Lewis seethed as the hackney carried Jack, Captain Fuller, and him away from Mayfair toward the blighted streets of another London. He felt like one of Congreve’s rockets, stuck in a box with a lit fuse and nowhere to expend his rage. He’d worked the entire evening to protect Miss Spain from his brother, and she spat on his efforts, trotting off to dance with Gideon as though she could imagine nothing more delightful. He was disgusted with her, and with himself. Whyever had he thought she would appreciate his help?
Then Gideon had insulted her—threatened her, for God’s sake—and though Lewis was angry with her himself, his hands had squeezed into fists and his teeth clenched so hard he thought they would shatter. He’d taken two steps to follow, but Lady Wedbury had gripped his arm and leaned on it as though she really needed his support.
“This is not the place to make a scene, Lewis dear,” she’d murmured, smiling beatifically as they ushered the two girls through the doorway and down the stairs.
Her restraining hand drove him wild, but she was right. He’d been enough of a spectacle at the damned ball, watching over Miss Spain like some Byronic moonling. Tackling Gideon on the stairs, or in the vestibule, or even out on the pavement, would have intensified the rumors, when his whole purpose tonight had been to give them the lie. And Gideon would grind him into mincemeat for the sake of a girl who apparently could not care less.
Lewis, Jack, and the captain had hied it to the Wedburys’ to change out of their formal attire. They were gone again before Cassie and her parents returned, detouring as they must to take Miss Spain home.
Lewis took a gulp from the bottle of brandy Jack had snatched from the library on their way out of the house, searing his throat and the back of his nose, blotting out the smell of God-knew-what that permeated the cab. Tonight, he welcomed the numbing fog alcohol would bring. Cockfights ranked at the very bottom of his list of entertainments, except for dogfights. And hangings.
Jack lowered the window to shout, “Can’t your nag move any faster? Give you a good price for the whole evening if she’s got a good steady trot.”
Lewis could not hear the coachman’s reply, but the whip cracked and the cab lurched forward. He imagined himself home in Yorkshire, risking his neck on a crazy moonlit gallop across the moor. Gideon stood directly in his path, too close to get out of the way. He could almost see his brother’s shocked face go down beneath the pounding hooves.
As they finished off the bottle, the hackney slowed to a snail’s pace, nudging its way through Seven Dials. Lewis leaned forward to join Fuller at the window.
“Might as well be back at Almack’s,” he muttered. The street was just as crowded, filled from one side to the other with people and vehicles. Unlike King Street, however, this one was narrow and filthy, lit only by torches that smoked and sputtered outside the building where, he supposed, the cockfight would take place. They’d not yet opened the doors, and all the denizens of this rat-infested realm clustered on the cobbles, shouting greetings and vulgarities. It looked a bit like a masquerade ball, coal-heavers and shopkeepers cheek-by-jowl with aristocrats in satin coats and snowy muslin cravats. A few females circulated among the crowd selling gin or porter, a few more selling themselves.
“There’s Lindale,” exclaimed Jack, peering out the other side of the carriage, “and some of the others. Let’s go!” He pushed open the door, magnifying the smell of smoke and piss, and hastened off, leaving Lewis and the captain to make arrangements with the driver.
That worthy fellow clambered down from his seat and spat in the direction Jack had gone. “Won’t be goin’ nowheres ’til they let the crowd in, anyways. How ’bout you find me at the Dirty Dog, back there on the corner?”
Fuller agreed and gave the man enough money for a few drinks. “There’ll be plenty more if you’re there to be found, and get us home in good order.”
“Aye, sir.” The fellow delivered a sloppy salute and another gob of spit, narrowly missing their boots. They left him leaning against his cab as though he had all night. Which he probably did.
It was an empty warehouse, none too clean and far too small for the number of people who surged through the doors. The promoters had constructed some rickety tiered seating and a ring for the combatants.
Mostly the night was a blur of flying feathers—black, gray, red, copper—and dead birds. Birds with their eyes pecked out, birds bleeding from everyplace you could imagine, birds cowering before a final onslaught by their conquerors, whose spurs had to be pried from their flesh by the handlers. Lewis must have been the only man there who never placed a bet.
“It’s positively un-British,” claimed Captain Fuller. “Every schoolboy in England learns cocking, along with his maths.” Lewis had never been at school. Perhaps that explained it.
“Come on, Lewis,” cried Jack, flushed with gin and excitement. “Look at that brass-back. He can’t possibly lose against that scrawny-necked fellow.”
But he did lose, which confirmed Lewis in his determination not to waste his blunt. Jack had plenty, he could afford to throw some away. Lindale too, most likely. But Fuller and some of the others surely had no more in their pockets than Lewis himself, yet they wagered significant sums based on little more than whimsy.
“Don’t you think he’s a bit taller than the other?”
“I’m sure the red pyle’s got the advantage in girth.”
“Gad, I like the look in his eye!”
They teased him, but he stood firm. Finally, Lindale gave up. “You’re a smarter man than any of us, Aubrey. Leave him be now, lads.” And they did. Or if they did not, Lewis was too drunk by then to remember it afterward.
He was not lucky enough to forget Gideon’s malicious sneer, somewhat later, inches from his face. “If it isn’t Little Lew, cockeyed drunk at a cockfight. Not so saintly, after all. I hoped you would follow me out of Almack’s so we could do battle over Miss…over Medusa’s honor.”
“I wanted to, by God,” Lewis snarled.
Gideon laughed and went on. “If you win the fight, she’s a lady of impeccable virtue.” He stood, wiping some pretended smudge from his sleeve. “If I win, she is—er—not.”
Lewis surged to his feet. “Don’t you dare say that!” He would have fallen if he hadn’t been gripping Gideon’s lapels.
“Dear Lewis. Women are all whores.”
Lindale and several others rose, surrounding and separating them, talking and laughing to throw onlookers off the scent. Gideon disappeared, and someone gave Lewis another cup of gin.
Past that point there were only vague images—Jack crowing over a lucky bet, another bloody death in the ring, and finally, being lifted bodily into the carriage for the ride home. He’d wanted oblivion, and he’d gotten it.
“There you are, Anna.” Mama set her pen in the inkstand and turned to face her. “Sloth is the devil’s pillow.”
“I’m not feeling well.” This morning, Anna had managed only a few bites of toast and half a cup of tea, and her stomach threatened to eject even that meager breakfast. She wandered to the window and sat in the windowseat.
Mama came close, took Anna’s chin in her hand and angled it upward. “Not looking well either. Just as well you missed our callers.”
Anna said nothing. She’d been ready to come downstairs earlier, but any urge to do so fled when Putnam mentioned there were visitors.
Mama withdrew her hand. Her questions would come next. Anna could almost see them forming in her head.
She spoke first to forestall them. “How was your evening, Mama?”
“It was pleasant. The company was very select. So cultured, so well-dressed. I did quite well.” Mama preened, plucking the lace at her cuffs into shape. “And you? Did you dance with Mr. Aubrey?”
“He didn’t come until very late. Sir John and Lady Wedbury were already—”
“Because I’m told you did. That’s good, Anna. Very good indeed.”
Of course Mama knew. How could I have thought otherwise?
“Did he apologize for treating you so shabbily?”
“He did not.”
“Humph. Well, I trust you did everything you could to attach him? Provocative glances, and smiles?”
Oh yes, she had smiled. But she was finished with provocative glances. “Mama, I’ve told you, I don’t—”
“Don’t be snippy with me, girl. The Season is more than half over, and you’ll not get another. You’ll make Mr. Wexcombe rub his hands with glee.”
Mama strode away to the desk and took up her pen again. “Eligible husbands don’t grow on trees. That brother of his hasn’t two pennies to rub together, I’ll be bound.”
Anna returned to her contemplation of the raindrops wending their way down the windowpanes. Lewis would make a far kinder husband than Gideon, no doubt about that. He would be loyal, and considerate, and respectful. Cassie said he had a respectable income, left him by the uncle he’d been named for. It wouldn’t be enough for Mama and Papa.
Anna didn’t care much about the money. Yet somehow, loyalty and kindness paled beside the things Gideon had offered—verve, excitement, kisses that buckled her knees and weakened her will. Why should that be? She’d read about love. It was supposed to be glorious, beautiful, timeless. Sometimes tragic, to be sure.
None of the poets had said it would make her stupid.