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could become acquainted with them?”
    “Why in the devil should you wish to be acquainted with them?” He wasn’t sure any of them knew how to act in the presence of a proper lady.
    “As your wife, I'm interested in you as well as in your friends.”
    How he hated that word. Wife . “Very well.”
    “I shall depend upon you to nail down a date that will be agreeable to all for our dinner.”
    * * *
    His three best friends watched him sheepishly as he strode into White’s minutes later. His gaze went from the always-jolly Arlington to Knowles, always the pensive one—who never turned down the opportunity to have fun with his friends. “Perry told you.”
    Knowles nodded. “We know about your marriage.”
    “You’re losing your touch, old boy,” Arlington said. “Your first night with a woman to whom you’re properly wed, and you aren’t taking your pleasure with her? How flattered we are that you’d rather be with us.”
    Knowles eyed him with great seriousness. “And Perry says the new Lady Finchley is pretty, too.”
    John seethed. “Perry should have told you it ain’t a proper marriage.”
    “Perhaps the lady thinks otherwise. You must own, the ladies are always drawn to you,” Knowles said.
    Perry smiled. “You are, after all, tall, dark, and titled. What more could a lady ask?”
    Arlington’s brows raised. “A large purse and a large . . . instrument go very well in pleasing a lady.”
    They all laughed heartily. All except John.
    “With the lady’s dowry,” Perry said, “Finch now has the large purse, but I cannot answer to the second qualification.”
    Arlington smirked. “I daresay it was lack of those two vastly important resources that prompted Lascivious Mary Lyle to seek larger pastures.”
    They all started laughing. Except for John.
    Knowles eyed him. “While we’re on the topic of Lascivious Mary, I must warn you, old boy, that just because you’re now in funds, you must think twice before taking a mistress. Aldridge obviously doesn’t approve of taking mistresses. He doesn’t have one. And the duke’s beastly protective of his sisters.”
    “Remember Viscount Morton’s fate,” Perry cautioned.
    Arlington began to howl in laughter. They all turned to him to learn what amused him so. “Finch’s love of play, horse racing, drinking, and women is why he needed to marry, and now that he has, it seems those very activities will be denied him.”
    Knowles solemnly eyed John. “He’s right, old boy.”
    Anger surged through him. “No one tells the Earl of Finchley how he spends his money.” His gaze went to Perry. “Shall we play faro?”
    “Perhaps, old fellow," Knowles said, "you should give the illusion of having settled down in order to placate your grandmother. Does she not control a rather vast fortune?”
    There was merit in what his most serious friend said. If Grandmere thought him settled, he could receive a settlement many time greater than the dowry given him by the Duke of Aldridge. What would it hurt to pretend to domesticity for a few weeks in order to get his hands on what should already have been his?
    John swallowed hard. “I have a rather strong urge to drown myself in brandy tonight.”
    “A jolly good plan,” Arlington said.
    Perry ordered four bottles.
    * * *
    Margaret had known that her husband had no intentions of bedding her, but it stung that he found her so undesirable that he would not even step into her bedchamber. Long after he was gone, she refused to douse a single candle. She sat upon a silken settee and surveyed her new room. Though it was smaller than what she was accustomed to, it was as elegant as anything in the ducal home in which she’d been raised.
    Knowing that his mother had chosen the selections herself somehow made Margaret feel closer to her, closer to the woman’s only child. She wished she could have known her. John obviously had adored his mother. She wondered what he had inherited from her—other than his