The Invasion Year

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Gad, yes, but Viscount Stangbourne gambles deep, and has a most uncanny knack o’ winnin’ most of the time,” Sir Hugo informed him once they set off in their cabriolet from the palace. “He can afford to… they’re swimmin’ in ‘tin.’ I’d advise ye t’stick to Shove-Ha’penny or bowls, for neither of us ever had a head for serious gaming.”

“A pound or two at Loo, perhaps,” Lewrie assured him, marvelling at how the cheery sunlight winked off his star.

“That’s what ye always promised, and how much o’ yer debts did I end up coverin’, what?”

“Then I’ll toady and cheer him on,” Lewrie replied. “His sister is rather interesting,” he added, striving for mild interest.

“The infamous Lydia? A scandalous baggage,” Sir Hugo snickered. “Fetchin’, I’ll allow, but… ye didn’t read about it? She was in all the papers, about three years ago.”

“What was it about?” Lewrie asked, a bit more intrigued.

“Her parents settled two thousand pounds a year on her when she came to her majority… the brother twice that ’til he inherited everything when they passed. The fortune hunters lined up by the battalion,” his father began to explain. That sum made Lewrie grunt in amazement; one could have a fine, gentlemanly life, in some style, too, on about three hundred a year… before the war, and the taxes, at least!

“She was hellish-hard to please, but finally wed at last, four years ago,” Sir Hugo continued. “The fellow, Lord Tidwell, was only a baron, below the Stangbournes in the peerage, but his title was an old one, and Percy’s only the third Viscount, d’ye see, though the groom’s people were nigh as well off.” Like any Englishman, Sir Hugo delighted in the doings of “The Quality” and was snobbish about the order of precedence in the peerage; there was some juicy gossip there for sure. Divorcement charges and counter-charges and testimony of adultery were printed, bound, and sold as mild pornography!

“Didn’t take, though,” Sir Hugo explained. “It turns out that Tidwell was a very nasty item, with a taste for more perversion than I ever knew existed!” Sir Hugo, in point of fact, had been one of the founding members of the Hell-Fire Club, and knew more than most!

“I rather doubt that!” Lewrie shot back with a leer.

“Wish me to continue, hah?” Sir Hugo gravelled, leaning back to one side of his seat. “Fellow was flyin’ false colours, it seems, so it wasn’t more than eight months into their ‘wedded bliss’ than she up and decamped to the family house in London, then to the country, and got her brother t’hire on lawyers. Well, Percy’s in Lords, and their borough is most like a ‘rotten’ one, so their Member in Commons filed her a Bill of Divorcement, quick as ye could say ‘knife.’ Oh, it was just lurid…! Brutality, waste of her dowry, reducin’ her to little more than ‘pin money,’ adultery, demands for carnal acts no decent woman should put up with?” Sir Hugo was not quite drooling, but he did massage his hands against each other vigourously.

“Soon as hers hit the agenda, Tidwell filed one against her… alienation of affection, refusal of proper congress, and adultery, too,” Sir Hugo related, cackling in glee. “And the charges were the titillatin’ marvel, two years runnin’! She’d’ve had people’s sympathy for her lookin’ elsewhere for affection, seein’ as how she claimed he was poxed to the eyebrows, and a secret sodomite, and she feared for her health, but for how many other men were alleged, d’ye see, so…”

“That’d make her what, thirty or so?” Lewrie asked.

“About that, perhaps a tad older,” his father said, impatient to continue. “Parliament finally saw things her way, and granted her the divorcement, t’his cost, and she got t’keep all her jewellry and paraphernalia. She’s still in bad odour in Society, but still in Society, whilst Tidwell’s retired to his country estates… rantipolin’ ev’rything in sight but his horses and huntin’ dogs, and rumoured t’be so poxed he has t’carry a bell t’warn people off like a leper. ‘Prinny’ back yonder, she and Percy are in his circle, and I heard he’d’ve made a sally at her, ’til the King warned him off. And, I heard that she snubbed him, too… so she must’ve been talked to by one of the palace catch-farts… or has more sense than I imagined of her.”

“D’ye think all the charges were true?” Lewrie asked, intrigued, and finding that those too-snug silk breeches were even snugger in the crutch, of a sudden.

“It’s good odds she and her attorney gilded the lily, but in the main, I expect they got Tidwell to a Tee,” Sir Hugo snickered. “As to Tidwell’s charges, they might be true, too, but he brought it on himself and has no one else t’blame. Why? Fancy your chances with her, what? Ye find her all that fetchin’?”

“Fetching, aye,” Lewrie admitted with a wry smile, cocking his head to one side. “But, she’d most-like laugh my sort to scorn, did I try,” he scoffed. “Someone raised so rich and privileged, born to the peerage, well… I’m a boot-black in comparison. And, I’m sure that there’s some still chasin’ after her with an eye out for her fortune, so…”

“Know what they say, though,” the old rake-hell rejoined with a nasty cackle, “ye sup on roast beef and lobster mornin’ noon and night… ev’ry now and then bread, cheese, and beer is toppin’ fine, ha ha!”

“So. Where are we bound?” Lewrie asked, noting that their cabriolet had just passed through Charing Cross and was bound east for the busy, bustling Strand. “Saint Paul’s for a long kneel-down, and a homily-long prayer from young Reverend Blanding? It appears Westminster Abbey’s out. We’ve long passed that.”

“Don’t know about that part, but you’re dinin’ with ’em at that splendid chop-house in Savoy Street you went on and on about, and thankee for tellin’ me of it. I, on the other hand, will coach on home for my townhouse, then dine with a lady I met at the levee, and a most handsome mort she is, too! You’ll beg off for me, will you, there’s a good lad.”

“What? Don’t tell me ye made progress with that auburn-haired wench that quickly, with her ‘lawful-blanket’ there!” Lewrie gawped.

“Not her… a ‘grass-widow’ whose husband’s regiment’s been posted to the Kentish coast, in case Bonaparte does manage t’get his army cross the Channel. Aha!” Sir Hugo cried as the carriage neared Savoy Street. “Coachman, draw up here, so my son may alight.”

“What? What the Devil…?” Lewrie carped.

“You can whistle up another conveyance once you’ve eat, right?” Sir Hugo said as the assistant coachee got down to open the kerb-side door and lower the folding steps.

“I’m saddled with the Blandings, alone, while you…?” Lewrie fumed.

“Your friends, not mine,” his father said with a snicker, tapping his walking-stick impatiently to force Lewrie to alight.

“I can always count on ye, Father,” Lewrie said once he was on the pavement, heaving a long-suffering, resigned, and I-should-know-better-by-now sigh. “You will always let me down!”

“Ta ta, lad! Bon appetit!”

* * *

Lewrie had changed to light wool breeches that fit more comfortably and a sensible pair of shoes with gilt buckles for his evening out. Lord Percy Stangbourne had swapped slippers for highly polished cavalry boots. “Don’t I look dashin’ and dangerous, hey?” he’d hooted, showing off his elegantly tailored uniform, in which he did look very dashing, indeed, and revelled in it.

Lydia Stangbourne came gowned in a champagne-coloured ensemble that surprised Lewrie with its lack of translucence. Oh, its under-sleeves were sheer, but it was not as revealing as young ladies, and a fair share of older ones, preferred these days. The top of her gown began almost at the tips of her shoulders, and it was delightfully low-cut in the bodice-a grand sight, that, though Lydia was not amply endowed-but her gown was rather conservative compared to the rest of the women who dined at Boodle’s. She had seemed happy to see him, and during the coach ride her face had been animated and nigh girlish. Once there, though, that softness had evaporated, and Lydia had worn almost a purse- lipped pout, a royal “we are not impressed” expression.