“We’re traveling back from my cousin’s property in Cornwall,” Montaigne said. “He had us for a fortnight. Beautiful country. Beautiful hunting. Beautiful women.”
“Montaigne can find a woman anywhere,” Leith qualified, “but the companionship was a bit rural for my taste.”
“There were some of the bonniest wenches I have ever seen. But Leith would only scowl and drink my cousin’s admittedly very excellent whiskey. He won’t admit it, but it’s because there were no courtesans. He’s become addicted to city women.”
“I’m sorry if a woman’s goat-milking skills aren’t my idea of relevant erotic experience.”
“It doesn’t matter where she got it, brother, as long as I get to enjoy it.”
John had to laugh despite his uneasiness. Much like their appearances, Leith and Montaigne had always been an amusing mismatch of dispositions. While he and his friends were all bonded as brothers, Montaigne and Leith were particularly close, like he and Tremberley were. Unlike he and Trem, however, Montaigne and Leith were more different than similar, and yet seemed to receive endless amusement from disagreeing with one another.
“But forget about Montaigne’s milkmaid,” Leith said, meeting John’s gaze. “The question is, what in the bloody hell areyoudoing, traveling through the English countryside with Catherine Forster in your vehicle?”
Despite having expected such questioning, John didn’t know how to answer the query. Instead, he looked at his two friends, trying to find the words to explain how he had gotten himself into this situation.
How could he explain it?
Whereas Tremberley was nosy and liked his gossip, Leith actually took thetonseriously. He could be sharp and even judgmental. Montaigne didn’t care a fig for this sort of thing, often preferring the company of common folk, and, of all of them, followed the tide of society chatter the least. For that reason, Montaigne was also known as the most abandoned and rakish of them all. Multiple cartoons had been printed of him tupping chambermaids with a drunken look on his face. Those cartoons were hardly accurate—Montaigne wasn’t a drunkard—but they were evidence of how little society enjoyed Montaigne’s indifference.
Leith, on the other hand, cared about their reputations—just never enough to stop being one of their set and never enough to stop being best friends with Montaigne. Hence, he was generally regarded as the most come-at-able in matrimonial terms by society mamas, who forgave his friendship with Montaigne as a quirk of young bachelorhood on par with mistresses and gambling debts.
Even though they were called “the Rank Rakes” by half of society, and notwithstanding Leith they had hardly been fastidious about their reputations, John felt a pang of guilt on his friends’ behalf. If his travels with Catherine exploded all over the headlines, they would be interrogated about his decisions by their acquaintances and families. In short, they would have to defend him. Montaigne—who was related to half of theton—wouldn’t care, Tremberley would laugh, and Leith would storm and then settle into indifference; but they would all, nevertheless, stick by his side, even if it hurt their prospects in business or, further down the line, marriage. Not that any of them would admit to worrying about such a thing.
“It’s complicated,” John said, feeling indignant despite his guilt. He still didn’t appreciate having to answer to anyone.
Montaigne clapped him on the shoulder.
“Best to explain, mate. You know if this thing goes wrong, we’ll all have to hear about it, so better to let us know what the line is. Surely your woman can spare you for a bit longer.”
“She’s not my woman.”
“Bloody well looks like it, doesn’t it,” Leith said, taking a sip, and smirking at Montaigne. “I told you, Monty, that he would go back to her. You owe me fifty guineas.”
“Bollocks. I do, don’t I?”
“You made awager?” John said, doubly indignant.
“We all know you’ve favored her forever, mate,” Montaigne said. “But I bet you wouldn’t take up with her. Women can be had anywhere.”
“For the undiscerning gentleman, indubitably.” Leith sneered. “And can’t you see he is going to try and set her up in town under a new identity? That way you can enjoy her and keep away the gossips. It won’t work, though. That scandal is still too hot. They’ll weasel it out.”
“You’re both mad—you know that, don’t you?” John said, feeling actual horror at their flippant speculation. “Tremberley too.”
“Trem just sees what we see,” Montaigne said, taking a swig of his pint. “But seriously, Edington, are you in trouble?”
“Are you being blackmailed?” Leith said, now deadly serious. “If so, we’ll spring you out of it. I don’t know what she could have overyou—but I know Henrietta is to come out this season, so I could see where things might be delicately situated. At any rate, we’ll make that Forster harlot sorry she ever drew breath, if that’s the case.”
John stared at Leith, dumbfounded. He must be in trouble if Montaigne and Leith were concerned. His friends weren’t exactly the worrying types. When he’d run off with a French maidservant for two weeks while they were at Oxford, Montaigne had asked him, once he had returned and nearly been sent down for good, “So, all in all, how was the French hussy?”
“I’m not in trouble,” John spat out now, and then he reconsidered the statement. “Or, at least, it’s not Catherine’s fault. And don’t call her that, Leith. I won’t have it.”
“Catherine,” Montaigne said, raising his eyebrows at Leith.
“He’s bloody finished,” Leith retorted, as if John weren’t sitting right there. “He’s calling a gentlewoman by her Christian name, hot to defend her honor. It’s finally happened. One of our own has fallen.” Then, turning to John, he said, “Thetonwill burst into flame when you marry her, you know.”
“I’m not going to marry her,” John hissed. “Look, I don’t want to bring either of you or Trem into the scandal sheets. And I hope it won’t come to that.”
Instead of looking relieved, his friends simply looked offended. Even Leith.
