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“Of course we will,” Sophy said.
“He offered you carte blanche,” Leonie said.
“No, he asked me to marry him.”
There was a short, stunned silence.
Then, “I reckon he’s in a marrying mood,” Sophy said.
Marcelline laughed. Then she started to sob.
But before she could fall to pieces, Selina Jeffreys came to the door. “Oh, madame, I beg your pardon. But I was just out—I went to get the ribbons from Mr. Adkins down the bottom of the street—and when I came out of his shop, there were the two gentleman fighting down at the palace, and people coming out of every shop and club, and running to watch the fight.”
“Two gentlemen?” Leonie said. “Two ruffians, you mean.”
“No, Miss Leonie. It’s his grace the Duke of Clevedon and his friend, the other tall, dark gentleman.”
“Lord Longmore?” Sophy said. “He was here only a little while ago.”
“Yes, miss, that’s the one. They’re trying to kill each other, I vow! I couldn’t stand to watch—and besides, there was all sorts of men coming along to see. It wasn’t any place for a girl on her own.”
Sophy and Leonie didn’t have Jeffreys’s delicate scruples. They ran out to watch the fight. They didn’t notice that their older sister didn’t follow.
Sophy and Leonie returned not very long after they’d gone out.
Marcelline had given up trying to create something beautiful. She wasn’t in the mood. She looked in on the seamstresses, then she went upstairs and looked in on Lucie, who was reading to Susannah from one of the books Clevedon had bought.
After the visit to the nursery, Marcelline went into their sitting room and poured herself a glass of brandy.
She’d taken only a few sips before her sisters returned, looking windblown and sounding a little out of breath, but otherwise undamaged.
They poured brandy, too, and reported.
“It was delicious,” Sophy said. “They must practice at the boxing salons, because they’re very good.”
“It didn’t look like practice to me,” Leone said. “It looked like they were trying to kill each other.”
“It was wonderfully ferocious,” Sophy said. “Their hats were off, and their coats, too, and they were trampling their neckcloths. Their hair was wild and they had blood on their clothes.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I vow, it was enough to make a girl swoon.”
“It put me in mind of the Roman mobs at the Coliseum,” Leonie said. “Half of White’s must have been there—all those fine gentlemen, and all of them shouting and betting on the outcome and egging them on.”
“Leonie’s right,” Sophy said. “It did look to be getting out of hand, and I was thinking we ought to find a safer place to watch from. But then the Earl of Hargate came out of St. James’s Palace with some other men.”
“Straight through the crowd of men he came, pushing them out of his way—and he must be sixty if he’s a day,” Leonie said.
“But he carries himself like Zeus,” Sophy said. “And the men gave way, and he ordered his grace and his lordship to stop making damned fools of themselves.”
“They weren’t listening,” Leonie said.
“It was the bloodlust,” Sophy said. “They were like wolves.”
“None of the other men had dared to try to break it up,” Leonie said.
“But Lord Hargate waded right into the fight,” Sophy said. “And he got in the way of Longmore’s fist. But the earl dodged the blow—oh, Marcelline, I wish you’d seen it—and then he grabbed Longmore’s arm and pulled him away from Clevedon. And one of the gentleman with him—it had to be one of his sons—the same features, build, and coloring. Whichever one it was, he took hold of Clevedon.”
“And then the earl and his son dragged them away.”
“And one of the other gentlemen was threatening to read the Riot Act, and so we came away.” Sophy drank her brandy and poured some more.
