Devil-May-Dare. Mary Nichols

back with a sickening crunch. The round seemed never-ending and both boxers were visibly tiring when the crowd began to yell, ‘The bell! Ring the bell, he’s done it!’

      But the barker was reluctant to do so, hoping his man could still floor the challenger and save him his twenty guineas. The fight went on, with both men becoming more and more exhausted until Lydia was sure they would fall together in a heap and neither be declared the winner, in which case the challenger would leave empty-handed. In the midst of her concern for him, she fell to wondering why he had gone into the ring in the first place. He was surely not short of twenty guineas, nor could he possibly enjoy being punched black and blue. And Tom had thought he would have a go! How glad she was that he had been prevented, but if the Marquis won her ninny of a brother might even now fancy his chances on the next bout. She pulled on his arm. ‘Tom, let’s go.’

      He turned to her, grinning. ‘What a mill! I ain’t going before the end. Wait for me beside the gypsy’s tent if you’ve no stomach for it.’

      She turned and was trying to push her way out when the spectators, furious at the delay, began a concerted rush towards the barker, shouting again for him to ring the bell. Realising his danger, he complied and Lydia looked back to see Jack’s hand raised in triumph. He was hoisted on to the shoulders of the nearest spectators, among whom her brother, grinning from ear to ear, was prominent. Tom was not in the least concerned about her, nor the fact that she was being buffeted about by the exultant mob. If he brought the Marquis over to her… Oh, how could he have forgotten their predicament? She felt herself go hot all over and was sure that sweat was trickling down her forehead and face, making tracks in her make-up. She could not face the Marquis a second time. She forced her way out of the crowd and found a hackney. Climbing in, she bade the driver wait and sat inside trying to compose herself while the spectators, knowing the entertainment was over for the night, dispersed in great good humour.

      She sat on until Tom appeared with Lord Longham at his side and began to look about him for his ‘cousin’. Shrinking back into the shadows of the hackney, she heard him say, ‘I left him here somewhere, told him to wait, had to come and offer my felicitations before I left. What a mill! Where do you train? Oh, drat Maurice, where can he be?’

      ‘Tired of kicking his heels and gone home perhaps?’ The Marquis sounded weary, as well he might. The flickering light round the booth was poor, by Lydia was surprised to see no outward evidence that he had been in a gruelling fight, apart from a slight pinkness around his left eye and a cut on his right brow which sported a plaster. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Wenthorpe, I’ll take this hackney and get off home myself.’

      ‘What?’ Tom sounded vague. ‘Oh, yes, of course, take it; I shall have to stay and look for L… Maurice.’

      Lydia could not let that happen. ‘Tom!’ She sat forward, glad the fairground lights were being snuffed out. ‘Mon Dieu, where ‘ave you been ‘iding?’ She pretended a prodigious yawn. ‘Do come ‘ome; I am dead with l’ennui.’

      Tom’s face lit with relief and he grinned. ‘Maurice! What a capital fellow you are to hold the last cab.’ He turned to Jack. ‘Will you join us?’

      If she had hoped the Marquis would refuse, she was disappointed; he accepted cheerfully. She shrank to the opposite side of the carriage and pulled her hat down as Tom got in beside her and squeezed up to make room for the Marquis.

      ‘My cousin, Maurice, Comte de Clancy,’ Tom said, by way of introduction. ‘Jack Bellingham, Marquis of Longham. You should have waited, Coz, for it was a capital fight and the Marquis stood up for the round and earned his twenty pounds. Had it not been the last bout, I would have made a challenge…’

      ‘Poof,’ she said, affecting the voice of the Comte. ‘You Engleesh, I will never comprehend why you like so much the fighting.’

      The Marquis laughed easily, though he must have been aching in every limb. ‘That is why we win our wars.’

      There was an uneasy silence until Tom said, ‘My cousin has lately come from Canada; his father, my uncle, was French, you know. He took his family there at the beginning of the war to escape serving Bonaparte. He died there and so did his wife, but now the war is over Maurice has returned to claim his land and fortune. He came to England to see lawyers…’

      ‘I hope he may have luck with the lawyers,’ Jack said.

      ‘You ‘ave ‘ad trouble with the law, monsieur?’ Lydia put in, feeling she ought to make some contribution to the conversation.

      ‘A trifling matter,’ he said, then, to her consternation, added, ‘I am sure we have met before.’

      She was about to deny it, when Tom dug her in the ribs and muttered, ‘Gypsy tent.’

      ‘Mais I ‘ave thought that also,’ she drawled. ‘I am not sure for there is not light enough to see.’

      ‘It is your voice, I think,’ Jack said, and Tom stifled a chuckle and turned it to a cough.

      ‘Ah je me souviens,’ she said. ‘We — how do you say? — bumped outside the gypsy tent, n’est-ce pas?’

      ‘Of course.’ He seemed to accept that. ‘And did you learn anything of value from the fortune-teller?’

      She gave a low chuckle. ‘If the ‘ag speaks true, I will ‘ave once more my fortune. She spoke of gold and jewels, and a dark man. I am to beware of ‘im.’

      ‘Did she say why?’ Tom asked.

      ‘Non. The crystal does not tell much for ‘alf an Engleesh crown.’

      Having said as much as she intended to on any subject, she lapsed into silence and Tom took up the conversation by asking where the Marquis lodged. On being told he had rooms at Albany, he ordered the driver to go there first, saying he would then drop his cousin off before going home himself. When the Marquis offered to share the cost of the hackney, Tom said it was his pleasure; after all, his lordship had furnished him with excellent entertainment and it was the least he could do.