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“At ball or play, she flirt away; And ever giddy be! But always said, I ne’er will wed, No one shall govern me!”
Pollock’s singing was almost as terrible as his flirting, but it was equally amusing. The baron’s son hopped and skipped his way down Chandlers Street, swinging around lantern posts as though he were on his Grand Tour. He had cast his jacket over his shoulder, despite the pointed nip in the air, his cheeks red with cold.
He turned to Benjamin, still dancing around the post, his song having come to an end. “And here is another thing I so enjoyed about Lady Eleanor Fitzroy,” he slurred, having listed off near twenty items of admiration already. “She is so…” he stumbled toward Benjamin, trailing off and letting his hands do the talking. He motioned ‘petiteness’ one hand above the other. “Do you understand me, Charles?”
Apparently, they were on a first-name basis. Really, it had been Benjamin’s fault for liquoring him up as he had. He thought all men were equally matched in their ability to hold their liquor. He had been sorely wrong and was now paying the price—which unfortunately meant he was to serve as wet nurse until Rafael sobered up enough to be driven to his lodgings.
“I could put her in my pocket,” Pollock lilted, patting his vest. “Where did my… Ah!” he exclaimed, remembering the coat he had thrown over his shoulder. “Now, are you sure you don’t want to ride with me? It’s reallybo nother. Wait, no… no bother! No bother to me—or to Dicky.”
Whoever Dicky was, he was certainly in for a treat. Benjamin laughed under his breath and crossed his arms. “I assure you,” he replied, “I am quite acquainted enough with London to find my own way home.”
“Yes, but if we takemycoach,” Pollock argued, throwing an arm around Benjamin’s shoulders as they strolled forth, “We can stop off at Almack’s. Play on!”
With a gentle sigh, Benjamin refused again. He dared not mention that he had never set foot in Almack’s. Truth be told, he was not so opposed to sharing a ride home either. It was dreadfully chilly out in these early hours of the morn. But if he were to accept, he would have to give Pollock his address, which would take them to a corner of London best avoided.
“There will be plenty more nights such as this,” he lied, wanting desperately to change the subject. Thankfully, Pollock took the reins.
“What of Lady Eleanor Fitzroy’s sister?” he asked, still intent on overpronouncing every syllable of Lady Eleanor’s name. “Is she quite as lovely as Lady Eleanor Fitzroy? She is not so…” he gestured again for ‘petiteness’.
Benjamin thought deeply about a lie, but he resolved to answer truthfully. He liked Pollock enough to not insult the man’s intelligence without reason. “To my mind, she was more lovely,” he pronounced, then backtracked when Pollock grimaced. “What can I say? I like a woman with the temperament of an English Pointer.”
Pollock laughed, and it was roaring. “I like that. You aresofunny. A funny, funny man,” he slurred, beaming, narrowly avoiding a hole in the cobbles that spelled disaster. “I hope Lady Eleanor Fitzroy thoughtIwas funny.”
“Oh, the funniest,” Benjamin crooned sarcastically, but he found himself quite transported elsewhere: to the memory of Lady Charlotte’s touch. “She was beautiful,” he confessed absently. “Lady Charlotte.”
“You might call on her, my friend,” Pollock suggested, coming to a stop by the end of the road and leaning against one of the townhouses. He knocked his head against the stucco as though ready for his bed. “It is the done thing.”
“No, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Dream of it for me.”
“I failed to mention one important thing about Lady Charlotte Fitzroy,” Benjamin muttered, walking in a circle. “She is beautiful, but she is dangerous. There is nothing between us that would make our pair winning.”
A small flake came to rest on the arm of his jacket. He looked up, and the night sky was dotted with more than just stars—snow. When Pollock did not move, his eyes closed and his head cocked forward, so Benjamin reached an arm around his back and led the man around the corner to Rector’s Hall, where his coach awaited.
When the old hall came into view, Pollock sucked in a breath. He mumbled against Benjamin’s shoulder, “They all looked down upon my mother, so they look down upon me too. I hate London parties, but you made this one tolerable.” He looked up pleadingly, his round, dark eyes wet with gratitude. “Thank you for not judging me.”
His earnestness gave Benjamin pause. He slowed his pace, still lugging the man along with him down Rector Street. He shook his head, not wanting to give in to sentiment. Pollock was kind, but he was just like the rest of them—he had to be. Benjamin nodded all the same.
“There were reasons beyond count for which you could have judged me, yet you did not,” he mumbled. “I am the one who should be thanking you.”
Pollock stepped away clumsily and put a hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. “Thank me by coming to Almack’s before the week’s end. We could play cards, have a few drinks—I could introduce you to a few equallyfolerable tolk.” The man reached into his coat pocket and drew forth a calling card, not bothering to correct himself this time.
Benjamin smiled. He had done what had needed to be done—befriend a man who might introduce him to others. Absurdly, the thought gave him pause.
They arrived before the hall, where a few lords still lingered, and Benjamin called for Pollock’s coach. It turned the corner before long, and he helped load his new friend in the box, closing the door after him. With a solemn wave, he saw the man off, hearing only, “Write a poem of me!” before the horses turned past the oxidized iron fencing of the restored music hall and round the corner.
Then, Benjamin was alone, with only a light, twirling snowfall for company.
* * *
The sun was heavy in the sky by the time he reached the middle of town. He strolled along the Thames, delighted that the snow from the night before had not settled. The sun beat down upon him and London, refracting off the surface of the river, glittering as much as the chandeliers at the ball the night prior. He breathed in deeply, taking in the loaded Thames air; it smelled a little like algae and smoke.
A steam packet made its way past South Bank, sending small white wisps into the air above it. He could scarce believe the boat was real—that any of this was real, having spent so much of his life moving between hovels in Peckham. He was a Five Fields man now, not that it meant that much more. Not that it changed the company he kept.
“I’m tellin’ you, Fletch—she was beggin’ for my whirlies by the end of the night,” his ever-eloquent friend Lamb announced, a little too vibrantly, as they passed the Embankment gardens. “Devil be the shitsack that stole her from me. Twice my size, he was. Didn’t stand a chance.” Lamb kicked a nearby pebble, sending it cascading down the road and into an oncoming carriage.
“I’m sure he was,” Benjamin agreed through a laugh, trying his best to keep his head low. He knew it had been a mistake to allow Lamb to tag along—when was it not?—but his friend had been climbing the walls in boredom that morning.
