Anthony arched a brow. “I fight at Carver’s.”
“I know where you fight.” Lewis’s voice did not change. “Gideon mentioned you’ve been rather consistent about it recently.”
Anthony looked at Gideon, eyes narrowed, and Gideon looked at the ceiling. This was, Anthony had long concluded, the most comprehensive betrayal that could be conducted behind the complete, unassailable cover of innocence.
“I do it for exercise,” Anthony said. He did not think it wise to mention a certainsomeoneas his motivation for those ‘exercises.’
“Mm.” Lewis put his glass down. He looked at the fire for a moment. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
The question nearly made him visibly bristle, but Anthony held his body back. The thing was that the question landed in the specific way that questions did when the person asking had already assembled the evidence and was extending a final courtesy toward the alternative explanation.
Anthony met his friend’s eyes steadily. “About what?”
He did a good job of keeping his expression under control. Even though he’d been very careful, there was a possibility that Lewis might have heard something about a woman hanging around him. Anthony was not foolish enough to let Lewis know he’d been sticking his tongue down his unmarried sister’s throat—even worse, being unable to forget it since the night it happened—but if Lewis had somehow caught wind of it, then Anthony was going to have to prepare for the worst:
A bout of fisticuffs, even.
“About anything.” Lewis kept his tone even. “You have been…not yourself. The past few weeks.”
Ah. So, he did not know about the kiss. The relief that cycled through Anthony’s veins gave his next words a little bit of gusto.
“I have been entirely myself,” Anthony said, which was either true or the most comprehensive falsehood he had told in recent memory.
He could not accurately determine which.
Lewis looked at him for a moment with the careful, measuring attention of a man reading the surface of something he suspected was considerably deeper.
Then he picked his glass back up and let it go. “The Talton dinner is next Thursday,” he said. “My wife’s father has invited half of London. And you both are expected.”
“I’ll be there,” Anthony said.
“As will I,” Gideon sang.
“Good.” Lewis’s tone returned to its usual ease. “I need you to tell me what you think of Ashby, Anthony. He seems sound, but you know the man better than I do.”
“Ashby is sound,” Anthony said, and kept his voice even, because the question was about Ashby in the same way the previous one had not been about the boxing.
“He was attentive at the Hartley reception,” Lewis said. “Caroline did not seem…displeased.”
“She is generally not displeased,” Anthony said. “She is composed. That is different.”
Lewis looked at him.
“I know her social expressions,” Anthony said more carefully. “From many occasions. She is always composed.”
The silence in the morning room had a quality he did not care for.
“Mm,” said Gideon, and drank from his glass.
Anthony did not look at him. He was aware that Gideon was sitting like a man who had just received the evidence he had been waiting for and was deciding how long to leave it on the table before picking it up.
“Ashby,” Anthony said. “He has good instincts for land. He managed his father’s Berkshire estate well before the inheritance, which is not something you can say of most men in his position.” He put his glass down with the decisive ease of a man changing the subject. “If you are looking for substance beneath the manners, the estate records are the place to look. Not the dinner table.”
Lewis nodded slowly. “I’ll look into it.”
“Do.” Anthony stood. “I have papers in the reading room.” He caught Gideon’s eye once and communicated that this conversation was not, under any circumstances, to be continued in his absence. Gideon only smirked, which was proof that he intended to do exactly as he pleased and had no opinion on anyone else’s wishes in the matter.
Anthony went to the reading room and signed his papers.