Chapter Ten

A pall of silence hung over Chris' section of the table, his nearest dinner partners stewing in it as if to break it might afflict them with the same sort of social leprosy that had clearly infected him. From somewhere down the table, there was the steady thrum of conversation. Laughter, occasionally, in dry, muted tones. Once, Chris had been certain that a particular husky peal of it had belonged to his wife. Whom he couldn't see. At all. Whatsoever. Because she had been seated near the head of the long table, which had been plated to seat at least twenty, and he—he had been consigned to the other end of it. Not in a place of honor beside the host, but rather in a middling sort of position he had concluded was meant to convey to him his own inadequacy amongst the present company. Vaguely, he recalled that Phoebe had mentioned something about seating arrangements, that there was the possibility that they would not be seated together. Something about facilitating conversation, he thought, and ensuring that husbands and wives did not monopolize one another's attention to the exclusion of their other dinner partners. Not that his dinner partners had had any interest whatsoever in conversing with him. Which would have been perfectly acceptable, if he had not been placed across the table from Lord Statham, who had spent the better part of the last two hours glaring at him. Then there was the mousy woman at his left who had quivered straight through the last several courses, making tiny gasping sounds every time Chris had lifted his knife, as if she had expected to be run through with it. The woman at his right had leaned so far away in an effort to avoid him that she'd nearly ended up in the lap of the gentleman to her opposite side. Even the food had been something less than palatable—or perhaps he'd spent so much of his life eating various bits of meat stuffed into pastry or smothered beneath a thick layer of potato mash that he hadn't acquired the taste just yet for the food that Phoebe's sort was wont to set upon their tables. He'd suffered through tiny roast quail that had gone quite cold by the time it had arrived upon the table, lobster that had been cooked to the point that he could hardly chew through it, limp green beans, and a consommé of chicken that might, he supposed, once have been in the vicinity of a chicken at some point or another, though one could hardly tell from taste alone. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd been served from the very same dishes as everyone else, he might have suspected it of being an elaborate practical joke at his expense. After all, his cook could do better— Hell. No, she damned well could not have. At least, not until Phoebe had gotten hold of her. Just a week ago, he'd have counted himself lucky to have been served a slice of kidney pie. Now his kitchen staff produced meals of several courses, none of which had ever arrived to his table half so cold and tasteless as the dishes served this evening. She had already transformed his house. Transformed him , though that had been more careful planning and the knowledge in managing a household and a husband that had been bestowed upon her by way of her education. Through sheer dint of will—and the willingness to shout at him when it was called for—she had made him, if not respectable, then at least presentable. He'd not set his elbow in the pudding, or forgotten his waistcoat. He'd bitten back more than a few scathing remarks he might otherwise have uttered. He had even retrieved Miss Mouse's napkin for her when she'd dropped it during one of her quaking fits, though she'd snatched it from his fingers as though he'd contrived to steal it from her. If he had not found acceptance at this table—and he certainly had not—it had not been because Phoebe had not adequately prepared him. And if he were honest with himself, he hadn't even been thinking of Em when he'd hesitated outside the house when they'd arrived. He'd been thinking of Phoebe's small smile of satisfaction whenever he selected the right utensil for the dish served, of the delicate clearing of her throat and the way her nose tipped up whenever he happened to utter a word which she found uncouth at the dinner table. Of the stiff curls he'd have liked to shake free of their rigid perfection until she did not look quite so prim and polished. Of the way the rosy silk of her gown encased her breasts and revealed a hint of the valley that lay between them. Of the light pressure of her hand upon his arm, which he suspected she had meant to be soothing. He had been nervous. But it hadn't been because he'd feared disappointing Emma—it had been because he'd feared disappointing his wife, who had gone to such lengths in her attempts to transform him into the sort of gentleman who might find himself welcomed at dinner parties. A footman swept away the last of the lemon syllabub at which he'd been poking without much enthusiasm, and he surrendered his spoon lest it be snatched straight from his fingers. As the servants removed the last of the dishes and cutlery and set out fresh glasses, Chris heard a chair being pushed back from somewhere near the head of the able—and then a succession of the same, as the rest of the ladies followed suit. He thought he heard the mousy woman beside him murmur something that sounded somewhat like a prayer as she skittered toward the wall, waiting to be led away to some other room by the hostess. Em and Phoebe had hung back from the group of ladies as they sashayed by on their way elsewhere. "Kit, how lovely to see you," Em said as she stopped near his chair. "I'm sorry we weren't placed closer together. I should have liked to chat." "Interrogate him, you mean to say," her husband, Rafe, said as he abandoned his chair, dropping into the now-vacant one at Chris' left side. "You've been champing at the bit to do so since their wedding, admit it. You can meddle some other time; marriage plainly agrees with him." A derisive snort from just beyond Rafe's shoulder, which grated upon Chris' raw nerves. "Laurence," Phoebe chided, and she tipped her nose into the air in that same vaguely haughty manner to which Chris had so quickly become accustomed. "Do behave yourself." In a show of solidarity, one which he surmised was shocking for its very public familiarity, Phoebe laid one hand upon Chris' shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. "Go," Rafe urged his wife. "I'll interrogate him on your behalf. You'll have to take Phoebe instead. We'll compare notes later." Chris bit back a sigh as they filed out of the room at last, and a bit of the tension which had been sprinkled liberally over the table dissolved. Several of the gentlemen remaining affected a more relaxed air—apparently, as the ladies had departed, it was now acceptable to slouch and to make oneself comfortable rather than hold oneself in stalwart reserve. Seemed a damned waste of time to Chris. And it made for a wretchedly painful dinner. His knee ached from the effort it had taken to maintain that inflexible posture. He'd be relying heavily upon his cane when it came time to leave, no doubt. He hadn't let the butler take it from him, and so it had rested at his side all evening. The men began to congregate at the end of the table near their host as the footmen stationed about the room brought out bottles of port, and Chris' stomach pitched. He was meant to make polite conversation with these gentlemen. Somehow. His fingers itched to tug at the uncomfortable tightness of his cravat. His thumb itched; the scarred pad of it scraping against the smooth silk of his glove. He was the only man present still wearing them, a fact which had escaped him before now in his studious efforts to avoid making some other mistake. Hell. He'd failed before dinner had even begun. Likely before he'd even walked through the door. Phoebe had known it already, too. She'd gone to some lengths to assure him that it didn't matter. And he wondered—had she meant to spare his feelings in advance? "So," said Lord Clarke. "Mr. Moore. I am given to understand that you and Lady Emma share a father." That much was now common knowledge. It would not have been cause for offense, except that it had been issued in a suggestive, sly tone—the vague disapproval a gentleman might display of a bastard brought to his table, half-noble or not. Hell . He'd already failed. Might as well go out with flair, as Phoebe had suggested. "Yes," he said. "My mother was a housemaid working in our father's home." A contemptuous sniff from the gentleman seated across from Rafe; Lord Berwick. A pompous sort with a weakness for games of chance. "Well," he said, lounging back in his seat as he lifted his glass to his lips. "No wonder, then, that he never acknowledged you. A woman in her position ought to know better—" "Careful, Berwick," Chris said. "I possess more than a handful of your vowels. It'd be a pity were they to be called in, since I don't believe you're in much of a financial position to make good upon them." As Berwick choked upon his port, his face flushing a mottled red, Chris suppressed a vicious grin. "In fact, my mother's only mistake was relying upon the promise of a nobleman. God knows they've little enough honor to speak of." Rafe pursed his lips against something that might've been a snicker. But then, in the years they'd worked together rooting out secrets, they had both learned that sorry fact. Between the two of them, Chris suspected they'd acquired rather a lot of incriminating evidence against the majority of gentlemen present. Things that were, if not strictly illegal, then at least morally repugnant. Rafe had been born into this world, and had entirely too many principles to trade upon what he knew, but Chris—Chris had no such standards. "That's a hell of an accusation from a man of your stamp," blustered Lord Clarke, his cheeks going ruddy. "A common criminal and a spy besides. A murderer, if the gossip is to be believed." Chris offered a shrug in response. "Murder is a matter of opinion," he said. "Soldiers kill as a matter of course. Would you judge them murderers?" "That's different," snapped Lord Clarke. "I'll say it is," Chris said. "I have never killed a man for the color of his coat or the country of his birth." And that—that had done the job admirably. The table erupted in all manner of rumblings. Lord Clarke looked near to apoplexy. Lord Statham seemed to be in imminent danger of falling into a swoon. Phoebe's brother made a succession of choking noises, his hand clenched so hard around his glass that Chris expected the stem to snap off at any moment. And Rafe—the only one present whom Chris knew had, in fact, been a soldier in the past—guffawed, no doubt at Chris' audacity. He'd done it. He'd failed with flair . And God, it had felt good. "Good God," Lord Clarke snarled. "I shall have to have a word with my wife. Can't imagine what came over her to have invited such—such—" "I would stop there, Clarke, were I you," Rafe suggested mildly, though his knuckles had gone white around his glass. "He's not fit for polite company," Lord Clarke blustered, "even if he does happen to be some…some inconvenient relation of your wife's." "He was my friend first," Rafe said, and there was a subtle threat within the words, as if to remind those present that while he might only have been a second son himself, he held enough sway with his family—and several others—to cause problems, if he so chose. "He's done more to serve his country than the vast majority of those seated at this table." Without the threat of failure hanging over his head like the Sword of bloody Damocles, Chris found a shred of humor in how terribly simple a thing it had been to incite fury. Like a lit firework tossed into a ballroom, with just a few well-chosen words he could create a cascade of chaos. Beneath the table, Rafe ground his heel into the toe of Chris' shoe, which Chris took to mean he hadn't hidden his amusement half so well as he ought to have done. But even if Rafe's defense had succeeded in cowing a few gentlemen, some, it seemed, had more pride than sense. Lord Statham notched his weak chin still higher, and some hard gleam in his eyes suggested he had not forgotten that he'd been run off with a sack full of oranges lobbed from a balcony. He said, "Really, one has to pity Miss Toogood. Such a shame, to have lost her respectability with a bad marriage." "Now, see here!" Phoebe's brother roared as he slammed one fist upon the table. A flicker of alarm slid across Statham's face at the shout. Probably, in his eagerness to lash out at Chris, he had forgotten Laurence's presence. It would be the last such mistake he would make. Chris fisted his cane in his hand and surged to his feet, sweeping the cane across the table until the very tip lodged itself just beneath Statham's chin. "I know," he said, "that you did not intend to imply that my wife is anything less than respectable." A shove of his wrist, and Statham was pinned to the back of his chair, his eyes wide with terror. "N-no," he squeaked. "I—I misspoke." A heavy silence settled over the room. There was no one particularly eager to defend Statham and risk drawing Chris' wrath for it. "I'm glad to hear it," he said. "To be clear, Mrs. Moore is, in all ways, above reproach. I shall be extremely displeased should I ever hear of a less than flattering word about her leave your mouth. Is that understood?" To his credit, Statham had tried to speak—no doubt in prompt agreement—except that Chris had pressed his cane forward once more and practically jammed the man's Adam's apple against the back of his throat. "In fact," Chris said with deadly calm into the perfect silence, "it would be best for you if her name never crosses your lips again. Ever ." "Chris?" Phoebe's soft inquiry would have turned his head, had he not been so sharply-focused open teaching Statham a lesson. "There was shouting," she said, as if to explain her sudden presence where she ought not be. "Has something happened?" "Nothing that won't soon be remedied," he said lightly. "But do gather your things. We're leaving. I find the present company —Rafe excluded—substandard." Rather than walk behind him toward the door, she rounded the table toward where Statham sat, pinned against his chair, uttering pathetic little whimpering noises better suited to a child in the throes of a nightmare rather than the grown man he purported himself to be. "Is this truly necessary?" she asked, placing her hands upon her hips. "Better than he deserved," he said. "My last cane had a sword concealed within it. He should be grateful he's not dead." Statham gave a yelp as Chris pushed harder, and the whole chair tipped onto its two rear legs, leaving him precariously balanced. "You see, Statham, I don't suffer pangs of conscience when I rid the earth of men who don't deserve to walk upon it. You should take a lesson from this. Men who insult my wife will, naturally, tend to live shorter lives than those who know how and when to hold their tongues." Another push, and Statham crashed backward to the floor. "Oh, dear." Phoebe was standing close enough to Statham to offer assistance, and she bent to brush at the rumpled linen of his cravat and to help him once more to his feet. "My lord, are you well?" "He's fine," Chris said, his voice clipped with annoyance. "And he owes you a damned apology." "Yes," Statham squealed. "Very sorry, Miss Toogood. Won't happen again." "Mrs. Moore," Chris corrected in a snarl. "Yes. Quite right. My congratulations on your marriage, Mrs. Moore." Statham trembled in fright, managing little more than a jerky bow as he retreated toward the far wall as if he half-suspected he might suffer another attack. Chris was only surprised Statham had not pissed himself. "Phoebe," he said. "We're leaving." "Oh," she said, her brows drawing in confusion. "Yes. Of course." She had hardly made it back around the length of the table before a servant had returned with their things and ushered them toward the door. Chris sighed as they stepped out onto the street once more, the cool night air whisking across his cheeks. Probably, he thought, he ought to make some sort of apology himself. But Phoebe's lips were twitching as he turned toward her, as if she were struggling to rein in a smile. "With flair?" she inquired, with an arch of her brow. "With flair," he said, and wondered at the relief that slid over him. "He was an arse. I couldn't let it pass." "He insulted me, you said." "At the very least, he's learned not to do so again." Probably every gentleman in the room had taken the lesson, even if he'd meant only to teach it to Statham. "Deserving of a bit of petty vengeance, do you think?" she asked. "He got more than that—" "I meant from me," she said. And she lifted her hand, opening it to reveal a diamond cravat pin tucked into her palm. The very same one that had once adorned the frills of Lord Statham's cravat. "Could I have my own box of pilfered treasures?" And Chris threw back his head and laughed.