Chapter 1
Lord Edward Richard Stone admired the sketch he’d been working on between glimpses at the afternoon gazettes.
“Why’s only the front half of that animal drawn right?”
Edward looked up with a start, still not used to sudden noises after his eventful service during the Peninsular War.
It was Tobias, his sometimes errand boy and constant, well, friend despite their vastly unequal status, at least at the time of their births. Edward might keep his courtesy title of “Lord” on account of being the second son of a marquess, but he and the urchin weren’t so very different these days.
“Didn’t learn how to draw a horse’s arse. My father was furious when he discovered me and my older brother portraying...well…we were making lewd sketches, and our drawing master got shown the door. Always suspected my father simply didn’t want to pay his bill.”
“Your da was broke, too?” asked Tobias, sinking onto his scuffed stool in front of Edward’s desk.
“Just a skinflint,” said Edward, trying to shade the horse’s tail but mostly drawing what resembled a pile of sticks. “Probably rejoiced the day I disgraced myself in the army. It was a good excuse to cut off my allowance.”
Should you be wondering why a noble sat sketching at the back of a barber shop, waiting for clients, that was the story in a nutshell: Lord Edward was a complete disgrace to his family and left without support.
Well, save one means of support. One part of him was very supportive indeed.
Between his appendage’s rather unique ability to suss out truth and fiction (the mechanics were somewhat hazy even to him) and his success at impregnating the wives of the elite, Lord Edward had transformed in recent years into Dick Stone, stud for hire.
“What’s next to that animal?” asked Tobias, casting a dubious glance at the paper.
“Next to Tencendor?”
“You mean you’re drawing your horse?” asked Tobias, smothering a laugh. “That’s supposed to be…”
“Now, see here,” protested Edward, suddenly feeling the urge to defend his artistic skills, “my drawing master spent most of his time romancing my mother’s companion.”
“Companion?” asked Tobias, wrinkling his nose.
“Like a friend.”
“Why not call this person your mother’s friend?”
Edward paused, thinking about it.
“Mrs. Vavasour received food and clothes from us. And she assisted my mother with certain tasks. Menus and the like.”
“Am I your companion?” asked Tobias. “I tell you what’s on offer outside.”
Lord Edward stopped sketching. He needed to think about this because the boy from the streets wasn’t entirely off the mark, but he wasn’t exactly right either.
“Well, Mrs. Vavasour had an official position within the household,” he started.
“What was it?”
“Lady’s companion.”
“Oh, so only ladies have companions.” Tobias drank from his inappropriately ornate silver flask, likely water. Edward could never understand why he drank the stuff.
“Well, yes. I mean, gentlemen have official associates, too, but they’re not usually called companions. And it’s different.”
Tobias stared at the drawing. “Seems silly only ladies have companions,” he said to himself.
“Precisely my feeling this very morning while exercising Tencendor in the park,” said Edward, hoping to divert the conversation to something less confusing. “I thought to myself, ‘why must my horse go through life alone? He’s been a good sort of fellow, and I think he deserves a companion.’”
“But Tencendor is a male horse,” said Tobias, as if explaining the matter to a small child. “He can’t have a companion.”
Edward paused. Explaining why things were different for horses might take some artistry if he didn’t want his ears to burn with shame.
“Well, when two horses love each other very much—”
“I’ve been grown since we met, Dick Stone!” exclaimed Tobias between hoots of laughter. “There’s no need to soften bawdy talk. You know where I’ve lived.”
That he did, and it gave Edward periodic heart palpitations to think of his friend going about his dubious business on those streets.
“You claim to be an adult, but you’re certainly not adult height,” said Edward, sizing him up. In their years of acquaintance, Tobias had grown a little, but never reached higher than Edward’s chest. It made it easy to treat him as a lad.
“That again,” groaned Tobias. “These things happen when your da drinks the bread money away.”
“He still around?” asked Edward, wondering if he should pay a call on Tobias’s old man, and by pay a call, he meant—
“Nah, drowned in a cesspit just before I encountered you.”
They both winced at the idea of drowning to death in shite.
“Encountered is a rather lofty way to say you tried to pick my pocket,” said Edward.
“What can I say? I’ve been improving myself since becoming a not-companion to a toff,” said Tobias.
“Clearly,” said Edward, not bothering to conceal the wry note in his voice. “As I was saying, when two horses spend time together, sometimes there’s a happy result.”
“Are you trying to breed horses, too?” asked Tobias, struck by the idea.
“I thought it might become a new appendage for my business, yes, in time. At some point, I’ll have to retire.”
“Retire?”
“Stop working. When my parts no longer perform the same. Or I run out of ladies to service.”
“Are you at risk of that? Either thing?” asked Tobias.
“Not particularly,” said Edward. “Not today, at least. Just thinking about the future. One where I don’t need to be at the beck and call of the worst, silliest people on earth.”
“Is it so bad?”
“Beats a lot of ways to keep myself and my not-companion in meat pies,” said Edward, giving the kid a rough rub on his dirty head. “Besides, if I earn enough money to get Tencendor a lady companion, he might feel better about what he saw during the war and try to throw me from the saddle less.”
“Does it work that way?”
“I certainly feel less jumpy when I’ve been with a lady,” said Edward, making a rare bawdy comment before Tobias.
The lad carefully unwrapped a small piece of cheese. “Take half?”
“Couldn’t possibly,” said Edward, patting his trim stomach. “Late lunch. Meat pie adulterated with a side of sawdust, I fear. Won’t need to eat again for days.”
Tobias grimaced and tossed back the entire block in one go.
“Any prospects?” asked Tobias, nodding to the gazettes.
“Slow season for lonely hearts ads,” said Edward, sitting back in his chair. It creaked as if to echo his claim. “At least the ones from obviously rich ladies. Everyone is in the countryside until Parliament is back in session.”
“I’m still here,” said Tobias stoutly between sips from his flask.
“As am I,” said Edward, his eyes snagging on the faded chintz fabric that served as a makeshift door to his office.
When he began his breeding business, a scrap of fabric was all he could afford to demarcate his rented territory from that of Mr. Rymer, the barber. In the years since, he hadn’t seen fit to change it. Someday, he’d have a door with a lock. Tobias could keep one key, and he’d have the other.
But for now, the path to that solid door was as clear in his mind as that horse’s arse in his sketch.
“Should I—?”
Edward heard a commotion from the barbershop and looked out to see who thought to disturb the dulcet tones of Rymer’s tooth drawing.
A handsome young man in familiar livery made his way to the back with no small amount of jaunty pride in his step.
“Oh hell,” said Edward, slumping in his chair.
“What’sa matter?” asked Tobias, looking about. “Want me to pull the curtain?”
“Won’t work.”
“Who is it?”
“The worst, silliest person in the entire world,” said Edward, his hand on his forehead as if in pain.
Tobias swung around fast, hoping to see the Prince Regent or at least a real cackling fart, but he simply spotted a toff’s fancy carriage man instead. “Doesn’t look so bad to me.”
“Not him,” groaned Edward. “It’s who sent him.”
Tobias cleaned up his cheesecloth, ready to cut a leg should this encounter prove eventful. “Who’s that?”
“My brother.”