“Many siblings bear a resemblance to each other. Why is it you find this resemblance significant enough to remark on?”
“She’s unlikely to find a husband, looking like him.” Baker was beginning to sound a little bit frustrated. He would soon be far more than that.
“Why is that?” Aldric pressed on without emotion, without any show of disapproval. The neutrality of his tone and expression would allow the trap to be set nicely.
“She looks like him. Like a man.” Baker smirked. No doubt, he assumed Aldric found humor in the conversation he was requiring the man to repeat. “She’s too ugly to entice anyone, even with her dowry.”
“What was that?”
“Ugly,” Baker repeated.
“You were saying she’s ugly?”
“Yes.” He sounded a little exasperated.
“You were denouncing a lady—whom you’ve named—as ugly?” Aldric let his feigned confusion begin to slip closer to accusation. “You insulted an identified lady within hearing distance of an audience.”
“This is—I was—It was supposed to be a private conversation.” At last, Baker was starting to look uncomfortable.
“You are in a very public location, speaking loudly enough that I am not the only one who overheard.” He motioned around the courtyard to the many people paying close heed to the conversation.
“I could have modulated my voice a little.” Baker glanced around.
Aldric held his gaze, daring him to attempt to wriggle his way out of the trap. “So a gentleman is under no obligation to behave like a gentleman provided he isn’t overheard?” He let that hang in the air between them.
He could hear Baker swallow. His miserable friends began shifting nervously.
Without looking away from Baker, Aldric addressed his next remark to the Gents. “Perhaps it is simply that I am nothing more than the son of a duke and run exclusively in, as Baker here said, ‘exalted circles,’ and it is actually quite the done thing to disparage a gently bred young lady. Perhaps I am mistaken and Baker’s remarks are considered perfectly acceptable.”
The Gents sidled up next to him, watching Baker with clear disapproval and disgust.
“I’d like to think my father, an earl,” Lord Jonquil said, “understands the rules of gentlemanly conduct, and he would agree with Lord Aldric.”
“Mine is a baron,” Stanley said, “and he would be ashamed of me if he heard me saying what we all just heard Baker say.”
Digby Layton, who gave the impression of flighty dandyism, tugged at his lace cuff. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard an exception to the rules of conduct saying that a gentleman is perfectly welcome to disparage a lady provided he isn’t observed doing so.”
Aldric took a single step closer to Baker. The coward took a step backward.
“One more time,” he said. “Say what you said again, the bit you think is fine as long as it isn’t overheard. Because it seems to me we have quite a consensus that, overheard or not, the rules are the same.”
“This is—”
“Repeat it.” Aldric moved closer still. “You were inarguably proud of what you said. You even said it multiple times. Do so again now.” He motioned around the courtyard at the growing number of spectators. “Repeat it, without identifying her, so all these people can hear what you consider conduct to be proud of. Let them all decide what kind of person you are.”
“You’re tossing your lot in with the Gents, then?” Baker sneered a little, but it fell flat. Everyone watching, including his cronies, could easily see that he knew he’d been caught out and was in the wrong. Blustering was often the approach taken by those who hadn’t the humility to acknowledge their errors.
“You could, of course, scamper off,” Aldric said. “No one would blame you. But that would also give us a clear demonstration of who you are.”
With a show of pride that didn’t quite hit its mark, Baker rushed away. His hangers-on followed, as they were wont to do, but with less enthusiasm than they had a moment earlier.
“Typical,” Aldric muttered to himself.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Stanley said, still standing next to him.
“What question?”
“Are you throwing your lot in with the Gents?”
