Chapter Twenty Three
What’d ‘e say?”
“I beg your pardon?” Henry asked as he cradled a glass of gin in his left hand, wincing as he flexed the right.
It wasn’t only Latimer he’d bloodied; there was the distinct stick of fabric to the skin of his knuckles.
At some point, he must’ve introduced his fist to Latimer’s mouth and cut his skin upon the man’s teeth.
“Latimer,” Mr. Moore said expectantly, tapping his fingertips upon the surface of the table. “’E said something to set you off, didn’t ‘e?”
Henry wasn’t certain exactly how it had happened, but somehow he had been swiftly removed from the St. John ball by three of Grace’s relatives.
While his blood had still been high, while he’d still been frothing with fury, the lot of them had thrown him bodily into a carriage and spirited him several streets away, to the gentleman’s club at which all three seemed to be members.
And here he was now, back pinned to the wall, hemmed in by a table and surrounded by several of Grace’s nearest and dearest male relations. An unenviable position to be sure, especially when he considered that they must have contrived to arrange themselves—and him—in exactly this fashion.
Trapped. Not a prayer of rescue, with a glass of liquor in his hand, and that lather of anger finally ceding itself to relentless, vicious little shivers, as if his overtaxed muscles were protesting the strain he’d recently put them through.
“He…made some comments to which I took exception,” Henry acknowledged. “Things I’d rather not repeat. And certainly not in a place where anyone might overhear.”
“Latimer didn’t seem to care much whether he was overheard,” the duke said.
“I care.” What was said of Grace, and by whom. “I’m not asking your pardon for causing such a scene—”
“You misunderstand, Lockhart,” Mr. Moore said impatiently. “We only want to know what was said so’s we know how much more the man deserves to lose.” A chilling grin flashed across his face at Henry’s thunderstruck expression. “What, did ye think we were a turn the other cheek lot?”
Lord Rafe Beaumont coughed into the cup of his hand, disguising a laugh. “Latimer’s a louse,” he said. “Always has been. I’m a bit jealous you were the one to plant him a proper facer, I think. I’d have done it myself long ago, but Gracie wouldn’t hear of it.”
“You might yet get your chance,” the duke said. “What did he say, Lockhart?”
Henry swallowed. Best to keep it vague, he thought, or risk being a party to murder. “He made some unkind remarks regarding Grace’s age and origins. He…suggested her connections would soften the blow of them.”
The silence that fell over the table was ponderous and laden with malice. Mr. Moore asked, “Rafe, ‘ow far is too far, do you think?
Lord Rafe heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose in his fingers. “Don’t kill him,” he said. “But certainly break his nose, if Lockhart hasn’t already done the job for you.”
“And if he has?” the duke inquired. “That is to say, it looked rather crooked already to me.”
“Break something else,” Rafe suggested mildly. “Can’t say I much care what, at this particular moment.”
“That’s it settled, then,” Mr. Moore said, as he lifted his own drink toward Henry in a macabre, begrudgingly respectful salute. “Didn’t think ye had it in you, Lockhart. But I’m pleased to ‘ave been wrong.”
“Oh,” Henry said, nonplussed, as he stared down at the drink in his hand. “Then this is—”
“Congratulatory,” the duke said. “You’ll forgive me for the observation, Lockhart, but you’ve always had the appearance of a man a bit too tightly-laced.”
“’E’s ‘ad a stick up ‘is arse,” Mr. Moore drawled. “Say what you damned well mean.”
“What did you think this was?” Lord Rafe inquired.
“I don’t know,” Henry said honestly, as his shoulders wilted in exhaustion. “A last drink before you tossed me in the Thames?”
“I did offer,” Mr. Moore said. “Gracie declined.”
“So I owe her my life, then?”
“Among other things,” Mr. Moore said. “Yer uncle?”
Henry’s shoulder slumped further. “That’s come to naught,” he said, pitching his voice low. “My uncle got what he required of Cooper. Grace couldn’t retrieve it at the tavern.”
“Cooper,” Lord Rafe repeated, blanching as he recognized the name. “For God’s sake—you took her to a tavern? In Whitechapel?”
Henry threw up his hands, nearly casting his liquor straight out of its glass.
“Of course I didn’t take her! I made her promise she wouldn’t go!
” He tossed back the liquor in one long swallow and plunked the empty glass back down upon the table.
“But she arrived even before I did,” he said.
“We had words about it. I thought you knew.”
“Chris asked a favor of me,” Lord Rafe said tightly. “He certainly didn’t share what the information I gave him would be used for.”
“Because ye’d have declined,” Mr. Moore said. “And Gracie trusts me to keep ‘er secrets. Rather keep it that way, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Somehow,” the duke said, with a hard stare at Henry, “I have got the feeling that Lockhart is now himself the custodian of more than a few of Grace’s secrets.”
“’E won’t tell,” Mr. Moore said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, and a smug grin which he cast in Henry’s direction. “Damn fool’s so bloody in love wiv ‘er, ‘e can’t hardly see straight.”
Henry felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. “I—that is to say—”
Lord Rafe rolled his eyes. “One doesn’t make such a spectacle of oneself over a woman one feels nothing for,” he said. “For future reference, Lockhart, Grace doesn’t need you to defend her, and certainly not in such a fashion. Nevertheless, it says something of you that you chose to do it anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have called it a choice,” Henry said.
He’d simply seen red; acted entirely on instinct.
Much like those rows he’d been in as a child whenever his mother had been so disparaged in his hearing, so too had Latimer’s casual belittling of Grace produced a white-hot, all-consuming fury.
“I know I have blundered terribly,” he said.
“And very soon, I won’t have much to offer her.
But if you might convince her to grant me just a few minutes to explain myself—”
“Not a damned chance,” the duke said.
“You made your own mess, Lockhart, and you must be the one to fix it,” Lord Rafe added.
Mr. Moore sat back and folded his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing on Henry’s face.
“You did our Gracie a good turn tonight, whether or not she appreciates it,” he said, enunciating carefully, the clear, crisp syllables dripping with gravitas.
“That’s worth more than a glass of gin in my estimation, so I’ll put it to you.
Would you have my assistance with your uncle, or with Grace? ”
“Grace,” Henry said, without hesitation.
Mr. Moore’s brows lifted at the swiftness of the response. “Would you like a moment more to consider it?”
“No.”
Mr. Moore exchanged sidelong glances with the duke and Lord Rafe, and Henry had the sense that an entire silent conversation was occurring about him, completely beyond his comprehension.
But at last Lord Rafe sighed, and the duke scrubbed at his face, in what Henry could only assume was capitulation.
“Let’s go, then,” Mr. Moore said, as he rose to his feet, gripping the silver head of his cane in one hand. “You’ve bought yourself five minutes, Lockhart. What you do with them—that’s on you.”
∞∞∞
The house was in chaos once again, alive with revelry despite the hour. Even the children had been roused from their beds to participate, and they gobbled down handful after handful of sweets and pastries which had been prepared for a midnight feast to commemorate the occasion.
Grace was on her second glass of champagne, nestled into the corner of a couch within the drawing room, when Aunt Emma’s voice from the foyer rang clear above the comfortable chatter. “Where in the world have you been? Danny has proposed!”
“Has he, then?” Uncle Rafe appeared in the drawing room doorway, a wide grin wreathing his mouth. “That’s my boy. Where’s Ben?”
“Here,” Uncle Ben said from the far corner, where he stood with one arm wrapped around his wife, Aunt Diana. He lifted his glass toward Uncle Rafe in invitation. “Come join us,” he said. “We’re discussing wedding details.”
“It has got to be St. George’s,” Aunt Emma said as she urged Uncle Rafe through the thick of the crowd toward them. “And a midwinter wedding would be lovely.”
“Midwinter!” Danny moaned from his seat on the couch beside his new fiancée. “But that’s months away!”
“A proper wedding takes time,” Aunt Emma said smartly—which Grace thought was rather bold of her, when one considered that it was common knowledge that her own wedding had been by special license, with no more than a day’s notice to all those invited.
“We ought to elope,” Danny muttered to Hannah sullenly.
“Don’t you dare,” Grace said. “I’ll be devastated if I cannot attend your wedding.” And so would everyone else. Probably just family alone would fill out most of the pews. “And I do think you owe it to me, you know, Danny.”
Danny gathered Hannah’s hand in his, holding her fingers tightly. “I would have worked up the nerve eventually,” he assured her.
“But not,” Anthony said archly as he bent to kiss Charity’s cheek on his way into the drawing room, “before you put your foot in your mouth at least a half a dozen more times.”
“Damn,” Uncle Chris said as he handed off his hat to the butler, Redding, who stood stationed near the door. “I had them engaged by Christmas at the earliest,” he sighed. “That’s twenty quid lost.”
“I beg your pardon,” Uncle Rafe said, casting a disbelieving glance over his shoulder. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve been wagering on my son?”
“And Hannah,” Uncle Chris said, utterly absent any repentance or shame.
“Serves you right to lose, then,” Uncle Rafe said. “A fine thing for a friend to do—wagering upon one’s children.”