“I’m a clever boy,” Crispin said as we stepped off the staircase and into what used to be—and for tonight, at least, still was—Rectors Club.
Unlike Crispin, I had not been to Rectors before, so I looked around curiously.
We were standing in a foyer. Directly in front of us was an enormous room with a heavy coffered ceiling held up by a row of ornate columns marching down the middle of a gleaming inlaid parquet floor. Off to either side were rows of white-topped tables, and beyond those were walls lined with cozy booths. A small stage at the far end of the room held a jazz band, but the players were visible only occasionally through the mass of bodies on the dance floor. Above the dancers’ heads, four large fans kept the air circulating.
At first glance it looked like any of the nightclubs in London. Figures in black tie dancing with figures in slinky gowns. The light shone on brilliantined hair and sparkling beads and jewels, and the fans dispersed clouds of smoke from cigarettes held in corners of mouths and in long, enameled cigarette holders.
It required a closer look to see that at least half the ‘women’ had shoulders to rival Crispin’s. Some had shadowed jaws, and there were quite a few prominent Adam’s apples to be seen. Some of the ‘women’ had hairier chests than he did, too, and had made no efforts to hide it.
On the other hand, some of them were so exquisitely beautiful that I had to look both twice and three times before I could tell that they weren’t women at all.
Of course, I ought to be used to that. Christopher in a wig, makeup, and gown is much prettier than I could ever hope to be. I am, at best, cute. In full makeup, Christopher is stunning. And Crispin, even without the wig and with rather a lot more hair on his chest, looked better than most of the ‘women’ here.
More than one person eyed him with interest, and I took his arm. “Let’s sit.”
He smirked. “Don’t you want to dance, Darling?”
I looked at him from under the brim of the top hat. It was too big, and sat on top of my eyebrows, so I had to tilt my head all the way back to see his face. The only reason it hadn’t fallen into my eyes already was because I had more hair than Christopher. “Will you let me lead?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m wearing the trousers,” I pointed out.
“Do you think trousers are what makes a man, Darling?”
Perhaps not. “Fine,” I said. “You can lead.”
I don’t know how, anyway. When I learned to dance, it was some ten or eleven years ago, with him and Christopher and a private tutor that Aunt Roz and Aunt Charlotte brought in. I’d had to partner both boys alternately, and they had both gotten practice leading. I had not. My task had been to float, featherlike, in their arms while they’d turned me this way and that.
“You won’t step on my toes,” I added, “will you?”
He’d certainly done plenty of it back in the ballroom at Sutherland House. Most of it on purpose, as far as I’d been able to tell.
He shook his head. “Of course not, Darling. I’ve grown out of tormenting you that way.”
“But not any other way?”
“You said it,” Crispin said, “not me. Now, go find us an empty table and leave your hat on it along with this.” He let the evening wrap drop from his shoulders and handed it over.
“Why doIhave to—?” I began, and then I realized: because I was wearing the pants. Had I been the one in the dress, he would have taken my wrap and put it somewhere along with his topper before escorting me onto the dance floor. With me in the dinner suit, it was my job to take care of him. I rolled my eyes at his smirk. “Fine, St George. I get it.”
“Better not call me that,” Crispin said. “We should have code names, don’t you think?”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“I’m certain of it.” He looked delighted by the idea. Perhaps he hadn’t been joking about the Cambridge theatricals. “You’ll be Philip, I suppose?”
“I suppose I’d better.”
“Unless you’d like to be Lancelot or Percival? Perhaps Romeo? Something dashing and romantic?”
“Only if you’ll agree to be Juliet,” I said, certain that that would shut him up. When it didn’t—when, indeed, he got an unholy light in his eyes—I added, quickly, “Never mind. I do not want to be Romeo. Or Lancelot.”
He quirked a brow. “Petruchio? Perhaps Benedick?”
That would suit our usual back-and-forth bickering, at any rate.
“No,” I said repressively. “Phillip is fine. I suppose you’ll be Crispina?”
