been only in the last two years that he had made a concerted effort to return, but he had found the landscape little changed. The faces were different, but all else was as it had ever been. Perhaps it was even worse since the Continental war had claimed so many of Society’s young men, leading to an increasingly desperate competition among the ladies. Again, he had experienced only disappointment. Until…
Darcy flicked a glance at the woman by his side. Lady Felicia was the epitome of what Society deemed perfection in its females of rank. She had contracted a brilliant engagement with his cousin and was destined to become one of their world’s influential ladies. All was before her, if not in her possession already. Yet, this was as nothing! Honor — hers, his, or his cousin’s — was not even a consideration! She desired a flirtation. With him specifically, or would any man at the table serve? Darcy surveyed his fellow guests. If he did not take the bait,
His quandary rendered the remainder of the meal tasteless, but as his body required sustenance, Darcy worked his way through course after course. After dinner the gentlemen were invited to repair to Sayre’s gun room for their brandy and tobacco while Her Ladyship suggested that the ladies retire to the more feminine environs of a salon in another wing and on the next floor. With a fluttering of fans and gathering of shawls, the ladies rose and curtsied to the gentlemen. They in turn bowed, and Sayre promised that they would not keep the ladies waiting. “For,” he said as the door clicked shut behind them, “I hope to get them all safely to bed as soon as may be, so we can truly begin to enjoy ourselves.” His Lordship’s remark was immediately understood by all, Darcy not excepted. Sayre had been an inveterate gambler at University, his penchant for cards in particular, nearly an addiction. The intervening years had not, it appeared, satiated his hunger for games of chance. It was going to be a late night.
The gun room was, in fact, the old armory of the castle, converted to display its owner’s collection of weaponry, from pike through edge to gunpowder, in an atmosphere conveyed by appointments in keeping with a strictly masculine idea of comfort. The servants awaiting them brought forward the brandy and Scotch and a selection of cigars and cheroots. Waving away the tobacco, Darcy considered the brandy but then passed it by for a smaller glass of port. If they were to gamble, he desired the command of all his faculties. Tonight’s play might begin in cordiality, but it would soon take a very serious turn. Strong drink and tobacco could be dangerously distracting.
“Darcy, have you seen the sabers?” Monmouth called him over to an entire wall of the sword maker’s art. It was a stunning collection. The graceful blades and elegant hilts glinted in the candlelight, practically begging to be lifted free from their display to have their balance weighed and their danger tested. Darcy ran a finger over a particularly lovely one from Spain, its creator’s name a virtual byword for excellence among swordsmen. “A beauty, isn’t it?” Monmouth commented then laughed. “I was present when Sayre won it from young Vasingstoke. His grandfather, the old Baron, tried to redeem it, but Sayre wouldn’t part with it. Cost Vasingstoke a month kicking his heels in the country, as I recall.” Darcy let escape a low whistle. The Baron’s collection was legendary, but even so, this must have been a prized piece.
“Like the look of that saber, do you?” Sayre strolled over to them with unconcealed pride. At Darcy’s nod, he motioned toward it. “Take it up! Tell me what you think.” Almost disbelieving him, Darcy reached up and gingerly freed the saber from its display. The weapon’s hilt seemed to slip into his hand, his fingers closing around it in a perfect fit, the swirling silver bands of the wrist guard accentuating its deadly beauty. He hefted it reverently, flexing the muscles and tendons of his hand and forearm, and slowly thrust it out before him, watching the candlelight play along its length as he tested its exquisite balance.
“Go on, Darcy,” urged Trenholme as the others gathered around. “Show what can be done with the little beauty! My brother never was a swordsman. I’d like to see it as it was meant to be seen — in action!”
Smiling with anticipation, Darcy executed a few simple moves. The blade floated, then slashed through the air, the traditional moves calling forth the weapon’s own distinctive song. Perfect, he thought, or as near to perfection as a thing from the hand of man could be.
“Too tame by half!” Manning sneered.
“Show us more than nursery exercises, Darcy!” called Poole.
Checking his movement, Darcy gently placed the saber on a table and began unbuttoning his coat. With a knowing smile upon his face, Monmouth came behind him and helped pull it from his shoulders. Shaking one arm free, Darcy stripped his other and threw the coat over a chair as he turned back to the blade. It fit into his hand as smoothly as before, and no, he had not dreamed the perfection of its balance. Stepping away from the group and stretching the muscles of his back and upper arms, he swung the saber in increasing arcs.
“He should have an opponent,” Chelmsford observed, but no one made a motion to offer his services. Instead, silence fell as the gentlemen eagerly awaited Darcy’s first move. Darcy drew in several calming breaths as he reviewed the steps of the exercise he had recently developed for himself. It had been well over a week…
He began slowly with classic moves that warmed his muscles and steadily increased the beat of his heart. Then the pace and complexity of the figures increased as well, until the blade was a blur as he advanced and retreated against an invisible foe. The saber responded to his slightest wish, becoming an extension of his body. He pressed himself further.
Shouts of “Well done!” and “Good show!” slowly invaded his concentration. It was time to end. Advancing to his host, he slowed and, with a flourish, threw the saber up into the air. Catching it, he laid it across his crooked arm, offering it hilt first to a wide-eyed Sayre. His Lordship took the weapon with a bow as the rest clapped Darcy upon his back, exclamations of their appreciation echoing from the stone arches of the ancient armory.
“Damn me, Darcy!” Sayre eyed him speculatively. “Thought seven years would have slowed your sword arm. Of course, with such a blade…” He let the thought dangle as Darcy shrugged back into his coat and began on the buttons.
“Out with it, Sayre. ‘With such a blade…’?” Monmouth prodded.
“Just a thought.” His Lordship would not be rushed. “Perhaps, Darcy, you would like an opportunity to acquire the saber?”
His suspicion aroused at such a question, Darcy replied casually, “Are you offering it for sale, Sayre?”
“Oh, no! Not for sale, Darcy!” His host regarded him slyly. “If you would have the saber, you must win it from me!”
The gentlemen entered Lady Sayre’s salon to the sound of a musical duet. The last to enter, Darcy paused in the doorway, for the scene presented for them had been artfully contrived. Lady Felicia sat at the pianoforte with Miss Avery at her side to turn her pages, while Miss Farnsworth stood behind them, drawing a bow across a violin. The music was sweetly plaintive, a popular lament and, with the performers so charmingly grouped, ideally suited to delight the senses.
It was a pleasing sight, Darcy admitted as he found a seat. Veteran as he was of many a drawing room campaign, he was not inured to beauty and grace; and the females present possessed those qualities in full measure. All of them were good-looking women. Lady Chelmsford, the oldest, was still handsome; and her sister, Lady Beatrice, could almost be taken for Miss Farnsworth’s older sister rather than her mother. Lady Sayre had been declared a “stunner” her first Season by members of the fast set who still had entry into Almack’s and had been credited with bringing red hair into fashion. Although six years had passed since her triumph and marriage, her sloe eyes, womanly figure, and pouting, full lips were still more than capable of sending warm shivers down a man’s spine.
Darcy turned his contemplation upon the younger ladies. Miss Avery, Lady Sayre’s much younger sister, was a copy of her but in a different key. She also possessed the Avery hair, but imitated her brother in looking upon the world through grass green eyes. The most obvious difference lay in her manner. Whereas her siblings regarded the world with confidence and complacency, Miss Avery did so with a timidity that revealed a severe doubt as to her welcome. This hesitancy was further exacerbated by her brother’s impatience with her and an unfortunate tendency to stutter. She was very young and impressionable, Darcy noted. Already, her gratitude for Lady Felicia’s intervention during supper had blossomed into worship as she gazed upon the lady playing so charmingly beside
