Page 31 of An Honorable Deception
Under normal circumstances, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Merritt Livingstone never would have engaged in something asjuvenileas a scrum in an exclusive club—but he knew what was at stake. He handed Xavier his glass of port, which he hadn’t taken more than two sips of. “Hold this, will you, X? High time someone teach this pup a lesson.”
Laughing again, Yates danced away like he was in a boxing ring, fists raised into a defensive posture. By his estimation, they had less than a minute before some mustachioed old-timer either trundled over to intervene or called the club’s officiants to do the job for them. He didn’t have time for as subtle a dance as he would have chosen otherwise, so he aimed his back toward the trio he was targeting.
Merritt made a show of cracking his neck toward the right.
Yates adjusted. And taunted him with another smirk and a curl of his fingers. “Bring your worst.”
He’d sparred with his brother-in-law often enough in the last year that he could anticipate exactly how he’d move, just as Merritt could him. It made it easy to throw a few harmless punches, laughing and grunting like he was some overconfident pup, exactly like Merritt had accused. He outdid Merritt in mass, but his brother-in-law reallyhadmanaged to knock him over a few times, so they played out the move that had best achieved it.
Merritt sent Yates stumbling back into the trio. Yates’s laughter turned to exclamations and a few senseless apologies as he knocked Vernon into Rheams hard enough to send them both crashing down and took Dunne out himself, tumbling onto him in a heap.
He held there for a split second, as if the wind had been knocked out of him, knowing well that his weight would be crushing. Then he gasped and clambered off, pasting the same look onto his face that had gotten him out of trouble with Father countless times.A lad being a lad, that’s what the look said.
“Blimey! So sorry, sir.” Sometimes it was handy being the youngest man in Lords. As soon as people recognized him, theyexpectedhim to be as green as any other spoiled youngman. And in his case, everyone knew Father hadn’t sent him off to school and thus expected a bit of backwardness to boot. Served him well. “Did I hurt you?”
He must have, in fact, knocked the air out of Dunne, because he gasped, blinking in clear shock. Yates patted his arms, his ribs, his hips, as if searching for injury. He heard Merritt apologizing to the other two, saying something about his idiot of a brother-in-law, heard Xavier making quite a bit of noise behind them, apologizing for bringing such a disturbance to Brooks’s.
Yates focused on nudging free one of the metal circles from Dunne’s pocket that was already trying to fall out anyway and swiping it into his palm. He wasn’t the best pickpocket in the world—hence the need for the rather loud distraction—but he got the job done and had the thing safely in his own pocket before he hauled Dunne forcibly to his feet.
Yates held his eyes so wide they were starting to hurt. “Sir? Are you all right? Did I do any damage?”
Dunne finally regained himself and huffed out what could have been either anger or amusement. “Fine. Blimey is right, young man. Are you half elephant?”
Yates let his lips turn into a very real grin. “No. But I do have a special fondness for them. I couldn’t believe it when old Eli didn’t return with the circus last time. Still miss the big fellow.”
Dunne wasn’t looking at him as though he recognized him, but someone—most likely Lord Vernon—would. Which would mean, in turn, that they’d know his father. They’d know that the Fairfaxes had wasted countless pounds on entertainments. Whatever they thought of him for it, they would write it off as a quirk and dismiss the incident as one to be expected of a gent who chased frivolities. Hewas simply leaning into the story Vernon or someone else here would tell Dunne after Yates left.
He clapped a hand to Dunne’s shoulder. “Sorry about that. Really.” He sent a sheepish look toward the stern-faced Merritt. “Think I landed myself in trouble with my sister’s husband—though I still say a spot of trouble’s more fun than sitting about all night. What’s the point of a club if you sit here drinking and reading, anyway? I could do that at home.”
Dunne chuckled, and it sounded authentic. “Ah, such youth.” He clapped a hand to Yates’s shoulder now and turned him toward Vernon and Merritt and Rheams. “This young man needs to be introduced to some true entertainment, Vern. Which gaming hell should he try? Or perhaps he’d prefer some fairer company?”
Yates’s stomach soured. He would, at that, but not the sort this man meant.
Merritt still wore his uniform, having come here right from the office. He tugged at the red jacket and straightened his spine. “What the young man needs is a stint with His Majesty’s finest. That would whip him into a shape worth holding.”
Xavier must have appeased the powers-that-be because he joined them now and gave Merritt’s shoulder a friendly shove. “Do relax, Sir Merritt. The army wouldn’t know what to do with Lord Fairfax.”
He had to give it to Xavier. He couldn’t have any idea what they were about, but he knew how to roll with the punches. Yates grinned. “I can always count on you for a champion, LordX.”
He tipped an imaginary hat. “At your service, my young friend. Anything to needle this one a bit.”
Merritt shrugged away from Xavier’s next cuff and strode toward Yates, looking every bit the authority figure. Hepointed toward the door. “Out. Now. You’ve disgraced us enough for one night, and when I tell your sister how you’ve behaved, she’s going to have a few things to say to you.”
Yates winced, as if what she’d say wouldn’t be“Quick thinking, little brother.”“Must you tattle to Marigold abouteverything?”
“Must you still act as though you’re thirteen instead of twenty-three?”
Yates let himself be corralled toward the exit. “Mustyouact as though you’re one hundred instead of thirty?”
“He’s been acting that way sincehewas thirteen,” Xavier assured them. He darted in front of Yates to open the door to the corridor and shut it resolutely behind them after they passed through, his face shifting from amusement to frustration and back again. “I can’t take the two of you anywhere. Do I even want to know what that was about?”
“No,” Yates and Merritt said in unison.
Xavier huffed and led the way toward the building’s exit. “You’re lucky I’m such an easygoing chap. And that those three pompous prats were so hilarious-looking, sprawled on the floor like that.”
Yates and Merritt exchanged a look, both their mouths quirking into smiles. “Prats, you say.” Yates slung an arm over Xavier’s shoulders. “Tell us more.”
Xavier looked between them again but then shrugged. “Father knows them and likes them well enough, but ... I don’t know. They always struck me as insincere. You know the type—on the boards of the charities, holding those under them to the highest standards, but they know those ‘best’ gaming hells and are good friends, shall we say, of Mrs. Jeffries.”
