The soused country Baronet couldn’t have known anything of value to sell to the French. There was something more nefarious behind her acquisition. If there wasn’t, she wouldn’t have skulked past him this morning like some sharper creeping off to plan her next swindle.
Worry crept over him like the small hand sliding into his pocket.
Rafe snatched the arm of the ragamuffin standing next to him. ‘Nothing for you there.’
‘I didn’t do nuffin’,’ the boy squealed, trying to twist free, but Rafe held him tight. ‘I’m only running an errand for me ma.’
The panicked boy shot a look up at the building and Rafe followed it to see the dark-haired woman gripping the window pane. Her narrow chin and the mole above her lip reminded him of the daughter of a squire, a Miss Allen, he’d met some years ago at a country garden party. It was the last one he and his mother had attended before his father’s mounting debts had forced them to shun invitations. If it was the same young lady, then she’d fallen a long way since he’d last seen her in Sussex.
Rafe studied the thin boy, his face streaked with dirt, his hair covered with a threadbare cap. He was hardly worth the hangman’s rope. He dug a coin out of his pocket and pressed it into the boy’s grimy palm. ‘Take this to your mother and don’t come back in this crowd again.’
He let go and the boy staggered back, clutching the coin to his chest as he darted through the door of the tumbledown rookery. Rafe tipped his hat to the woman in the window.
She mouthed ‘thank you’, then receded back into the shadows.
If only all cheats were so easily dealt with. The sense this round was lost to Cornelia still rubbed, the frustration of Rafe’s current situation more annoying than the ever-widening hole in his stocking. Without the register, any effort to protect and build back the Densmore fortune and name, to spare his mother from further poverty and degradation, would come to nothing. If Cornelia showed anyone in the House of Lords the evidence of his father’s crime, he and his mother were finished. The Bill of Attainder was still in place and the greying Lord Twickenham still intent on enforcing it. Wealthstone would be seized and Rafe’s title forfeit.
It was enough to ruin a good boxing match.
Hartley appeared at Rafe’s side, holding his ticket and practically fluttering with excitement. ‘Come on, I want to get a good place.’
They walked around the edge of the circle of men. Rafe’s height gave him the advantage in the crowd, but they moved three times before Hartley was content with his view. A cheer went up as the fighters appeared in the doorway of one building. The crowd parted, allowing the two boxers to pass into the circle of spectators. They stood across from each other, looking less like a pair of Hercules and more like two blocks of stone some sculptor had hacked at to give them arms, legs and something of a face.
‘Which one is your man?’ Rafe asked.
‘The ox with the scar on his arm.’ Hartley rubbed his hands together in anticipation. ‘This should be good.’
Rafe studied the scarred fighter, agreeing with Hartley’s description of his bovine features. The man walked in a tight circle, his steps heavy, his arms swinging about his body like two logs. ‘A fiver says your man goes down in the first round.’
Hartley adjusted his hat. ‘That’s no way to wish a man luck.’
‘You’re confident in your tip?’
‘It’s the best one I’ve had in weeks.’
‘Then ten pounds says he falls like a chopped oak.’
Hartley levelled a finger at Rafe. ‘I’ll take the bet and you’ll wish you hadn’t made it.’
The fight began and the two boxers moved to the centre of the ring, circling and jabbing at each other. The unblemished man moved faster than his opponent and landed one good punch to the ox’s gut before catching him with a right hook. The crowd went silent as the ox tipped on his heels and landed flat on his back in the dirt.
The smaller man lifted his arms in triumph.
Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
Grumbles rippled through the crowd as men exchanged money.
Hartley groaned, peeled a ten-pound note off his roll of money and handed it to Rafe. ‘I should have known better.’
‘And next time you will.’ Rafe tucked the note into his pocket.
He thought of Cornelia and his determination swelled with the crowd’s excitement as the next pair of fighters took to the ring. Rafe might be short his entrance fee, but he’d be damned if he’d let Cornelia knock him out of the game. Gaining access to the register wouldn’t be as easy as walking into Mrs Ross’s house and purchasing it, but he’d find a way to slip between Cornelia’s covers, so to speak, make her see how much she owed him for everything he’d done for her and overcome whatever grudge she’d developed against him in France.
As a newly minted Comtesse, she was sure to be at the Dowager Countess of Daltmouth’s salon tonight, worming her way into society. Rafe would be there, too, to remind her of her debt to him. Whatever her plans for the register, she owed him at least the safety of removing his father’s name from the book and it was time to call in her vowel.
Rafe strolled into the Dowager Countess of Daltmouth’s salon, taking in the number of ladies in white, high-waisted gowns scattered between the furniture. Their presence on every sofa and chair gave the long room the look of a conservatory filled with pregnant Greek marbles. The women huddled in groups around the thin intellectuals, twittering like birds at the men’s flashes of brilliance. The husbands took up more sober positions near the tables of wine and food, fortifying themselves against any taint of intellectual or poetic leanings.
Rafe moved down the centre of the long room, passing a group of dandies in blue silk coats, their waistcoats cinched so tightly, he could count the pence in their pockets. As if on cue, they lifted their lorgnettes and scrutinised Rafe’s plain black coat and tan breeches, sneering down their powdered noses at his understated dress. He ignored them as his gaze skipped over a few nymphs surrounding a consumptive-looking youth extolling his latest drivel.
‘Lord Densmore, what a pleasure it is to have you here tonight.’ The Dowager Countess of Daltmouth glided up to him in a cloud of rosewater perfume. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’
Rafe took her extended hand, nearly folding himself in half to offer a greeting of substance. She’d aged gracefully, her blonde hair arranged to favour her regal nose and high cheekbones. The deep-purple dress flowed over her still enviable curves, revealing a touch of the bosom which had once been the envy of all the ladies. If the lights were lower, Rafe might have mistaken her for a much younger woman. ‘There’s nowhere else in London I’d rather be.’
‘Liar,’ she chided, her thumb brushing the underside of his palm before she let go.
Rafe straightened, cautious of the mature coquette. ‘You’ve assembled an impressive gathering tonight.’
‘Not as impressive as the pillar of the Densmore family.’ Her eyes stroked the length of him, pausing at the buttons of his breeches before rising to meet his eyes. ‘I believe you’ve surpassed even your father in height.’
‘And wit and charm.’ As well, it seemed, as respectability and love for his country.
‘Yes, I greatly admire your charm.’
‘Careful, Lady Daltmouth, or I might mistake your flattery for flirting.’
She laughed like a newly married girl impressing her unmarried friends with her recently acquired experience. ‘I assure you, Lord Densmore, nothing could be closer to the truth.’
‘I’m flattered,’ he lied, more amused