Page 45 of Too Scot to Handle
Montague gestured for the groom to fetch him a drink. “Pointy was probably a ringleader. Pierpont is bored, his missus is lately a mother and likely hasn’t any time for him, and he’s none too bright. I confess I agreed to go along with the tavern bills.” He named ten other young men, exactly the crowd Colin would have suspected of such larceny.
The bill for drinks at the tavern was enormous. In Colin’s absence, the lordlings and younger sons he’d thought to make his friends had cheerfully directed the publican to put one drinking orgy after another on Lord Colin’s bill.
And why wouldn’t the tavern owner oblige them? Colin himself had given the man similar direction on at least three occasions.
The same game had been effected at a tailor’s, a glove shop, a bootmaker’s, and—thank God, only the once—at Tattersalls, among other places. Maarten was still sorting out the situation at Colin’s clubs, but more damage had been done there. If Colin had followed the typical English habit of paying the trades annually rather than monthly, he could well have ended up in real difficulties.
“You don’t buy a horse on another man’s credit,” Colin said. “If that’s how being a gentleman works, then I want no part of it.”
Win accepted a glass of wine from the groom, took a taste, and nodded. “That might be the point, MacHugh. You either pay up, or your entrée among the fellows will evaporate overnight. They won’t stand up with your sisters, won’t sit down to cards with you. Nobody will be rude, but you’ll have been weighed in the scales and found wanting. Have some wine.”
Colin did not want wine. He wanted a wee dram of the water of life, and he wanted to break some heads. Even in Spain, with the bloody French intent on murder, he’d not been this infuriated. The French had been doing what soldiers did—fighting, trying to hold territory for their commander, attempting to keep France’s borders secure.
While Win’s cronies were little better than well-dressed pickpockets. “The horse must be returned, with Pierpont’s apologies. A misunderstanding, a wager gone awry. I don’t care what story he concocts.”
Horses were bloody damned expensive, and if a man couldn’t afford to buy one, he might well be unable to properly keep the beast.
“I can’t recommend that course,” Win said, passing Colin a glass of wine. “Twenty years from now, when your daughter is making her come out, you’ll hear whispers that her papa has no sense of humor, that he values a penny more than the goodwill of those gracious enough to accept him into their ranks. The offers she’ll get, if any, will be colored by how you behave now.”
Rage and bewilderment racketed about in Colin’s mind, along with a sense of betrayal. The young men to whom Win had introduced him had seemed like good fellows. They were polite to Edana and Rhona, and greeted Colin with open good cheer on the street, in the clubs, and in the ballrooms.
Now this. Now dozens of fingers sneaking coin from Colin’s pockets, and he was supposed to call it high spirits, a lark, a joke.
“I feel as if I’ve intercepted a message in code.” Colin tossed back the entire glass of wine, though his behavior caused Win to wince. “The words seem to say, ‘Welcome to polite society, Lord Colin. Congratulations on your good fortune.’ The true message is, ‘Welcome, Lord Colin. How much can we fleece you for? We’re lazy, greedy, completely without honor, and you’re a Scottish fool who was better off mending harness or tending to his whisky.’”
Win refilled Colin’s wine glass. “May I ask how much you’re expected to pay?”
Colin named a sum that had sent him into a twenty-minute swearing orbit about the library desk that morning. Thank God that Maarten had insisted on tidying Colin’s affairs in anticipation of departing for Scotland.
“That is”—Win took another delicate sip of wine—“rather a bit of coin. If you pay off the sums owing, I’ll put a word in a few ears. A jest is one thing, but I hadn’t realized how far it had gone.” He passed his wine glass to the waiting servant. “I trust you can manage the sums due?”
The question was carefully casual.
“I’m tempted to not pay the damned bills,” Colin said, exchanging his wineglass for a reloaded pistol. “I’m tempted to remind the good tailors, haberdashers, glove makers, horse traders, and publicans of Mayfair that what a customer does not order or sign for, he is not obligated to pay for, gentlemanly pranks be damned.”
Win sighted down the barrel of the second reloaded pistol. “Again, MacHugh, such a tantrum would have repercussions you’d regret. Not only would those in on the joke learn of your parsimony, but the third parties involved would be bilked of needed coin. You can’t gather up the dozen men who might have drunk a few toasts to you, and assign each of them a portion of the resulting expense.”
Colin had been considering that very approach. Spread over twelve quarterly allowances, the amount in question was extravagant but manageable.
The grooms were busily arranging crocks and jars along a single branch, though the targets were small this time—jam jars from the looks of them.
“So what do you advise, Win? I’m to pay these bills, smile, and pretend it’s all quite amusing to have been robbed by your friends?”
That solution was so nauseatingly English, Colin considered scooping up his sisters and leaving the entire problem behind him. He could be sued for debt—he was a commoner—but these were not debts he’d incurred. They were debts landing in his lap because the tradesmen and merchants had no choice but to trust their betters.
Reneging on the bills would, as Win pointed out, simply widen the circle of victims to include people less able to bear the burden than Colin was.
“You not only pay the bills, smile, and pretend it’s all amusing,” Win said gently, “you publicly stand the perpetrators to a round in honor of their boldness.”
Good God, this was schoolyard politics. “Is that before or after I call them out, and dim their arrogant lights, one by one?”
The pistol was double-barreled, two shots being standard in most contests of honor. The weight was exquisite, the workmanship so elegant, the result should have been art rather than weaponry.
“MacHugh, your Scottish temper will not serve you in this instance. Take it in stride, smile, and consider it the cost of membership in a very worthwhile club. By June, you’ll be sorry to part from the same men you want to call out now.”
Colin had not expected to remain in London until June, and the delights of a London season had apparently paled for Ronnie and Eddie too. But he had the House of Urchins to consider, and the surprising realization that Anwen Windham had been willing to forego Colin’s kisses—his very company—to stand up for the boys.
She’d amazed him, and probably amazed the lads as well.
