"What!" Robin's eyes snapped open. "I assumed I would be lucky to get a shilling for candles. Ruxton is the best of the family estates after Wolverhampton. Why on earth would he leave it to me?"

"He admired you because he could never force you to do anything you didn't want to do."

"That was admiration?" Robin asked, his voice edged. "He had a damnably strange way of showing it. We couldn't spend ten minutes in the same room without quarreling, and it wasn't always my fault."

"Nonetheless, it was you who Father boasted about to his cronies." Giles gave an ironic half smile. "He used to say that the blood had run thin in me, and that it was a pity his heir was such a very dull dog."

Robin frowned. "I'll never understand how you could be so patient with the old curmudgeon."

Giles shrugged. "I was patient because the only other choice would have been to leave Wolverhampton, and that I would never do, no matter what the provocation."

Robin swore softly and rose from his chair, crossing to the fireplace to prod the embers unnecessarily. After coming down from Oxford, Giles had taken over the hard work of administering the immense Andreville holdings. He had always been the reliable one, quietly doing the difficult tasks with little reward or recognition. "Typical of Father to be insulting when you were making his life so much easier."

"It wasn't an insult," Giles said calmly. "I am a dull person. I find crops more intriguing than gaming, the country more satisfying than London, books more amusing than gossip. Father must have found some satisfaction in knowing his heir was reliable, but that didn't mean he particularly liked me."

Robin searched Giles's face, wondering if his brother was genuinely detached about such painful insights. Yet he couldn't ask; their friendship had very clearly defined limits. He settled for saying, "People are interesting because of what they are, not what they do. You have never been dull."