“It’s a grand place,” said Brady. “Never seen a place I liked better. And what if our Mr. Keston is fallin’ head over ears in love with your madam, why not? Do him good, maybe. Make a man of him. He’s young, as men go. Must he spend all his best days studying dry skeletons?”
Carter chuckled over his cider. “I wouldn’t say that. No use for bones and suchlike, meself, but it’s a bit rum. Three of ’em, on my soul, your Keston, and that balmy bit of a poet, and that fine young chap Rhodian, all glaring at each other along of our madam—and she never realizing it, bless her. Like a child, she is. Not like that fine lady, her sister. Got eyes in her head, she has.”
“And it’s not liking her that I am,” said Brady. “She’s a hard-faced thing, and grasping. Not like her sister. She’s one to make tr
