Undaunted, the man stepped closer. “I don’t like your face,” he bit out. He flexed his hands from fists to open and back to fists, making his knuckles crack ominously.
“No?” Lindsay asked, eyes wide. “Don’t you find me pretty?” He made a moue of his painted lips and gave the thug a lascivious wink.
“You’re a fucking molly,” the man hissed. “I knew it as soon as I saw you. Well, when I’m done with you, your face won’t be so pretty.”
Lindsay leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t mean to be rude but has anyone ever told you what anunutterablebore you are?”
With a snarl of fury, the man shot out a hand, grasping Lindsay by his linen neckcloth and pulling him so close Lindsay could smell the brandy and garlic on his breath.
Lindsay chuckled. “Sucha flirt!” he teased. “Do I get a kiss?”
“A fucking kiss?” The man drew back his arm, his hand tightening into a fist an instant before he let it fly towards Lindsay’s face.
The punch didn’t land.
Lindsay’s hand snapped up, intercepting the blow, his fingers closing round the scarred man’s meaty paw.
The man’s eyes went wide, then white, and he gave a stifled scream that seemed to die in his throat. The bones in his hand cracked audibly as Lindsay slowly, mercilessly, tightened his grip, until, with a strangled cry of agony, he dropped to his knees on the piss-wet floor.
“Now,” Lindsay said softly, as he watched the man writhing at his feet, gasping noiselessly now, the whites of his eyes flashing in the gloom. “Let’s have a little talk about good manners, shall we?”
––––––––
WHEN LINDSAY RETURNEDto the gaming room some time later—having prevailed upon the Madame who ran the house to have his unconscious would-be-attacker removed—it was to discover that Aubrière had already left. According to the dealer with the fine arse, Aubrière had overheard some fellows joking about the fact that Lindsay was about to be accosted at the piss pots, and instead of going to his aid, had decided that discretion was the better part of valour. In short, Aubrière had made off in his carriage and abandoned Lindsay to his fate.
The toad.
It really was turning out to be a most unsuccessful evening. All that effort to avoid getting piss on his shoes only to end up with blood spatters instead, and now Aubrière gone and the carriage with him.
Gritting his teeth, Lindsay set off for home on foot, displaying his sword and exuding wolfish aggression to dissuade any cutpurses from approaching him. By the time he finally came upon a fiacre, he was thoroughly bad-tempered and his shoes were quite ruined, saturated with filth from the street.
The fiacre delivered him back to the house he shared with Marguerite and Francis, off the Place Louis XV. He paid the driver and turned to mount the steps to find the front door was already open. Blaireau, Marguerite’s devoted majordome, stood in the doorway, the candle he held illuminating his stooped frame. These last few years, Blaireau had noticeably aged. His shock of hair, so recently a distinguished iron grey, was now pure white and his broad shoulders had rounded, bowing his back. Standing on the street, looking up at his old friend, Lindsay was struck by a familiar melancholy pang. Wolves grew attached to the humans they allowed into their lives, grieving them sorely when they passed. Lindsay had known Blaireau since he was a filthy street child, brought home by Marguerite after he tried to steal her bracelet. Now Blaireau was an old man, but in some way, he would always be that child to Lindsay.
Lindsay mounted the steps. “I’m back,” he said, smiling, when he reached the top.
The majordome smiled, his expression fond. At some point, perhaps twenty, or even thirty years ago, he had begun to adopt a fatherly manner towards Lindsay, inverting their old relationship and saddening Lindsay in some way that was difficult to put into words.
“A bit earlier than expected,” Blaireau observed, standing aside.
“My evening did not turn out quite as planned,” Lindsay admitted as he entered the house. He paused next to the old man for a moment, setting his hand on his shoulder and squeezing it lightly. “Is Madame in her study?”
“Yes,” Blaireau said. “Go on up. I’ll bring you some wine.”
“Thank you,” Lindsay replied. “I need it after the night I’ve had.”
Behind him, Blaireau chuckled.
He took the stairs to Marguerite’s study two at a time, gave the door a token rap and strolled in.
Marguerite glanced up from her ledger. She was sitting at her desk in her nightgown and a loose blue wrapper, mahogany hair tumbling about her shoulders, sloe eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “Back already?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
Lindsay crossed the room and bent over her, nuzzling affectionately into the side of her neck and inhaling her familiar violet scent. Letting her serene presence soothe his prickled edges.
“You don’t seem very glad to see me,” he mumbled into her hair.
Marguerite gave a soft laugh, reaching back to lightly stroke his cheek. “Iamglad—I’ve got something I want to talk to you about as it happens—but I’m also wondering why you’re back so early. What happened with Aubrière?”
Lindsay straightened and sighed. “It was a bloody disaster.”
