Page 104 of Miss Dignified
“Breakfast, no doubt,” Sybil said. She’d donned a dressing gown and was decently covered when she opened the door, though beneath that dressing gown she wore nothing at all. Wesley spared the clock a glance. Breakfast, or a reprise with Sybil, would take only a quarter hour.
But no. He would see Marcus off if it was the last thing he did—before a reprise with Sybil such as only an earl-in-waiting deserved.
“We have company,” Sybil said, stepping back. “Colonel, Major, good morning. Fournier explained that I should expect a visit from you.”
Wesley slipped into his coat, though for Sybil to welcome her next diversions into the very boudoir before Wesley had left was awkward, to say the least. Not well done of her.
“Gentlemen,” Wesley said, nodding in an earl-ish fashion. “I bid you and the lady good day. I must be off.”
“Orion Goddard,” said the gent with an eye patch. “You are Wesley Glover?”
“I have that honor.” Soon to be Earl of Tremont, at the rate Papa was drinking lately.
“Alasdhair MacKay,” said the other fellow, who looked much too serious for a man contemplating an interlude with Sophie and the Goddard fellow, though something about Goddard and MacKay looked familiar.
Even the names rang a faint, slightly-the-worse-for-overimbibing, bell.
Too late, it occurred to Wesley that introductions under the circumstances were somewhat out of place. Gentlemen did not kiss and tell, and they certainly did not stand around in a courtesan’s bedroom exchanging introductions. Moreover, Wesley had contributed handsomely to Sybil’s household expenses with what ready cash he’d brought to London, and this whole situation was really quite—
“I like naughty men,” Sybil said, wafting toward the door, “but I like having money more. Safe travels, Wesley, and I’ve packed a few bottles of Fournier’s excellent claret for you.”
She slipped out the door, blowing Wesley a kiss, and he had the sick, sinking feeling that she’d kept him abed until this appointed time and done so at the request of these two brigands.
“If you will excuse me,” Wesley said, gathering up his pocket watch, “I have a pressing engagement.”
“You will want that fancy walking stick,” Goddard said, nodding toward the accessory Wesley had propped near the door. “And Sybil has kindly had your things packed and sent to the docks.”
“As it happens, I am on my way to the docks now.” Sybil had chosen a strange way to give him hiscongé, damn her. Women were all alike, always resorting to intrigues and guile to get what they hadn’t earned.
The next thought to go crashing through Wesley’s head was that trunks were sent to the docks for only one reason.
“What is all this about?” he snapped.
Goddard tossed a small leather bag at him, which clinked when Wesley caught it. “That is all the remittance you will ever see, a nod to familial loyalty from the earl whom you repeatedly betrayed. Don’t expect another penny from Tremont. Don’t think to come near his mother or sister in person or by letter or by intermediary. Your father has been pensioned and might well join you in Philadelphia, but that is not your decision to make. Now, Glover, unless you don’t mind getting blood on that pretty cravat,march.”
“March?” None of this was making any sense. “I am not some enlisted private that you—”
The other fellow, MacKay, smiled. “Keep talkin’, laddie. For every word, I’ll land a wee blow. For your widowed auntie, for your cousins, for the pure joy of pummelin’ an arsewipe who deserves the noose.”
Oh God. A cheerfully brawling Scotsman. “No pummeling necessary,” Wesley said, snatching up his tippling stick. “I’m marching.”
And march he did, right up the gangplank of theRebecca Louise.
Epilogue
“Jeanette reports that Marcus has the whole situation in hand,” Lydia said, folding up the letter but not immediately passing it to her husband. Summer had fled, autumn had passed, and she’d spent her first Yuletide in the wild and beautiful Welsh countryside, but each and every day—and night—she still marveled that she and Dylan were husband and wife.
The sisters yet bided in London, having taken over Dylan’s house, and they showed no sign of returning to Wales anytime soon. The kittens had made the journey to Wales in good health and now required separate baskets, as both were becoming rather majestic, considering their humble origins.
“Your brother has a talent for organization,” Dylan said. “Marcus plays the dithering bumbler when he pleases to, but he’s shrewd about what matters. If he set out to see that London’s former soldiers have a place of refuge, then by God, he’ll make a proper job of it.”
Dylan sat at the library desk, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. He’d opined that the glasses made him look elderly. Lydia found them arousing, particularly when he lay in bed reading, and spectacles were all he wore.
“You made a proper job of looking after those men, Dylan.”
He smiled, and his smiles had the power to make Lydia’s tummy fluttery. “I am not an earl, my lady. My version of a proper job is patchwork and pinchbeck compared to what Marcus is accomplishing. What else does Cousin Jeanette report?”
“I’m not sure you will like this next part,” Lydia said, leaving her reading chair by the fire to deposit herself in Dylan’s lap.
