by Bliss Bennet
Dulcie took a step closer, a muscle twitching at his temple. “And what would you have had me write? Should I have exposed you to the same shame, the same punishment, as you did me? Should I have rhapsodized over my desires for the male figure, as you so foolishly did in your letter? Espoused everlasting love for a twelve-year-old boy?”
Benedict hung his head. For weeks after the start of the new term, a term without the warmth of Dulcie’s friendship in which to bask, Benedict’s younger self had yearned for such a missive. If not a declaration as open as his own had been, at least some token of Dulcie’s continuing friendship and esteem, a sign that his rash letter had not estranged them completely. And after Leverett began to command him to do more than black his boots and clean his room, Benedict had become desperate for word from the boy he’d so idolized. Not just an acknowledgment of what they had been to one another, which had begun to seem a trick of his imagination, but a desperately needed dispensation from his new fagmaster’s stomach-turning demands.
Did you not hear me, Pennington? I said, Dulcie’s given you to me. How disappointed he’ll be to hear you’ve refused to honor his wishes.
Still, at seven and twenty, he could not but acknowledge the wisdom of Dulcie’s words. Lord Milne had pulled his son from school to separate him from a witlessly besotted boy. Benedict shuddered to think what his own father might have done if he had intercepted such a note addressed to one of his sons.
“Come, Benedict,” Dulcie said, giving him a playful punch on the arm before scooting around the desk and tipping back in the chair behind it. “What good does it do to brangle over things long past? Especially now, with an election to contest? What we need is a plan. First, we must find out just what the Nortons are up to, and how we may best circumvent them. Give me paper and a pen, and I will write to my political acquaintances in town and find out all there is to know of the matter.”
“And will you write to George Norton, too?” Benedict asked. “I would not discount your influence over the boy, even if he has taken to following about Leverett in your absence.”
“Yes, I will write to young Norton. Not to express my surprise and disappointment at his jump into the political pond, but to tempt him back to his true interests, by describing my latest artistic acquisitions. Far more effective to influence a person by appealing to what excites him, rather than berating him for something over which he may have little control. And then, my dear Benedict, if my fingers have not grown numb from penning so many missives, I will take up my pen once again and write to Lattimer Leverett, to chastise him for his bald lie to your younger self.”
“No.” Benedict paled at the thought. That first term, serving as Leverett’s fag, he’d indulged in feverish dreams of a valiant Viscount Dulcie, returned to Harrow to pluck him from Leverett’s malignant grasp. But after waiting for months in vain, he’d finally realized he’d have to be the one to stand up to Leverett if he ever hoped to be free of him.
Benedict had always hated conflict, but ever since that day, he’d understood the necessity of confronting and resisting any attempt to use rank or power to cow or intimidate.
No, Dulcie need never know what violations Lattimer Leveret had committed, all under the cover of Dulcie’s name.
Benedict pushed the inkwell aside. “As you say, there is no need to dwell on the past.”
“As you wish.” Dulcie picked up a penknife and began sharpening a quill. “Still, silly boy, you should have known better than to believe I would ever have ‘given you’ to Leverett. No true appreciation for the finer things—or the finer people—in life, none at all. I shudder to think he might someday have the raising of a child.”
Benedict swallowed back his rising bile. Especially if that child were a boy.
CHAPTER TEN
Harriot Atherton—Dulcie simply refused to call the poor girl “Harry”—took a few hesitant steps towards the library, then glanced back at him with a frown. “Are you certain, my lord?”
“Yes, yes,” Dulcie assured her, then made a shooing gesture down the hall with the fencing foil he held in his hand. “Did you not yourself tell me he has been the most helpful of all the family in preparing for the upcoming village fete?”
“Yes, but to participate in such a public display?”
Almost pretty, she was, when her brow furrowed in concern. He could understand why Saybrook had taken such a fancy to her, although he would never align himself with a person whose father had lost his wits and misplaced hundreds of pounds of the rents from his estates, as Dulcie had recently discovered. But then Saybrook never had been accounted a man whose own wits would set the Thames on fire.
Did Benedict know of his brother’s financial problems? Ferreting out the truth about Saybrook’s missing funds had taken even Dulcie several days, and a fair bit of work—abundant winks and smiles at the housemaids, multiple chats about the high costs of keeping good horseflesh in fettle with the grooms, and even a few rounds of ale at the Oldfield Inn’s taproom on the half-holiday of a footman or two. Even so, he’d not discovered the full story until he’d finally finagled an hour alone in the house this morning, and paid a visit to Miss Atherton’s “injured” father during one of his more lucid moments. Saybrook really should begin to search for a new steward; poor Mr. Atherton seemed unlikely to recover his wits any time soon.
Dulcie longed to preen over the success of his discoveries with Per, but Sir Peregrine and his wife were off canvassing in the eastern reaches of Lincolnshire and would probably not return until after dark. Neither could he discuss young Norton’s challenge, for he hadn’t yet heard back from any of the political gentleman to whom he’d written earlier in the week. Waiting for the dark, waiting for the post, waiting for Benedict to stop ignoring him—impatience rode him like a hag. He needed some physical outlet, some challenge to distract his body from all the possibilities whirring around his mind.
Challenging Benedict to a swordfight would be just the thing.
Miss Atherton gave a discreet cough, then knocked upon the library door, even though it already stood ajar. If Saybrook did end up marrying such an unlikely chit, he’d have to teach her that a viscountess did not move about her own house with all the timidity of a church mouse.
“Mr. Pennington, I wonder if we might beg your assistance?” she asked as Benedict appeared in the library door.
Something inside Dulcie settled into place at the sight of him. The infuriating fellow had been avoiding him like the plague ever since their argument over young Norton and Leverett. Well, he’d kept his distance from Benedict for more than a month, waiting in vain for him to admit how foolish it was to moon after some ideal, unrealizable vision of an imaginary future lover rather than to embrace the actual man who wanted him now. He wasn’t about to let Benedict employ the same tactics on him, even if there was far more to that story about Leverett than Benedict had let on. Benedict’s emotions had seemed in danger of getting the better of him, and Dulcie had saved him the embarrassment by not pressing him for more details. He’d have to remember to find out the truth from Leverett once they were both back in town.
“Of course, Harry,” Benedict agreed, obviously not having yet caught sight of Dulcie leaning against the wall beside the door. “Bunting to be pulled out of the attics? Tea urns to be dusted and polished?”
“Nothing as domestic as all that,” she said with a diffident glance towards Dulcie. “Lord Dulcie is persuaded that a display of swordsmanship by the gentry would be a fitting conclusion to the festivities of the Oldfield fete, and has kindly offered himself up as participant. I did express some doubts as to the safety of such a display—”
“Indeed.” Benedict stepped into the passageway to search out Dulcie, and then to fix him with a chastising glare. “But I’ll warrant the viscount offered to demonstrate its harmlessness if you could but find him a partner with whom to spar.”
Miss Atherton sighed with relief. “However did you know?”
Benedict did not roll his ey
es, although Dulcie could see he was sorely tempted. But annoyance was only a small step away from liking, was it not?
“A lucky guess, no doubt. And where does my lord wish this demonstration to take place? Saybook House hardly features a salle d’armes.”
Dulcie pushed himself off from the wall and gestured towards the back of the house. “If it were rainy, the picture gallery would do. But on such a lovely day, I think the rear gardens a far better choice. I’ve spied a suitably flat patch of walkway just beyond the rose bushes. And before you protest that you have no foil, I assure you that I always pack extras whenever I travel.”
“Of course you do. Why else would you need an entire carriage for your baggage? Thank you, sir, but I prefer a weapon from the Saybrook armory.”
“Very well. Come, Miss Atherton, let me show you the precise spot I have in mind.”
Dulcie took the lady’s hand and tucked it into his elbow, then led her outside, keeping up a lively patter all the while, all about the transformation of fencing from an art of war to a sport, and the benefits to health, poise, and grace that it developed in a gentleman. He had no need to look over his shoulder to see if Benedict followed. The fellow was too kind to disappoint Miss Atherton, the companion of his childhood, or to leave her stranded with him for any length of time.
He smiled when footsteps sounded on the wooden floor behind them.
“You see, this is a practice foil, covered with a leather button at the tip so that no harm can come from it,” he explained as they stepped out into the sunshine. “Even if one did have the sad misfortune to run into it by accident.”
“My sword has no such button,” Benedict declared, holding out the weapon he had retrieved for Dulcie’s inspection. Sharp steel, with an open brass guard and a wire-wrapped grip. Not the weapon of one unskilled in the art. “Perhaps you should reconsider?”
“How kind of you to worry, sir. But I doubt you’ll be able to come close to pricking me.” Dulcie pointed his own weapon towards the side of the pathway. “And if you stand just so, Miss Atherton, you will be well out of the reach of our thrusts. Mr. Pennington, you may take your stand on the walk opposite.”
“What if I’ve never even trained with a foil?” Benedict asked as he moved into position opposite Dulcie. “I could kill you simply through ignorance.”
“Are the stories Leverett wrote to me from Harrow untrue, then? That you returned to school Michaelmas term with your own weapon, and threatened to run through anyone foolish enough to torment you?”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed. “You corresponded with Leverett after you left?”
“I did. And he was not at all pleased to have a fag with more skill at the sword than he himself ever had, I assure you. I wish I had been there to see you mock him with Hamlet’s famous lines: I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance / Your skill shall, like a star i’ th’ darkest night, / Stick fiery off indeed.”
Why should his praise of Benedict’s skill bring such a scowl to the man’s face?
He must have been staring for some time, for Miss Atherton finally interrupted with an awkward clearing of her throat. “How do you go about beginning such a match?”
“Ah, yes, the opening.” Dulcie jerked his eyes from Benedict’s and took up his position on the walkway. “We begin thus, with our feet placed in a lineal manner. Some argue that it is better that the weight of the body should rest wholly on the left leg, but I am of the opinion that is incorrect, for a body resting on both legs must be more firmly planted than if it rested only on one. Do you not agree, Mr. Pennington?”
Benedict frowned, but nodded.
“This is what we call En garde,” Dulcie continued, raising his empty left hand behind him and his right, sword held lightly, in front. “Then we ask if both combatants are ready: Pret. And then: Allez!”
At school, Benedict had never enjoyed the rough and tumble of physical competition. Yet the adult Benedict fenced with even more skill than Leverett—jealous, no doubt, of the younger boy—had attributed to him. It took most of Dulcie’s attention, and much of his breath, to maintain his defenses. Benedict’s face glowed with the exertion, and his own blood sang in his veins. Damnation, why had he not thought to challenge Benedict before?
Between quick breaths and fleeting grimaces, he called out the simpler parades for Miss Atherton’s edification. All the while, his opponent kept remarkably silent, saving his breath not to cool his porridge but to drive Dulcie back whenever he ventured an assault.
“You see, Miss Atherton, the true art of sword defense depends, in great measure”—Dulcie paused to parry Benedict’s latest thrust at the last possible moment—“on judgment in deceiving the adversary’s motions, and in not being deceived by his.”
A gloved hand batted Dulcie’s sword to the side before he had a chance to riposte. “Judgment?” Theo Pennington fumed. “Neither of you show very much of it, waving weapons about in the presence of a lady. Could you not have chosen some less violent manner of settling your disagreement?”
“Disagreement?” Dulcie exclaimed. “Why, I would never presume to take issue with the upstanding Mr. Benedict Pennington. No, we took up these weapons—foils only, you see, so no danger of harming even a fly—to show Miss Atherton how a display of swordsmanship might add to the festivities at the upcoming fete. Do you not agree, Saybrook, that yon peasants would thrill to witness such a sight?”
“Less so than at the sight of your waistcoat, Dulcie,” Benedict answered, tossing his foil to the grass and swiping a sleeve over his damp brow.
“Indeed.” Dulcie slid a complacent hand over the silk of his gaudy garment, wishing instead it could sweep over Benedict’s temples and thread through his damp curls. “Your people will hardly be able to talk of anything else for weeks, of that I have no doubt. Now do say you agree, Miss Atherton, and allot us time to display.”
The lady picked up Benedict’s discarded weapon and swished it experimentally through the air. “Such a performance would be wonderful, of course, my lord. But the contests at the fete, they are usually for the villagers themselves. And not between gentlemen they hardly know,” she added with an apologetic frown.
“But that is even better!” Dulcie said, clapping a hand to his thigh as an idea began to form in his brain. “They know the new Lord Saybrook, do they not? Or, at least, you wish them to know him better, and regard him in a more positive light. So, rather than cross swords with the younger Mr. Pennington here, I will make Lord Saybrook my opponent. And when he defeats me in glorious combat, why, he’ll be a veritable hero in their eyes.”
Dulcie knelt before Theo and held out his sword before him in a mocking display of medieval fealty.
“You’re an accomplished swordsman, Theo?” Miss Atherton asked as she held out the abandoned foil to Saybrook. “Why did you never say?”
“Oh, Saybrook’s skills do not matter,” Dulcie interrupted, pounding a fist against his chest. “Because I will allow him to win. The locals need never know.” He winked at Miss Atherton’s shocked expression.
“And you would do such a thing out of the kindness of your heart?” Benedict scoffed.
“Certainly not,” Dulcie replied as he rose to his feet. “Sentimentality is the realm of the foolish. Saybrook must first do something for me.”
Benedict’s brother snorted. “What, promise you my firstborn son?”
“Ha! As if I’d ever want any get of yours. No, you will order this stubborn brother of yours to accept my commission for a portrait.”
“A portrait?” Miss Atherton asked. “Of whom?”
Benedict shook his head. “Of his preening, coxcomb self. I’ve told you and told you, Dulcie, I’ve given over painting the human figure. Landscapes are my focus now.”
“And what of all those doughty shepherds you’ve been sketching? Are they too lowly to count as human?”
“Dulcie, you are impossible.” Benedict threw his hands up before turning his back on them all and stomping towards the house
.
Miss Atherton’s brow wrinkled. “Why should the idea of a commission so upset him?”
“Because he is a stubborn, petulant child?” Dulcie asked. “And look, he’s stormed off without even retrieving his foil. Would you be so kind, Miss Atherton, as to return it to him before he regrets its loss?”
“Certainly, my lord.” The girl dashed off a quick curtsey before following in Benedict’s wake, the sword tucked carefully by her side.
“You wish to employ Benedict to paint you? After you’ve teased him so unmercifully about his clear lack of talent?” Saybrook asked.
Was that regret, that strange feeling zinging through his chest? “The boy should know by now that I don’t always mean every cutting word that falls from my lips.”
“I think an apology from you would go farther in changing his mind than anything I could say to him.”
How ironic that Saybrook should choose this moment to play sanctimonious elder, a role for which his drinking and carousing in the past hardly qualified him. Although he hadn’t appeared cup-shot in company of late, at least not since Dulcie had come to Lincolnshire.
“But he won’t listen to me.” Dulcie did not stoop to outright pleading, but he did add just a touch of entreaty to his voice. “Not anymore.”
But Saybrook seemed uninclined to pity. “Take care of the problem yourself, Dulcie. I am not the kind of brother to order about my own siblings.”
“Oh, but I think you will,” Dulcie said as he dropped a heavy hand on Saybrook’s shoulder. “Because if you do not, a little bird just might whisper in your sister’s ear that part of her dowry has not yet been turned over to her spouse.”
Saybrook’s face snapped to Dulcie’s, his expression a comical mix of surprise and dismay. “How do you know that?”
“I didn’t, not for certain. Not until your oh-so-revealing face told me so.” No need to divulge his actual methods to the fellow. “Good thing you never play cards, Saybrook, for your expressions give all away.”
