James spent the afternoon at Antonio’s Academy, fencing with Antonio’s son Ernest. He had never been a natural swordsman but had taken it up in his youth, back when he still had hope that he might be permitted to join the navy.
The famed fencing master Antonio himself had told James once, “Your technique is merda. But like many young men, you have endurance. This is good. Good for you and good for the ladies, eh?” He had winked and stroked his chin. “When you thrust, you are going for the kill. I never expect it with you. That is good. You deceive like a snake asleep in the sun, and then you strike, like an asp.”
Then Antonio had sighed. “But when you parry an attack, you have no caution. Hit me, you tell your combatant. Hit me, I do not care if I bleed. I do not care if I die. This is not good.”
Today, as James went up and down the piste with Ernest, he managed to sweat off the two glasses of illegal Scottish whisky he had allowed himself last night in the privacy of his rooms. He had invited his valet to join him but Enfield, ever sensitive to propriety, had declined. So, James had sat alone and gulped the two glasses and then had found his bed and gone off into a dreamless sleep.
The exercise today spurred him with hope. He must do this more often. Perhaps if he became more adept at swordplay, Mr. Bulverton might let him undertake something with a bit more danger to it than seduction and eavesdropping. And he might learn other forms of combat. He should go to a shooting gallery and improve his aim. He was already quite a good boxer. It was one of the things his dead brother William had given him—along with his valet Enfield, the ability to swim and dive, and a horror of the French Pox.
James finally had to ask Ernest if he might pause and catch his breath. He leaned over with his hands on his knees, heart pounding, sweat pouring off his face. Perhaps that endurance Antonio had praised years ago was fading now.
James watched as Ernest went over to the far corner of the school where his father was instructing a young boy, perhaps twelve or so, wearing a face mask and a breastplate. The boy was doing some rather advanced footwork for his age. But the face mask and breastplate during a lesson, not a match, were curious. Probably an overprotective mother had insisted.
James wondered what it might be like to have had a mother who protected her sons. Not out of duty to a bloodline, but out of love.
Ernest came back to him.
“Ready to go again, old man?”
“That young boy is rather good, isn’t he?” James nodded to the corner.
Ernest looked over and then back at James. “Yes,” he said and smiled and held up his foil in a mock salute. “Again?”
James stood. “Again.”
After an afternoon of rather rigorous play at Antonio’s, James spent the evening at his club. Working.
James was playing three-card loo and losing. He made a point of losing. It had endeared him to countless gentlemen and paved the way for many useful invitations.
He had a small glass of whisky at his elbow and often held it to his lips, but did not drink. He had already staggered to the necessary three times holding his glass and upon his return to the room where the gentlemen sat at their cards, he had requested the barman fill the now-empty glass. “To the top, to the top, to the tippity-top, man.”
Most of the young rakes that were part of James’ set were not in attendance at the club tonight. Likely already in the country for the shooting, if not at the theater or Madame Flora’s. James was playing cards with older men, important men. Good. More likely to spill the type of information that Mr. Bulverton wanted.
And James had chosen to sit next to one of the men in whom Mr. Bulverton took a keen interest.
Wearing quite an elegant waistcoat and crisp cravat, Sir Francis Ffoulkes was winning at the table. And winning tended to make him less reserved than usual. He was landed gentry, a baronet—he had quite a nice estate in Kent apparently—but he had also made a fortune provisioning the Royal Navy. Very wealthy from that, what with the decades of England at war on numerous different fronts. And he had been widowed in the last year.
But there must be something more to him. Otherwise, Bulverton would not ask about him.
Sir Francis Ffoulkes sipped some claret and patted his lips with a folded handkerchief. “Marquess, there is a woman—”
“Yes? Do I know her?” James raised his eyebrows in a leer and smacked his lips noisily.
The other four men at the table laughed.
“No, no,” Sir Francis said, laughing as well. “I’m going to tell a story. A joke. You must let me tell it, correctly, in the right order. Let’s see, there is a woman who prosecutes a man for rape and the judge—”
“Are you sure I don’t know her, what?” James interrupted again. He knew the joke. This awful joke, once again. Maybe he could derail it at his own expense.
Laughter again around the table. Several other gentlemen walked over to find out the source of the hilarity. Sir Francis could not speak for laughing.
“Lord Daventry,” Sir Francis wiped his eyes, “you must let me finish. I will never get through if you keep breaking in.”
James put his hand over his mouth.
“There is a woman,” and here Sir Francis paused and looked to James who kept silent, “who prosecutes a man for rape,” again he paused and looked at James, “and the judge asks her if she had done anything to fight off her attacker. Oh, yes, the woman says, I cried out.’”
Under his hand, James bit his own tongue until he thought he could taste blood.
“She cried out in ecstasy, eh?” The interjection came from one of the men who had wandered over. Tall, slender. He had a rather large nose, high cheekbones, dark hair flecked with gray. James supposed he was handsome in a rather lupine way. James did not know him. He was almost certainly a guest of someone at the club as there had been no new members admitted in over a year.
The man smiled. James didn’t like his smile. Others laughed at what the man had said, but James and Sir Francis Ffoulkes did not.
“You have ruined the joke, Roger,” Sir Francis said, all amusement gone. The wolfish man shrugged and walked away. Sir Francis pursed his lips and would not tell the end of the joke, even though the other men at the table clamored for it.
James was glad he had been spared the last line. He knew the piece of wit well, having made it up himself two years ago. The joke had circulated widely since then, and he inwardly winced every time he heard it. He was only glad that no one present could attribute it to him.
The joke ran as follows: a woman accuses a man of rape. The judge asks her if she had done anything to defend herself. Yes, the woman replies, I cried out. Then some witness pipes up and says, “Yes, but that was nine months later.”
Riotous laughter ensues. Almost exclusively from men. Frowns from women. Rape combined with the pain of childbirth. Not occasions for hilarity, to be sure. James knew it was a despicable joke, and, of course, he had known it was despicable at the time. But it had played so well into his character that once he had thought it up, he had been compelled to recite it.
And now he had to live with hearing the joke at least once every few months or so. He had been punished, thoroughly.
The onlookers wandered away from the table as James shuffled the cards. Sir Francis Ffoulkes called for more claret by flourishing his handkerchief. James noticed the delicate lace edging of the handkerchief and its small size.
“Sir Francis, is that handkerchief the favor of a lady?” James said, grinning as he dealt the cards round the table. Sir Francis quickly put the handkerchief away. James went on, “She must be fearsomely beautiful for you to redden this way, what?”
Sir Francis picked up his cards and held them close to his chest. “She is.”
James leered. “And is she your mistress?”
“She is not. But I plan to make her my wife.”
“Lucky lady, then.”
“I would be the lucky one.”
“And the fair lady’s name?” James turned over the card that would indicate trump.
Hearts.
Sir Francis shook his head. “That would be indiscreet. Let me secure our engagement first and then I will make her name widely known.” He clapped James on the shoulder.
“I will hold you to it, sir!” James looked at his cards. And considered. When Sir Francis Ffoulkes had patted his lips with the handkerchief earlier, it had been folded in such a way that subtle white embroidered initials were visible. Two Cs. CC.
Cecilia Cox, daughter of the Marquess of Miltonshire? No, she had married two Seasons ago. Christianna Crampton? She was only fifteen years of age and not yet out. Clarissa—what was her last name?—no, it was Kingman. And she had not the face or figure to make Sir Francis blush. And there were so many Charlottes, come to think of it, his own fourteen-year-old sister was Charlotte Cavendish—
“Your turn, Lord Daventry.” It was the gentleman on his right speaking, Lord Ambrose Crawford.
Oh, yes, what would be a losing but believable play? James had not studied his cards at all.
So, he overturned his whisky instead and let his cards fly from his hands as he got up from the table, cursing at his clumsiness and pulling at his wet trousers.
“Trust Lord Daventry to make a mess,” Lord Crawford said.
“I’ll pass, I’ll pass,” James said, as one of the club’s barmen came to mop up the whisky.
“You can’t pass. We can see your cards, Lord Daventry,” Sir Francis said. And indeed, his cards were lying face up on the floor in a pool of whisky. “You’ll have to deal again.”
“Oh, rot,” James said and giggled as the barman dabbed at his trousers. “Ticklish on my knees, Chester.”
The barman who was on his own knees, ducked his head. “Sorry, my lord.”
James pressed a coin in his hand and winked. “Upsidaisy. Fetch us some dry cards and some of that Scottish brown water of life for everyone, what?”
“Yes, my lord.”
James sat back down in his chair. “None the worse for wear . . . or for whisky . . . or for women!” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, Lord Crawford, I’ve been meaning to ask, do you have a daughter? Perhaps a younger sister? And what is her name? Could it be Caroline, perchance?”
