"My dear," the Prince of Wales murmured, stopping before her.
"Ah… em?" from the stunned Eudoxia as he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips.
"Stunnin'," from the Prince. "Seen you ride and shoot, what? We were most impressed."
"Spasiba, em… thank you, your… highness," Eudoxia replied in a stutter, like to faint, yet reddening with pleasure.
"Yob tvoyemant" from her papa, and Lewrie discreetly took hold of his arm before he reached out to strangle the fellow.
"Fascinatin', hey?" the Prince of Wales asked of one of his simpering courtiers, cocking a brow significantly. Lewrie realised that his courtier looked to be making a mental note to himself, nodding to the Heir as if he caught his meaning. He'd be up 'til dawn, discovering where she lodged, when she rode in the park, and what her favourite colour was.
Royalty bestowed upon her a departing nod, a fond smile, then glided on to the stairs to his reserved box.
"Doh!" Eudoxia said under her breath, employing her fan for its real purpose. "God Above!"
"Who is pasty fellow?" Arslan Artimovich growled.
"The Prince of Wales… heir to the throne?" Lewrie explained. "One day, he'll be George the Fourth. A great'un for the ladies, it's said," Lewrie slyly added, hoping that Papa Durschenko would lose sleep worrying over a rakehell royal, instead of him.
Sure t'God, there's some nice jewelry headed her way, Lewrie thought with a well-repressed snicker; If the King lets him, that is.
"God damn kings and princes," Papa Durschenko darkly muttered.
"I wouldn't say that too loud, were I you," Lewrie warned him. "Paneemahyu?" he added, using one of his very few words of Russian. "Englishmen take a very dim view of people insulting their rulers… even pasty-faced princes. Calls himself 'Florizel,' don't ye know," he imparted in a whisper. "Wants t'be everyone's friend. Young women, especially."
Which information incited another "Grr!" from Durschenko.
"Well, I'll take my leave of you, sir… Mistress Eudoxia," Lewrie said with a grin, emulating the Heir and taking her hand to be kissed. "I'm off to my seat, and I hope you enjoy the show. Perhaps we may run into each other for a cold collation and some champagne?"
"Grr!"
Leaving it at that, Lewrie had toddled off, leaving Eudoxia to her moment of glory, and the greater adulation from her many admirers, despite what her papa wished!
CHAPTER TEN
The second week of Lewrie's enforced idleness passed much in the same fashion as the first, but with a lot less relish on Lewrie's part. His last rencontre with Theoni Kavares Connor had turned out to be rather embarrassing, in the vast rotunda of Ranelagh Gardens, of all places. She'd been importunate and a bit of a shrew, all but demanding that he pay court to her, and Lewrie, never one to appreciate being pressed in a corner, and with only the lamest of excuses as to why he had not yet dropped by, namely that his new stature as a Publick Hero would not let him act as he had in the past-"Respectability, and all that, Theoni," he had claimed, which sounded stage-y even to his ear!-hadn't set all that well with her.
Hissed like a bloody goose guardin' her eggs! Lewrie had told himself at the time; And like t'peck my shins an' flog me!
Theoni's seething, barely controlled anger, then her tears, had made a nasty scene for the crowd in the rotunda, and sent Lewrie on a less-than-dignified trot to get away from her. Thankfully, for the last three days, he hadn't run into her anywhere, after that.
He still slept in late, but he didn't stay out quite as late in the A.M.S as he had the first week. Fear of her, he concluded. So he haunted the Madeira Club's library, which contained rather a respectable collection of books, and the Common Room, with its cheery fireplace and comfortable leather sofas and chairs, was a grand place to read up on all the latest editions. Mind, none of them particularly salacious or interesting; all followed the modern concept of Edifying, Uplifting, and Useful, or completely unworthy to the nineteenth-century gentleman. And damn Priestley, Bentham, and the whole lot of Reformers, Lewrie stewed as he found most of them hard slogging.
He was all but nodding over a book as mystifying as any done by Milton when a club servant ahemmed into his fist and handed Lewrie a note.
"Ah? Hmm," Lewrie said as he opened it, fearing that Theoni'd run him to earth at last, and wondering why there was nothing on the outside of the folded-over paper to show who had sent it. "Christ!" he muttered once he had it open, for it was from Zachariah Twigg.
My dear Capt. Lewrie,
A matter has just yesterday arisen which, I am sure, will prove to be of the greatest interest to you. Should this note find you in your lodgings, and not absorbed in your amusements, do, pray, join me at my club, Almack's, for dinner at One of the clock. My man will await your prompt reply.
Yr Obdt. Servant
Twigg
It was worse than Theoni finding him, worse than Eudoxia dashing into the Common Rooms nude, with her father and his lions in hot pursuit and out for Lewrie's blood. It was Twigg, damn his eyes!
When'd he ever call me "dear"? Lewrie cynically thought; And he just had t'get at least one shot in, 'bout my "amusements." Oh, this could be hellish-bad. Who does he want me t'kill? And Almack's; he couldn't remember if that particular club was Tory or Whig, and if it was, did it really say anything about Twigg's personal politics? At least Lewrie knew that Almack's set a splendid table, and Twigg would be footing the bill, so…
"Pen and paper, please," he told the club servant, "and I think there's a messenger laddie waitin'?"
"There is, sir. I'll fetch them directly," the servant said.
"So pleased to see you, again, Lewrie," Zachariah Twigg said in what could be mistaken for a pleasant tone, almost purring with social oils, as it were, as he extended a long-fingered, skeletal hand to be shaken. "So pleased you got off. And, have been granted some time to re-acquaint yourself to the joys of London life. Cold enough for you?"
"Thankee for your invitation, sir," Lewrie replied, civil enough on his own part, but still wondering whose throat those fingers had strangled lately. "Not as cold as it was last week, no, but still chilly."
He felt like gawking at his plush surroundings, for he had not been inside any of the grander gentlemen's clubs in London, except for the Cocoa Tree, or one of the others that featured the hearty sort of revelry and gambling open to non-members, and folk of both sexes after dark. He felt like a "Country-Put" yokel just down from somewhere very dreary, and shown into Westminster Cathedral, for Almack's was a grand establishment indeed, done in the finest, and subtly richest, taste.
"Something warming, perhaps, Captain Lewrie," Twigg suggested as they strolled into a large library with many sofas and chairs. "A brandy for me, Hudgins."
"Yes, sir. And for you, sir?" the distinguished-looking older servant asked in a fair approximation of a courtly Oxonian accent.
"Kentucky whisky," Lewrie requested, a brow cocked in fun, just to see if Almack's stocked such spirits.
"Would Evan Williams suit, sir?"
"That'd be splendid," Lewrie replied, impressed even further.
"A quiet corner, over there, ah," Twigg said, pointing out one grouping of furniture near the tall windows at the far end of the room. The tall and cadaverous Twigg led the way, swept the tails of his coat clear, and took a seat on one end of a sofa, while Lewrie settled for a wing-back chair nearby.