Randall’s head jerked around. “What engagement?”

“To Lady Honoria, or Lady Serena or Lady Melanie Wicks-Havering, or whoever. Time you did your duty to the House of Stanton, my lad.”

“Stop sounding like Earl,” Randall said in a harassed voice.

Gabe laughed. “So you’ve evaded the pack so far? But how long can the fox stay ahead? Tally Hoooo!” Gabe’s imitation of a hunting cry was excruciating.

“If I had my hands free I’d ram something down your gullet,” Randall muttered. “We can’t all flit from flower to flower with no thought for tomorrow.”

“Like I said, the ol’ green-eyed monster seems to have bit you but good.”

“Go to hell, McBride!”

“Oh, I reckon I will,” Gabe said cheerfully, and settled back as if satisfied that he’d done his bit for international relations.

Earl was looking older.

Of course Gabe had seen him last three years ago when the old man had come to Montana for a month’s visit. Then he’d seemed spry and ageless, his thick shock of white hair framing a relatively unlined face, his bright blue eyes brimming with enthusiasm and his every word outlining some new plan-mostly, Gabe remembered, ones that involved work for Randall.

But now he saw lines in the old man’s face. He saw a faint tremble in Earl’s fingers when, at the eightieth birthday bash, the old man had raised his glass at his grandsons’ toast to “eighty more years as adventure-filled as the last eighty.”

He saw that some day Earl wouldn’t be around anymore.

But he also saw that it was just possible that Randall would die first-of overwork.

Gabe had been in England two days, and while he’d spent a fair amount of time with the earl, he’d barely seen his cousin after Randall had dropped him off at Stanton House in Belgravia and had left.

“Got to be in Glasgow for a meeting,” Randall said apologetically. “Catch you later.”