Page 24 of The Rake and Lady Julia
"I have made a dreadful mistake," Julia replied, with a long sigh.
It appeared Lord Montague did have trousers after all.
Chapter Six
Not for the first time in his life, Robert realised that he had gone about solving a problem the wrong way round.
He had been so bent on the idea of a grand gesture—of making Julia fly—that he had abandoned his pursuit of her, much to the detriment of, well, his pursuit of her. He had upset her, a fact which caused him his own upset, but if one was to be optimistic about the mess he had landed himself in, it was that an indifferent woman would not have been so vexed if her suitor disappeared.
Which meant that Julia was not indifferent to him. She was...different to him? No, that didn't sound right.
Montague paused as he tried to think just what Lady Julia was to him, but in the moment that he stopped walking, a voice called out to him in greeting.
"Alright, guv'nor," a cheerful East-end accent called.
"I am not a Governor, my good man," Robert called back affably, "I am a marquess, if you are going to throw titles around, at least get them right."
"Alright, alright, my Lord Snootyboots," Gem Higgins called back, with gap-toothed grin at his own wit.
"That's not my actual title," Rob gave a theatrical sigh, "But it shall do. Come, you owe me a pint of ale for your impertinence."
Robert led Gem into the The Dog and Duck, a ramshackle tavern which stood on the periphery of the Seven Dials. Inside, crooks, thieves, and blackguards all supped on London's finest pint of ale, served by London's finest serving wench, Esmeralda.
Despite her exotic name, Esmeralda had a Cornish accent as thick as her considerable forearms, and a smattering of freckles across her pug-like nose. The title of "London's Finest Serving Wench" had been bestowed on Esmeralda by, well, Esmeralda, and her clientele were too afraid of her to argue.
"What'a you want?" the barmaid growled, as Robert approached the bar.
"Two pints of your finest ale," he replied gamely.
"Ain't got no finest ale," Esmeralda grumbled back, "They all taste the same."
"Aye, like what you throw out of a chamber-pot in the morning," an old man at the bar commented, before hastily returning his gaze to his drink at Esmeralda's quelling glare.
"Well, two pints then, if you please," Rob said, as he handed her a coin, "Anything will do, except what my dear friend beside me is drinking."
Esmeralda nodded, and glanced down at the coin in her hand.
"Ain't go t no change, neither," she said slyly.
"I didn't ask for it," Rob winked, and the petrifying woman blushed pink.
"You sit yourself down, m'lord," she said, all Benedictine hospitality now that she had some coin for her pocket, "And I'll bring 'em over to you."
Rob nodded, and returned to his seat, while the old man at the bar grumbled about loudly about preferential treatment for toffs.
"Perhaps another, for my friend," Robert called, and the grumbles soon turned more cheerful.
"Charm the birds from the trees, so you would," Gem said approvingly, as Robert slipped into the seat opposite him.
The chair creaked ominously under Rob's weight, but remained intact. Even the furniture in The Dog and Duck was too afraid of Esmeralda to misbehave.
"That's rather the point of me, is it not," Rob shrugged, alluding to his work for Whitehall.
Just like Penrith and Orsino, Robert occasionally dabbled in some espionage for the government. Unlike Penrith and Orsino, however, Robert's work involved inveigling the crooks, thieves, and general ne'er-do-wells of London's slums to share information with him.
It worked quite well, for as well as being a charmer, Robert was something of a ne'er-do-well himself, and was near fluent in the lingua franca of The Seven Dials.
For a few minutes, he and Gem discussed mundane matters, as they supped on their ale—which did taste, Robert reflected sadly, oddly reminiscent of a chamber-pot. They chattered enthusiastically about the upcoming races at Newmarket—where, Gem said confidently Mane Attraction would win. Robert made a mental note of the name, for Gem moved in circles where the results of horse-races might be known weeks before the actual event.
