“Walter, you old dog! What are you doing here?”
The happiness he felt at seeing his old friend standing in the drawing room doorway was profound.
Forgetting all decorum, he rushed forward to embrace his closest and oldest friend in a brotherly hug.
Walter returned it with the same enthusiasm.
“I heard at Browns you were back in town,” Walter explained, patting him on the back before he released him. “Why did you not write me?”
George felt a little guilty about that. Shaking his head, he explained, “I have barely had a moment to think.”
“Yes, being duke now must be awful,” Walter said. He rolled his eyes, his tone quite mocking.
George nudged him playfully. “You're here, aren't you?”
“That I am, and I am quite parched,” Walter said, “how about a drink with an old friend?”
“Of course!”
George pulled off his coat and handed it to Dawling, who was already waiting behind him.
“Tea?”
Walter scoffed at that.
“What are we? Gossiping ladies? I meant a proper drink!”
At that, they both laughed, and George gestured his friend into the drawing room to pour two glasses of brandy.
They sat together, and George raised his glass. “To never going to war again.”
“To all those who never came home,” Walter added, and they clinked their glasses together.
“How have you been?” George asked before Walter could do the same. He would have done anything to talk about something other than himself.
Walter leaned back with a deep sigh. “As well as can be expected, considering.”
George knew well what he meant. They had all come back changed.
“Are you still having nightmares?” George asked, and Walter's face paled. He nodded as if he couldn't quite bring himself to speak.
George reached out a hand and laid it on Walter's shoulder. “They come to the best of us.”
“And you are the best of us,” Walter insisted, to which it was George's turn to scoff.
“I wouldn't suggest so.”
“You're too modest,” Walter insisted, and George continued to shake his head.
“I caught your mother on her way out,” Walter said, “she suggested you might need an ear.”
George cringed. He had no need of an ear because his decision had already been made.
He thought again of Lady Flannery's pleading, Lady Cecelia's beauty, and how he regretted said decision.
No, it was the right thing,he insisted to himself, yet he couldn't help saying, “Lord Flannery left something surprising in his will.”
Walter raised a brow. “What?”
