Page 25 of Indecently Employed
Clogg gave that a hearty laugh. Ajax found it surprisingly unfulfilling.
“Oh, you know. The lads are constantly dreaming up new things, new combinations. A button hook and a nail file, a button hook and a shoehorn.”
“Practical,” Ajax said blandly. Clogg was a fellow useless son of an industrialist; his father had cornered the market on buttoners years ago. Wilkie spent the earnings like water while his progenitor did everything he could to prevent his son from wreaking havoc around the factory.
“Yes, well, they won’t give my thoughts a try.” Clogg snorted derisively. “A buttoner and a curling iron, that one is mine.” His face hardened. “You’d better not steal it, Sedley, mark my word.”
Ajax held his hands up. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Clogg. On my honor.” Not that he had much of that, but he was serious, a rare enough occurrence in these clublands. “What use would one have for such a contraption, anyhow?” He feigned ignorance, wagering that it would return far more amusement than refusing to humor the man.
Clogg’s face softened. “Ladies curl their hair. Then they button their shoes, button their clothes.” He lifted his coat by the lapels and rearranged it. “It’s brilliant.”
Ajax squinted. “Wouldn’t one button up first? Then curl?”
Clogg eyed him suspiciously. “Why is that?”
“Well, I’d assume the user might burn themselves or their clothing, were they to reverse the order.”
Clogg’s face darkened, this line of thinking clearly new to him.
Ajax added, “I suppose you might include instructions.”
“Yes.” Clogg coughed uncomfortably. He cast a glance about the room before pinning Ajax with a devilish grin and attempting to change the course of conversation. “So. I hear you’ve been busy.”
Ah. So here it was. Ajax shouldn’t have assumed he’d be allowed to slip inconspicuously back into his old routines following his most recent disappearance and subsequent return. Everyone was bound to have heard tales of his chaotic personal matters by now, and the current juiciest gossip was about him.
“Legitimizing your bastard?” Clogg chuckled. “What did your brother have to say to that?”
Ajax stared at the man he hardly knew but had gallivanted alongside for years. It boggled the mind, that he’d been content to be counted among these wasters. Because really, one evening in Clogg’s company was an evening too many.
“Her name is Charlotte.”
Clogg ignored that, and continued on. “How’d you know it was even yours? Women get these silly fantasies, these inane ideas from the fiddle-faddle they read. Sloppy romance and illogical fiction.”
“Is that where you get your ideas, then? Popular novels?” Ajax reached for his newspaper and opened it with a snap, the sound giving his conversation partner a start.
Clogg sniffed. “I should think not. I’d only hate to be trapped by some conniving tart’s scheme.”
“Pay it no mind, Clogg,” Ajax mused, perusing the paper. “No woman, silly or not, has fantasies of ensnaring you in anything.”
It took a moment, but the layabout recognized the cut. He cleared his throat. “I’ll… I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Hmm.” Ajax mused, turning a page as Clogg stood and walked away.
At least he had the decency to acknowledge his dismissal. But Ajax’s vexation remained. He sat, stewing, suddenly feeling all the eyes of the club on him. Judging him.
He had originally stood for the club as soon as he was able, and over the years it had offered him more of a home than any of the impulsively purchased Sedley establishments had. Well, asidefrom Gallox Castle. His father had bought that one long before Ajax had entered the scene. The previous owner, a destitute aristocrat, had clung to it as long as possible, until Ajax’s father swept in and offered the man more than the miserable pile was worth. The place had enchanted Ajax as a boy, as he desperately escaped from life with his family into fantasies of William the Conqueror and Harold Godwinson. When Tiberius eventually granted the estate to him, Ajax knew it was only a bribe to behave, but he didn’t care.
Ajax collapsed the paper into his lap. He needed to leave this place, to get out of London.
He rose from his seat, walked quickly out of the club, and returned home. Soon he’d return to his true home, his sanctuary.
The wedding, thankfully, passed without incident. The bride was beautiful and the groom handsome, if a bit severe in countenance. And although his niece had neatly worked herself up into a proper Sedley lather (or so she’d confided in Ajax), he was not worried, for the pair were very clearly besotted with one another, though they did their best not to show it.
And Miss Abbotts had worn the dress.
His heart, pesky little thing that it was, had leapt into his throat when he’d spotted her, a sophisticated beauty in gray and blue stripes. No one would think her a governess if it weren’t for the young girl next to her. Charlotte had capitulated enough to wear a gown in the fashionable new mauve color—reasonably appropriate for half-mourning—though she’d appeared as gloomy and quixotic as ever. Nevertheless, Ajax had felt a surge of pride seeing her there.
What he’d felt for her governess, though, he couldn’t quite name. He hoped it was a passing fancy, an outsized lust attributable to his idle mind and neglected physical appetites.
