Page 70 of Miss Dignified
Marcus had not been clever. He’d followed orders. Before Marcus had taken ship for Spain, Wesley had told him that if ever Marcus needed to reach his cousin discreetly, he was to have Miss Sybil Fontaine of Ambleware Court post what appeared to be a tailor’s bill to Wesley at Tremont.
When Marcus had been sweating and marching himself to death in Spain, that scheme had seemed like some schoolboy subterfuge, but then the war had ended, and life as Marcus had longed to live it had ended as well.
“Your Sybil is sweet,” Marcus said. “The Goose serves surprisingly good ale, if you’ve a mind to partake.”
Wesley looked about the inn’s dingy common, his expression more curious than repulsed. “Pretty tavern maids always bode well for the quality of the ale, regardless of how humble the institution might appear.” He led Marcus to a table in the corner, and they both took seats facing the common.
Marcus remained silent as one of those pretty maids served the drinks. When Wesley had done the requisite flirting and ogling, Mary Ellen—sixteen, illiterate, and as shrewd as any barrister—flounced away.
“My Sybil,” Wesley said, “is very expensive, but also well worth the coin. You do not look to be prospering, old man.”
Wesley had dressed in the first stare of gentlemanly morning attire, a rare miscalculation for him. Even Marcus knew to dress for the occasion, whatever that occasion might be.
“In these surrounds,” Marcus said, “the prosperous are soon relieved of their trappings. You will be left in peace because you are with me, but a handsome tip to Mary Ellen would not go amiss.”
Wesley took a sip of his ale. “These are your regular associates now? I did try to find you, you know. Had a few inquiries made of some of your former subordinates, as best I discreetly could. Spent some coin on trying to track you down, all for naught. One worried.”
Hadoneinadvertently caused the beating of the wrong Private Brook in the course of those discreet inquiries? Marcus declined to kick that hornet’s nest.
“I try not to associate too closely with anyone, but I am allowed to ply my trade as reader and amanuensis here at the Goose. Unfortunately, given the regular clientele, that means some of my former subordinates have indeed recognized me.” Those former soldiers also thought they knew why Marcus lurked in the stews, but they did not know the whole of it.
Wesley did not know the whole of it either, but he knew enough.
“Will they keep mum, old chap?”
“I cannot afford to trust to their discretion indefinitely. They are good fellows, but they like a pint or three when they can afford it, and they were never very impressed with me as an officer.”
“Then they are idiots, judging their betters. What would a lot of riffraff know of an officer’s duties?”
Marcus took a drink rather than reply. Wesley was clever, articulate, charming, and handsome. Quick-thinking, never at a loss. Would have made a good officer. In this case, however, Wesley was wrong. The enlisted men knew best when an officer was incompetent. They lived and died as a result of that officer’s abilities.
Another odd miscalculation on Wesley’s part, but one doubtless meant to bolster Marcus’s spirits.
“Fortunately,” Marcus said, “I am no longer an officer. I am, however, in want of funds.” He blushed to make that admission, and the blush embarrassed him almost as much as the truth of his statement.
“In want of funds? I thought you said you were employed? Lavish spending will only draw attention to you, and we can’t have that, can we?”
The cajoling note in Wesley’s tone grated, particularly because one of Marcus’s last acts before leaving England had been to establish a generous allowance for Wesley. At the time, he’d felt he owed his cousin. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“I must take ship, Wesley. Lydia has taken it into her head to search for me, and you know how she is.”
Wesley patted Marcus’s wrist. “You need not tell me how she is. I expect I’ll have to marry her. I listen to Papa’s rants many a night over the port. Headstrong widows and interfering spinsters are among his favorite themes, with an occasional nod to slacking tenants. I’ll give Liddie some babies, and she can spend all her days managing them and their nurserymaids and leave the rest of creation in peace.”
The notion of Lydia and Wesley married did not sit well. Wesley was a capital fellow, full of charm and so forth, but Lydia had little patience for foolishness, and Wesley did love a good lark.
That Marcus would not be on hand to discuss the match with Mama and Lydia, that he would never see the nieces and nephews Wesley contemplated so casually, hurt.Accept the things to which fate binds you…The great philosopher had excelled at taking his own advice, while Marcus wished fate had bound him to some pleasant country manor and a smiling wife.
“I know Lydia claims to be visiting Aunt Chloe,” Wesley said, “but my informants tell me that’s not the case. Auntie offered me some taradiddle about Liddie nipping down to Town to do a spot of shopping. If so, the Tremont solicitors haven’t any idea where she’s got off to, though she might well have been shopping since Yuletide. One doesn’t know whether to worry for Lydia, or reserve one’s concern for greater London.”
Marcus had given himself orders to carry out at this meeting, and those orders did not include disclosing Lydia’s whereabouts. Had Wesley not been so jocular, so cavalier, about the woman he intended to marry, Marcus might have deviated from his orders.
But Lydia always, always meant well, and Wesley was choosing a poor time to be a bit silly.
“Never mind about her for now,” Marcus said. “The time has come for me to make an orderly retreat from Albion’s shores, and I need the blunt to make that happen.”
Wesley took a sip of his ale, his gaze on Mary Ellen as she bent to scrub a table across the room. The vigor of her actions reverberated through her frame, making her nether end jiggle, perhaps intentionally.
“If you know where Liddie has got off to, old boy, you should tell me. I’ll fetch her home to Tremont, and Papa will stop haranguing me about unbiddable females. Aunt Caroline got all the biddableness in our family. Liddie’s lack of the same quality is unnatural. Babies, I tell you. The woman needs babies, and lots of them. The sooner the better, and it shall be my happy privilege to get them on her.”
