,’ Edward commented. ‘After her dance with the duke, she’s been in constant demand.’

Freddie grunted. After her dance with him in which he’d revealed more of himself than was wise, she’d danced with his older brother and become the belle of the ball.

Men were practically falling over themselves to ask her to partner them.

After the fourth man had nearly broken his neck trying to get to her, Freddie had taken himself off to the card room.

He hadn’t needed to watch different men holding her hand or twirling her around the dance floor.

He wasn’t normally a violent man, but he could happily have slaughtered every man who had held her in his arms .

‘What was that?’

‘I did not say anything.’

‘It sounded more like a growl, but I will believe you if you say that you are both feeling fine and not making noises like a deranged beast. Are you ready to leave?’

Freddie had never been more ready for anything. He couldn’t really think why he was here in the first place. He knew he had a reputation for being the life and soul of a party, but some nights it was too much effort to keep smiling and playing the fool and tonight was one of those.

Outside, the wind had picked up and a strong breeze lifted his tailcoats.

‘What did you want to talk about?’ Freddie asked as they strode along the street.

‘Sebastian.’

Freddie grunted. Sebastian had been gone from their lives for ten years.

The brothers didn’t speak of him often; hell, none of them spoke to each other much at all.

Their aunt had kept them separate as much as possible, breeding mistrust. With his lack of academic ability, Freddie had felt like an outsider amongst a group of outsiders.

In the few years before Sebastian had left forever, Freddie hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to his older brother.

‘Sebastian’s death, I do not like it,’ Edward continued. ‘Nor the unexplained time during which we cannot account for Charlotte’s whereabouts. I find I cannot stop thinking about it.’

Freddie glanced at his brother; he’d tugged his coat tighter around him and was hunched into the wind.

‘I am not thrilled about these events either.’ He found that was true.

He and Sebastian hadn’t been close, but his presence had been reassuring.

If Sebastian was getting away with not conforming to the expectations of being a duke’s son, then there was less heat on Freddie.

Perhaps if Sebastian had stayed, the two of them might have become friends.

If he’d returned to London before his death, Freddie couldn’t imagine a world where he would not have wanted to be involved in his niece’s life, and would have wanted to get to know his brother for that alone.

But it was no use speculating; his brother was dead and their relationship would never progress.

‘Did you know that Sebastian was rich?’ asked Edward.

‘Um—’ Freddie wished he hadn’t had so much wine; it had seemed like a good idea when Emily was smiling prettily at her latest dance partner and his stomach had felt particularly sour.

Now, the wine hung heavily on his shoulders and this conversation was like wading through the thick mud ‘—we are the sons of a duke.’

Edward shot him an amused glance. ‘I had noticed.’

‘Then we are all well off, are we not?’ None of them had as much blunt as Tobias, but that didn’t make them paupers.

Freddie was frugal with what money he received.

He spent what was required on clothes and entertainment, but his money was saved for his plan and he was dashed close to achieving it.

He wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t for his family’s financial position.

‘Sebastian had become obscenely wealthy before he died,’ Edward told him.

‘In America?’

‘Yes,’ said Edward dryly. ‘I believe it is not as wild a frontier as we all have in mind.’

Freddie was glad for the darkness surrounding him.

He hated seeming less than intelligent in front of his brothers, but how was he to know anything about America?

It wasn’t like he could read the papers and so he only picked up what places were like from gossip.

The stories he’d heard about America were all different, but he supposed they must have had a Society that somewhat resembled that of England in that there would be the wealthy elite and then the poorer people, although he hadn’t imagined anyone getting extremely rich and certainly not his brother.

‘I have not given America very much thought at all,’ he confessed.

‘What do we know about his death?’ Freddie was embarrassed to realise he had not given this a great deal of thought either.

He’d obviously been sad at Sebastian’s passing, but he’d had no contact with his older brother in nearly a decade.

‘That it was a carriage accident, but Sebastian was an excellent horseman. I saw him race many times before he left for America. Did you know that he raced?’ Freddie shook his head.

Shame curled in his stomach; he hadn’t paid enough attention to his older brother when he’d been alive.

‘He was good. I cannot imagine him making a deadly mistake.’

‘But if he was obscenely wealthy, would he have been driving himself?’

‘Hm.’ Edward’s murmur didn’t sound like an agreement.

They walked in silence for a while. ‘You do not think so.’

‘I think we know so little about his death and that does not sit right with me. I mean, how many carriage accidents are fatal? How many of our acquaintances have we lost this way?’

‘I have not lost any.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But that does not mean it is not possible. We have no idea of the state of the roads in America. They could be like those in… Wales, for instance.’

Edward shot him a cutting look. ‘Have you ever been to Wales?’

‘No. You?’

‘No.’ There was a pause. ‘That is not the point.’

‘Because it does not prove your argument correct?’ It turned out needling his brother so that his wide shoulders tensed in irritation was good fun. Not as enjoyable as making Emily cross and indignant but still better than imagining Sebastian’s death .

‘Wales is not notorious for its carriage deaths either.’ Edward shook his head.

‘We are getting away from the point. Sebastian was a young man who was good with horses and who was travelling with his wife. We do not know if Charlotte was with them, but even if she was not, Sebastian would have had her welfare at heart. He was not a reckless lad, racing his friends. I do not like it, Fred.’

‘You are saying Sebastian was very wealthy and he died in dubious circumstances.’

‘Yes.’

‘Put that way, it does sound suspicious.’ The last vestiges of the wine Freddie had consumed were slowly ebbing away and it was becoming easier to think.

Since finding out about Sebastian’s death, Freddie had tried hard not to dwell on it, but Edward was right; there was something wrong about the way Sebastian with his brash decisiveness was no longer with them.

‘But there are many wealthy men and they are not all dying. It could be a tragic coincidence.’ Freddie was not sure whether he was trying to convince himself or Edward.

What would it say about the four of them as men if their brother had died over a year ago and they had not thought it suspicious until now?

‘It could.’

They walked on in silence. They were heading home Freddie realised, and what was stranger was that he had referred to Glanmore House as home even in his own mind.

He didn’t think he’d ever done that when he’d lived there as a young child.

Somehow, the place was growing on him and his brothers were becoming friends, the type of people who confided their worries to you, even if they thought you might find them ridiculous.

‘You do not think it is a coincidence, do you?’

‘Do you know how much Charlotte stands to inherit?’ asked Edward in lieu of a direct answer .

‘No.’ They may have been told at some stage, but Freddie wasn’t interested in other people’s money.

Edward named a sum so vast, Freddie was momentarily winded. ‘He was that wealthy.’

‘Some of his fortune went to setting up a foundling home and some has gone to Tobias to pay for Charlotte’s upkeep. I believe we will also receive a share should we perform our guardianship duties to the required standard. The rest of it is left to Charlotte.’

Freddie swore.

Edward snorted. ‘I know.’

‘Do you know how he acquired so much money?’

‘No.’

‘Hm.’ How was it that one of their brothers could create a fortune, marry, have a daughter and die and the four of them who remained knew virtually nothing about his life? ‘We should have made more of an attempt to keep in contact with him.’

‘You agree then, that all is not right with his death?’

‘I…’ Was it really a good idea to encourage Edward in this? Freddie may not know his brothers all that well, but he knew that Edward sometimes became overfocused on things. On the other hand, the cause of Sebastian’s death, given his talent with the horses and considering his vast wealth, was odd.

‘Well?’ Edward prompted.

‘It might be worth further investigation, but how would we go about that?’ It was one thing to discuss the possibility after too much wine and one too many brandies but quite another to venture to the other side of the world to discover the truth.

Freddie would be next to useless anyway at doing so.

If there was a company that needed investigating, Freddie, with his inability to read, was not going to find out anything.

‘Do you want to travel to America to find out more?’

But Edward was already shaking his head. ‘I cannot,’ he said .

Freddie was about to question his response but stopped himself before he could utter a word.

Edward was a bachelor who had no more commitments than Freddie.

There was no real reason that Edward could not travel to America and back; what was holding Edward back was in his mind.

But as Freddie couldn’t read, no matter how hard he tried to learn, he was hardly one to comment. ‘We could hire an investigator.’

‘Yes. Good idea, Fred.’

‘Really?’

Edward glanced at him. ‘There is no need to sound surprised that I agree with you. I may enjoy winding you up, but I am not such a bore as to not admit it when you are right. Of course it is a sound idea. We will need to find someone reputable.’

‘And perhaps give them a deadline. If they have not found out any answers within six months of arriving in America, they should stop. We do not want to be strung along for years.’

Edward clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Another excellent point. Now, which one of us should have the pleasure of suggesting the idea to Tobias?’

As they continued to stroll through the streets, the brothers bickered amicably over who was going to persuade their oldest brother that their idea had merit.

It was not that they couldn’t afford to pay for it between them, rather it was the thought of bringing the Dashworth name into disrepute.

Before they moved on to whether it would be a good idea to play a practical joke on Christopher.

Christopher may be the baby of the family, but he was the tallest and arguably the strongest and might be able to kill them should he take proper offence.

They debated whether or not it was worth the risk, before deciding, in the end, that it probably was.

Freddie was enjoying himself; Edward was funnier than he remembered, or perhaps he had never known.

As they strolled through the streets, coming up with ever more elaborate ideas to torment Christopher, Freddie almost forgot about Emily and yet, somehow, she still hovered at the edge of his consciousness.

What had started as an inconvenient calf love was growing, morphing into something that was starting to consume every waking moment.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to find himself in big trouble.