“I want to thank you, Grenville,” Lord Clifford said.
“Do you?” Grenville’s voice was icy. “Whatever for?”
“For agreeing to stay out of my business. Decent of you.”
I suppressed my sudden urge to punch the man, but this time it was Grenville who took retribution. He stepped back one pace, lifted his quizzing glass, and studied Clifford through it.
“Let me see,” Grenville said. “You stole an extremely valuable necklace from a wretched French émigré who was trying to remove his family from the dangers of France. A necklace you later sold—probably for a fraction of its worth—to cover your debts, whatever they were, giving your wife a copy so she wouldn’t guess what you’d done. Then, when the false necklace goes missing and Lady Clifford seeks our help, you harass and browbeat her so much that she attempts to take her own life. All the while betraying her with her closest friend and companion, the only comfort she has. I’d say there was not much decent in the entire business.”
Clifford flushed. “I told you, Grenville, what goes on in a man’s household has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, but it has. Your wife reached out to me and Captain Lacey, because she had nowhere else to turn. And you may be correct that your household is your business, but the fact remains that you stole the diamonds from de la Fontaine in the first place. Not very sporting of you. In fact, one might call that a crime.”
“Fontaine was hated among the French,” Clifford said. “They’d applaud me.”
“Ah, you are a latter-day Robin Hood, stealing from the corrupt rich to give to the . . . well, to yourself. And then to sell them and drape your wife in paste diamonds. Dear me.” Grenville shook his head.
We had the attention of much of the room. Though we spoke in low voices, Grenville’s attitude of derision spoke volumes.
“I had to sell them,” Clifford said. “I’d promised Derwent a large sum for his damned reforms and then had some bad luck at games. I sold the necklace to pay my debts and not leave Derwent standing. Would have made me a laughingstock. Nothing else to be done.”
“You might have explained to your wife,” I said. “You ought to have trusted her with the truth.”
“Damn it, Lacey, you’ve met my wife. You know what she is. She would never be able to keep her damn fool mouth shut. She’d blab all to her blasted companion, upon whom she’s much too dependent. A wife should know who is master, after all.”
So, he’d taken Mrs. Dale to his bed to keep Lady Clifford under his thumb. A man who ruled his household by manipulation, lies, and fear. How was he better than a French aristocrat who’d made a hundred peasants labor for him?
He wasn’t. De la Fontaine had risked all and given up everything to take his children out of danger. Even after it had been safe for him to return home, de la Fontaine had stayed in his reduced circumstances to be with his one remaining child and his grandchildren.
Grenville’s look turned to one of unfeigned disgust. He sniffed, lowered his quizzing glass, adjusted his gloves, and said, “I believe, Lord Clifford, that I will have to disapprove of you.”
“What the devil does that mean? Why should I care whether you approve or disapprove of anything I do?”
Lord Clifford did not realize his danger, but I knew quite well what Grenville meant. Clifford might be an earl, but such was the power of Lucius Grenville in the fashionable world that if he wanted a man to be cut, that man would be cut.One can be an earl,I could imagine Lady Breckenridge saying in her clear, acerbic tones,and still be invited nowhere.
Grenville did not wait. There, in the very crowded gaming rooms of Watier’s, with one movement of his slim shoulders, with one spin on his immaculate heels, Grenville turned his back on Lord Clifford, and ruined him.
End
The Gentleman’s
Walking Stick
On a rainy morning in 1817, I visited Bond Street to purchase a bauble for my lady.
I gazed at trays of glittering jewels in the shop I entered and dreamed of adorning Lady Breckenridge with the best of them. I knew, however, that my captain’s half-pay would allow me only the simplest of trinkets. The proprietor knew it too and abandoned me for the more prosperous-looking patrons who walked in behind me.
“Is it Captain Lacey?” a male voice rang out. “Jove, it is, as I live and breathe.”
I turned to see a man of thirty-odd, his light brown hair damp with rain, favoring me with a familiar and hearty grin. In spite of the weather, his clothing was impeccable, from his pantaloons and polished Hessians to a fashionably tied cravat. An equally well-dressed older gentleman I didn’t know stood behind him with a matron and a young woman with red-gold hair.
“Summerville,” I said in surprise and pleasure.
I hadn’t seen George Summerville since the Peninsular War. Summerville had been in a heavy cavalry regiment, a big man full of bonhomie, who’d made friends wherever he’d gone. I remembered long nights with him that involved much-flowing port but never how those nights had ended. Memories of the terrible headaches in the mornings, on the other hand, lingered. Summerville had been injured at Salamanca, and I’d lost track of him after that.
I advanced and held out my hand, shaking his warmly. “How are you, Lieutenant?”
“Lieutenant no longer. Sold my commission. You?”
