One

Dominic Shay, seventh earl of Whitby, sipped a glass of port. His head was lowered, and he didn't seem to notice when Timothy Galston, standing just to the side of the comfortable club chair, paused.

"Whitby!"

Timothy had practiced his tone of righteous indignation carefully in the privacy of his own rooms, and he was annoyed to observe the other man ignore his greeting. They were old acquaintances, and there was no reason for the slight prickle of unease that the earl always seemed to provoke in the younger man, but there it was. Timothy almost had second thoughts about his rehearsed speech, wishing for a moment he could just slip away, but dash it all, the girl was his cousin.

He cleared his throat and said, more loudly, "Whitby, I'm speaking to you!"

His perfect features set in an expression of arctic disinterest, the earl lifted his face, his deep brown eyes so dark that they could make one shiver. "Oh, hello, Galston. Have some wine; the sutler has just uncorked a quite tolerable bottle."

Timothy waved away such a minor consideration. No, perhaps not minor, but he could not be distracted until he'd aired his grievance.

"How could you do it? Why shoot down a girl in her first Season, who needs all the advantage she can muster, what with those freckles and the habit she has of smirking—" He paused. No, no, he was getting off the track. "I mean, she's a perfectly nice girl, with only a moderate dowry to recommend her, and you had no call to say that she dances like an African giraffe that's drunk too much home brew. The girl can't help being tall, you know!"

The earl frowned, but it seemed more in puzzlement than in anger. "Of whom are we speaking, Galston? Some new infatuation of yours?"

Timothy shook his head. "No, dammit. But she's my cousin, and she deserves better. You dashed her chance of a good Season with one careless bon mot, and you don't even recall? Miss Emmaline Mawper, that's who!"

When the earl continued to stare, Timothy added, "At Almack's last night, don't you remember?"

The earl shrugged. "I was in a bad mood, old man, wishing I hadn't allowed myself to be cajoled into looking into that wretched Marriage Mart in the first place. And I'm sure no one remembers one careless comment of mine."

"You think wrongly, then," Timothy retorted. "I've heard it repeated twice today already, with more jests tacked on, and Emmaline is in tears, my aunt says. Aunt Mary hauled me out of bed—at any ungodly hour, let me tell you—to complain, although what she thinks I can do . . . You're the most eagerly heeded arbiter of the Ton since Beau Brummel took himself off to the Continent to evade his debtors. If you weren't so damned perfect, with your elegant neckcloths and impeccable tailoring, not to mention that flawless Grecian coin of a face the ladies always swoon over—"

This time the earl shook his head, and a strand of dark hair fell back. For the first time, Timothy had a clear view of the ragged scar that marred the earl's left cheek. It started above his temple and ran past his ear and down beneath the erect shirt collar, the jagged line almost—but not quite—hidden beneath the earl's slightly too-long hair, and damned if that shaggy hair hadn't started a new fad among the calflings who aped Whitby's casual elegance . . .

"Flawless?" The earl's voice was icy.

Timothy swallowed. "Oh, that don't signify. It just adds a touch of the exotic, don't you know, romantic war wound, and all that—in fact, the ladies love it," he protested, but he knew his voice wavered. Damn, he always forgot.

"But that doesn't alter my contention," he said, trying to recapture his momentum. "The Ton still looks to you, Whitby, and it ain't right—you misuse your power over Society's opinion."

"If I have any power, as you claim, it is quite unsought and totally irrelevant." Whitby lowered his face again to sip his wine.

Almost tasting his relief, Timothy gulped.

"Not to the persons you cut down, it ain't," he argued. "It's easy enough to put someone down, much harder to build someone up. Why don't you do something agreeable for a change?"

Copyright © 2005 by Cheryl Zach.