“I swear, Lewis,” Jack growled, pulling him aside before entering the green room at Covent Garden. “If you’re going to stand there and glower like some goddamned governess, I’m going to punch your lights out.”
Lewis opened his mouth to reply, but Jack went on without giving him a chance.
“Tonight’s the night I grow up. I’m going to bed a woman. You might try and do the same.” Jack released his arm and edged his way through the gentlemen crowding the doorway.
Lewis found his mouth was still hanging open, and closed it. He wouldn’t be growing up tonight, but he’d never been in the green room and he was curious.
He knew which chit he would head for, if he were Jack. A pretty girl with a mop of curly brown hair and long, slender legs shown off by the trousers she wore in her breeches role. It had been only a bit part, and she wasn’t in the green room at all. He wasn’t sorry. Nice to think she was safe from the lechers who crammed the overheated room. He could smell them—years’ worth of their sweat and the scents they wore to mask it. He had no ambition to become one of them.
He spotted Lindale chatting with one of the actors. And there was Jack, sitting by the long mirrored counter where the actors removed their make-up and costumes. The target of his attentions was no chit, but an older woman, the only one with talent. On stage, she had played a widow, courted by the older male character. If she’d lived one day less than thirty-five years, Lewis would eat a newt.
Lord Portleigh hung over her as well, double Jack’s age and far more experienced—but Jack had gotten the stool beside hers. As unlikely as it seemed, she showed every sign of interest in him. His leg touched hers as they talked, she leaning toward the mirror, he leaning toward her. She must have worn a wig on stage because the hair that fell to her shoulders was brown, not blonde.
Is she the best you can do, Jack? Not that thirty-five was old, precisely, but for a man of twenty-two…
The woman met Lewis’s gaze with eyes like none he’d ever seen, topaz that sparkled from across the room. Her age didn’t matter, nor the color of her hair. She was a beautiful woman. Jack wasn’t doing badly, after all.
She lifted one sculpted brow and said something to Jack over her shoulder. He laughed, and she smiled at Lewis, mockingly. Then they turned their attention to each other. Lewis spun on his heel and left the room. He had no obligation to provide them with entertainment.
On his way out of the theater he stooped to pick up a playbill, one of dozens littering the dirty floor. Scanning the cast list, he found her. Juliet Squires. It wouldn’t be her real name, and it didn’t matter in any case. Jack could have her.
In the week that followed, Lewis saw little of his best friend. He rode by himself a couple of mornings while Jack slept off his exertions of the night before, and spent his afternoons seeing the sights and surveying London’s noblest buildings. In the evenings he accompanied Cassie and her parents to a dinner party, a concert, the theater—but no balls. He had not danced a step in the two weeks since he last saw Anna Spain. Didn’t miss it either…except for the feel of her hand on his arm. Her smile directed at him. Pretending for half an hour that she was his.
Around midnight, he met up with Jack for whatever entertainment Lindale had planned for the night—not that Jack cared if he came or not. Lindale, at least, welcomed him. And later, he went home alone. Jack might continue with Lindale or go to Miss Squires; Lewis didn’t know, and he didn’t want to. God forbid he should be accused of glowering like a governess.
“Foul! The button’s come off!” Angelo’s was packed, and a crowd had gathered to watch their match. Without its protective cap, the sharp point of Jack’s foil glittered as it sped Lewis’s way.
Lewis parried and stepped back, turning his own weapon toward the floor. They had graduated from the blunted practice swords just last week—perhaps it had been a mistake.
Jack could not possibly have missed the shouts and Lewis’s disengagement, but it seemed he didn’t care. He continued his attack, ignoring the men hissing in censure.
Incredible that his best friend would keep fighting without the button. Incredible, too, the wave of rage that rose from Lewis’s gut. He had tolerated all of Jack’s fits and megrims these past weeks, stifling the harsh rejoinders that sprang to his lips, delivering a pat on the back instead of the punch in the nose Jack deserved. Because they were friends, and friends…
Well, friends did not come at you with a naked weapon, damn it!
Lewis scrambled to escape. Pain stung his arm as Jack’s thrust poked through his shirt and skin. He slipped, almost fell, but saved it, parrying Jack’s next attempt from one knee.
“Put up, put up!” Monsieur Fortier rushed forward to separate their blades with his own.
“Back off,” Lewis snarled. He was finished taking the sneers, the taunts, the sarcasm. He drove Jack across the floor, every muscle working to fulfill his objective. Time to teach Jack a lesson.
Jack retreated, stumbled, managed an awkward parry. His sweat ran freely, into his eyes, sticking his hair to his forehead.
Men scattered out of their path as he drove Jack to the edge of the cleared ring and beyond until Jack hit the wall, dropping his blade to save his footing. A quick touch to the heart with his foil, and then Lewis pinned him with a forearm across the chest.
He shoved his face into Jack’s. “The button came off. You didn’t notice?”
Jack’s eyes widened. He gave Lewis a sudden shove and pushed away from the wall. Shouldering his way through the silent men surrounding them, he strode across the room to the changing benches. He jammed his feet into his boots, snatched up his coat and hat, and charged out the door onto Bond Street.
Not long ago—maybe five minutes—Lewis would have followed to make sure he was all right.
Not now. No more throttling his own feelings because Jack was drunk. Or weak. Or drowning in London’s hurry-scurry entertainments. Or whatever the hell was wrong with him.
Lewis sat still until Monsieur Fortier approached, all but prostrating himself in apology. “Milles pardons, monsieur! I am in horror that I did not see…”
Lewis wanted none of it. He wiped his face and pulled on his boots, stood up and shrugged himself into his coat. Then he picked up his hat and turned to go.
Monsieur Fortier delayed him with a touch. “Vous êtes bien, monsieur?”
Lewis avoided whatever concern or dismay might show in the man’s expression. “It’s only a scratch. Merci.” He crammed his hat onto his head and shoved through the door, out onto Piccadilly where he could be alone amidst the multitude.
Before he’d gone ten yards, someone fell in beside him.
“What the hell was that about?” Sir John’s face was red, his brows drawn together in anger. Sir John never cursed.
Lewis stopped walking. “Good lord. Were you there?”
A nudge from Sir John set him in motion again on the busy pavement. “What possessed him to do such a thing?”
“Haven’t a notion, sir.” Lewis forced a smile for the benefit of those passing by. Just an ordinary conversation. One he wished he was not having.
“Come, Lewis! What’s the matter with my son? You know him better than anyone.”
Lewis shook his head. “Maybe I used to. I hardly recognize him anymore.”
“What is going on, besides staying out all night and drinking?”
Drinking a great deal, and then drinking some more. Horrid stuff, out of dirty glasses, shared around the table.
“Is he gambling, Lewis?”
“Oh no.” Jack was bored by cards, which was just as well. He didn’t have the patience to make a success of it. “Horses and cockfights, that’s all.” And cockroach races, and whether Creech could knock over the nightwatchman’s box without getting caught, and who would be the first to drink himself under the table. Mostly it was Lewis, which Jack found hilarious.
They crossed Albemarle Street and kept going. “Why would he ignore the first rule of fencing etiquette? Had you done something to anger him? It’s easy enough to do nowadays.”
Lewis shrugged. “He says I’m imposing my conscience on him.”
Sir John stopped and laid a hand on his arm. “Jack might not appreciate your efforts, lad, but I do.” He was short of breath, his face sheened with perspiration. He looked older than Lewis remembered. “I’m heading home. Where are you off to?”
“Honestly, sir, I wasn’t paying attention.” Lewis had stormed out of Angelo’s with no goal. He just needed to walk. He had dragged Sir John blocks out of his way. Across the street, the Green Park reservoir lay like old pewter, gray and sullen like the rest of London.
Lewis raised a hand for a passing hackney and helped Sir John into it.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be along soon,” Lewis replied. He couldn’t possibly sit still, not yet.