“Yes, exactly. Partners need to be in accord.”
“Not necessarily. Differing opinions and points of view can make a partnership stronger.”
“You and I are partners in the brewery we own, Nick. If we fought all the time, we’d never get anything accomplished. And while we’re on the subject of fights,” he added, wanting to hammer home the fact that having Lola anywhere about was a disaster in the making, “what ultimately resulted from your association with Lola? You got shot, that’s what. By Pongo here.”
“My name is not Pongo,” James said at once, his usual response to the uttering of his hated childhood nickname. “It’s James. I am James Edward Fitzhugh, Earl Hayward, son of the Marquess of Wetherford. Honestly, after over twenty years of friendship, can’t any of you call me by my actual name?”
“No,” they all answered at once.
“Pongo only shot me,” Nick said, reverting to the topic at hand, “because I got in the way. He was pointing the pistol at you, Denys, and, like an idiot, I stepped between you.”
“And let’s remember just why I was trying to shoot Denys, shall we?” James asked, joining Nick in this most inconvenient inclination to reminiscence. “Because he made a play for my girl! And right in front of me, too.”
Recalling his idiotic behavior on the night in question, Denys began to wish he’d never started this discussion in the first place. “At the time, I didn’t know the girl was with you, Pongo,” he muttered. “I thought she was with Nick.”
“Making the move one of pure retaliation on your part,” Nick pointed out. “I know you were hurting and angry as hell because Lola had just left you, and three sheets to the wind besides, but still, you crossed the line there, old chap—”
“Did I?” he countered, his defensiveness increasing because he knew that accusation was true. “You let Lola live with you when she went back to Paris.”
“I was there, too,” Jack piped up, but he was ignored.
“She came to me as a friend,” Nick defended himself. “She arrived on our doorstep and told me the play had closed, she couldn’t find work in London anymore, and she didn’t have money and needed a place to live until she could afford a flat of her own. What was I supposed to do? Toss her into the street?”
“You’re my friend, damn it. You ought to have advised her to come back to me and allow me to take care of her. But is that what you did? No. And when Henry came after her, did you tell him to sod off? No, you told him where she was working.”
“How could I have known he intended to spirit her off to New York? He was a friend of your family, for God’s sake, and old enough to be her father.”
“Thank you, Nick,” Denys muttered. “That’s such a comforting reminder.”
“Gentlemen, please,” Stuart cut in, “let’s not have a row. I’m enjoying this evening, and I’ve no intention of allowing idiotic peccadilloes of our wilder days spoil it.” He lifted his glass. “It’s damned good to see all of you, something that doesn’t happen often enough, to my mind.”
All of them raised their glasses in hearty agreement with that sentiment, temptations to quarrel were laid aside, and the friendship that had lasted most of their lives was reaffirmed.
“Sorry, Nick,” Denys said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “That’s all water under the bridge, honestly, and I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“Apology accepted,” Nick said at once.
“What about me?” Pongo demanded good-naturedly. “Am I not entitled to an apology, too? It was my girl Denys attempted to abscond with the day after Lola left.”
“Your girl?” Denys made a scoffing sound. “She was a barmaid you’d met the night before. And the fact that you seized the barkeep’s pistol, pointed it at me after I’d barely asked the girl to dinner, and accidentally shot Nick in the process cancels out any right you might have had to an apology. We were both drunk and out of our senses. And on that note,” he added, seeing the perfect opportunity to illustrate his concerns about his present situation, “what happened that night in Paris rather illustrates what I’m saying, doesn’t it?”
“Why?” Jack asked, grinning. “Because it shows that you and Pongo are capable of behaving like a pair of horses’ asses?”
Denys made a sound of impatience. “It proves that where Lola goes, anarchy follows.”
“But why should any of that be true now?” Nick asked. “I still don’t quite see what’s so difficult.”
“No?” Denys turned to Nick. “If our situation were reversed, how would you see it? More importantly, how would Belinda see it? You had quite a passion for Lola yourself once.”
“That’s different. Belinda is my wife. You’re not married.”
“I don’t see the problem, either,” James said. “Lola’s an intelligent woman, and she certainly knows her way around a stage. Henry ensured she’d have the blunt to stand her share of any financial losses, should you have a play that fails. As a partner in a theater company, she seems well suited.”
Denys winced, remembering his assessment to Lola of her attributes as a partner had been somewhat less complimentary. “I suppose,” he muttered, “she does have a few things to offer.”
“A fine concession,” James said. “I think she’d be smashing. Stuart?” he added, turning to the man beside him.
“What I think, what any of us think, doesn’t matter,” the duke pointed out. “Denys is the one who has to work with her, and she did leave him for someone else.”
Denys felt a hint of relief. “Finally,” he said, “someone begins to see my side. Thank you, Stuart.”
“You’re welcome. But I have to say that your concerns do seem premature. Why not wait a bit and see how the arrangement works before you judge it?”
Denys considered, trying to find a way to explain without revealing his own vulnerabilities. “It’s so damned awkward.”
“Bound to be,” Stuart conceded. “But that’ll pass in time, I daresay.”
“It’ll cause tremendous gossip.”
“Which, since you’re a viscount and Lola’s not a lady, hardly affects your reputation—or hers, either, for that matter. At worst, people will assume you’ve taken up with her again.”
Glad that someone had grasped at least that much of his difficulty, he nodded. “Just so.”
“You’re thinking of your father,” James put in.
“Of course I am. My father is a good man, and I’m fond of him. But I am also thinking of my mother, and Susan—all my family. When the scandal sheets find out about this, the whole business will be raked up and discussed ad nauseum. Speculation will run wild that Lola and I have rekindled our affair. We’ll be the talk of society.”
“Only until people see there’s nothing to the gossip.”
Denys thought of that damnable kiss in his office and resisted the impulse to shift guiltily in his chair. “Yes, well,” he mumbled, “until they do, it’ll be a painful and embarrassing situation for the entire family. It was difficult enough for them to endure it all the first time—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Nick interrupted with a groan. “You made a fool of yourself over a woman. It’s happened to us all. When will you stop flogging yourself for not being the ever-perfect son?”
“I know you don’t worry about things like that, Nick,” he shot back. “You gave up being Landsdowne’s perfect son before any of us were out of short pants.”
Nick grinned, unperturbed. “You’ve met Landsdowne. Were he your father, would you give a damn what he thought?”