“Tattersalls.” Greg gestured to Hyde Park Corner. “My stables need stocking.”
“We’ll join you,” Simon replied, then nodded toward his companion. “Showing Heaton all the sites of Town while he’s here.” He smiled at the American. “Tattersalls has the greatest selection of horseflesh found on any continent, I’m sure.”
“Well, then, lead on,” Heaton replied good-naturedly.
As the trio started toward Tattersalls together, Simon said to Greg. “I have just bought into Heaton’s shipping company. You are looking at two-thirds of Heaton, Pierce and Masters shipping.”
Simon Masters was going into trade? His priggish father was probably rolling over in his grave somewhere. “Indeed?”
“I think it’ll be a grand adventure,” his friend continued. And as they approached Tattersalls yard, he groaned.
Greg glanced at his friend. “Some sort of problem?”
Simon scrubbed a hand down his face. “Damned Sarsden is here?”
Greg nodded. “He’s been here every time I’ve come by, actually.”
“As though he could possibly know anything about horseflesh or anything else of merit.” His friend shook his head as Harry Kearnsy, Viscount Sarsden started toward them. Then he muttered to Heaton, “Do try not to judge all Englishmen by this particular dullard.”
“Ah!” Sarsden called to Greg. “Wondered if you were going to make it today.”
Until his return to London, Greg hadn’t laid eyes on Sarsden since their school days. He wasn’t the most interesting fellow. Simon was right on that account. But while Greg wouldn’t have ever considered Sarsden a friend, he had been friendly enough the last few weeks. “Hoping there’s something worth seeing today.”
Simon half-heartedly muttered introductions and then turned his eye to the yard. “Looks like a nice Arabian,” he said.
“Indeed, indeed,” Sarsden agreed. “Everyone is chatting about that fellow.”
The horse was a good size and his gait seemed even, but there was something about him Greg didn’t care for. The look in his eyes, perhaps? “Everyone else can have him, as far as I’m concerned.”
Sarsden shook his head. “On my life, Avery, you are the hardest to please fellow I know.”
“Nothing wrong with being discerning,” Simon muttered under his breath, and Greg bit back a smile.
Not that Sarsden cared as the man proceeded to wax poetic over the Arabian’s color and his lineage until Greg scrubbed a hand down his face in boredom. Simon had called their former classmate a dullard and that might be quite the compliment.
“Just selective about what I’ll add to my stables,” Greg finally said. “I am the one who has to live them, after all. There’s no use wasting money for no good reason.”
“Here, here,” Simon agreed.
Sarsden laughed at that. “Think I could bring my wife around Avery House this afternoon and you could press upon her the same sentiment?”
What in the world was that supposed to mean? Greg tilted his head to see the man better and frowned in response. “I beg your pardon?”
But his old schoolmate only shook his head once more. “On my life, the woman spends money faster than she breathes.”
“Which is precisely why I don’t have one,” Simon said with a sigh. “That and whenever a fellow gets married he becomes more of a bore than he had been previously.”
“Present company excluded, I would hope.” Sarsden frowned at Simon.
Simon, however, did not amend his statement in the least. Instead, he added, “Any man who enjoys his freedom and full coffers, would be well to avoid matrimony forever, or at least as long as he is able.”
“The freedom bit is quite true,” Sarsden agreed, apparently letting the slight to his general person go for the moment. “My wife subjected me to two musicales this last week? Two of them. And telling her I do not enjoy such entertainments fell completely upon deaf ears, let me assure you.”
At that Greg snorted. “Everything I say falls on my sister-in-law’s deaf ears.”
Sarsden smacked his hand to Greg’s back. “And not even getting the benefits of her warming your bed. At least I have that going for me.”
“Everyone should have something,” Simon muttered, though Sarsden didn’t appear to notice the comment as a nice looking Andalusian entered the yard and caught his attention.