A Duke in Shining Armor

“Your sister did not have five younger brothers to consider, or improvident parents, or a shrinking marriage portion, or being voted Most Boring Girl of the Season seven Seasons in a row,” she said. “I was growing panicky. And so were my parents.”

“You have a few good years left,” he said. “I’m still puzzled about the boring part.”

“You don’t know me as I truly am,” she said darkly. “I can prose on about first editions and Maioli’s Library and early copperplate engravings until my listeners keel over in a dead faint. Worse, I have a System, inspired by the American president, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, who applied Bacon’s table of science to the organization of books. My own method is rather more complex, and I can hold forth on the topic for about twenty times longer than listeners can bear to hear it.”

He had been looking straight ahead at a not especially thrilling view—mainly of the postilion’s back and the horses’ posteriors. Now he turned to look at her. She was gazing through the front window as well, a grim set to her mouth.

The mouth onto which he’d put his a very short time ago.

But it wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last mistake he’d ever made, he told himself. He and his friends had not won the title Their Dis-Graces for acts of virtue.

“Maybe you’re the one who’s bored,” he said. “Maybe your brain’s too large and lively for the company you keep. Good little girls. A lot of rules about every damned thing. Maybe you go on and on about the books because nobody understands you anyway, and at least it’s fun to watch their eyes glaze over.”

It wouldn’t have occurred to him, in all these years, that she would have been bored. He’d assumed she was like other respectable girls, and she’d fit in. Now, having known her all of—what? Two hours? Three?—he was amazed she hadn’t fallen into some kind of trouble long before now.

She blinked hard, and he saw a tear steal down her cheek. She brushed it away. “I don’t doubt you speak from your own experience,” she said. “It isn’t hard to see boredom as a problem for you and bad behavior a perfect solution. But it’s different for women. We’re supposed to be pleasing.”

“Dress more daringly, and you’ll please,” he said. “Men are simple creatures, as I ought not to have to explain to a woman in possession of a surfeit of brothers. What you’re wearing now, for instance. Shows off your figure. The black lace adds an air of mystery and danger—”

“I! Dangerous!”

“Didn’t you see how relieved Bullard looked when he saw he had only me to fight, not you? Dress like a dangerous woman, and men won’t notice what you say. They’ll be too busy thinking improper thoughts.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to the Duke of Ripley offer brotherly advice,” she said.

“I do have experience in that line,” he said. “I am a brother.”

“Over whom his sister has influence, it appears,” she said. “And this, in an as-yet-unexplained manner, has led to undying gratitude on the part of a Putney dressmaker.”

“She wasn’t always in Putney,” he said, grateful for the return to the original subject. He wanted to hear more about Lady Olympia’s System and he did not want her to cry because a lot of small-minded fools found her boring.

These thoughts were bothersome, and he preferred them out of his head.

The dressmaker was another matter entirely.

“Mrs. Thorne, under another name, was a successful London dressmaker before she married Mr. Kefton,” he said. “She worked and he spent everything she made and then some. The bailiffs came and took away everything, lock, stock, and barrel. Kefton, courageous fellow, ran away. My sister, a loyal customer, told me the sad story and insisted I Do Something. To stop the nagging, I set up the dressmaker in Putney under the name Thorpe. The false name was necessary to foil the faithless spouse’s creditors as well as the spouse, in case he came sneaking back.”

“And now she does a booming trade in courtesans and merry widows?” Lady Olympia said.

“Let’s say she’s found a niche,” he said.

“In other words, that’s where you bring your mistresses,” she said. “All three of you, I don’t doubt. I can see the satirical prints now. My bosom will be falling out of my bodice, and bits of pink and black underthings will show, and my drawers—”

“Tell you what let’s do,” he said. “Let’s stop talking about your underwear.” An image had developed in his mind of her breasts escaping the dress’s bodice. It was a perfectly normal thought for a man but thinking it was unwise at present. He put it as far back in his mind as he could—no easy feat when she sat next to him and there was her bodice, practically under his nose.

He made himself stare at the postilion’s back, up and down, up and down, as the horses made what seemed to him excruciatingly slow progress out of Putney.

“Everybody will be talking about it,” she said. “And imagining the worst.”

“We’ll be traveling for half an hour or more,” he said. “After dragging unbalanced brides out of the Thames, insufficiently strangling bullies, and rescuing dogs, I should like a nap. Please exert your faculties to be less exciting. Much less exciting. More quietening.”

She looked up at him. “You cannot be suggesting I explain my System for Library Organization.”

“Exactly. Tell me all about it. In detail.”

Their Dis-Graces were in the habit of mowing down whatever got in their way. Accustomed to this modus operandi, the world usually got out of the way as quickly as it could.

But one couldn’t simply mow down one’s future in-laws and wedding guests. The guests were easily subdued with buckets of champagne and a story about the bride having been taken ill. The future in-laws were another matter. Even with Lord Frederick’s help, the company was not quickly appeased, especially Lord Ludford, who put the blame squarely on Ashmont.

Olympia was a good, sensible girl, Ludford said. She wouldn’t run away unless she was tricked or driven to it. He wouldn’t have people slandering her because His Dis-Grace didn’t know how to treat a gently bred girl, who did him a very great favor in accepting him.

Luckily, Ashmont, for once, didn’t start a fight. He was too impatient to be off to take much notice of anything anybody said.

Eventually the company was deceived and appeased to Lord Frederick’s satisfaction. Then, Blackwood having had the forethought to order the horses brought round well before everybody had settled down, the two dukes set out.

They soon reached Kensington’s High Street, though it wasn’t soon enough for Ashmont, who spent the short journey cursing his uncle and everybody else for making mountains out of molehills and slowing him down.

Then, since one couldn’t mow down possible sources of information, the dukes had first to fend off the hordes of boys who appeared out of nowhere and rushed toward them, offering to hold their horses.

“Looking for a bride,” Ashmont said. “Anybody seen her? With a tallish fellow, dressed for a wedding?”

The boys looked at one another, then at him, faces blank.

Ashmont held up a coin. “Come now,” he said. “A bride. In a veil and everything. Hard to miss. A shilling to the first lad who has something useful to tell me.”

No response.

“They’re as hard here as in London,” he muttered to Blackwood as he took out another shilling. “There’s two bob,” Ashmont said more audibly. “For the clever lad who gives me information.”

He saw one boy whisper to a smaller one, who was dressed in a curious costume. Under the grime, the smaller boy appeared to be fair, with an innocent-looking countenance. He shook his head at the larger one, who moved away.

Ashmont narrowed his eyes. “You, there,” he said. “I can tell a ringleader from a furlong away.”

All wide-eyed perplexity, the little one looked at the boys about him.

“Never mind them,” Ashmont said. “I’m talking to you, old fellow. The jockey.” For, upon further examination, he re

alized the boy was dressed in the tattered remains of what looked to be a racing costume. And the thing on his head was a yellow cap, two sizes too big.

“I fink His Nibs means you, Jonesy,” one of the boys said.

“If I was a jockey, you fink I’d be wearing vis?” the boy said.

Blackwood, who was more adept in Cockney, translated. And since he was the linguist, he continued with the boy. “Come along and let’s talk,” he said.

“I don’t know nuffink,” said Jonesy.

And all the other boys said, “We don’t know nuffink.”

Blackwood turned his horse and rode a little away, but not before displaying a crown so that only Jonesy could see it. No more than a glimpse before Blackwood made it vanish.

The boy approached him and stood, arms folded. “Vat was pretty good.”

“Owning the coin will be even better, I’ll wager,” said Blackwood. “But only if you tell me what you saw and heard when the toff and the bride were here.”

“Maybe he was here and maybe he wasn’t,” the boy said. “But if he was, I fink I remember he give us a glistener.”

A sovereign? Not impossible. While none of them were pinchpennies, Ripley was the most likely to give a lot of vagrant children an entire pound to keep mum.

“Then why aren’t you out celebrating your riches?” Ripley said.

“On account of not wanting to get flicked.” The boy made a gesture indicative of throat cutting. “I got it where it’s safe.”

If the boy had a coin of such value on him, he wouldn’t be safe, even in Kensington. Not that he looked as though he belonged hereabouts. He had rather more of the city urchin and less of the rustic about him—which probably accounted for the other boys taking their lead from one so small. His age was anybody’s guess.

Blackwood considered the shabby jockey costume. “It wouldn’t be breaking your sacred oath if you showed me where they went. I don’t have a sovereign on me at the moment, but I will take you up on my horse and trust you to show me the way, and give you the crown, as well.”

He’d made the right offer. The boy’s eyes widened—startlingly blue—and filled with longing. Then he glanced back at his cohort and shook his head.