My Fake Rake

“Instinct,” Grace said. “Like a tortoise retreats into its shell when threatened. No one tells it what to do. It just knows.”

The duke nodded. “The moment you try to quantify it, it slips away.”

Seb slapped his hands on the table as frustration bubbled. “So our task’s impossible.”

“Not so.” Rotherby held up a finger. “There’s observation, too. Surprised you didn’t think of that—man of the sciences that you are. And lady of the sciences,” he added with an inclination of his head toward Grace.

Seb exhaled, loosening the grip of his vexation. His friend was right—there were things one learned only through nonverbal, unrecorded cues. Numerous cultures possessed rudimentary written systems, and in some cases there were societies that had no written language at all. And yet they all functioned. They all thrived.

And, if Seb didn’t clamp down on his impatience, he’d fail not only himself but Grace, as well. It would be gratifying to have a book published—but her happiness was as stake.

“Enlighten us, Wise Old Rotherby.” He picked up his pencil and held it ready.

His friend bristled. “Old? We’re both four and thirty, for God’s sake.”

“But you’ve been walking this road for a long, long time.” Seb shook his head sadly. “And it shows.”

“You rotter,” Rotherby growled. “I ought to shove a teapot up your—”

“Children,” Grace said with the timeless voice of a woman who must, yet again, control unruly boys. “Can we focus, please?”

All three of them looked out the window, watching the passing traffic. Here and there were servants or laborers, but for the most part, the crowd consisted of finely garbed men and women making their way leisurely up and down the sidewalks.

“We’re early enough in the day that women are not looked at askance for being on Bond Street,” Rotherby said.

“Because of the prostitutes,” Grace said solemnly.

Mr. Mohan coughed in surprise as he approached the table. The teapot and cups on the tray he carried rattled, and he just managed to keep a grip on the bamboo handles. He managed to pour them all cups of steaming tea before retreating to someplace where, most likely, genteel young women didn’t openly discuss harlots.

“How do you know about that?” Seb asked. He couldn’t quite find it in himself to feel appalled. Sexuality was discussed much more frankly in countless cultures. It didn’t make sense why, in England especially, raising women to be completely ignorant about sex was something to be desired.

Still, his cheeks did feel a bit hot to hear her blithely discussing prostitutes.

“Overheard Charlie,” she said with a shrug, “talking with one of his friends, back when my brother was unmarried and something of a buck. It’s quite interesting what men discuss when they believe themselves to be alone.”

Rotherby himself looked a trifle unsettled. “We needn’t concern ourselves with the demimondaines and sporting hotels—”

“You mean brothels,” Grace noted. Her pencil moved across the page of her journal as she repeated the word.

“Don’t write that down,” Rotherby exclaimed. “It’s . . . er . . .”

“Not germane to the subject,” Seb filled in.

Before Grace could object, the duke plowed on. “In any event, I would ask you to take note of the men outside, and how they interact with the ladies. Not the older gentlemen who’ve settled into a comfortable middle age. The younger set.”

“The ones with the tightest breeches,” Grace noted. Her pencil moved in rapid strokes. “Showing off their thighs in an evident courtship display. Very common within the animal kingdom.”

“Are you sketching?” Seb asked. “Male thighs?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. We have to use every available avenue to record our findings.” Grace held up her journal, and, true enough, she’d marked the paper with very accurate drawings of male femoral regions. She hadn’t neglected the crotch areas, either.

Seb glanced down at his own pantaloons. They had been perfectly serviceable not but five minutes ago. Perhaps a trifle faded, and not quite fashionable, but they did little to highlight his own physique. He looked like a collection of tree branches swaddled in wool—a far cry from the strapping blokes outside in buckskin breeches.