The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Page 5

When I don’t answer, Percy steps in. “Very interesting.”

  “Such a fine, fine city, Paris. Though we find the food to be rather less than to our taste. The food is better in London.”

  “But the beds are better in Paris,” I say.

  “Shall we go in?” Percy says quickly.

  The lord ambassador’s eyes narrow a bit at me, then he claps my shoulder before leading us up the drive. I jog to catch him up before Percy can fall into step beside me.

  Versailles is a delirious fantasy of a place. We cross through a card room and into the mirrored hall where the king receives his court, every surface not covered with a looking glass gilded in gold or frescoed in jewel tones. Wax drips in hot, sticky threads from the chandeliers. The light is pyrite, with snowflakes of color refracted through the crystals splattering the walls.

  The party spills into the gardens, the air hot and hazy with pollen rising from the flowers in golden bursts when they’re brushed. Hedges line the walks, carved into a menagerie of shapes, roses bursting between them. The stars are stifled by the furious light from the palace, and the candelabra lining the stairs are reflected like glittering coins against the bright silk everyone is wearing. People mill along the paths and beneath the open dome at the center of the Orangerie, foamy blossoms and soft-tongued orchids pressing their leaves against the glass like hands. The women are stuffed into skirts supported by panniers that make them as wide as they are tall, and everyone’s hair is powdered and curled and pasted into sculptural rigidity. Percy and I are two of the only men who aren’t wigged. My hair grows so thick and dark and ruffles so handsomely that I refuse to cover it until it ceases to be all or any of those things.

  No one takes notice of our announcement. The atmosphere is already far too feverish.

  The ambassador’s wife peels Felicity away from us, leaving Percy and me to her husband. I try to wander away to secure both a drink and someone to make eyes at across the crowd that I can promise will end with someone’s trousers off. But Worthington sticks closer to me than I would like, making introductions to a parade of nobles who all look the same in their wigs and powder and forcing me to be a spectator to polite conversation about the poet Voltaire’s exile to England, whether bachelors should be made to pay higher taxes, the broken-off engagement between the boy king of France and the Spanish infanta and what that means for relations between the houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon.

  This is going to be the rest of your life, says a small voice in the back of my head.

  I’ve never been good at feigning sincerity, or pretending to be keen on things I’m not, and I haven’t a clue what to say to these people. I’m accustomed to spending parties like this either mucking about with Percy or drinking until I’ve found someone else to muck about with, but Percy’s being annoying and the lord ambassador has a nasty habit of waving servers with the wine and champagne away. I finally manage to get my hand around a glass, but when I try to have it refilled, he puts his hand over the top, never breaking eye contact with the lady he’s speaking to. I survive the rest of the conversation by imagining taking my empty coupe and shoving it either down his throat or up his arse.

  “I hear you have a bit of a problem,” he says to me as the other half of his conversation wafts away. “Excess is not flattering, young man.”

  I’d take sloppy drunk over dull and restrained any day, though saying that aloud doesn’t seem likely to aid in the refilling of my glass.

  Percy stays with us, though a bit apart—his desire to keep post-kiss distance from me seems to be doing battle with his desire to not be alone in this crowd. If I’m riding on the coattails of my father’s connections in being here, he’s clinging to the seams, with no title, a gentry family, and the darkest skin of anyone who isn’t minding the refreshments. Most people we meet either gape openly like he’s fine art on display or pretend he doesn’t exist. One woman actually claps her hands in delight when she spots him, like she’s just witnessed a soft-eared puppy perform a trick.

  “You know, I’m very involved in your cause,” she keeps saying to him as her husband natters on to Worthington and me, until Percy finally asks, “What cause?”

  She looks shocked he had to ask. “The abolition of the slave trade, of course. My club has been boycotting slave-grown sugarcane since the winter.”

  “That’s not really my cause,” Percy replies.

  “Where are you headed next?” her husband asks, and it’s a moment before I realize he’s addressing me. I’m caught between wanting to smack the pox patches off this woman’s face and to smack Percy because I’m still angry about our kiss. Perhaps I could get them both with a wide swing.

  “Marseilles at the end of summer, didn’t you say, Disley?” Worthington prompts.

  “Yes,” I reply. “Then east to Venice, Florence, and Rome. Perhaps Geneva.”

  “How long since you came from Africa?” the woman asks, and Percy replies, his tone remarkably gentle for what a jilt she’s being, “I was raised in England, madam.”

  “You should speak to my club before you leave Paris,” she says, bobbing toward him like a top about to tip.

  “I don’t think—”

  “We were in Venice earlier this year,” her husband says, dragging me back into his conversation. “Quite a place. You should see Saint Bartolomeo’s while you’re there—the frescoes are better than at Saint Mark’s, and the friars will walk you up to the bell tower if you’re willing to part with some coinage. Avoid the Carnevale—it’s all hedonism and masquerades. Oh, and there’s an island off the coast, with a chapel—can’t remember the name, but it’s been sinking into the Lagoon. It’ll be underwater by the end of summer.”

  “My club meets Thursday evenings,” the woman is saying, and Percy is replying, “I don’t think I’d have anything to say.”

  But she pushes on. “To have been raised the way you were! In a wealthy household, with natural children . . .”

  I can feel waves of secondhand embarrassment wafting off Percy like I’m standing too close to an oven, and the gentleman is tapping the bowl of his clay pipe against the back of his hand out of time with the music, and I want a drink so badly I can hardly think straight.

  “It’s a dramatic sight, crumbling and half sunk into the sea.” His pipe knocks into his ring with a clatter that sets my teeth on edge. “We took a boat out, though they only let you get so close—”

  “Well, doesn’t that just sound like the most fun thing I can imagine,” I interrupt, louder than I mean to though I don’t retreat from it.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sitting in a boat and watching an island sink slowly into the sea,” I say. “What a thrill. Perhaps while we’re a thousand miles from home, we’ll also take in an eyeful of tea boiling.”

  The gentleman is so shocked he takes an actual step backward from me, which is a tad dramatic. “Merely a suggestion, my lord. I thought you might enjoy—”

  “I can’t imagine I would,” I reply, stone-faced.

  “Well, then. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Excuse us.”

  He takes his wife’s arm, and as he leads her away, I hear her say, “Negroes are so standoffish.” A fitting end to a conversation that was essentially prolonged mortification for all parties involved.

  The ambassador looks as though he’s about to scold me, but he’s distracted when his wig catches on a passing woman’s and they’re both nearly uncoiffed. I look over at Percy, hoping he might thank me for saving him from conversing further with that cow, and then we’ll conspire about how bloody awful this night has turned out to be. But he’s frowning at me with nearly the same enthusiasm as the ambassador. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask.

  He blows a sharp sigh through his nose. “Must you be an ass to everyone you meet?”

  “He was the one giving daft travel advice.”

  “You’re being obnoxious.”

  “Zounds, Perce. Be a bit gentle, why don’t you?”

  “Can’t yo
u put in some effort? Please? Even if you don’t give a whit what anyone has to say, these are important people. People who could be good for you to know. And even if they weren’t, you should at least try to be kind.”

  God, I would cut off my own feet for my champagne glass to magically refill itself in this moment. I’m craning my neck for a passing server. “I really don’t care who anyone here is.”

  Percy grabs me by the sleeve, pulling me around so we’re face-to-face. The back of his hand brushes mine, and we shy from each other like spooked horses. That goddamn kiss is ruining my life. “Well, you should.”

  “Why does it matter to you?” I snap, shoving my fists into my pockets. His cravat has slipped, and I can see my teethmarks crawling up his neck, which is just bloody aggravating.

  “Because we can’t all have the luxury of not caring what people think of us.”

  I scowl. “Leave me alone. Go speak to someone else.”

  “Who am I meant to speak to?”

  “Fine, go serve the drinks, then,” I snap, and immediately wish I hadn’t. I reach out before he can say anything and take hold of his arm. “Wait, I’m sorry—”

  He shrugs off my grip. “Thanks for that, Monty.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “But you did,” he says, then stalks away. All the righteous indignation I’ve been nursing for days wilts like butter in the sun.

  Worthington reappears suddenly at my side, scraping a hand along his wig. A small blossom of starchy powder blooms from its strands. “Where’s Mr. Newton gone?”

  “Don’t know,” I reply, resisting the urge to toss back my coupe one more time to make certain there isn’t a last swallow clinging to the bottom.

  “Come here, you should be introduced to the Duke of Bourbon,” he says, fastening my arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and I am pivoted to face a man coming toward us. He’s a stocky and ungenial-looking fellow in a red-and-gold justacorps, with a curled wig enveloping his head like a horned cyclone. “Do try and be civil. This is the young king’s former prime minister—he’s just been dismissed for unknown reasons. Still a touchy subject.”

  “I really don’t care,” I reply, though in the back of my head I can hear Percy’s admonition to try and be kinder like the echo of a cymbal. A stab of guilt goes through me, and I think, perhaps, it might be novel to give this society-manners thing a bit of an effort.

  “Good evening, my lord.” The ambassador darts into the path of the duke, who looked ready to pass us by, and offers a short bow.

  “Bonsoir, ambassadeur,” the duke replies, hardly bothering to make eye contact. “You look well.”

  “Always a pleasure. A fine evening, as is usually had here. How good to see you. Not that it’s a surprise. Of course you’re here.” Bourbon looks as though he’d like to sidle away from this conversation, though the ambassador seems equally as desperate to keep him anchored. “Will His Majesty be in attendance?”

  “His Majesty remains indisposed,” the duke replies.

  “A shame. We all pray for his swift recovery, as always. May I present Lord Henry Montague, Viscount of Disley, recently arrived from England?”

  Just try, says Percy’s voice in my head. I give the duke the most sincere smile I can muster, dimples employed for fullest effect, and offer him the same small bow the ambassador did. It feels like a strange imitation, a stage version of the way I’ve seen other men behave. “It’s a pleasure.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” he says, his tone noticeably absent of any pleasure as he wraps me in a stare that could pin a man to the wall. “You’re Henri Montague’s eldest?”

  Always a hideous place to start, but I keep that luminous smile fixed. “Yes.”

  “Henry is touring,” the ambassador says, like that might somehow open a conversational door, but the duke ignores him and keeps that calculating gaze fixed upon me. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck. He’s not a tall fellow, but he’s solid, and I’m neither of those things. In that steel-tipped stare of his, I feel significantly smaller than usual.

  “How fares your father of late?” he asks.

  “Ah, yes.” The ambassador gives a fluttery laugh. He’s fiddling with his sleeve links. “Your father is French, isn’t he, Disley? I’d forgotten.”

  “Are the two of you close?” the duke asks.

  I can feel fat drops of sweat, sticky with my hair pomade, rolling down the back of my neck. “I wouldn’t say close.”

  “Do you see much of him?”

  “Well, not lately, as we’ve the English Channel between us.” I give myself a bit of a hat-tip for that—clever, but not impertinent. I might not be as terrible at this as I thought.

  The duke doesn’t smile. “Are you mocking me?”

  Worthington makes a sound that’s rather like choking.

  “No,” I say quickly. “No, not at all. It was a jest—”

  “At my expense.”

  “It was the way you said it—”

  “Is there something wrong with the way I speak?”

  “No, I . . .” I look between them. The ambassador is staring at me with his jaw unhinged. “Would you like me to explain it?”

  The duke’s frown goes deeper. “Do you think I’m an imbecile?”

  Dear God, what is happening? This conversation is suddenly a wriggling fish between my fingers and I’m losing my grip. “I think we’ve misstepped somewhere,” I say, offering my best apologetic smile. “You were asking about my father.”

  The duke doesn’t return it. “I’m afraid I’ve lost the thread.”

  I slump a few inches nearer to the ground. “Sorry.”

  “Your father has a pointed sense of humor. Clearly you take after him.”

  “Do I?” I look between him and the ambassador again, though neither seems willing to come to my rescue. “What do you mean, pointed sense of humor?”

  “Would you like me to explain it?” the duke replies, a bitter mimic.

  The best strategy seems to be fleeing back to the summit of this tangential peak and pretending we never scaled it, so I say, “I was seeing a great deal of my father before I left for the Continent. My mother’s just had a child and that’s kept him at home.”

  “Ah.” The duke fishes a silver vinaigrette from his pocket and takes a grand sniff. “The last I heard, he was staying more at his estate to keep an eye upon a delinquent son who enjoyed drinking and boys more than he did his studies at Eton.”

  All the color drains out of my face. A few people glance our way, key phrases in his statement catching gossip-hungry ears. The duke gives me a cool expression, and I’m quite ready to either overturn a table or do a dramatic collapse to the ground. Perhaps both in quick succession. Look, see! I would shout at Percy if he were here beside me. This is what happens when I try.

  Ambassador Worthington makes a verbal hurdle between us. “This is Henri Montague’s son,” he offers, as though there’s been some kind of mistake.

  “Yes, I know,” the duke replies. Then, back to me, he says, “And by all reports I’ve heard, he’s a scoundrel.”

  “Well, at least I’ve not been dismissed from my position as lapdog to an invalidic puppet of a king,” I snap.

  The duke’s smugness slips like a poorly laced mask. For the first time since the start of our egregious interaction, he seems to be considering something other than making me look a fool, though this thing seems to be whether it would be appropriate to strangle me with his bare hands in the middle of mixed company. “Watch that tongue, Montague,” he says, his voice low and coiled, a poisonous snake lurking in the tall grass. Then he snaps his vinaigrette shut and stalks away, leaving the ambassador and me both staring after him like wax figures of ourselves.

  My ears are still ringing—I’m unsure whether my father is going out of his way to speak badly of me to all his intimates and make a real meal of my humiliation, or whether I’ve such a foul reputation that the stench has preceded me here. And what’s worse, I’m not sure which
of those options is preferable.

  Worthington’s face is still stuck in its mask of polite society when he turns to me, but the steam coming out his ears is nearly palpable. I expect a stuttered secondhand apology, some sort of gasping and fawning and poor Monty, I’m so terribly sorry he said such hateful things to you.

  Instead he says to me, very calmly, “How dare you speak to him like that.”

  Which is when I realize he isn’t on my side either.

  “Did you hear what he said to me?” I demand.

  “He is your better.”

  “I don’t care if he’s the bleeding king, he insulted—”

  Worthington reaches suddenly for me, and my hands fly up, an involuntary defense. But all he does is place his palm upon my arm in an almost pitying way and say, “When your father wrote to request I make your introductions, I had it in my head he was exaggerating about your lack of moral fortitude, but I see he’s been rather astute in his assessment. Now, I believe your father to be a first-rate fellow, so I place no responsibility upon him. He’s no doubt done the best he could, yet sometimes the tares fall among the wheat. But this devil-may-care attitude you believe so charming, tossing your social connections into the fire and instead choosing to associate with colored men such as your Mr. Newton—”

  “Let’s get something straight,” I interrupt, jerking my arm out of his grip with such force that I nearly knock out the woman standing behind me. “You are not my father, I am not your responsibility, and I did not come here to have a list of my faults related from him or be condemned for who I associate with—not by you or that damned duke. So while it’s been a jolly good time, being treated like a child all evening, I think I’ve just about had enough and I can make my own way from here.”

  And then I turn on my heel and march off, snatching a glass from the tray of a passing server as I go, draining it, and replacing it before he’s even noticed me. If my father is so keen on telling everyone what a rake I am, I’m happy to live up to my reputation. Wouldn’t want to disappoint him.

  It’s an impressive performance as far as dramatic storm-offs go, but as soon as I’ve left Worthington I realize I’ve got nowhere to storm off to. I look around for Percy—I’m ready to surrender our standoff just for the sake of company and perhaps a bit of sympathy as well. I spot him over near the dance floor, and start to weave through the crowd, but then I realize he’s talking to someone—a lad in a blond wig who looks a bit older than us, with such stark freckles I can see them under his powder. He’s got on a fine suit of ribbed gray silk with ruffles at the collar that swing when he leans in to Percy so that whatever he’s saying can be heard over the music. Percy says something in return and the lad laughs, openmouthed, with his head thrown back. Percy gives him a shy smile, and the freckled little shit touches him on the arm and then leaves his damn hand there for far longer than is really necessary. I’ve never wanted so badly to knock someone’s teeth in as I do right then. Knock those stupid freckles straight off his face.