It had been some time since Zechariah had contemplated the idea of another man. Looked? Certainly. Hoped? Perhaps. Looked, hoped, and flirted with disaster?

Two years ago, he had. Simon had done it to himself, certainly. He had led men into the woods and stoked too many fires at once until they burned out of his control. All the same, Zechariah did not want to test whether he had also carried some sort of kiss of death to which all whom he loved must die.

Which did not explain why he had let the butler off for the night. Oh well!

Zechariah was dressed to impress. He told himself he would go toward the end of the ball, make a perfunctory greeting that conveniently doubled as a departure and all would be well. He answered the door, remembered the squalor that the one poor guy he had seen up close all poor people lived in, and absently wondered if he should offer that half-drowned man’s bathrobe as a hand-me-down.

“Good evening, Mister Longbottom.”

Wait. God damn it. Did that make it too obvious he had asked around?