“Exactly,” Strange said. “Now, it occurs to me that perhaps young Harry here is not ready for some of the more exuberant aspects of Kitty’s likely performance.”
“While in Rome, do as the Romans,” Villiers said cheerfully.
Harriet blinked at him. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting that she…
“Cum in Roman, esit as il Romani,” Strange said, in what Harriet presumed to be Latin. And then, disastrously, he turned to Harriet and asked her a question, again in Latin.
Harriet panicked. She didn’t understand a word of it, and yet of course as a young gentleman she ought to. Every gentleman understood Latin.
Villiers smoothly cut into the conversation with a Latin remark of his own. Whatever he said, it seemed to shut up Strange. He nodded sharply. There was an odd, wild light in his eyes that made Harriet a bit nervous, but at least he didn’t keep talking in Latin or expect her to say anything in reply.
Harriet shot Villiers a quick glance. She didn’t dare look pleading in front of Strange, but obviously she had to avoid Kitty somehow. Because it was clear that what Kitty and Strange had in mind—whatever that was exactly—was nothing she wanted to join.
“I have just affirmed to my friend Strange that I certainly want you, young Harry, to come into your manhood,” Villiers said.
“You did,” Strange said. “You did.”
“And yet…”
“Exactly,” Strange said. They smiled at each other.
Villiers’s skin was so white it looked blue. Some might call him haggard due his thinness, and yet somehow his loss of flesh just emphasized his masculinity. He looked like a fierce lion, temporarily caged, beaten and starved, but still deeply dangerous. Wild at the core.
Strange was entirely different: lean but muscled. He had the look of someone who had walked through hell—or a lot of brandy—and come out the other side wiser, tougher, and with his sense of humor intact.
The sardonic lines by the sides of his mouth deepened every time he looked at her and she finally knew the name to put on that emotion: laughter. She was dying to know what they said to each other in Latin, and yet she couldn’t ask.
“Well, Harry,” Villiers said. “Would you like to handle young Kitty alone?” He was daring her. She saw it in his eyes, the spark of delight there in the fact that he was putting her on the spot.
Villiers had told her that men were straightforward and use Anglo-Saxon words. Was fornicate an Anglo-Saxon word? It was the only one that came to mind, and it sounded too pedantic.
She raised her chin. “I’m looking forward to meeting Kitty,” she said. “Privately.” She turned to Strange with a show of deference. “If you’ll forgive me, my lord.”
“Not at all,” Strange said promptly, that strange laughing light in his eyes again. “I think you and Miss Kitty will have a truly delightful time in private, and I would just be in the way.”
“Exactly,” Harriet said.
“Couldn’t I watch?” he asked. “I have a room with a hidden peep-hole.”
She blinked but there was laughter in his voice. She was beginning to tell when he was serious and when he was laughing.
“Stop taking the piss out of my ward,” Villiers said, his voice sounding more tired than it had a moment ago. “The day you need to get pleasure by watching another couple perform is my last visit here.”
Strange laughed. “You never know. I could whisper encouragement to Harry through the arras.”
“Some things are instinctive,” Villiers said, his words blurring together.
Harriet stood up. “It would be most ungracious of me to keep Kitty waiting. Where did you fix our appointment, my lord?”
“I thought you were going to call me Jem.”
“Am I right in thinking you told Kitty your library? If you’ll forgive me, I’ll join her. I am naturally quite eager.”
“Naturally,” Strange drawled. “What young man wouldn’t be? Kitty is so nubile, so luscious, so charming in every way. I do wish you the best of evenings.”
Chapter Nineteen
In the Company of Angels
Kitty’s angel costume was fashioned from a few twists of cloth and a pair of feathery wings. If angels looked like this, men were going to find Heaven a very interesting place.
Harriet’s heart sank. Obviously, she was going to have to expose her own gender in order to get out of the room without disrobing. And she wasn’t ready.
She loved being taken for a man, being given steak to eat for breakfast, being told to pummel someone until he farted crackers.
She didn’t want to go home and have docile conversations with the vicar. She didn’t want to get on a side-saddle and ride decorously over a field or two before her hip started aching from the unbalanced effect of the saddle.
She definitely didn’t want to spend two hours staring glumly into a mirror while her maid dressed her hair into an arrangement that included a ship in full sail.
She closed the door behind her, but before she could say a word, Kitty flew across the room in a burst of giggles. Harriet recoiled for a moment, thinking she was about to be kissed, but it turned out that Kitty simply wished to loosen Harriet’s cravat.
“I’m afraid that Lord Strange can’t be here,” Harriet said, holding on to her cravat rather desperately.
Kitty bounded around Harriet, turning the key in the door, and giggling all the time.
“Oh dear,” Harriet said to herself, quietly.
Then Kitty came back and stood before her. “Now, Harry,” she said. “I know how you’re feeling.”
Harriet felt pure, unadulterated panic. “You do?”
She nodded. “You’re a little scared. Everyone has a first time. And of course it’s a bit more difficult for a man, given as he has to perform. But I’m—”
It had to be said. “I’m not—” Harriet began.
But Kitty was giggling again. “Don’t tell me this isn’t your first time, Harry, because I’d hate to call you a fraud this early in our acquaintance!”
“A fraud?” Harriet repeated faintly.
Kitty had a look in her eye that made Harriet want to dash for the hills, so she took a deep breath and steeled herself. Goodbye breeches, goodbye wild morning rides, goodbye fencing…
“I’m not a man,” she said clearly.
“Well, not yet,” Kitty squealed. She reached for Harriet’s hand, but Harriet fell back a step.
“I truly mean what I say. I’m not a man.”
There was a moment of silence in the room. Harriet could hear the embarrassed thumping of her heart in approximate rhythm with the grandfather clock.
“You’re not a man?” Kitty asked. “Really?”
Harriet shook her head. “No.”
“But how did that happen?” Kitty asked. “Was it a childhood accident? Or something worse?”
Harriet blinked—and then she suddenly realized she had been offered the perfect escape. “Childhood accident,” she said sadly. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, because I find you so beautiful.”
“Oh…” Kitty breathed. “You poor thing.” Her eyes lost the luminous, excited tint they held, and began glowing with sympathy. “It must be so embarrassing for you to tell me. Of course you don’t want anyone to know.” Her eyes widened. “No wonder you didn’t want Lord Strange to join us!”
Harriet heaved a deep sigh. “You can have no idea.”
“There’s a eunuch in the Queen’s Revels company,” Kitty offered. “He sings all the high parts. I’ve never met him, but everyone says his voice is beautiful. You know, this all makes sense now. Your voice is very high.”
“It never changed,” Harriet admitted.
“I suppose it wouldn’t. Is there anything I can do?” Kitty looked trepidacious but willing.
“There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s all just too, too humiliating.” For a moment Harriet thought she’d gone too far, but of course Kitty was used to people dramatizing themselves, and she didn’t even
blink.
“We’ll have a drink,” she said, patting Harriet on the shoulder. “Brandy is a great help when it comes to humiliation. Why, there was the time when I was auditioning to be in the chorus at the Drury Lane theater, and the manager asked me if I could play the part of an ape. He wanted a private audition.”
“What on earth did he mean?”
“Roll around on the floor, head over heels, in some sort of gymnastic feat.” She walked over to the sideboard and poured two hefty doses of brandy and brought them back. “Here, Harry, this is for your health. You never know. Maybe you’ll regain capacity when you’re a bit bigger. Anyone can tell that you have a nice package there. It’s just a dirty shame that it doesn’t work.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Harriet said, silently blessing the wool stocking tucked down her breeches that formed her “package.” They sat down on the couch, and Harriet said, “So the manager wanted you to be a gymnast?”
“Private performance,” Kitty said. “Unclothed.”
Harriet choked.
“Head over heels, around and around the stage. He offered me quite a lot of money for it. But I don’t do that sort of thing.” She made a prim mouth. “There’s being naughty for the pleasure of it, if you see what I mean. And then there’s just plain naughtiness, as my mother would say.”
Harriet drank some more. This was definitely the most interesting period of her life. There could be no comparison to the turgid conversations she’d generally had at balls. “Is your mother still alive?” she ventured.
“Of course. She’s one of the principal dancers with Prince George’s troupe, down in Brighton. She always laid down the rules for me. I do a private performance now and then, but only for my own pleasure. If you do such things for money, you become hard and bitter.”
“Why?” Harriet asked curiously.
“You are a young one, aren’t you? For one thing, you’ll probably get an illness and then you’ll look back and regret making yourself sick for twelve pence. Or whatever the sum happened to be.”
“But couldn’t you get an illness anyway?” Harriet asked.
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Because it’s a different sort of thing,” Kitty said, rather obscurely. “And if you start doing things only for money, well, then you’re not enjoying yourself, are you?”
“I expect not,” Harriet said. She was starting to think that whatever she and Benjamin had done in their marital bedchamber had little to do with Kitty’s idea of enjoyment.
“I shouldn’t even talk of this to you,” Kitty said, looking stricken. “You being unable to take pleasure, I mean. I do apologize.”
“That’s quite all right,” Harriet said. “I like to know, even though I can’t partake.”
“That’s even sadder,” Kitty said, her eyes getting a bit misty.
“So,” Harriet said hastily, “will you take a husband someday?”
“I’ve had three proposals of marriage,” Kitty said. “I suspect that I will take the next one. I’ve always liked the number four.”
There was something about Kitty’s reasoning methods that made Harriet’s head spin. “But what if you don’t care for the fourth man?”
“I like most people,” Kitty said cheerfully. “Someone like you would be perfect. Except…” she paused delicately.
“Yes,” Harriet said, finishing her glass of brandy. “I see exactly what you mean.”
After a second glass of brandy, Harriet pulled off her peruke and loosened her cravat. Then Kitty took that cravat and illustrated an interesting way to tie someone to the bedpost (or any other handy pole, she explained earnestly), using just one wrist and the cravat.
Kitty didn’t handle her third glass of brandy all that well, although she insisted on drinking it. She turned quite pink and it was hard to make out what she was saying between bursts of giggles.
“Come on,” Harriet said, hauling Kitty into a standing position. “We need to find something to eat.”
“We can just ring for the butler. You can simply ring that bell and anything—” Kitty waved her arm wildly “—anything will be delivered right to you. You can’t imagine what we all asked for our first two days here. I demanded champagne for breakfast!”
“And they brought it to you?”
“Of course,” Kitty said, toppling to the side. “Perhaps I should eat something. I was so excited about the evening that I didn’t really eat supper.”
Harriet steered her toward the door. Once in the hallway, Kitty remembered that she was planning to marry the next man who asked her and started speculating about his age. And the size of his member.
Harriet cleared her throat. She was certainly learning a great deal that evening, never having seriously considered such a question before. But she was also feeling slightly dizzy.
Povy took one look at them and then tucked Kitty under his arm.
He snapped his fingers at a footman. “Fetch Lord Strange.”
“Oh, you needn’t—you mustn’t,” Harriet protested.
“His lordship likes to be informed of all events,” Mr. Povy said, gliding across the corridor with Kitty in tow, as if a drunken young woman dressed as an angel was all in a day’s work.
Which it probably was, Harriet had to realize.
“Come on, Harry,” Kitty called. “Harry!”
Harriet reluctantly followed them into the sitting room.
“Strange is coming here, isn’t he?” Kitty said, fixing her eye on Povy.
Povy said, “I really couldn’t say, miss. He might come if he’s free.”
“I expect he’ll ask me to marry him, and I think I’ll accept. Unless you wish to ask me, Harry.” She appeared to have forgotten the manifest reason why Harry (or Harriet) couldn’t engage in marriage.
The main thought that went through Harriet’s mind was utterly surprising and fiercely violent. She pushed the thought away. It was none of her business whom Jem Strange asked to marry. Though he would never ask Kitty, any more than she herself would.
“If you’ll forgive me, I won’t ask you to marry me at this time,” she told Kitty.
Povy deposited Kitty on a chair. “Hot buttered eggs,” he told the footman. “Hot tea, and I should think some salmon sandwiches as well.”
Harriet sat down as well.
Of course Jem appeared a moment later.
“Ah, it is Mr. Cope,” he said genially. “I wondered, when the footman reported that a young lady was the worse for drink.”
“I don’t know why you’d think so,” Harriet said, looking up at him, finally, because there was nowhere else to look.
“Our Kitty does not usually drink to excess,” he said, bending over to peer at his guest. “It must have been a great disappointment that sent her into such a pit of despair.”
“I really couldn’t say,” Harriet said. “I believe that she expects you to ask her to marry her, perhaps even tonight.”
“Yet another disappointment in play,” Jem murmured. “Dear me, the poor girl seems to have gone to sleep.”
“I should go upstairs,” Harriet said, not moving. There was a strange excitement racing through her veins.
Jem looked at her. “And waste buttered eggs? I love buttered eggs. When they are cooked correctly, they are silky, and my cook makes them excellently.”
He could make a salad of straw sound delicious, Harriet thought. Two minutes later, a footman had picked up Kitty and carried her off.
“Tsk, tsk,” Jem said, sitting himself in Kitty’s chair. “Young women can’t drink like men, you know. They’re apt to topple off to sleep before they even think of taking their wings off. I suppose that’s what happened to the two of you?”
“Exactly,” Harriet said. “That describes it perfectly.”
“Never disappoint a woman, Harry,” Jem said. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes that said—said what?
“I’ve been thinking about the lines of verse you
keep handing me,” he continued. “I suppose you’ll have another two lines for me tomorrow?”
“I expect so,” Harriet said, a bit cautiously. “It depends on whether I am given another missive for you, of course.”
“The dark is my delight,” he said. “And then that business about the nightingale singing at night. You know, it almost sounds like a theatrical song, that kind that appeared in old plays.”
Mr. Povy opened the door and placed a silver tray in front of them. “Buttered eggs,” he announced. “Extra butter, as your lordship prefers. Hot tea with lemon.”
“The rest we can see to for ourselves,” Jem said amiably, but with an unmistakable tone of dismissal.
He wants to be alone with me, Harriet thought with a thrill. He wants to be—alone. With me or with Harry?
Obviously with Harry, since he didn’t know Harriet existed.
“What were you working on today?” she asked, biting into a piece of toast.
“Letters,” he said. “My lord chancellor tells me that the King is quite distraught over a debt to the King of Denmark. But since I advised two years ago that it was best to avoid giving any funds to the Guinny Company backed by Denmark, which they choose to ignore, I feel the privy-counselors will have to solve this debacle on their own.”
“I didn’t know that you exchanged correspondence with the lord chancellor,” Harriet said.
“Money,” Jem said. “If you have a great deal of it, it precipitates you into conversations in which you would prefer not to participate.”
“With the lord chancellor?”
“And the King. My guess is that the King will remove the first lord of the treasury by the end of the week. The only thing of interest I did today was unpack a box of curiosities sent to me by a man in London.”
“What was among them?” Harriet said.
“A salamander,” Jem said. “And a squirrel shaped like a fish. There’s a piece of wood from the cross of Christ, which I utterly discount because it’s the fortieth such piece I’ve been offered, and that number alone is enough wood to put a good wall on a privy.”