Chapter Five #4
“Well, that’s just my interpretation of it. I was embellishing.” Delacorte was unrepentant.
“So a bit the way Daniel embellished with his crossed eyes,” Hardy retorted.
“If you like,” Mr. Delacorte allowed pleasantly.
“It’s probably not your fault, Hardy. That look. The army and all that. And I’m mostly immune to it now,” Lucien told him.
“It’s useful in our business. Strikes fear into the heart of anyone who might dream of crossing you. Withers crops on the
vine.”
Captain Hardy half laughed, half sighed. “It’s not too soon for Daniel to get used to it. Who knows? He might want to join
the military.”
“He’s only four years old,” Bolt reminded him.
“The military will straighten his eyes out for him,” Delacorte said darkly.
“He stared at you as if you were a looby,” Captain Hardy pointed out to Lucien. “Because you spoke to him as though he was applying for admission
to White’s. Tally ho there old chum.”
“That is a terrible imitation of Bolt,” Mr. Delacorte told him. “But that is basically what you did, Bolt. I’d hide behind a woman
if you used that voice on me, too.”
“I wasn’t trying to imitate Bolt,” Captain Hardy said irritably.
Lucien’s English was still subtly haunted by his mother’s native French, and his cadences and word choices were, too.
“I’m inimitable,” Lucien replied complacently.
“It’s very disappointing when something so cherubic turns out to be so obnoxious,” Delacorte said.
“Exactly what I said when I first met you, Delacorte,” Captain Hardy said.
“Ha!” Mr. Delacorte was always a great appreciator of a well-landed joke. “Marchand . . . how did you come by your knack with
the brats, er, bairns?”
Hell’s teeth. Marchand’s chest tightened. Though he was certain these men were well-meaning, a truthful answer would require
saying a certain name aloud, and he just didn’t want to do it in this smoky little room. He hadn’t actually said it aloud
to another human in years. The truth was, hardened bastard though he was, he wasn’t certain he could trust his voice to remain
steady if he did.
“Here’s the trick,” he told them. “Do you know when you go to a pub, and one of your friends gets too foxed? Sings sentimental
songs one moment, picks fistfights the next, laughs hysterically for no reason you can comprehend the next, starts singing
off-key nonsense songs, falls asleep in odd places, needs to be carried home?”
All the men nodded in recognition.
Delacorte had gone misty-eyed at this recitation. “Let’s all go off to the pub after this! Say, how do you feel about donkey
races, Marchand?” Donkey races were Delacorte’s favorite pastime, a notch above singing bawdy songs in pubs.
“Very young children are a bit like that. You variously laugh at them and with them, humor them, scold them a little, sing
along if you have to, and do your best to keep them safe. Love a good donkey race, by the way.”
“Knew I liked you,” Delacorte replied complacently.
“Children are like drunks. Huh.” Hardy was bemused.
“No children among the three of you?” Marchand asked.
There ensued a little silence.
“We’ve both been married for about a year.” Hardy gestured at Bolt.
“To our respective wives,” he added after a moment.
“Thanks, Hardy, I think he grasped that,” Bolt said.
Marchand knew very well that marriage was hardly a prerequisite for having children.
“How about you, Delacorte?” Marchand asked.
“None that I know of. One never knows, of course.”
Everyone stared at him, a little nonplussed.
“I’ve traveled up and down the coast selling my wares to apothecaries and surgeons for years now, and I’ve enjoyed a few happy
romps with a widow or two,” Delacorte told him. Bolt and Hardy tensed. Mr. Delacorte had more than once shared a few too-detailed
anecdotes about these romps. “I would be distressed to leave a woman alone with that responsibility, but none of us never
know for sure, do we? Even if we’re careful.”
The other men in the room entertained the sobering and uncomfortable truth of this. Both by the possibility of inadvertent
thoughtlessness (though none of them had ever really been rakes) and by the idea of possible little Delacortes running about.
“So what other wares do you sell, Delacorte?” Marchand asked, to change the subject.
“Oh, all sorts of remedies from the Orient, herbs and ground of bits and bobs of this and that, animal horns and testicles and what not. Some of them even work a treat—stop fevers, slow bleeding, heal wounds. Others don’t do much at all, but people want ’em anyway.”
“I’ll be damned.” Marchand was intrigued. “Which remedies are the most popular?”
“Oh, like I mentioned, the impotency cure is popular with apothecaries—they buy a lot of it. Especially the ones near St.
James’s Square, where all the gentleman’s clubs—like yours, Marchand—are. Same with a certain headache powder. Works straightaway,
but it can sometimes cause hallucinations. I’ve tried it. Had quite a few wild dreams. Though some people like that sort of
thing. Bloke I know took it and when he looked in his own mirror he saw Queen Elizabeth scowling back at him. Gave him quite
a fright.”
“Was she sitting next to him when he saw her, or did the queen look back at him from the mirror? Was she his reflection?” Marchand asked.
“The latter,” Delacorte said. “Kind of makes you wonder who you might see if you take it, doesn’t it?”
“Bolt would no doubt see a tree,” Marchand said slyly.
Lucien shot him a dry look.
They smoked contemplatively for a moment.
“If you had children, where do you suppose they’d sleep here at the Grand Palace on the Thames?” Marchand asked the room at
large. “Have you enough rooms? Is there a nursery of some sort?”
“I just assumed we’d fill the annex ballroom with them,” Hardy said.
Bolt gave a short, distracted laugh.
There was a pause. “I always thought it would be nice to raise children in the country,” Bolt confessed. “I’ve a house I inherited that I seldom visit. I was raised there.”
Delacorte and Hardy looked at him, surprised.
One got the sense that Lucien had never before mentioned any longing to raise children in the country. And this Marchand recognized
as a potential opening.
“You’d probably make a pretty sum if you sold this place today.” He gestured, indicating the Grand Palace on the Thames. “Might
never have to work at anything ever again.” Marchand casually blew a stream of smoke ceiling-ward. “I recall when your annex
wing was for sale, I was disappointed I’d missed the opportunity.”
“Both buildings actually belong jointly to our wives,” Bolt told him. “I bought the annex building and gave it to Angelique
in the hopes she would marry me. Ironically, before that, I was eyeing it for a gaming hell, too.”
At Marchand’s expression, Bolt gave a short laugh. “Yes, it was mad to give her a building. I was in love. What can I say?
I would have given her the moon. I’ve never regretted it. She promptly gave half ownership to Hardy’s wife, because Hardy’s
wife gave Angelique half of the Grand Palace on the Thames when they became partners.”
Despite himself, Marchand found himself admiring the efficiency and pure trust implied in this partnership. And therein lay
its strength, he was sure.
And therein also lay the reason that persuading them to sell might be trickier than Marchand had anticipated.
“If they ever want to sell . . .”
He had the sense he’d just uttered a sacrilege, judging by the quality of the silence and the closed, cautious expressions that greeted those words.
But all it really took was a seed planted, he knew.
It would grow, or it wouldn’t. He would certainly look for opportunities to nurture it.
Nobody took up the question.
“I have a hunch that all of you would be wonderful fathers, in different ways,” Marchand reflected, into the silence. “It
might require combining forces, however. Hardy for the discipline, Bolt for, oh, let’s say grace, Delacorte for the comedy.
Like that.”
He’d made all of them smile, and damned if that wasn’t a good feeling.
“You never know. If you stay here too long, you might even accidentally leave here with a wife, Marchand. Lots of people seem to do that,” Delacorte said wistfully.
Marchand snorted. “She’d need to rope and tie me first.”