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Fen flirts with everybody, so don’t borrow trouble.”
    “No, Avis, he does not flirt with everybody.” Lily let the implications sink in with a meaningful silence, then twitched her pretty skirts and left the parlor.

Chapter Three

     
    “Ashton Fenwick!” Harold rose from the estate desk and extended a hand. “When did you get back?”
    “Several weeks ago,” Fen said, returning the handshake. “Certain neighbors have been too preoccupied to bother noting my august presence.”
    “I’m noting it now. Winter in the south seems to have agreed with you.”
    “It usually does. Look what I found wandering the property line and in need of escort home.”
    “My errant baby brother.” Harold grinned hugely, out of all proportion to the trite conversation. “He went missing from the breakfast table, and here I thought you’d gone back to bed, Hay.”
    “I took Caesar out. Fenwick wants to finalize his plans for the flocks, and I thought your imprimatur needed on such a serious undertaking.” He took Caesar out almost daily, in sheer defense of his sanity, and also in hopes of hearing a certain flutist soloing among the pines.
    “One hesitates to point it out, Bothwell,” Fen said, “but aren’t you the good shepherd in the family?”
    One
delighted
in pointing it out.
    “Stow it, Fen.” The warning came from Harold, sparing Hadrian the effort. Fenwick rode like a demon, and he was protective of Avis, which ought to be marks in his favor, but Hadrian still felt a rankling unease around him.
    Which was probably how Fenwick wanted it.
    “I’m on my way to the kennels,” Harold said. “Can we talk sheep over a morning visit to the hounds?”
    “Avie said you were dispersing your pack,” Fen replied as they moved off. “What’s afoot, Landover?”
    Harold explained about crosses and traits and reasons why a man might want to start all over on his breeding program—tripe, the lot of it. Harold had found homes for his hounds because he didn’t intend to come back. The knowledge made his eventual departure so much more real that Hadrian felt a pressing need to kick something.
    “You’re not inclined to stay your brother’s hand in this?” Fenwick asked Hadrian. “He has the best pack this side of Ireland.”
    “I do not ride to hounds,” Hadrian said, “and even were I inclined to start, I’ll be so busy in Harold’s absence, my first outing would have to wait until the hounds were ready to pounce on me rather than old Reynard.”
    “You’d make a meal,” Fen allowed, “but surely, you’ll not part with this handsome fellow?” Even from his considerable height, Fen didn’t need to squat to pet the dog in question.
    “Hamlet comes with me,” Harold said, fondness in every syllable. “We’ll visit his relations in Denmark, after all, or at least I hope to.”
    “Do they still have boar hunts there?” Fenwick asked. “I thought the Danes bred his kind for large game.”
    “The Danes, the Germans, and many noble courts throughout Europe,” Harold said. “Also for companionship and protection, and just about every other fine quality in a fellow.”
    “Except fine fellows don’t generally drool, chew up your best boots, and get hair all over the rugs and sofas.” Fen offered that litany as he continued to pet the great beast, whose adoring gaze never left Harold.
    Hadrian begrudgingly agreed with Fen, but promised himself he wouldn’t make a habit of it. The dog, generally termed a Great Danish hound, was the most recent in a succession of his kind that Harold considered more pet than anything else.
    Landover had sported dogs like Hamlet as far back as Hadrian could remember—stinking, drooling, and creating a great fuss when they decided to bark at some hapless rabbit.
    God help him, was he jealous of even his brother’s dog?
    Harold paused some moments later in a litany of canine begats and out-ofs worthy of a book of the Old Testament.
    “You’re wool-gathering, Hay, though