“Ah, I see you’ve found today’s delivery from Fores’s print shop.” The door to the workroom closed quietly behind Tyler, the earl’s valet and occasional laboratory assistant, as he carried a tray of chemicals to the small worktable by the spirit lamp.
“Yes. And this latest one is really quite upsetting.” Wrexford glanced back at his timepiece and waited ten more seconds before turning off the flame. “Quill has made my legs look awfully spindly, and you know how vain I am about my shapely calves.”
“It’s gone beyond a jesting matter, milord.”
A gentleman’s gentleman would not ordinarily dare to rebuke his master. But Tyler was no ordinary valet, reflected the earl. To begin with, he didn’t swoon over the task of removing foul-smelling stains and singe marks from a finely tailored evening coat. More importantly, his scientific education made him far more useful in other matters.
Tyler cleared his throat with a brusque cough—never a good sign. It meant a lecture was coming, a blunt one, delivered in a rough-cut Scottish brogue. “Perhaps you ought to consider ignoring Reverend Holworthy’s attacks from now on. Engaging in a public war of words isn’t doing your reputation any good.”
Wrexford picked up the half-empty glass of brandy by his inkwell and drained it in one prolonged swallow.
He hadn’t initiated the hostilities. The first salvo had been fired off several weeks ago when the Reverend Josiah Holworthy, a clergyman of rising oratorical note, had preached an emotional Sunday sermon decrying the corruptive influences of dissolute debauchery on a civilized society. Holworthy had used the earl as an example of Wickedness Personified, describing his recent behavior in lurid detail.
Wrexford knew restraint would have been the wiser course of action, and had the man’s rhetoric been halfway clever, he would have let sleeping dogs lie. But the attack had been crude and so he couldn’t resist sending a rebuttal to the editor of theMorning Gazette.
It had been published in the newspaper the following morning, and from there, the trading of insults had escalated, much to the glee of the rest of London.
A miscalculation.He wasn’t as careful in his personal life as he was with his scientific experiments. Holding his empty glass up to the Argand lamp, Wrexford watched the shards of light refract off the cut crystal for several long moments before replying.
“Since when have you known me to care about my reputation?”
His valet carefully rearranged the chemical vials into two neat rows before fetching one of the decanters on the sideboard and crossing the carpet to pour out a fresh measure of brandy.
Or perhaps it was hemlock. Of late, his mercurial moods had no doubt made him an awfully difficult fellow to deal with.
“It’s just as well, I suppose,” intoned Tyler. “For if that sanctimonious, self-anointed saint keeps attacking you as the Devil Incarnate, and you keep stirring the flames to a hotter burn with your outrageous comments on Society’s narrow-minded morality, the only reputation you’ll have will be black as sin.”
“But it’s so amusing to stick one of those clever French self-igniting matches up his pompous arse,” muttered Wrexford, “and watch smoke come out his ears.”
“Playing with fire is dangerous, milord.”
He expelled a sigh. “He called me a witch.”
“And you promptly corrected him,” said Tyler, “pointing out that ‘witch’ refers to a female and he should properly refer to you as a warlock.”
“I was right,” retorted the earl. “The man is a bloody idiot.”
“I believe what you called him in print was an illiterate widgeon, whose brain could fit twice over on the head of a pin.”
“Ye god, can you blame me? All that blather about how my soul needs to be transmuted to a higher plane—”
Tyler cleared his throat to cover a snicker.
“Remind me again why I keep you in my employ,” grumbled Wrexford. “Aside from your obsequious respect for my exalted person.”
“I have concocted a polish for your boots that outshines Beau Brummel’s secret recipe,” replied Tyler.
“Dare I hope that you will tell me what’s in it before I toss your insolent arse into the street?”
“Eye of newt, frog sweat—”
The earl let out a bark of laughter. The fact that Tyler didn’t take his ill-tempered caustic comments to heart was also a mark in his favor.
“Pray tell, what is the point of all your chidings?” When his valet didn’t answer right away, Wrexford pressed, “You think I should take steps to end this debate?”
Tyler shrugged. “It might be wise. Things appear to be on the verge of getting out of control.”
“I shall consider it.” Wrexford rose and stretched. Keeping precise control of the liquid’s temperature and timing the addition of each ingredient had left him feeling fidgety. The conversation hadn’t helped. Tyler was right—baiting a religious fanatic had been a bad decision.
