He wondered through the mist of alcohol clouding his brain-actually, it was more like a dense fog-if he had invited them. It was deuced forward of them to have come if he had not. He must ask them.

“I say,” he asked, speaking slowly so that he would enunciate his words clearly, “were any of you invited here?”

They were all in their cups too. They were all slouched inelegantly in chairs except for Charlie Field, who was standing with his back to the fireplace, propping up the mantel with one shoulder and swirling the contents of his glass with admirable skill since not one drop of precious liquor sloshed over the rim.

“Were any of us-?” Charlie frowned down at him, looking affronted. “The devil, Monty, you practically dragged us here.”

“By the bootstraps,” Sir Isaac Kerby agreed. “We were all bent upon toddling home after we left White’s to get our beauty sleep, but you would have none of it, Monty. You insisted that the night was young, and that a fellow suffered a twenty-fifth birthday only once in his life.”

“Though turning twenty-five is nothing to get unduly maudlin about, old chap,” Viscount Motherham said. “Wait until you turn thirty. Then you will have every female relative you ever possessed down to cousins to the second and third generations and the fourth and fifth removes admonishing you to do your duty and marry and set up your nursery.”

Jasper pulled a face and clutched his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his free hand.

“Heaven forbid,” he said.

“Heaven will refuse to intervene on your behalf, Monty,” the viscount assured him. He was thirty-one years old and one year married. His wife had dutifully presented him with a son one month ago. “The female relatives will rout heaven every time. They are the very devil.”

“Ee-nuff,” Sir Isaac said, making a heroic effort to get the word past lips that looked as if they were paralyzed. “Enough of all the gloom and doom. Have another drink, Motherham, and cheer up.”