Barbara Metzger - Truly Yours

"Oh Lord," he said, "we'd do better back at the front. The French have a whole army to aim at. We're standing targets here."

"It's your red coat and all that gold braid."

"It's your great size. No one can miss you."

Without further consultation, they retreated to the refreshments room.

"Lobster patties, my favorite." Daniel forgot about the matrimonial-minded mamas and took half the platter onto his plate, itch also forgotten. Rex was too on edge to eat, but poured himself a glass of punch, which turned out to be sweet and insipid. They stood to the side, watching the crowds, noticing everyone noticing them.

A few older women, not wearing the white and pastels of the debutantes, smiled in their direction. The females did not have to say a word to make their intentions, and invitations, as clear as day. A few gentlemen came by on their way to the food table and nodded, more out of respect for Rex's uniform, he thought, than for the cousins. They frowned at Daniel's plate on their way back, sans lobster patties. One man asked after Rex's father, after looking over his shoulder to make sure no one heard him. He scurried away as quickly as he could, without the glass of punch he'd supposedly come for.

"We'd do better at cards," Rex decided out loud. "No one will speak to us here."

Daniel was off refilling his plate and did not answer, but someone else did.

"Can you blame them for not speaking? I am astounded you had the gall to show your face at a respectable gathering."

Rex looked over, to find himself the subject of a sneering scrutiny, through Sir Nigel Turlowe's quizzing glass. Sir Nigel was the knighted barrister who had ruined his father's career, who had rushed Miss Carville into jail, who appeared to have a grudge against the entire Royce family. He was a man of middle years, with his brown hair parted in the middle to make it look fuller. He had thin lips, too, a sharp, pointed nose and pale eyebrows and lashes. He reminded Rex of a lizard.

Rex did not bow. He curled his lip in return and said, "I myself am surprised at the indiscriminate quality of Lady Arbuthnot's guests."

Sir Nigel's watery eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared. Rex expected a forked tongue to come out of his lips. Instead the man said, "I do not appreciate your interference in my court case. Miss Carville's guilt is a foregone conclusion and an easy conviction. Stay away from it."

"I do not see the case that way." Rex saw the man's own yellow belief in his words, with a tinge of orange doubt, likely because of Rex's involvement. So Sir Nigel believed Rex's actions could change the outcome, which was encouraging.

Sir Nigel sneered again. "I do not care what you think, or what outlandish notions you have. Sympathy, chivalry toward Lady Royce's connection, or your deviltry, nothing affects the facts. The woman is guilty and belongs in jail. If she does not appear for trial then it is on your head and on your honor, what there is left of it."

Rex put his hand down, to where his sword would have been. Then he raised his other hand, the one with the cup in it, ready to throw punch in the dastard's face along with his challenge. No man who considered himself a gentleman could accept such an insult. "Name your sec-Agh."

Daniel's elbow had landed in Rex's ribs. The punch sloshed over onto Rex's hand. Sir Nigel snickered.

"Don't do it," cousin Daniel whispered, cutting his eyes toward the gathering crowd. "He's wanting you to make a fool of yourself, can't you see? Besides, it won't help Miss Carville's cause to be defended by a hothead. And if you kill him, you'll have to leave the country. Then what will she do?"

Rex raised his eyebrow as if to comment on Daniel's sudden wisdom, which he accepted, given the moment to think. He dabbed at his hand with a handkerchief, then turned his head toward the barrister knight. "Perhaps you might wish to discuss my honor at Jackson's Boxing Parlor. You'll appreciate the odds, I am sure, fighting a cripple. No? Then Antoine's Fencing Academy? Manton's Shooting Gallery?"

"Everyone knows you are a crack shot."

"And now everyone knows that your mouth is bigger than your manhood." Rex spotted Lady Arbuthnot hurrying over, attracted by the circle around the two men. "That is," he added for the lady's sake, "your manners. It cannot be quite convenable, can it, insulting a fellow guest in our charming hostess's home?" He bowed to that lady. "Especially since she was kind enough to accept myself and my cousin instead of Lady Royce, her original invitee. My dear Lady Arbuthnot, please accept my apologies." He bent over her hand, but kissed the inside of her wrist, above her glove, instead of the air above her fingers as was customary. Then he winked at her.

"Dear boy. Of course I accept your apology." She turned to Sir Nigel expectantly.

The knight pursed his thin lips. "I have done nothing for which I need apologize."

Rex pointedly refused to look at the reptile, or address him. "No, my lady, he merely throws insults rather than punches. Luckily for him dueling is illegal."

"Since when does the law matter to you?" Sir Nigel sneered again, turning to the crowd for their approval.

The gentleman who had asked after Lord Royce shook his head and said, "But it should stop you, sir, an officer of the court."

An older man laughed out loud. "Seems more than Sir Nigel's position keeps him from answering a challenge, eh?"

Sir Nigel turned apoplectic, with high color and heavy breathing. Rex wondered if he would save them all the cost of a bullet. Regrettably, Sir Nigel recovered enough to turn on the older gent. "I am no brute, proving my worth with my fists. Or bullying my way through life as if a title and wealth gave me the right." He pointed back toward Rex and spit out, "Hear this, Rexford. That murderess's parole is on your head. I will see you behind bars if she gets away-see if I don't. And I'll have that Dimm-wit Runner's job, too. The old fool should have retired years ago."

"Instead of catching scores of felons to make London safer for all of us? Perhaps you ought to inquire at the magistrate's office how many crimes he has solved this week alone, how many true miscreants he has seen sentenced, with facts and confessions to prove his cases, not smoke and mirrors and personal vendettas."

Sir Nigel ignored the interruption. "And that shady character connected to Whitehall who pulled strings for you. I'll see him brought down, too. Why should anyone trust a fellow who always stands in darkness?"

"Strange, I would trust him with my life, and have. As has General Wellesley, along with the lives of half the army. Any foul attempt to discredit the Aide might very well sacrifice our own soldiers."

Sir Nigel waved his fist in the air. "Justice, I say! Justice will be done."

"Justice? Is it justice to abuse a gently bred young lady of two and twenty years by tossing her to ignorant guards and common thieves without a conviction? She could have been placed under house arrest, or remanded to a family friend."

"Everyone knows she is guilty."

"Now you are judge as well as jury? I thought the lowest cutpurse or pickpocket got a fair trial."

The onlookers were shaking their heads in disapproval.

Like the experienced barrister he was, Sir Nigel sensed he had lost the goodwill of the listeners. "Bah!"

"Bah, indeed, traducing the justice system you say you hold dear. But let us ask our charming hostess."

Lady Arbuthnot was looking anxious, with her ball turning into a political debate, if not a duel.

Rex asked her how old her lovely daughter was.

"Nineteen," she answered with uncertainty as to his purpose.

"And if she found herself in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in a situation far beyond her understanding or experience, would you not expect her peers to deal with her as a lady?"

"Of course." She glared at Sir Nigel. "I have known Amanda Carville her entire life. She is a sensible, kind-hearted miss who always acts just as she ought. If she claims she is not guilty, and Lady Royce shows she believes the girl is not guilty by taking her into her home, and a brave officer from the general's staff puts his own honor at stake for her, I, for one, am willing to believe her."

"She is innocent." Rex stated without hesitation. Daniel nodded his head in agreement.

"Two officers."

"Bah!" Sir Nigel repeated. "Of course the young bucks will back her story. Amanda Carville is nothing but a light skirt."

Rex held onto his temper with effort-and with another jab in the ribs from his cousin. He might be black and blue in the morning, but he would not be counting twenty paces, leaving Amanda without protection. "No," he told Lady Arbuthnot and the circle of eager guests who surrounded them. "The only one who claimed Miss Carville's disgrace is the man who wanted to keep her dowry for himself, after he stole her inheritance."

"He did?" Lady Arbuthnot gasped. A few of her friends fanned themselves with their hands. "I never knew. But I never did like that Hawley monster. That poor child." She glared at Sir Nigel, who made her a cursory bow, turned on his heel, and left without another word, shoving one portly matron aside.

Lady Arbuthnot asked Rex, almost as if he had prompted her, "My dear Lord Rexford, when did you say your mother was due to return to London?"

"Momentarily, depending on her own health and the weather," he said, trying for any plausible excuse for the delay. "Meanwhile she has ordered her beloved godchild placed under the care of thoroughly trustworthy women, who watch over Miss Carville's sickroom night and day."

Lady Arbuthnot beamed at Rex and Daniel, then at her friends. "Excellent. Do you know, I believe my daughter has a dance open after all?"

"So does mine!"

"And mine."

Oh, Lord.

They went to the Cocoa Tree next. The gamblers and gossipers there were not as fusty as the members at White's Club or Boodles. The cousins' reception was not warm, but their money was welcomed at the tables, especially when word arrived, as it always did, of the confrontation with Sir Nigel Turlowe.

"What did that Shakespeare chap say?" a castaway gentleman watching their game asked. "Something about, first, kill all the lawyers." He raised his glass. "Here's to the downfall of that social-climbing jackass."

The son of a marquis, the drunk had never worked a day in his life. The son of an earl, Rex understood about wanting to make something of oneself, but not on the backs of others. He raised his own glass, although he took a mere sip. "May he at least be proved wrong about Sir Frederick Hawley's murder."

"You say the gal did not blow his brains to smithereens?"

One of the card players gagged.

Rex frowned and said, "No, Miss Carville had cause to dislike the man, but she is a lady." That stopped any possible comment about Amanda's supposed fall from grace.

Rex reinforced his point with adding, "She is Lady Royce's godchild, don't you know." He figured that the countess's social standing ought to be good for something.

"Stands to reason, with you taking up the cause."

If the man was hinting for more gossip, he was wasting his time. "Family," Rex said, almost choking on the foreign word. "I never met the female before."

The cousins earned their acceptance at the table by losing, and by paying in coins, not in vouchers to be collected some time in the vague future. "Not like Sir Frederick's usual habit, eh?"

But no one claimed to hold the dead man's vowels. One down-at-heels young baronet owed Hawley a small sum, in fact, and wondered if he had to pay the heir.

A debt of honor was a debt of honor-that was the consensus among the inveterate gamblers, no matter the legality of the thing. And Sir Frederick's family needed the blunt. The son was trying to restore an ailing estate, wasn't he? And who would marry either of the girls now, guilty or not, without a generous dowry?

Rex made sure he lost to the baronet.

They moved on to a new gaming club Daniel patronized where the company was less lofty, less bound by scruples than greed. The wine was watered; the dice were likewise suspect. Again, Rex and Daniel swore Miss Carville was innocent. And an innocent. She was home ill, wasn't she? And again, they found nothing damning about Sir Frederick. No one liked the man, but no one seemed to hate him enough to kill him. As at the previous establishment, no one knew his friends, if he had any.

Their next stop was at McCann's Club, a favorite among military men. Rex wanted to look around, to spot a familiar figure, listen for a familiar voice. The Aide,