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nature to control flight, in and of itself a secret until not more than half a century ago.”
    “Still, I scarcely think—”
    “And I am certain”—he leaned forward and pinned Ephraim’s gaze with his—“whatever Her Highness is up to, it has to do with my family.”
    “ Your family?” Ephraim frowned. “The family you’ve had no contact with in more than a decade?”
    “One and the same.” Matt smiled wryly. “It seems one of the ladies mentioned in the letter that is the heart of this proposition is a member of my family. To be specific, my grandmother. Another lady is one of her oldest friends.”
    “I don’t see why that should make you suspicious. Your family is rather well connected. I am extraordinarily suspicious, part of my nature, yet it doesn’t strike me as being at all unusual that your grandmother’s name, or the name of her friend, should come up.”
    “Think about it, Ephraim. If Tatiana is only interested in writing of the travels of a long-dead relation, why wouldn’t she simply tell me of my family’s involvement?”
    “She doesn’t know?” Ephraim said helpfully.
    “It’s a possibility. Indeed, it could be nothing more than an intriguing coincidence. However, she did encourage me to mend the rift with my family.” Matt shrugged. “It was during the natural course of our conversation and might well mean nothing at all, but I don’t trust her.”
    “So you will accompany her to protect your family’s interests?”
    “Exactly.”
    “But you don’t especially like your family.”
    “You’re wrong there. It is my family that does not especially like me.”
    “As far as you know,” Ephraim said pointedly.
    “As far as I know.” Matt sipped thoughtfully at the whiskey. “However, my grandmother was always fond of me.”
    It was his grandmother who had taken the place of his mother when his mother died shortly after Matthew’s birth. His grandmother who had taken his side during his escalating clashes with his father as he grew older. And his grandmother who had wept when his father secured an appointment for him in the navy and sent him off.
    “And I was quite fond of her.”
    It was only in recent years, with the wisdom born of distance and experience, that he’d reexamined his younger days. He was indeed a wild youth, far more prone to trouble and scandalous behavior than his three older bothers combined. He could see now, where he couldn’t then, a father’s frustration when faced with a rebellious and uncontrollable child. He could understand now a father’s desire for his son’s future to be molded by something beyond indulgence and excess. Only now could he recognize and be grateful for a father’s courage in sending a son into the world to make his own way and find his own strength. And he could at last accept the love required to do it all.
    He’d learned of his father’s death shortly before the war ended and wondered at the irony and desperate regret of it. When at last Matt had realized he could not forgive his father because in truth the older man had done nothing to forgive save force his youngest child to become a man they could both be proud of, it was too late. It was a debt he could not repay. Until, perhaps, now.
    “You’ve still not spoken to your brothers, then.” Ephraim said as if it didn’t matter.
    “You know full well I haven’t.” Matt’s tone was as casual as his friend’s. “Nor have they spoken to me.”
    “And you have been so exceedingly easy to find since we left His Majesty’s Service, refusing to use your title and flitting fromEnglandtoFranceand back.” Ephraim scoffed. “In the last three years, you’ve barely had a permanent address.”
    “Couldn’t be helped, old man. The life of an aeronaut, and all that. And I did not flit.”
    Matt had long ago acknowledged to himself that he would like nothing better than to reacquaint himself with his brothers. But while he’d had no hesitation about confronting the