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“What the hell are you playing at now, Teddy?” asked Peaches.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he admitted, “Isn’t that fun?”

“God help us.”

“None of that, Peach.”

“Put a bung in it, my Lord.”

“I’m not above thrashing you, you know.”

She sat on the desk, disordering the papers dreadfully, “For every stripe you give me, I’ll give you half a dozen.”

He bent down and kissed the inside of her thigh. “Don’t try and distract me. I’m thinking.”

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” she said, in a sing-song mockery of her old whore’s cant.

He brought his hand down, a stinging slap. 

She grinned. 

Edward shook his head and felt the usual, warm stirring in his britches. “Behave, my boy,” he said.

“Ask nicely.”

He slapped her again.

“That’s twelve I’m giving you then.”

“I look forward to it. Now. Here’s the question. Do we want Hedge to sabotage this wedding, or not?”

“Going with yes.”

“No. Listen. I’ve been thinking, I said. The problem is that, well, the thing about Hedge is that he doesn’t give a damn about me, and certainly not about anyone else. What he’s protecting is the Forthenby name.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we can’t trust him in regard to Serafina.” Just like we couldn’t trust him in regard to Dickie. “I am supposed to be helping the girl, aren’t I?”

After a moment, Peaches nodded. “He is ruthless,” she said. 

Edward supposed that was as close as he was going to get to an apology for her part in the whole, sordid business.
 
Another nod, and that closed expression on her face, the one he knew too well. “So, you want to get hitched to her?”

He shrugged. “I’d sooner have married you.”

She did not acknowledge that he had spoken. “She hates you,” she said.

“Not as much as she hates her father.”

“And that’s a good foundation for wedded bliss?”

“Well, what the hell do you expect me to do?” the anger burst from him, unplanned. “She was supposed to marry Dickie.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his words. “They were all set up to play house together, like a good pair of lovers, respectable and proper.”

Peaches shrugged, unimpressed.

“What?”

“Be a bit hard to do if you’d shot him.”

“Even harder now he’s on the run.” The retort skipped from his lips without thought.

“That’s better than dead.” 

“I wasn’t going to kill him.”

“Yeah, well, what if you’d misfired? What if did kill him? Or what if he’d hit you?”

“Dear God, do none of you have any confidence in my abilities?”

Peaches gave him a hard stare.

“I was eighteen,” he said, “when I fought my first duel. I was a damn child.”

Another look of scorn, because, of course, he had no idea what Peaches had been doing at eighteen. She wouldn’t even tell him her age.

“I knew what I was doing,” he said to the desk. “I know my guns, I know my aim, I know how not to get hit and how not to die if I do.”

“And what would I have done if you’d made a mistake?”

“So, it’s about you?”

She stared at him. He met her gaze and held it. 

“Have I ever asked you for anything?” she said at last.

Excepting payment, obviously, back in the far past? “No.”

“Well, I’m asking now. Don’t die, Teddy Valance. Don’t you fucking well die on me.”

“It’s my life.”

“Not to squander over some bastard who don’t –” She stopped. “He’s had enough from you, alright? You’re mine now, you hear me?”

“Well, that’s the problem, ain’t it? Actually, I’m Miss Tooting’s.”