Page 12 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
Georgie went on tiptoes and kissed Jack on the cheek. Silly old habit, one that needed to end, but affection was in short supply these days.
“How can I help you, Jack?” And that was the type of upper-class accent that Jack and Sarah never even dreamt of attempting, the kind that sounded like whiskey and smoke and expensive dissipation. Georgie had always been better at these things.
“I need to know about the Wraxhalls. Any debts, scandals, whispers of anything interesting. I’m not turning much up.”
“I’ll take a look and send you word—” Georgie abruptly pulled Jack into the shadows as a couple of gentlemen descended the stairs from the club. The gaslight shone full on their faces and Jack saw that one of them was Wraxhall himself. And the other was none other than Oliver Rivington. Very interesting. Rivington had failed to mention that he was friendly with Wraxhall. Jack flattened himself against the building to remain unnoticed. “Speak of the devil,” Georgie whispered. Jack watched as they shook hands and exchanged a few words, Wraxhall then climbing into a waiting hackney and Rivington limping down the street. Jack didn’t take his gaze off Rivington until the man had turned a corner and was out of sight.
Well, well. If Georgie couldn’t turn anything up on the Wraxhalls, maybe Rivington was on the scent. Jack would just have to find out. And if that meant keeping his eye on the pretty young gentleman, then that was no hardship.
Georgie had been fiddling with a glove button but abruptly stopped when he noticed the trajectory of Jack’s gaze. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Not one of them, dear fellow.”
“Don’t try to dear fellow me.” Jack crossed his arms, annoyed that Georgie had noticed Jack’s interest in Rivington, even more annoyed that there was anything to notice.
“Don’t try to distract me.” Georgie pulled out a silver snuff box that glinted even in the shadows. Jack rolled his eyes at the habit. “I’ll grant that Rivington’s pretty enough, but your former employer’s brother-in-law? Certainly not.”
“You sound just like Sarah when you talk like that.”
Georgie looked up from the snuff box long enough for Jack to see one elegantly shaped eyebrow shoot upwards. “So Sarah knows about this too?”
“No. There’s nothing to know, I mean,” Jack grumbled, and knew he sounded like a petulant toddler.
“Take it from me, Jack, you do not want to get in bed with these fellows. Literally or figuratively.”
“I’d really like to know who you and Sarah think I properly ought to sodomize,” Jack said, in a vain attempt to regain the upper hand through shock. “There wasn’t a chapter on that in the etiquette book Pa made us memorize.”
Georgie snapped the snuff box closed and pushed off the wall they had been leaning against. “I’m more concerned about you letting yourself get bought and paid for.”
Jack bristled, but knew Georgie was right. As a young man—little more than a boy, really—Jack’s father would send him into a dark alley with a man like Rivington. Jack would emerge a few shillings richer and sometimes even satisfied. He wasn’t ashamed of that time, but he didn’t want to repeat it. Especially not with Rivington. What if the other day in his office, he had gone to his knees before the man? Rivington wouldn’t have stopped him, he was almost sure of it. But afterwards, would Rivington have tried to slip him a coin? Jack felt the anger boil up inside him even at the thought.
A cloud must have blown away from the moon, because suddenly Georgie’s face was illuminated. There were new lines, traces of weariness. “What swindle are you running now?” Jack asked. “I haven’t seen you in daylight for weeks.”
“We’re done here, Jack. Don’t try your tricks on me.” And with that Georgie was gone, and Jack was once more alone, in a too-fashionable part of London, with more questions than answers.
CHAPTER FOUR
“But have you tried thin gruel?” demanded the lady seated to Oliver’s right, using the tone of voice he associated with the least tolerable kind of schoolmaster. “My uncle always said it helped his gout.”
Oliver wanted to know how gruel of any consistency could magically unfire the French musket that had damaged his leg, and how gout had anything to do with gunshot wounds. Oliver hadn’t been prepared for this aspect of his injury–always having to talk about it, always having to act faintly apologetic when other people’s proposed cures failed to work.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll be certain to tell the cook.” The lady wore a turban that listed dangerously to one side, and it was all Oliver could do not to reach over and set it right.
Oliver resolved to escape from this dinner party as soon as he decently could. Perhaps Charlotte had been right, and this invitation had been the last in the world that he ought to accept. But the Wraxhalls would be here, and he wanted, somehow, to get them away from Jack Turner’s influence. Oliver still had nightmares about what happened when men made their own justice, and he wanted to prove to Turner that even someone in as pitiable a circumstance as Mrs. Wraxhall could be helped without such a dangerous recourse. If that meant spending an evening in company just this side of shabbiness, then so be it.
Oliver nearly felt guilty at how easily he’d finagled this invitation and a good many other ones besides. He had paid a visit to that tailor Charlotte had recommended, left a couple of calling cards here and there, and made a few appearances at the theater and Almack’s to remind the ton that he was still alive, and now he was positively inundated with invitations. Of course that success owed more to who his father was than it did to any of his own charms.
He could have vanished and been replaced with the page in Debrett’s that listed his birth, and it would likely not have made much of a difference. This was all a bit lowering after having spent his entire adult life making himself useful in the service of king and country.
Still, he had put his pedigree to good use tonight, because now he knew a little bit more about the Wraxhalls. For instance, they were the sort of couple that scarcely looked at one another when in company. They were terribly cordial—devastatingly polite—when forced to speak to one another. He didn’t notice any coolness or animosity, only a total bland indifference. Wraxhall drank too much, though. Oliver had gathered as much from seeing him imbibe at their club, but the port went around three times before Wraxhall declined. It was a wonder the man was still on his feet.
He wanted to tell Mrs. Wraxhall to take her tipsy husband and get on the next ship for South America or at least Italy, far away from blackmailers, far away from snobs who looked down at her for her lack of breeding. Far away from whatever lawlessness and chaos she was inadvertently about to dip her expensively shod toe into.
Of course Mrs. Wraxhall did not recognize Oliver from that afternoon in Turner’s study. He had been well concealed in the shadows and she had scarcely turned towards him anyway. And likely she wouldn’t believe that Oliver could have anything to do with a reprobate like Jack Turner.
Oliver could scarcely believe it himself.
When, finally, it came time to leave, he decided to walk the short distance back to Rutland House rather than hail a hackney. He was restless, and besides, hackneys always made him feel vaguely itchy and in need of a bath.
