Page 59 of Miss Dignified
Soldiers expiring of mortal wounds invariably called for their wives or mothers. Sick to death of the poverty, stink, and danger of the stews, Marcus knew exactly how they felt.
“Go to your brother,” Marcus said, “do as you must. I will make arrangements to take ship.”
“Don’t tell me where you’re off to,” Brook said, heading for the door. “I suspect I will enjoy a longer life if I’m allowed to march along in ignorance of your plans. Good day, sir. Shall I carry a message to your sister?”
Brook was anxious to clear the air with his brother, while Marcus had spent years perpetrating a lie on his family.
“The less Lydia knows, the better.” That was self-serving, and Brook’s scowl said he saw it as such too.
Oh, very well. Sentimental farce it shall be.“Tell her, if you can do so discreetly, that I love her, that she was the best big sister a lad ever had, and that I’m sorry.”
“She will want to know for what, sir.”
“Then don’t tell her that part. I am fresh out of cleverness for the day, Brook. Be off with you, and if you have anything to report, you can leave word at the Goose.”
“The Goose, sir? That’s little more than a…”
“Common nuisance with a taproom, I know. Nobody will think to look for me there, and everybody who patronizes the place is busy trying to not be seen. They won’t notice if I do my best Captain Powell imitation and slouch over a pint in a dim corner for an evening.” The Goose rented rooms by the hour to the game girls and their clients, did not believe in wasting money on too many candles, and managed to serve a palatable, if humble, ale.
Then too, the game girls needed somebody to write letters for them—pathetic fictions about posts in grand houses—and Marcus undercharged them for his work.
“Try to stay out of trouble,” Brook said, tapping his hat onto his head, “and consider simply explaining your situation to Powell. The war is over, and every soldier has regrets.”
“Powell doesn’t.”
“Why do you think he’s still in London when he longs for Wales? Why do you think he’s looking for me, when ninety-nine other sheep are safely drowsing in the fold? He has regrets. Depend upon it.”
Brook left, and Marcus sat for a long time staring at a cold grate and a grimy window. He could confess to Powell all day long about the many ways he’d bungled being an officer, and Powell might, for the sake of Marcus’s family, turn a blind eye.
But a bungled command was not the worst of Marcus’s sins, and even the upright and much-respected Powell could not forgive him all of his trespasses.
Nobody could. The time had come to contact Wesley, explain the situation to him, and wish him the best of luck at keeping Uncle Reggie from bankrupting the earldom. Marcus took up a precious piece of foolscap and sharpened his best quill pen.
“Madame, you know you are among my most-valued customers.”
Xavier Fournier could say that honestly. Sybil Fontaine was a successful courtesan, and when she bought wine, she did so in quantity. She demanded fair value for her coin, which Xavier aspired to provide all to of his customers.
She also, however, expected a miracle from him and was subtly offering her favors as an inducement, as if that would hasten shipping between Bordeaux and London.
“I am among your most devoted customers,” Sybil replied. “I praise your wine to all and sundry. Not too effusively, not too timidly, because the English regard passion in any form as suspect.”
“The English profess to suspect passion while indulging in excess as frequently as possible.” Some English. In Fournier’s experience, Englishmen were not so different from their French cousins. Some good, some bad, mostly in between, as he was.
“Have you taken to vice, Xavier, that you are now an expert on English overindulgence?” Sybil drew her finger along the back of his hand, letting her nail lightly scrape his skin.
That was supposed to be an erotic caress. Xavier wanted to push her hand aside, as he would a cat purposely flicking its tail in his face.
“I am no expert on anything, and I cannot produce case after case of claret by the end of the week merely because a beautiful and beguiling lady asks it of me.”
Sybil’s hand disappeared. “If I am so beguiling, why won’t you fill my order, Xavier? An earl’s heir has certain expectations of hischère amie, and Wesley Glover will be in London by Monday.”
Fournier rose and came around his desk to take the seat beside his guest. He’d received Sybil in his home rather than at his wineshop, and he’d not shown her to a parlor. To treat her as a guest would have made the identity of his caller known to any passerby gawking in the window.
The last thing Sybil would want, if this Wesley Glover fellow was on the verge of becoming her protector, was for rumor to imply that she’d been dispensing favors in Fournier’s direction. The issue here in the midst of good English Society would not be that she was plying her trade, not even that she’d done so with a fellow French national, but that she had done soindiscreetly.
“Tell me of this Mr. Glover,” Fournier said. “Perhaps something other than claret will appeal to his discerning tastes.”
Sybil sat up straighter, like a schoolgirl called upon to recite, though no schoolgirl had ever sported such curves or worn fashions that showed them off to such elegant advantage.
