“But—”
“Enough, child. You make my head buzz with all your silly prattle. I have given you my reasons and you have agreed to abide by my decision. Once some time has passed, and the governments conclude their deliberations, perhaps then I shall set you off to France with my blessing. I may even accompany you. But for now—”
“But for now I am safer in London,” Mary ended fatalistically. “But all this pretense, I vow I cannot like it. Even my name—”
“Perkins!” Rachel interrupted rather loudly, startling the butler into nearly oversetting the tray of tea and cakes. “How famished I am. If you would set the tray on this table I’m sure we shall be able to serve ourselves quite well unaided. Thank you, Perkins.”
Mary watched the butler’s departing back, a rueful smile on her lips. “I almost gave it away just then, didn’t I, Aunt? Thank you for your timely intervention.” Then, momentarily feeling mulish, she added, “Though I still think this whole deception is silly.”
Rachel and Sir Henry exchanged knowing looks over Mary’s head and pretended not to hear her last statement. Biting into a warm scone, Sir Henry questioned, “Which one of Mary’s suitors were you discussing when I entered the room? It’s getting to the point where I have to keep a list with me at all times so that I may check them off when I am forced to turn down their requests for her hand.”
Mary thrust her full lower lip forward into a pout. “Lord Tristan Rule, Uncle Henry, and he is not a suitor. He’s a nuisance!”
“Tristan?” Sir Henry repeated, puzzled. “I’ve never known him to be in the petticoat line. My congratulations, my dear, he’s a fine young man.”
Mary leaped to her feet and glared at her beloved guardian. “If you have any affection for that fine young man, you will steer him swiftly away from my direction before I skewer him with my parasol! I cannot stand the creature!”
And with that, Mary quit the room, stopping only to snatch up a few fragrant scones, leaving Rachel to explain Lord Rule’s recent behavior to Sir Henry.
TRISTAN RULE REACHED DOWN a hand to assist his opponent to his feet. “Sorry, George. It seems my tiresome temper has gotten the better of me again.”
“On the contrary,” Lord Byron replied, gingerly rubbing his aching jaw, “it was my fault entirely. I should have known better than to cast aspersions on our esteemed War Office while sparring with Ruthless Rule. Besides, I thought I had a better chin than I seem to possess. Just remember, Tris, the pen is mightier than the sword. I’ll simply have to scribble a canto or two someday about our esteemed military gentlemen.” Stepping out between the ropes held apart by his friend, Byron called out ruefully, “Tom, my good man, you’d better look to your laurels now that Ruthless Rule is stepping into the ring. I do believe he would make even you a fair competitor. Now toss me that towel and help me totter over to find a glass of wine, if you please.”
Dexter Rutherford, who had been holding a towel at the ready for his idol, Lord Tristan Rule, dashed to the side of the ring, a look of slavish adoration on his young face. “What a leveler you served him, Tris!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hero’s bare shoulders with more enthusiasm than expertise. “The great man himself, dropped by a single blow. What science, what speed, what—”
“What loss of control,” Tristan ended crossly, effectively wiping the grin from Dexter’s face. “We were only sparring, you bloodthirsty infant. George wasn’t expecting that bit of home-brewed I served up to him. Thank goodness he’s a gentleman.” Taking the towel from his shoulders, Rule rubbed it briskly across his face and neck. “It’s this deuced inaction, I feel like a coiled wire ready to spring. I can see that this peace everyone is so delirious about is going to take a bit of getting used to.”
Tom Cribb, the retired “Champion Boxer of all England,” approached the pair, a nearly full glass of wine held in front of him. “With Lord Byron’s compliments, my lord. And may I say it was an honor to watch you in there. If you ever have a mind to go a few rounds, I wouldn’t say no to you. Your right hand reminds me a bit of Ikey Pigg’s, and I considered him a very worthy opponent in his day.”
“Ikey Pigg!” Dexter cried scoffingly. “Molyneaux, more like, and it took you thirty rounds or more to best him too. Ikey Pigg?” Dexter shook his head. “Damned insult if you ask me.”
“Nobody did, sprig,” came a voice from behind the young man. “I’d say my good-byes now, if I were you, before Tom here takes it into his head to squash you like a bug.”
Dexter whirled to greet his cousin. “Julian! Did you see him? It was nothing next to marvelous, I tell you. One moment Lord Byron was standing there, his fives at the ready, and the next he was rump down on the mat, with Lord Rule standing above him, breathing fire.”
“Sorry we missed it,” Julian Rutherford, Earl of Thorpe, mourned falsely as he joined the group. “Yet somehow I feel that we shall all be able to relive the moment ad nauseam over dinner this evening if Dex here has anything to say in the matter.” Julian turned to address Lord Rule as Tom Cribb drifted away to talk to some of his other patrons. “You haven’t forgotten Lucy’s invitation, have you? I’ll have the devil to pay if I tell her I’ve seen you here without reminding you that your presence is required at table.”
“Not to mention what Jennie will do to me,” Kit Wilde, Earl of Bourne, put in as he too joined the small group, barely concealing a smile as he thought of his wife. “Your cousins are both rare handfuls in their separate ways, Tris, as you must know.”
“Will your aunt Rachel and her charge also be present?” Tris asked, slipping his arms into the shirt Dexter was holding up for him.
“Mary Lawrence?” Julian asked rhetorically, winking slyly at Kit, who was hiding a grin behind his hand. “So it’s true, what Lucy and Jennie say? I warn you, they’ve as much as made a match of it between you.”
Tris looked blank, as indeed he was at a loss to understand what Lord Thorpe was talking about. “Make a match of it? With Mary Lawrence? What in blazes put a fool notion like that into their maggoty heads?”
“Not just them, Tris,” Dexter supplied with all the innocence his ignorance of the world provided him. “Saw it in the betting book at Boodle’s. At least three wagers on when the announcement will make the Morning Chronicle.”
Tris snorted. “The Morning Chronicle—as if anyone would believe anything James Perry has to say in that paper of his. Why, I read one of his ‘stories’ just the other day that told of Prinny being applauded as he passed through the streets. As if being hissed at and having your coach pelted with cabbages can be called acclamation. Give me the Times, thank you. At least John Walter could be trusted to keep the war news straight.” Then, belatedly getting down off his high ropes, he gave a bit of thought to just what Dexter had said. “Betting on me at Boodle’s, are they? Who, damn it? Give me names, boy, and I’ll call the bastards out, damned if I won’t!”
“That’s it, Tris, keep a cool head, just like you’re known to do,” Lord Bourne jibed, placing an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Besides, you have no one to blame but yourself, the way you act whenever the chit enters a room. Can’t remember being so dashed silly about Jennie, even when she was leading me around like a puppy longing for a pat on the head.”
Rule retied his cravat with more intensity than flair, his dark eyes flashing in a way that made Dexter decidedly nervous. “I only stand up with the girl for a single dance in an evening. I don’t see where that should serve to set the world to hearing wedding bells.”
Now it was time for Kit to wink at Julian. “I see your point, Tris. How like society to jump headlong to the wrong conclusion. Just because you show up everywhere Miss Lawrence happens to be as regularly as the sun rises every morning and claim her for a dance before retiring to a pillar and staring a hole in her back for the remainder