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Chapter Ten

Heart racing, Edward charged down the corridor and into this own room, where he slammed the door, locked it, and leaned back against the wood, breathing quick and heavy.

 Peaches glanced up from where she was ironing one of his collars. 
“How’s the wife?” she asked.

“I can’t do it. I know you said I should talk to her, but she’s impossible. She’s a nightmare.”

Peaches smiled, “Oh, Teddy. I can think of at least six bawds who would have paid good money to see you say that.”

“It’s not fucking funny.”

“Beg to differ, my Lord.”

“I can’t do this. I’ve tried being kind. I’ve tried leaving her alone. But I can’t… I can’t do that to her.” 

“Mm, maybe you should have thought of that before starting this fucking charade, my Lord.”

“I mean it, Peaches.” He sat down on the edge of his bed, put his head in his hands, ruffling all the stiff Lordliness out of his hair. “It was a prank. A lark. You know I didn’t mean it to –”

He heard her sigh, heard her say, “I know.” 

Then, ruthless creature that she was, she went back to ironing the collars. 

He couldn’t explain it to Peaches, even if she had wanted to hear it. As Edward had held Serafina in his arms, trembling, he had felt the way her need, and her rage, and her righteousness were all tangled up inside each other – just as his had always been. It was simply that hers was heart-breaking in its sincerity, while for years his resistance had only ever been short, cynical, and well-aware of the game. 

It didn’t change the fact that if he’d pressed the matter, she would have folded, and fallen. Grateful.

Oh, she was ripe for Dickie. 

But he was not, he damned well was not, Dickie Thornton. He would not do it to her, would not give her the crackling of expectation along her skin, would not make it so she dropped her eyes and dropped her head rather than look at him. He wouldn’t make her let him into her mind, the way he had let Dickie’s hands and sharp words invade every scrap and inch of what it meant to be Edward.

He was free now, wasn’t he? 

Of course he was not. 

He hadn’t managed to tear Dickie out of his head, because that wasn’t within the power of man. All Edward had ever been able to do was snatch whatever was left of himself, and fight and fight to keep it safe. All those insults the world threw at him, he held close, and made them his armour. 

So he was a whore, a rake, a sodomite? He was a vicious, affected fop? A shameless drunkard? An objectionable little fellow? Yes, he was, and a damn fine job he made of it. Didn’t everyone admire and envy him for his shameless ways, didn’t they all tinge their approbation with fondness, with love?

Choke on that, Dickie Thornton.

But here, in Paris, it was harder. 

The last time that he had been here, he had been reeling drunk and desperate. For when Dickie had made it clear that he didn’t want his school-boy plaything trailing after him, the best answer that Edward could find was brandy. There had been a few months of blur in London – something about taverns, gaming hells, and dirty mattresses, something about mornings when his face was bruised, or there was blood in his mouth, or his purse had been stolen, along with his watch and his shoes. 

He’d wake, sore, or raw, and he wouldn’t knew who he’d had in those nights, who he’d been had by. Sometimes he would be lying in his rooms, but more often it’d be in gutters or bawdy houses, or on the sawdust of taverns with the taste of vomit in his throat and his nose. 
That no-one had knifed him, that he still had both his eyes and almost all of his teeth was a miracle. 

Then, one day, he had come home to in his own rooms to see old Sir Charles standing over him, staring down in cold, parental disapproval. After some stern words were delivered, Edward had been hauled, like luggage, down the stairs by a coach-man, upon whom he had vomited. In disgrace, Edward was thrown into the carriage and driven back to Westlehill still reeking, flickering in and out of consciousness, begging occasionally for something to drink. 

At home, barely able to stand, he had been called to account for his conduct on the carpet of the parental study. He remembered very little of what he’d said, only the slow dawning of the knowledge that his father knew all about Dickie and cared less about the buggery than the simple exhibition that his son was making of himself.

Nevertheless, Sir Charles still had plenty of strong words to share about ‘school-boy affections’, ‘unsuitable connections’, and about his eldest son having to face his duties and put such ‘youthful triflings’ behind him. After that, there were rather more words about the way Edward was a disgrace to his forebears and his name, that there were certain epithets which would not be permitted to become attached to the noble name of Valance – because even if his discretion had been the real issue, that did not mean he got a free pass about the bestowal of his heart and the defilement of his body. 

A gentleman of his situation was, apparently, obliged to lead by example.

Those words stayed with him even now, lodged in his head, bitter. At the time, however, he had merely watched the Persian carpet swim in an out of focus as he tried not to be sick again, or think too much about the way he stank and was covered in God knew what filth.

After the tirade, Edward had been offered the choice – to go on a tour of Europe and straighten himself out where respectable society could not see him, or else stay here at Westlehill, locked in his rooms, without access to strong spirits, his pistols, or any manner of companionship that would lead him astray. 

He had, if he recalled correctly, told his father to go fuck himself. 

Thus, imprisoned in his rooms, he had fallen on to his bed in to the kind of coma that only severe and prolonged abuse of the great human antidote could inflict. Waking, hours later, with darkness outside the windows, a sustaining meal by his bedside, and the door firmly locked, he had vented, raged, and sworn until he had realised that there was one path to salvation still open to him, and had...

No.

Edward shook his head. This was not where he wanted to be. 

Not that Paris was where he wanted to be either, not in this state of mind. 

Paris, with the opera and the ballet and the Code Napoléon. He had done well here, once he’d conceded to this father’s demands. Plenty of whores of any persuasion willing to sell themselves for the good Westlehill coin, plenty of society ladies willing to answer to his charms and, frankly, that had been salve enough, until he could seek out the right type of man. Until he could throw himself into the kind of duel that would bring him what he needed. 

Edward touched the scar that ran across his chest.  Dear Jean. 

“I’ll be out tonight,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Will you be coming?”

“Yeah,” Peaches shrugged, “trailing along behind you, picking up your quizzing glass and your cane. Fuck that, Teddy.”

He stood, “You forget, darling girl, we’re in Paris. No-one knows you’re my valet. You could pop on a frock and a wig and I’ll take you to the opera.”

“And have people call me madame and speak to me in foreign?”

“French, Peaches, it’s called French.”

“Yeah, to hell with that.” 

He grinned, “Or you could pop on a pair of britches and one of my jackets and come out as a fellow.”

She stared at him.

“I’m not joking, dear heart. It would be fun.” 

And I really need some fun. 

“I ain’t going to pass for a swell,” she said.

“Ah, but you will. Dear girl, these frogs can’t tell a vulgar accent from a proper one –”

“I’ll make you bleed for that.”

“Please do. But look, so what? You don’t speak French. Well, nor do a lot of gents. Nor do I, come to that, not as a native. But I can translate for you. You just need to stand there and look reserved, and be awkward if a cocotte decides to drape her arms about you. Do that, and everyone will think you’re a model English gentleman. It’s fool-proof.”

“Did they test it against as big a fool as you, Teddy?” but she was grinning, the old Peaches grin that he loved so well. 

“Message for you, milord,” came a voice with a strong French accent from outside the door of his suite. 

Edward nodded to Peaches, and she reset her periwig, and, after tipping the message boy, handed him a note from Jean, telling him that he had received Edward’s card, was overjoyed to hear that he was back in the City of Light, and that, yes, he would indeed care to renew their acquaintance.

And, if that did not constitute perfect opportunity, Edward did not know what did.

“There you go, Peaches,” he said, “we have an invitation to dine out, in the proper style. Choose yourself a jacket and shirt, my dear, and come and meet an old friend of mine.”