sight longer,” says I. “My lord, I was out half a dozen times in the Peninsula. I don't have to prove myself cub-shooting.”
He went pale as chalk. “Dastard! Coward! I'll cane you in the street!”
“Try it, and I'll put you across my knee,” I told him. “Now go home, you silly fellow. She ain't worth it. Be thankful you found out in time.”
He wasn't a fool. You could see him struggling with his self-esteem as he looked from one to other of us. Then he fumbled out his purse and flung it on the bed before her.
“Take that, you … you …” He was choking mortified. “Oh, I am well served for a fool!” To my utter astonishment, he turned to me again. “Your pardon, sir. I struck you a coward's blow, and I am sorry for it.” And then he burst into tears and stalked out, which marred the gestures, rather. Still, not bad for seventeen.
Save for one startled squeal, dear Harriet hadn't uttered a sound, but now, when I suggested we resume our romp, she spoke at some length, in terms which would have shamed a fishwife, and tried to rake me with her nails. I grabbed my duds and fled, pursued by abuse and flying crockery, leaving her to mourn her lost love, or her failure to nap his guv'nor's rent, more likely.
I toddled round to White's without delay, and sent my card in to Kangaroo Cooke. When he came down I drew him aside.
“I'd be obliged, colonel, if you would present my compliments to His Grace of Beaufort, and give him my assurance that he need feel no further anxiety over Lord Worcester's relations with a certain female person. A complete and final breach has taken place.”
Kangaroo looked like a cod with a moustache at the best of times, but now he fairly gaped, and demanded what the dooce I meant.
“Not another word, sir,” says I. “Pray deliver my message, and you may add that the matter has been managed with every discretion. Nothing will be heard from either party, and I believe that if His Grace renews his offer of colours to his lordship, it has every chance of acceptance.”
“Buckley,” says he, “what the devil have you been up to?”
“Let us say,” I told him, “that I have had a word with the young man, and that he now sees where his duty lies. No, sir, I cannot in honour say more. I am delighted to have been of service to His Grace. Good evening, colonel.”
I left him goggling, and as I'd expected young Harry Somerset removed himself from Town and the curiosity of the
ton
without delay, departing for the Army in Spain where, I'm happy to say, he distinguished himself as Wellington's galloper. I was less gratified, though, when Kangaroo buttonholed me on Piccadilly to tell me that His Grace of Beaufort sent his compliments, hoped to make my acquaintance at some convenient time, but regretted that this could not be for the present, owing to His Grace's many engagements. “Discretion, what?” says Kangaroo. “Never fret, he's damned obliged, I can tell you.”
Well he might be, but I thought it dam' shabby; I'd looked for a word of thanks from the Duke himself, at least, but I didn't know how things were done, then, and was suitably dumfounded when there arrived a note from the leading Society female of the day, the queen of the cream of the
ton
, the Countess of Jersey, enclosing (I couldn't credit my senses, and it fluttered from my trembling fingers to the floor) a voucher for Almack's.
You can't conceive what that meant, so I'll tell you. Almack's was the holy of holies of the polite world, the innermost circle of the UpperTen Thousand, the pinnacle of Society, where only the favoured few could hope for admission. Why, ambassadors, generals, chaps with titles and pedigrees a yard long fairly clamoured and intrigued and toadied to be let in, and grovelled for a nod from the female dragons who ruled beneath its famous chandeliers. This was the club where Wellington himself was turned away for being improperly dressed, hang it all, not above one in fifty of the