Chapter 25
Two weeks later, Nick stood on the side steps of Langston Hall with his five sisters and their husbands, greeting every person who lived in Keyhaven, it seemed, welcoming them to the festival in his garden. He had even dressed as befitted a country gentleman, wearing a dark green frock coat, buff breeches, and shoes with silver buckles, his long hair restrained with a single black velvet ribbon at his nape instead of in a queue.
Audrey and Evelyn had both asked, but he refused to take out his earring. “It’s just like the one Grandfather is wearing in his portrait,” he reminded them. Per long-standing tradition, he and Grandfather had both received a gold earring to mark the first time they sailed around Cape Horn, albeit about forty years apart.
Nick and Zach had ridden horse
