The silence that fell over the table was ponderous and laden with malice. Mr. Moore asked, “Rafe, ‘ow far is too far, do you think?
Lord Rafe heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose in his fingers. “Don’t kill him,” he said. “But certainly break hisnose, if Lockhart hasn’t already done the job for you.”
“And if he has?” the duke inquired. “That is to say, it looked rather crooked already to me.”
“Break something else,” Rafe suggested mildly. “Can’t say I much care what, at this particular moment.”
“That’s it settled, then,” Mr. Moore said, as he lifted his own drink toward Henry in a macabre, begrudgingly respectful salute. “Didn’t think ye had it in you, Lockhart. But I’m pleased to ‘ave been wrong.”
“Oh,” Henry said, nonplussed, as he stared down at the drink in his hand. “Then this is—”
“Congratulatory,” the duke said. “You’ll forgive me for the observation, Lockhart, but you’ve always had the appearance of a man a bit too tightly-laced.”
“’E’s ‘ad a stick up ‘is arse,” Mr. Moore drawled. “Say what you damned well mean.”
“What did you think this was?” Lord Rafe inquired.
“I don’t know,” Henry said honestly, as his shoulders wilted in exhaustion. “A last drink before you tossed me in the Thames?”
“I did offer,” Mr. Moore said. “Gracie declined.”
“So I owe her my life, then?”
“Among other things,” Mr. Moore said. “Yer uncle?”
Henry’s shoulder slumped further. “That’s come to naught,” he said, pitching his voice low. “My uncle got what he required of Cooper. Grace couldn’t retrieve it at the tavern.”
“Cooper,” Lord Rafe repeated, blanching as he recognized the name. “For God’s sake—you took her to atavern? InWhitechapel?”
Henry threw up his hands, nearly casting his liquor straight out of its glass. “Of course I didn’t take her! I made her promise she wouldn’t go!” He tossed back the liquor in one long swallow and plunked the empty glass back down upon the table. “But shearrived even before I did,” he said. “We had words about it. I thought you knew.”
“Chris asked a favor of me,” Lord Rafe said tightly. “He certainly didn’t share what the information I gave him would be used for.”
“Because ye’d have declined,” Mr. Moore said. “And Gracie trusts me to keep ‘er secrets. Rather keep it that way, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Somehow,” the duke said, with a hard stare at Henry, “I have got the feeling that Lockhart is now himself the custodian of more than a few of Grace’s secrets.”
“’E won’t tell,” Mr. Moore said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, and a smug grin which he cast in Henry’s direction. “Damn fool’s so bloody in love wiv ‘er, ‘e can’t hardly see straight.”
Henry felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. “I—that is to say—”
Lord Rafe rolled his eyes. “One doesn’t make such a spectacle of oneself over a woman one feels nothing for,” he said. “For future reference, Lockhart, Grace doesn’tneedyou to defend her, and certainly not in such a fashion. Nevertheless, it says something of you that you chose to do it anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have called it a choice,” Henry said. He’d simply seen red; acted entirely on instinct. Much like those rows he’d been in as a child whenever his mother had been so disparaged in his hearing, so too had Latimer’s casual belittling of Grace produced a white-hot, all-consuming fury. “I know I have blundered terribly,” he said. “And very soon, I won’t have much to offer her. But if you might convince her to grant me just a few minutes to explain myself—”
“Not a damned chance,” the duke said.
“You made your own mess, Lockhart, and you must be the one to fix it,” Lord Rafe added.
Mr. Moore sat back and folded his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing on Henry’s face. “You did our Gracie a good turn tonight, whether or not she appreciates it,” he said, enunciating carefully, the clear, crisp syllables dripping with gravitas. “That’s worth more than a glass of gin in my estimation, so I’ll put it to you. Would you have my assistance with your uncle, or with Grace?”
“Grace,” Henry said, without hesitation.
Mr. Moore’s brows lifted at the swiftness of the response. “Would you like a moment more to consider it?”
“No.”
Mr. Moore exchanged sidelong glances with the duke and Lord Rafe, and Henry had the sense that an entire silent conversation was occurring about him, completely beyond his comprehension. But at last Lord Rafe sighed, and the duke scrubbed at his face, in what Henry could only assume was capitulation.
