“Or perhaps if one spends too much time on flights of fancy, one will find themselves trapped in a quagmire of their own making,” Duke Arden said.
“Touché,” Corcoran said. “I see while you have allowed yourself to grow more ample and springy, your wit has remained quite sharp.”
“Canape?” I asked Corcoran.
“No,” he said, his eyes avoiding me. “Dearest Duke, how long has it been?”
“Far too soon since the last time Tremblay sat one of these awful get-togethers up.”
“It truly is dreadful, isn’t it?”
“We are in agreement, perhaps, for the first time in our mutual existence,” Duke Arden said. “Perhaps you can remedy the situation somewhat by departing.”
“Ah, yes, I would. However, that would present a problem. As disagreeable as I find this current bash, I find your presence at it, in my absence, somewhat more disagreeable. Perhaps you could finish your business up and then take your leave? I hear your wife is waiting at home for you, fat as a sow and ready for her next milking.”
“Ah, but my wife has more than enough entertainments to keep her occupied. One of the benefits of wealth. Are you sure your child bride is not bored out of his wits back in your traveling caravan?”
Corcoran threw his head back and laughed.
“Child bride? Dear Duke, I am not the one who wedded a fourteen-year-old girl at the ripe age of thirty. No, my assistant, Valsace. A wonderful young man. Youthful may be his gaze, and his face innocent as a cherub, but he was nineteen years of age when I found him. Do not dare to impugn my decency by suggesting your impure thoughts.”
“Nothing of the sort, dear Corky,” the Duke replied. “I was merely suggesting ways to keep this boy around. Your last one ran off in the night, did he not?”
Corcoran looked guarded, his face sneering, but another man stepped up to the table and slapped the both of them on the shoulders. My mouth opened wide.
“That’s aboot enough of all that,” a man in a raccoon skin cap said. “Let’s all play some poker and make the most of this night. Whaddya say, eh?”
It was Vic. I turned around and stared at the opposite corner of the room. Vic’s suit-clad backside was busying himself in a crowd of appreciative women. I stared, hard, and then turned around and found myself staring at the Vic in front of me.
“Ah, Victor, my old friend!” the Duke called. “How fare ye?”
“Just blew into town. Got a parcel and a half of furs I tracked from up north. Very nice to see the two of you. Whaddya say to losing some serious coin to an old Canuck like me?”
“Victor, you sure know when to show up,” Corcoran said. “I was afraid I was going to have to get ugly with the Duke.”
“Oh, ugly is such an accurate word,” Duke Arden said.
“Canape?” I asked Victor’s Echo.
“No thanks,” he said. “I could sure go for a glass of red, though.”
He grinned, and his eyes were momentarily crimson behind his glasses.
Chapter 7
I pulled the Victor from the present with me away from the crowd and into an empty hallway. A blonde woman, hair in ringlets, watched the two of us from a corner as we left.
“Hey,” he said. “Ow.”
“You never told me,” I said and punched his shoulder.
“Told you what?”
“You’re here, at this dinner party.”
He looked confused.
“I’m sorry, what?”
