Spinster's Gambit

by Gwendolynn Thomas

  “Is it appropriate for me to come out?” she asked, glancing over her body and praying she hadn't somehow forgotten something.

  “Are you, in all sincerity, attempting to be proper at this juncture?” Daniel laughed. “You’ve gotten this far. I’ve already stolen Henry Charington’s breeches, how do you expect me to return them?”

  Jac blushed at the thought and groaned, glaring at the plaster ceiling.

  “I am going to need to see you in breeches eventually. I can hardly escort you blindfolded,” he added. Jac squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like a ninny. She had to come out. She could not live the rest of her life alone knowing she’d followed all of society’s rules and been forgone nonetheless.

  “Very well,” she agreed, doing her best to sound confident. She opened her eyes and stepped out from behind the dressing screen. Daniel was leaning against one of her bedposts. He glanced over her outfit, his grin slowly widening into something fit for an asylum.

  “There, you look just like a very unfortunately formed man,” he said, gesturing casually to her dressing table as if he performed such pranks on a daily basis. Jac shot him a look as she crossed to the table and sat down. The cloth between her legs bunched and Jac shifted uncomfortably, trying to straighten it before she glanced up at her dressing mirror. She looked rather spectacularly ridiculous; a prim woman's face poking out from above a man's waistcoat.

  I have gone utterly mad.

  “So you've given up pretending to warn me away from all this, then?” she asked, picking up the wig he'd brought her and turning it around in her hands, trying to figure it out. “No one wears these anymore,” she added, frowning.

  “No man has hair beyond his shoulder blades either. You’ll just look like a dandy compensating for something. What's the worst that could happen?” He grabbed the wig from her hands and set it over her tightly pinned hair. Jac covered her eyes and groaned again, thinking about getting caught. “Honestly, Jac, people see what they expect to see. They do not go about lifting the waistcoats of effeminate men to double check, and certainly not the effeminate cousins of titled viscounts. You are perfectly safe,” he insisted, reaching for her pile of hair pins. Jac met his eyes in the mirror.

  “How do you know how to do this?” she asked and he simply grinned at her, the same idiotic smile he'd had since before Eton. Jac missed seeing it. There’d been too much time between when he’d left for school and when he’d returned. She’d grown too old without him, too reserved. Jac pulled the pile of pins closer and he started on setting the wig. At the end of the day, she thought, running her fingers over the cravat pin Daniel had set on the dressing table, she doubted anything would come of this. She would have one day of foolishness and they’d be done. Daniel handed her a black hat and stepped away from the table, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Minutes later they were sneaking through the hallway and down the stairs. Daniel led the way and sent every passing servant on a fool's errand. He bid her to stand at the corner of the neighbor's house, got a carriage pulled around and picked her up like a passing friend. All and all, Jac thought, Daniel seemed far too practiced at sneaking women out of their house. Still, he spent the entirety of the drive grinning out of the side window, looking pleased with himself. Jac spent it staring at her split breeches and barely keeping herself from biting all of the nails off of her hands.

  “Oh my Lord,” Jac muttered, closing her eyes as the carriage started to slow to a stop, no doubt outside of Daniel's favored club. She felt utterly ridiculous. “May we go home?”

  “Of course, but only after I teach you a bit,” Daniel replied, heartlessly pushing the door open and alighting from the carriage without a backward glance. Jac waited for a moment, blinking when the coachman did nothing more than wait for her.

  Of course, she thought belatedly, calling herself a ninny and rushing out of her seat, trying to make up for lost time. She smacked her head in her rush, knocking her hat askew, and checked it idly as she stepped down from the coach unassisted. It wasn't a particularly easy task in ill-fitting shoes and the coachman looked at her askance before settling back into his normal vacant stare.

  Thank the Lord for good servants, she thought, doing her best to stride up to Daniel without letting her hips swing.

  “Graceful,” Daniel commented, glancing back at the coach.

  “Thank you ever so much,” Jac replied, doing her best to hide her blush as she matched his pace toward the closest building. It was a large, brick establishment with no decoration and few windows. The walkway was icy and ill tended. Daniel leapt up the two front steps, apparently unconcerned. Jac glanced around the area, confused, until she saw the large sign hanging above the door, marked Henry Angelo’s Fencing Academy.

  “Might want to deepen your voice a notch,” Daniel warned.

  “Thank you so much,” she tried again, doing her best to ignore the coachman no doubt eavesdropping behind her.

  “Too low, you sound like you're trying,” Daniel whispered, knocking on the painted blue door.

  “I am trying,” Jac replied, less deeply.

  “It occurs to me that we may have wanted to practice this before we -”

  The door opened, revealing an average-looking man with black hair and spectacles. He eyed Jac speculatively for a moment before his gaze flicked to Daniel and lit up with recognition.

  “Good morning, my lord!” the man said, stepping aside to invite them into a small stone vestibule. “His Grace is in the practice room on your right, I believe. Shall I inform him of your arrival?”

  Jac turned wide eyes on Daniel, who was suddenly staring at the man, his mouth agape.

  Remembering that little detail about a fully-fledged duke waiting for him today? Jac thought, wanting to kick her brother even as she watched him collect himself.

  “No thank you. I will be training my cousin today but I shall inform His Grace myself,” Daniel replied, taking off his thin gloves and replacing them with an almost identical pair from his pocket. He left his hat on the vestibule’s side table and Jac followed suit.

  “Of course, my lord,” the host said and disappeared through a side door. Jac glanced around the empty marble room, feeling lost.

  The Duke of Aspen Jac thought, remembering Daniel once talking about sparring with the man. Apparently the duke was a skilled fencing partner, though Jac still did not see how Daniel could describe the man as good company.

  “Relax,” Daniel muttered, only to straighten when the Duke of Aspen, Richard Caraway, joined the room. He was a tall man with an aquiline nose and wavy brown hair that seemed to spill everywhere from the top of his head. He'd have been one of the most sought-after bachelors of their time, despite his rudeness, if it weren't for the scars.

  They wrapped up the left side of his neck, bubbly and ill-colored, over his face and into his hair, disrupting his hairline. Even his nose was damaged though less so. It was as if the devil had grabbed onto the left side of his face and torn it straight off, leaving nothing but uneven leather behind. He’d had the wounds since he’d returned to England nearly a decade past, though Jac did not know the particulars; she’d been trapped in Abingdon tending to her ailing father and worrying for Daniel. She’d heard the gossip, certainly, stories of scandalous diseases and horrible accidents, but it seemed no one knew the exact truth of the matter.

  The duke glanced at her, curiosity flashing over his face before he turned back to Daniel, apparently dismissing her.

  “No need,” he said, striding further into the room. “I heard it all.”

  “Aspen, may I present my cousin, Sir Jack Holcombe. Jack, His Grace the Duke of Aspen,” Daniel introduced, politely drawing the duke's attention back to her.

  Jac started to curtsy and had to fake a coughing fit to cover and turn it into a bow. She stood, doubting the fit had helped at all, to see the duke rising from his own bow, hopefully having missed her awkwardness. Daniel had stuffed a fist halfway into his mouth
but was still failing to contain his laughter. He sounded like he was choking.

  “Well met, Your Grace,” Jac said, keeping her voice low, trying to sound like Daniel meeting another man.

  “Likewise,” the duke replied, blinking at her curiously before glancing back to Daniel, who had mostly composed himself. The duke raised his eyebrows, apparently unimpressed. So he hadn't somehow missed the curtsy-coughing-fit-bow, Jac thought, wishing she could turn around and run back to their carriage.

  “Oddly enough, my uncle managed to neglect part of Jack's upbringing. Now that he's come to visit the sights of London I've offered to remedy that and instruct him in fencing,” Daniel lied. “I'm afraid I will have to refrain from sparring today.”

  The duke smiled politely.

  “I will drill, then,” he replied and started to strip off his waistcoat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Jac felt herself gaping and snapped her eyes away, another blush coursing up her face.

  ~~//~~

  Aspen felt a jolt of sympathy for Daniel's cousin, though he'd already forgotten the boy's name. Lord, but the lad was an awkward fellow, half incapable of even bowing without falling over himself. He was thin and frail looking, but his ill-fitting waistcoat stretched badly over his chest, revealing an unfortunately placed layer of fat. He wore a white, long-tailed wig that bunched up in curls around his ears, as if he’d walked out of a pawn shop believing himself sophisticated. Aspen decided not to comment, and led the two into the training room he'd occupied beside the front door, only to turn and see the lad glide into the room, his hips swinging strangely. The boy couldn't be older than eighteen – he hadn't even a suggestion of hair on his face - but Aspen thought that degree of awkwardness had to be more than adolescence.

  Aspen returned to the fencing drills he'd abandoned at Daniel's arrival, doing his best to ignore his friend's very bad fencing instruction. The man was a brilliant duelist but his teaching style was absurd.

  “Excellent, now throw your front leg forward and land with your knee bent. No no, see, with a good deal of force behind it. And let your upper body stand up straight, as if you hadn't moved from en garde at all. Your leg should be at a right angle to – no no, don't lean forward,” Daniel told the boy. Aspen watched in the mirror at the end of the room as the short, gangly boy attempted the lunge. The lad looked as if he were attempting to walk a tightrope, waving his hands at his sides wildly. His wig flopped around his shoulders, leaving a spray of powder on his ill-fitting waistcoat. He looked like a circus clown.

  “Keep your balance, Jack!” Daniel called out as the boy wavered. ‘Jack’, then, Aspen noted.

  “I'm curious, are you as bad at fencing as you are at teaching, or does your skill somehow get lost between your brain and your face?” the lad replied, his tone polite, turning to face Daniel head on. Aspen barked out a laugh, grinning at the pair. The boy glanced at him in the mirror, wide-eyed, and seemed to sink back into his shell. Aspen smiled easily at him.

  Boy's got bite, he thought, glad to hear the lad wasn't as witless as he'd seemed.

  “Never considered the fact that you're too daft to teach, have you?” Daniel asked.

  “No, but I’ve certainly considered the notion that you may be so,” the boy replied primly and Daniel laughed. Aspen chuckled under his breath, wishing he could think of a response that would let him join the exchange. He refocused on his drills instead, doing his best to ignore the pair.

  ~~//~~

  Jac blinked at the duke's laugh. Apparently he wasn't completely humorless.

  Perhaps he is only terse in great crowds? she wondered, though the thought hardly improved her opinion of him. But Lord, that didn't mean it wasn't entertaining to watch him practice. The duke was set up straight in front of her, leaving her with little else to look at, though she would hardly have complained. He was a tall broad-shouldered man. His body pushed into a lunge and pulled out of it like it was no effort at all, the muscles beneath his thin shirt clenching and releasing. The same move had her panting and flailing her arms for balance. She only had to avoid looking in the mirror to keep from seeing the scars on his face and he was quite handsome indeed.

  His scars covered his left hand and wrist, stretching into his shirtsleeve. She'd never seen that detail before. Jac wondered where else the scars touched and tore her eyes away, hoping Daniel didn't read the thought on her face.

  However bad Daniel may have been at instructing, she was enjoying herself as she hadn't since they were but very young children - before he'd gone off to school and she'd started learning asinine ways to sit and eat and talk and throw dinner parties. Her heart beat with the danger of being discovered but it was a thrill Jac was surprised to be relishing. The duke believed her costume; that was clear. He kept to himself and his physical practice and Jac began to settle into the lessons, trying to learn. They'd only just started another session of lunging and flailing back to standing when the duke approached them.

  “Your front foot should land heel-first or you risk sliding,” he suggested. Jac glanced down at her feet, unsure what he meant. She glanced at Daniel but the man was too busy nodding in agreement to assist her.

  “I confess I have no idea of what I am attempting,” she admitted, doing her best to keep her eyes politely averted from his scars. She decided to look at his feet, instead.

  “I am hardly surprised. I’ve been convinced for years that your instructor is daft,” the duke joked cheerfully, settling into a fencing stance beside her.

  “The thought had occurred to me,” she replied, grinning happily at the easy humor she could employ when she did not need to appear dainty and nearly brainless.

  “Oy!” Daniel complained, but he backed up to get out of the way.

  “Start with your feet like so, touching at the heels with your toes apart. Now bend your knees and rock back and forth, heel to toe. Good,” Aspen said, demonstrating the movement. “Now feel what it's like to shift your weight into one foot and free the other, then switch, back and forth.” Jac copied him and he smiled easily, looking almost approachable for a moment.

  “Step forward with your right foot. Keep your knees bent and your upper body straight. You don't want to bend forward or you will never be able to hit.” The duke moved slowly letting her watch him in the mirror. “Now push off with your back foot and advance a step, keeping the same distance between your feet. Good! Try to keep your heels on the same line. Use the cracks in the wood floor, if it helps,” the duke said, taking another step forward to demonstrate. Jac nodded firmly and advanced again, trying to keep her body steady and calm.

  “Now retreat, using your front foot to propel yourself,” he ordered. “Advance. Retreat. Advance, advance, retreat. Good! Now advance around the room until your legs want to fall off to the side. I'll teach you how to lunge when you can advance in a straight line without wavering,” he ordered. Jac felt sweat start to build up on her back and blushed, uncertain about exerting herself in front of a man. Fortunately, the duke turned away and started toward Daniel, suggesting that they duel while she practiced.

  They left her to herself and Jacoline focused on her footwork, her fear slowly falling away.

  “I have business. I'll see you both here next week, I trust?” the duke’s voice startled her out of her concentration. Jac wavered, almost falling out of her stance, and looked up to see the man standing a few feet in front of her. He bowed shortly and Jac did her best to bow back. The duke nodded easily to Daniel and walked away, leaving Jac to blink at her brother and wonder if he would help her disguise herself once again. It would be unusual in the extreme for a man to visit his cousin for less than a week, having travelled at least two days in coach from Abingdon.

  “Oh...dear,” Daniel said succinctly once the duke had gone.

  “You didn't happen to mention a cousin visiting only very briefly a week or so ago, did you?” Jac asked quietly.

  “As it happens, no. That’ll draw some odd qu
estions,” he replied, smiling and not looking particularly concerned. “We’ll simply have to come again,” he concluded. Jac beamed at him. Daniel smiled back at her easily, understanding in his eyes.

  “You're enjoying this too much,” she accused, glancing down at her ill-fitting breeches.

  “Evidently,” he agreed. “En garde, let's continue.”

  ~~//~~

  “We are going to be late,” Jac hissed, glancing through the carriage curtains at the footmen swarming outside of their townhouse. They were parked across the street but there was no way to exit the carriage without being seen. Mrs. John Clarence’s soiree had likely started a half hour before and she was still dressed as a man, trapped in a carriage outside their home two miles from their destination. At this rate, they would be announcing themselves while Mrs. Clarence was dismissing the other guests. She was going to be furious. Jac wondered how many women the widow would need to complain to before Daniel and she had the reputation of being late to everything. Jac rested her forehead on the cool glass window and watched the footmen’s slow progress unloading crates of coal from the cart parked in front of the servants’ entrance.

  “Not much we can do about it,” Daniel answered, leaning back in his seat and stretching out his legs, apparently preparing to sleep.

  She should have realized it would be more difficult to sneak her back inside, Jac thought, biting her lip. The servants were never concerned about who left their home, but who entered it was a different matter. Daniel tipped his hat to cover his eyes.

  “I could enter thus dressed,” Jac murmured, glancing down at her breeches. “Surely a man entering the house with you is not so very odd.”