Why Earls Fall in Love by Manda Collins Page A

head. “Do you know what a fiasco that would have been? Aside from the fact that the lady prefers you to me, anyway, there would have been the awkwardness of being the only person at my wedding who would have been happy about it. My vows would likely have been drowned out by the sound of you and Perdita weeping on either side of me.”
    “Only a little,” Archer said wryly. “I haven’t wept with any degree of enthusiasm since my old spaniel Greta died.”
    “I’d forgotten about that,” Con said. “You blubbered about that for weeks.”
    “She was a very loyal dog,” Archer said defensively. “And I was at Eton, for God’s sake. If one doesn’t cry once during his career there then he is made of stone.
    “Besides,” he continued, “I am not the one who wept when Bertie Fowlkes elbowed me in the face.”
    “He got me in the nose,” Con defended. “I’d defy the devil himself to keep a dry eye after a punch in the nose. He had very pointy elbows, did Bertie.”
    “There is that,” Archer said agreeably. “So, much as I enjoy being raked over the coals for failing to disclose the secrets written upon my heart to you, I believe you invited me here for some other reason. Yes?”
    Quickly, Con told his friend about Georgina, the man who resembled Colonel Mowbray, and the as yet unknown problem that still bothered her.
    “You should have said earlier that you wanted me to help Georgie,” Archer said, sitting up straighter. “She’s a dear. Of course I’ll do whatever I can.”
    Con stared at his friend. Of course Georgina knew Archer. She was the dearest of friends with Isabella, the new Duchess of Ormond and Perdita, the young dowager Duchess of Ormond. He felt his jaw tighten reflexively.
    “What?” Archer asked. “Why are you staring at me as if you’re trying to decide which ear to tear off first?”
    “Georgie?” Con asked his friend silkily, baring his teeth in the mimicry of a smile.
    “Yes?” Archer leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “She’s called Georgie by her friends. She’s given me permission to do so, as her friend. What’s the trouble?”
    At Con’s protracted silence, Archer began to laugh. “Oh, this is priceless,” he crowed. “I vow I haven’t been amused like this in quite a long time.”
    “What is so amusing about it?” Con demanded, failing to see the humor in the situation. He was hardly accustomed to wishing his oldest friend would take a long walk off a short pier. It was deuced uncomfortable.
    “Don’t you see?” Archer said, grinning widely. “This means that we’re even. I forgive you for trying to marry Perdita, and you forgive me for trying to … well, I suppose be friends with Georgie?” Archer frowned. “That’s not quite right.”
    “Whatever,” Con said, feeling magnanimous now that he remembered Archer’s affection for Perdita. “We are now even, and so long as you don’t declare your love for Georgina I am prepared to put this behind us.”
    “So, does this mean that you’re in l—”
    “Stop right there,” Con said sharply. “I am not in … that word you were about to say. I barely know the lady.”
    “That’s not quite right,” Archer said with the smile of a man who sees another fellow on his way down the same path as him. “You’ve known each other at least as long as I’ve known her. And you’ve been at various entertainments at Ormond House or Lady Isabella’s.”
    “Even so,” Con said, feeling a bit awkward at his friend’s scrutiny. “And all this is beside the point unless I can find out who the man watching her is.”
    “It is a coil,” Archer said, considering. “I wonder if Robert Mowbray is related to the Mowbrays of Cornwall.”
    “This is why I came to you,” Con said with some relief. He was hopeless at remembering which families lived in which county and whether the Dauntrys with a u were kin to the Dantrys without. Archer had an encyclopedic knowledge of a variety