Vixen in Velvet (The Dressmakers 3)

Then Swanton came out from the wings. He stood a little apart from the others.

Mrs. Williams kicked the coins off the stage and onto the floor. “You’ll need those,” she told Theaker. “To pay the lawyers.”

“You filthy, lying slut,” Theaker said. His furious gaze went to Leonie. “The pair of you. Blackmailing c—”

“You bastard!” Swanton roared. He launched himself off the stage and onto Theaker, knocking him down hard enough to make Theaker’s hat fly off.

Swanton grabbed him by the hair and banged his head on the floor. “You two-faced, bullying cheat! What did I ever do to you?”

For a moment, everybody simply stood dumbfounded.

Then Meffat ran back to aid his friend. The others shook off their stupefaction, and leapt off the stage and into the fray.

“Don’t kill them!” Leonie cried. “No blood! You promised!”

She wasn’t sure anybody heard her.

Swanton was trying to choke the life out of Theaker, and most of the other men were urging him on or making bets. But Clevedon pulled Meffat away and Lisburne pulled his cousin off Theaker.

“By Jupiter,” Leonie heard someone say. “Didn’t know Swanton had it in him.”

Later

That was better than any play,” Crawford said.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather when Swanton went for him,” said Hempton.

Lisburne doubted anybody was more shocked than he was.

Well, Theaker, possibly.

Lisburne smiled. “Swanton has unplumbed depths,” he said. “He’s not as soft as he looks.”

Not soft at all, Lisburne realized, except in his feelings, those tender sensibilities. In Tuscany hadn’t the poet walked along rocky paths up and down mountains with Lisburne? They’d crossed the Alps in miserable weather, and Swanton never faltered. He rode and fenced. He was fit, in any event, though not enough of a pugilist to floor Theaker in ordinary circumstances, as Swanton would be the first to admit.

At present, the men who’d joined them onstage now stood with Lisburne near Vauxhall’s entrance. They were watching the Master of Ceremonies escort the not-nearly-battered-enough Theaker and Meffat from the Royal Gardens. This Mr. Simpson did with his usual courtesy. Without appearing to be ejecting anybody he smoothly led them to the gate.

Some of the fête’s earlier arrivals were watching, too, and word was already beginning to travel round the gardens.

Meffat made a shamefaced exit. Theaker swaggered out as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

When they were out of sight, Clevedon said his goodbyes. He was eager to be home, Lisburne knew, to report the evening’s events to his wife.

“I do wish Lady Gladys had been there to see it,” said Flinton as they turned back toward the fête and its growing crowd. “She’s always maintained there was something fishy about the business.”

“There to see it!” Geddings said. “I should hope not. I blushed to hear some of Theaker’s remarks. Shocking language. Unfit for mixed company.”

“Doubt Lady Gladys’d turn a hair,” Crawford said. “She’s surely heard worse. Father a soldier and home like a military encampment, hasn’t she said?”

“Lord Boulsworth can make a sailor blush,” Hempton said. “That includes the King, or so I’ve been told.”

The King had entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman and spent a segment of his early life at sea.

“Lady Gladys will hear about it soon enough,” Bates said.

“Everybody will hear about it,” Lisburne said. Even before Foxe’s special edition appeared on Sunday morning, the Great World would be buzzing about the shocking disclosures, and the cruel way Theaker and Meffat had taken advantage of a young mother’s desperation.

Swanton’s display of outrage wouldn’t do his reputation any harm, either.

“I’ll wager five guineas those two will be on their way to Dover before dawn,” Bates said.

“Before midnight,” Hempton said.

A short period of betting ensued regarding precise times of departure—until Herringstone pointed out that it would be impossible to ascertain exactly what time the two would flee London.

That they would bolt for the Continent was not in dispute.

By Sunday, if not before, Theaker and Meffat would find all doors closed to them. Should they appear on the street, their former friends would cross it to avoid them. Wherever they went, they’d meet with the cut direct. They’d be fools to remain in London.

Despite Dulcie’s taunt, no one needed lawyers, as Leonie had pointed out early in the planning stages. She was, after all, a businesswoman, first, last, and always.

“Without friends, they’ve no credit,” she’d argued. “Without credit, they can’t remain in London. Every tradesman with a working brain keeps track of the bankruptcies and scandals. I certainly do. I like the idea of those two men spending time in a damp, dirty cell—but I think Lord Swanton would rather do without the publicity of a slander trial.”

True enough. All the same, Lisburne was deeply sorry to see Theaker and Meffat go with all their teeth intact. Especially Theaker.

But it was done, and Leonie was satisfied, and she’d stood to lose most.

Lisburne looked about for her.

Bates followed his gaze. “Where’s Swanton got to, I wonder?” he said. “You’d think he’d hang about to say bon voyage. Or throw bottles at their heads. Or at least rotten vegetables.”

When Lisburne had last glimpsed his cousin, the two women were towing him through the side door. “Probably gone off to find a quiet place where he can compose an ode to redemption or revelation or the death of illusions or some such,” he said.

“If I were Swanton, I’d hide,” Valentine said. “When word of his wild avenger performance gets about, he’ll have to fight off the women with a whip.”

“There you’re wrong,” said Hempton. “It’s his delicate sensibilities they love. Now he’s shown he has ballocks like the rest of us, they’ll have to take him down off the pedestal and treat him like anybody else.”

“Stuff!” Crawford said. “If you think so, you know nothing about women. Did you forget that they cruelly aban

doned him when he was falsely accused?”

“Not all of them,” Flinton said. “Lady Gladys said it was a hoax or a madwoman.”

“All but her, then,” Crawford said. “But the others’ll be back, all weepy and conscience-stricken—and if you think women mind a man having ballocks, you need to make yourself a reservation at the asylum.”

Betting ensued.

Lisburne left them to it, and set out to find Leonie.

Darkness had fallen, and Vauxhall’s thousands of lamps were lit. The orchestra played. Some visitors danced. Others ate. Most of the children had been herded to entertainments near the other end of the gardens, where they’d have a prime view of the fireworks.

While she would have liked watching Theaker and Meffat’s ignominious departure, Leonie thought it best to get Mrs. Williams and Swanton away from the others. And if she was perfectly honest with herself, she didn’t relish hanging about that lot of men, given what Theaker had said.

Swanton went with the two women meekly enough—or dazed, was more like it. Apparently, he was as astonished with himself as others were. He accompanied Leonie and Mrs. Williams without protest to a supper box, and only stared at the menu blankly until they gave up on him and ordered.

The thin ham brought to mind Lisburne’s joke the other night. The wine was rather ordinary. But she was hungrier than she’d realized, and relieved, actually, to be with two people who required nothing from her, including attention.

Swanton ate what was put in front of him, though he did so in an abstracted manner.

Mrs. Williams reviewed her own recent performance, and imagined aloud the ways in which one might transform it into a play. The business at the end, when Lord Swanton leapt onto Theaker, would have an audience on its feet, she maintained.

“I wonder your lordship doesn’t write for the stage,” she said.

“I’ve tried,” he said. “But I haven’t the talent for plays. My mind’s too plodding and studying. My touch is too heavy. But you, Mrs. Williams, ought to write. The rest of us needed only to stand silent like the Greek chorus. Clevedon had the most lines, but he’s used to making speeches. But you—improvising as you went along . . .” He shook his head. “For a while I was so caught up in it that I forgot—plague take it! There’s Lady Bartham and her daughters. I forgot that half the world would be here tonight.”