“Oh, all right, then,” he grumbled, slanting her an irritated glance, plainly less than pleased to be called to break up a fight he’d been enjoying. “If you insist. Can’t do it alone, though—my knee, you know.” Uncle Chris lifted his cane, jabbed the end of it into the small of Anthony’s back. “Come wiv me, and grab whoever else you can,” he said. “Gracie wants us to rescue‘er lord for some fool reason.”
“He’s not my lord,” Grace gritted out between the clench of her teeth, though nobody seemed to mark her words as they pressed through the crowd in the service of reaching Henry. Shewatched as Uncle Rafe seized Henry’s right arm on the backswing, holding it tight as Anthony reached for the other.
“Damn you, let go!” Henry snarled, yanking at his arm, his bloodied hand flexing into a fist.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Uncle Rafe said pleasantly as he tightened his grip on Henry’s arm. “That’s quite enough excitement for one evening.”
Henry gave another reflexive jerk, his breath coming in rough pants, his jaw taut and tense.
There was the odd hiss of metal on metal as Uncle Chris withdrew the sword concealed within his cane. In the light, the sheen of silver was briefly blinding as Uncle Chris deftly maneuvered the point of it just beneath Henry’s chin. “That’s enough now, Lockhart,” he said smoothly.
The fire that glowed within the glacial blue of Henry’s eyes suggested he strenuously disagreed. Even on his knees and with both arms now restrained, still he projected an air of such menace that Latimer whimpered and cowered, hiding his bloodied face behind his trembling fingers. “I’m not finished with him,” Henry said spitefully.
“Gracie says ye are,” Uncle Chris said, his voice inflected with boredom. “I’d listen, were I you.”
That had calmed him down a fraction. Just enough that he took note at last of the gleaming metal notched beneath his chin, of the dozens of curious—and shocked—onlookers.
Of Latimer, still splayed upon the floor, cringing and whimpering in fear.
Latimer’s face had not been the only thing to take a nasty beating. His pride had suffered as well. Perhaps even a fraction of the respect he would otherwise have been due owing to his standing in society, which he would likely find somewhat diminished now that dozens of people had borne witness to his sound trouncing.
She could almost feel sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. Latimer had been deserving of a good thrashing for a long while. But Henry, of all people, ought to have known better than to do ithere. What had he been thinking?
“All right,” Henry grumbled at last, in surly assent. “All right, then.”
Uncle Chris shook his head in exasperation as he slid his sword back into its sheath, concealing it once more within his cane. “Heave ‘im up, then, and don’t let ‘im go. Don’t quite trust that look in ‘is eye. We’re going to haul ‘is arse outside.”
Probably he was right not to let Henry free just yet; there was still an unaccountably feral glint to his eyes. Grace would have given it even odds that he’d dive straight back into pummeling Latimer once more, had they let him go. She curled her hand over Uncle Chris’ arm. “What will you do with him?” she whispered.
“Same thing I’d do with any other fellow who’d just beaten the piss out of a particularly deserving son of a bitch,” he said as he straightened the cuffs of his sleeves and fisted the head of his cane once more in his hand. “I’m going to buy ‘im a damned drink.”
Chapter Twenty Three
What’d ‘e say?”
“I beg your pardon?” Henry asked as he cradled a glass of gin in his left hand, wincing as he flexed the right. It wasn’t only Latimer he’d bloodied; there was the distinct stick of fabric to the skin of his knuckles. At some point, he must’ve introduced his fist to Latimer’s mouth and cut his skin upon the man’s teeth.
“Latimer,” Mr. Moore said expectantly, tapping his fingertips upon the surface of the table. “’E said something to set you off, didn’t ‘e?”
Henry wasn’t certain exactly how it had happened, but somehow he had been swiftly removed from the St. John ball by three of Grace’s relatives. While his blood had still been high, while he’d still been frothing with fury, the lot of them had thrown him bodily into a carriage and spirited him several streets away, to the gentleman’s club at which all three seemed to be members.
And here he was now, back pinned to the wall, hemmed in by a table and surrounded by several of Grace’s nearest and dearest male relations. An unenviable position to be sure, especially when he considered that they must have contrived to arrangethemselves—and him—in exactly this fashion.
Trapped. Not a prayer of rescue, with a glass of liquor in his hand, and that lather of anger finally ceding itself to relentless, vicious little shivers, as if his overtaxed muscles were protesting the strain he’d recently put them through.
“He…made some comments to which I took exception,” Henry acknowledged. “Things I’d rather not repeat. And certainly not in a place where anyone might overhear.”
“Latimer didn’t seem to care much whether he was overheard,” the duke said.
“Icare.” What was said of Grace, and by whom. “I’m not asking your pardon for causing such a scene—”
“You misunderstand, Lockhart,” Mr. Moore said impatiently. “We only want to know what was said so’s we know how much more the man deserves to lose.” A chilling grin flashed across his face at Henry’s thunderstruck expression. “What, did ye think we were aturn the other cheeklot?”
Lord Rafe Beaumont coughed into the cup of his hand, disguising a laugh. “Latimer’s a louse,” he said. “Always has been. I’m a bit jealous youwere the one to plant him a proper facer, I think. I’d have done it myself long ago, but Gracie wouldn’t hear of it.”
“You might yet get your chance,” the duke said. “What did he say, Lockhart?”
Henry swallowed. Best to keep it vague, he thought, or risk being a party to murder. “He made some unkind remarks regarding Grace’s age and origins. He…suggested her connections wouldsoften the blowof them.”
