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Two days later, he rode up the long lane to the Tooting’s residence, refusing to glance up at the spot on the wall where Dickie had given him his last pasting. A footman rushed out to take his reigns, and he dismounted, surrendering his card to the butler and asking if anyone would be at home to receive him. The poor flunky almost dropped the thing when he read the name upon it. It took months of Forthenby-acclimatised behaviour not to offer to help the fellow with it. Being back in Town appeared to bring out all the old habits of his poverty.

With indecorous haste, Edward was ushered through to the same morning room where he had encountered the pretty Serafina almost a year before. She, and her mother, had changed very little; the latter still being your average, respectable matron of the type who had once been a stunner, but sighed with relief and put aside all attempts at comeliness with the birth of her first child, and the former being a sweetly rounded young woman with red hair and the long, tapered fingers of a pianist. 

“My Lord Forthenby,” announced the flunkey. Unlike last time, Edward did not rush forward with bows and introductions, but merely inclined his head to the ladies, who rose to greet him. Serafina, he noticed, with interest, would not meet his eyes. 

Well, that was to the good.

“My Lord,” said Mrs Tooting, quite a different creature from the one who had slandered his name among the narrow circle of acquaintance left to him. “Good morning, I do apologise for the state of, um… I’m afraid Mr Tooting is from home, otherwise he would be most honoured to…”

“You are Mrs Tooting, of course,” said Edward.

“I am. And may I present, my daughter -”

“Miss Tooting, yes. I believe we are acquainted.”

“Naturally, naturally. How could I forget that you have... Serafina, say good morning to Lord Forthenby.”

Serafina dropped a curtsey that was significantly less elegant than the one she had shown on the night of the ball and murmured something. 

“Might I offer you any refreshment, Mr… My Lord?”

She was offering him tea, Edward knew that, but there was no point outranking everyone in the room unless you were intending on riding rough-shod over everyone’s expectations. “I normally take a glass of port at this hour.” 

Mrs Tooting’s smile became a little fixed. “Of course,” she said, and touched her hand to the bell, causing the rapid reappearance of the flunky. “A glass of port for Lord Forthenby.”

“Port, ma’am?”

“Yes, Jones.” 

Bowing, Jones withdrew.

Edward held his back straight and did his very best not to rub his hands together in glee. Instead, he fixed his gaze on Miss Tooting, who had pretended to return to some embroidery but was really doing nothing of the kind. He tipped his head to one side to assess her, the way that Dickie had done just before telling him to move a leg or an arm so that the fall of the whip would be more satisfactory. It was the kind of gaze that lingered on the skin, like the residue of sweetness from fruit that was too ripe, or the cold of the wind after one had stepped indoors. Serafina took great care not to glance up from her supposed work.

“We had the pleasure of making your cousin’s acquaintance, Lord Forthenby,” said Mrs Tooting, when it became clear that Edward’s silence was discomposing everyone.

“Your daughter mentioned as much,” said Edward, without turning his gaze from Serafina. His thighs ached from where his saddle had rubbed against the cuts Peaches had left along the back of them, and the traces of a hangover still lingered in his mind. Still, if he could be his usual self after a far more savage beating, there was no reason he could not play at being Dickie upon a little discomfort. “I advised her that you were wise to drop the acquaintance.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Tooting with an air of reservation, and Edward felt a stab of perverse glee. “Serafina, put that work away, do. Would you care for some music, my Lord? Many have said that my daughter plays quite prettily.”

“I am an indifferent judge of music,” he said in his brusquest manner, or rather the one that he had borrowed, and was gratified to see that Miss Tooting flinched at the appropriated phrase. “But it is always pleasing to see a young girl display her...” he paused for the slightest of moments, “accomplishments.”

As though unsure if that constituted a request or not, Serafina stood slowly and made her way to the pianoforte, where she flustered about for a handful of moments, selecting her piece. As she did so, she glanced over her shoulder to see whether he was watching, but the marvellous flunkey had chosen that moment to reappear with a scandalously small glass of port. Edward took advantage of the occasion to look away from her to sip it, consider it for a moment and conclude it was markedly substandard without wishing to say so openly.

Actually, it was rather good plonk, and he’d downed pints of far worse stuff during both his penury, but the play was the thing. 

As Serafina started her piece, Edward walked across the room to lurk behind her, watching the curve of her neck as it bowed over the piano, her pale fingers picking over the ivory keys with a long elegance. 

Before too long, she said, “I would ask you again, my Lord, that you would not stand and observe me so without at least making conversation.”

“You are rather insistent with those requests, Miss Tooting. One would feel that silence makes you uncomfortable.”

“When I am playing, my Lord, yes. If I concentrate too hard, I am more liable to make mistakes.”

“I doubt that I would notice if you did.”

“No, but I would.”

Edward had to force himself not to smile, but instead give a short contemptuous laugh. “So you play for your own pleasure, Miss Tooting.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, my Lord,” she appeared to be struggling to keep her temper, if the stiffness in her otherwise fluid fingers was anything to go by. “But it gives me pleasure to play.”

What was it she had said in her more superior part just months earlier? "I’m afraid I find playing most fatiguing, Mr Valance." But, of course, there was no Dickie Thornton here for her to impress today, just some awful, arrogant libertine to needle. God, the girl seemed to take an especial pleasure from being objectionable. 

There was the temptation to clasp her in his arms and declare her a kindred spirit.

“Hmm,” he said, stepping a little closer, and speaking low, “and do you believe we should not deny ourselves the things that give us pleasure, Miss Tooting?”

Her fingers stiffened and she missed a note. Edward realised that what she was playing was not the music that was before her on the stand. When she had recovered herself, she said, “Provided they are in nothing improper, my Lord.”

“And what would a young girl like you know of impropriety?”

 He was leaving Dickie’s script now, foraging into the disapproving cant of who knew how many self-satisfied moralisers. But Edward knew well how to give the most innocuous of words a twist, to turn them in tender flesh as though they were barbs or blades. 

After all, experience had to be worth something.

“Nothing, I hope, my Lord,” she said, as the flush of a blush spread up her neck. She was something of a champion blusher, this one. Edward had always liked to watch that, the way that girls with skin like this would glow after they had spent, as though they could light up the very night sky.

If he hadn’t made a promise to Peaches about picking up all the requisite pieces, he was fairly sure that blush would have marked a point where this mock-seduction would have taken a more serious turn.

But he could not let himself soften. Dickie had a lesson headed his way in the form of a small piece of lead, and to do that, the girl must be both tickled and outraged, but nothing more. He kept his face set, the way the better class of actor chaps would do it. “In which case, how would you know what constituted an improper pleasure?”

Again, her fingers seemed to stiffen, but she did not make another mistake.

“After all, I have always found ignorance to be the sufficient condition for sin.”

She gave a small, breathless laugh, as though she was considering slamming the lid of the piano down and running away from him. He knew that feeling, and knew that, if she did not counter the blow, he would have her in his power.

“Do you mean,” she said in a falsely bright tone, “the way that Mr Hogarth illustrated such things?”

Because no-one was looking, he permitted himself a tight smile. She was good, he’d give her that. 

Time for a proper offensive. “No, Miss Tooting, I meant the way your fingers are moving over those keys. In your state of innocence you believe it an idle pastime, a pleasant, social accomplishment to snare you a husband. In the eyes of an experienced gentleman, it suggests a rather different set of skills. Were you less ignorant, you might be more reluctant to display it.”

Miss Tooting kept her composure admirably, although by the movement in the line of her neck, she was clearly swallowing something.

“Or perhaps you would not,” said Edward. “It is sometimes very difficult to tell, isn’t it, Miss Tooting?”

She missed another note. 

“I’m not entirely sure I follow you, sir.”

“Do you not?”

“Perhaps I merely chose not to, my Lord.”

Edward laughed - he couldn’t help himself - but fortunately, in the circumstances it sounded mocking. Oh, he wished Dickie luck of this one. 

“And my piece nears its end, sir. I hope that your observations have given you pleasure.”

“But not you.” Again he gave her one of those measuring glances he was practicing. He almost got this one exactly right. “Perhaps you will be more cautious, Miss Tooting, when insisting upon conversation.” Then, when she had finished her final chord, he added, “I do hope you will play for me again, Miss Tooting.”

“Oh, I am sure she would be delighted to,” said the mother. “Won’t you, Serafina?”

“Of course, madame,” said the little paragon, making quite a twitch about putting away her manuscript paper and not looking to where Edward was still standing, uncomfortably close to her.

“There is a Broadwood,” he drawled in a lazy tone, “in one of the drawing rooms in my town house. Perhaps Miss Tooting would consent to examine it for me some day.”

That produced an admirable silence. Even the unflappable Mrs Tooting shook her handkerchief in a swift, distracted fashion. Edward added it to the list of tells he was collecting, in case he ever faced her across a card table. Miss Tooting, however, had frozen, half-way through putting away her sheet music. 

“That really is too kind, my Lord,” said Mrs Tooting, “We couldn’t possibly impose upon you to -”

“It is no imposition, madam. I am quite at your disposal in this matter.”

“Serafina,” said Mrs Tooting, “thank Lord Forthenby.”

She straightened and turned to him, every inch of her controlled and slightly imperious, “It is a very kind offer, my Lord.”

It was something of a treat to meet the level gaze of her deep, brown eyes, but it was a tactical necessity to give the rest of her assets an appraising look first. He sipped the port that he had been leaving unattended. 

“Well,” he said, and held her gaze. “Should I expect you tomorrow, Miss Tooting?”