Gentlemen Prefer Scandal - Chapter 6

Dear Nathaniel,

You are simply awful for leaving out the sordid details of your night in the barn. You expect me to believe you stopped at kissing, then fell asleep lovingly in each other’s arms like some kind of romance novel? Perhaps his injuries make your story slightly more convincing, but on the whole I remain unconvinced.

It has taken me a while to place the names in your letters to faces, to reputations, to memories—I am simply itching to return to London and see them for myself. If it weren’t for this damned period of mourning, I would be there in a heartbeat… Anyway, I have made two important realisations.

First: you have definitely seen Rupert Wynn. Maybe a year ago. We were watching Hamlet and you remarked on how handsome the fellow playing Rosencrantz was. We looked up his name in the program and I am certain it was the very same Rupert Wynn you are rolling around in the hay with these days. I will confirm this in person upon my triumphant return to London society. He sounds much more exciting than George. Thank God you’ve finally dispensed with him! I never understood why you’d go through the trouble of fancying men just to end up with some dreadful poet.

Second: my father did know the baron you speak of. I couldn’t remember at first—I never paid much attention to the rotating cast of dull and dreary lords my father had over for dinner—but I knew his name sounded familiar. He was at my father’s funeral, and there was sadness in his eyes and he was kind—and I mean kind in a genuine way, not in the pitiful way most funeral guests can be.

One night at dinner, he accidentally ate something made with a strawberry filling—a cake, perhaps—and a terrible rash broke out across his entire body. His lips became swollen, but as he’d only had a few bites, he assured us he’d return to health by morning. And he said—Nathaniel, this is the important part—he said his son was the same way around strawberries. It’s a family ailment with no known cure.

I recommend finding a way to feed this Percival imposter a few bites of strawberries, ideally around someone else who would have known about the hives, someone important. If Sarah is correct, then there’s her evidence. And if she’s not…well, he should return to health by morning.

As for your plan? I think it was a terrible idea, reckless and dangerous and very unlikely to succeed. It’s also the exact sort of scheme I’d come up with if I were stuck in the city for the off-season. I do hope you used the old brushes.

It’s dreadfully boring out here, at least when I’m not in someone else’s bed. Which I suppose isn’t very often.

Be honest in your next letter,

Charlotte Sterlington

***

Sunday, December 14, 1823

My grand adventure begins with a fake mustache, and it ends with one too.

Actually, it ends with a pair of fake mustaches.

Rupert insisted that I looked quite dashing, but I’m not sure I believe him. I wore a shaggy tuft of hair that felt much like carrying a feather duster beneath my nose, and it was quite out of fashion. It’s all the costume rack at the theatre had available, he claimed, and yet somehow his mustache was neat and small and entirely un-feather-duster-like.

This was only one detail of our costumes. Rupert, Sarah, and I donned the garb of waitstaff for the occasion of Percival Glyde’s welcome home party. It wasn’t hard for Sarah to lay her hands on three freshly starched, neatly folded servant uniforms; she used to run the place, after all. The guest list was sparse, but important. Any lord or dignitary or otherwise notable person who was still in London was invited, which would be all the audience we needed.

We slipped in and stood shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other identically dressed men and women in the cramped basement kitchen of Glyde Manor. We were shucking oysters and setting them on an ornate silver platter under the watchful eye of the unsmiling chef.

‘Je suis hors de moi!’ he shouted as he passed, smacking the small of my back with a wooden spatula. ‘We do not hire extra help just to slow us down!’

The work was gruelling and apparently endless. My side ached and my fingers hurt and it was so hot in the kitchen a part of me longed for the freezing carriage house.

At least Rupert was beside me. I chanced a glimpse at his profile at the exact same time he glanced toward me. Our eyes met for an instant.

And then I really longed for the carriage house.

The chef instructed each of us to take up trays of hors d’oeuvres or bottles of brandy and wine and then ordered us two by two at the foot of the servants’ staircase to the great hall.

I nodded subtly at Rupert, and together we climbed the steps to the party above.

I will never admit this to Rupert, or George, or anyone who asks, but I was terrified the whole time. I have a bit of practice in deception from Charlotte’s painting ruse, but at least I am still Nathaniel the painter, not someone else entirely. But on this night, I carried hors d’oeuvres and poured drinks and could not let my true identity be known. I had to trust in the mustache, the makeup, and the clever mechanics of Sarah’s new plan.

Whenever I thought the nerves of it all were too much for me to bear, I would scan the vast circular room for Rupert and stare until he stared back. Cool relief washed over me at the slightest nod of his head, at the encouraging smile that kept me standing tall. Just thinking of it now, my heart leaps.

But of course he would look at me that way, in that moment. I was a man in disguise, daring and brave, sly and skillful. I had no assumption I would hold his interest when the plot had resolved, when he had no use for me anymore, when I was just Nathaniel Fletcher again. It made the whole night that much harder.

Sarah slinked away unseen to search the house. She knew every room, and every hiding place within each room. And the imposters would be occupied all evening. We would keep them occupied.

The great hall was so noisy and crowded with guests that it was easy to avoid the towering figure of Sir Percival and the skulking menace of Mr James without attracting undue suspicion. I loitered at the edges of the vast circular room, clutching the expensive-looking bottle of Burgundy I’d been entrusted with and trying my best to politely ignore the entreaties of thirsty partygoers.

The bottle was precariously slippery in my sweating hands as I watched the enormous clock across from me. My task was to wait patiently until eight exactly. And then…

But there was the first phase of our plan to come before that. Perhaps it would be enough alone, and I wouldn’t be needed. Perhaps I would get lucky.

I stood in position and watched as Rupert brought a tray of strawberry tarts around the room, landing at Percival Glyde.

He lowered the tray enticingly as the guests around Percival reached for the treats. But just as Percival’s own hand hovered over a tart, the woman to his left said, ‘Lord Glyde, you mustn’t! These have strawberries in them.’

Percival looked confused but returned his hand to his side.

Failure. I scarcely had time to feel disappointment or fear or a thrill of anticipation before the clock was striking eight.

This was my cue. Mr James was standing to the side of the hall, keeping a hawk-like eye on his employer. Which meant he did not see me as I walked swiftly in his direction. My fingers ached from how tightly I was holding that bottle of Burgundy. Rupert had whisked away the offending tray—no doubt apologising in that French accent of his—and was now heading toward the same point as me. I watched him approach. I marked the decreasing distance between ourselves and the looming figure of Mr James. I saw Rupert pivot suddenly, just in time to crash into me, just in time to spill strawberry filling and crimson wine all over the butler’s clean white shirt front.

Rupert was ridiculously apologetic. I almost thought he was going too far with the role, laying his remorse on too thick, but he had moved Mr James from the light of the hall so quickly it didn’t seem to matter. We were ushering him out in the name of getting him a new shirt, but we stopped at the edge of the room, just past the fireplace, in the shadows of a doorway.

He rounded on us, ready to heap condemnation on our heads for our apparent incompetence.

And then I reached into the pocket of my tail-coat and withdrew a small, blue ledger-book.

I showed just the corner, enough for him to know I had it.

His tirade died on his lips and his eyes widened with rage. ‘How did you…’

‘We know who you are.’ Rupert dropped the accent. We didn’t know who this man was, of course, but we knew who he wasn’t. ‘And we know you don’t belong here.’

Rupert spoke with such easy authority I would have done anything he asked of me. Of course, he wasn’t asking anything of me in that moment, but if I were to ever hear that voice again…

No. Such thoughts can only lead to pain.

‘You think that book means anything?’ he sneered. ‘You’d have to offer Fielding your soul to beat the bounty I gave him.’

I shrugged. ‘It would be so much easier if you just confessed.’

‘It will be easier once I’ve had you killed.’ He smiled, showing his teeth. ‘I’ve been planning this for years, waiting for that old bat to finally die, searching every public house for the perfect likeness, paying off all the right people. And you really think you can scribble and serve your way into my undoing?’ He laughed. ‘I’ve thought of everything. And it seems that you,’ he said and—this part I was truly not expecting—grabbed me by the lapels and snatched the ledger out of my hand, ‘have not.’

Fear spiked through me as he tossed the ledger far into the fireplace. It almost didn’t make it. It almost slid against the floor, or crashed onto the mantel. But it landed just at the edge of a log, its pages crumpling to ash moments later.

I forced myself not to smile as I noticed how quiet the room had become. The party guests were turning their heads in confusion, eyes travelling around the room. I sent one knowing glance to Rupert.

‘I’ll find out who you’re working for,’ Mr James continued in his vicious voice. ‘And I’ll rid the earth of anyone who knows that man is not Percival Glyde.’

Rupert grinned and put on the accent again just for show. ‘That’s about to be a lot more people than you were expecting.’

‘What do you…’ Mr James began. And then he looked up and looked around.

The hall was silent, and everyone was staring at us. Some were shocked, some were horrified, and some were simply delighted to be witnessing live a story all their friends would have to read about in the gossip sheets.

‘Ever heard of a whispering gallery?’ Rupert asked with staggering nonchalance.

‘Nod if you can hear me,’ I said to the crowd, just louder than a whisper. We were far enough away that they shouldn’t have nodded, and in any other room they wouldn’t have, but this was not any other room. This was the grand design of the elder Lord Glyde, famous patron of architectural innovation, who lent his own home to the experiments of inventors and builders and artists. From this spot in this circular room—this spot that Rupert and I had planted Mr James into so precisely—a voice was lifted across the ceiling and amplified across the walls.

Everything was a blur after that. A group of gentlemen restrained Mr James and the imposter Sir Percival. Sarah entered with the real ledger as the decoy crumbled to ash in the fireplace. Someone sent for a constable. They wrote down our statements, but I don’t remember much from this part of the night. The thrill of victory was short-lived when I realised there would be nothing left to do tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that.

Even now I am running out of things to write. I am scrambling for details to keep the story alive. I remember Sarah’s satisfied smile. I remember the constable shaking his head in amazement. I remember Rupert squeezing my hand under the table. I remember him kissing me, afterward, outside in the cover of darkness. I remember offering him a dramatic bow and telling him it was a pleasure to be of service.

And I remember the cheer in his face faltering then, as he realised, too, that we had no reason to see each other beyond tonight. He told me we had to share a meal soon, to celebrate, but I…

‘I want you to remember me like this,’ I said. I wanted—I want—my excitement and spontaneity and adventurousness to be immortalised in Rupert’s heart. I want him to always think of me as interesting, as worth writing about. I don’t want him to discover who I become when there are no mysteries to solve, who I return to when the only events filling my days are teas and luncheons and quiet strolls in the park.

‘Are you leaving?’ he asked, not quite catching on.

‘No, not exactly…but I don’t live like this.’ I gestured at nothing in particular. I just wanted the moment to end, so we could depart on a high note. ‘I believe you’d find me rather boring if you really got to know me. So, remember me like this.’ I flashed my most courageous smile, then turned and walked into the night.

And that’s it. That’s where the first, the most, and—in all likelihood—the last truly interesting story I’ll ever be a part of ends.

I have nothing else to write.

Friday, December 19, 1823

I write with excellent news!

This morning’s paper detailed the entire case. The man posing as Sir Percival was apparently a butcher in Worthing before he got wrapped up in all this. Mr James was a notorious swindler by the name of Henry Brisbane, wanted by the authorities for a half-dozen other cases of fraud. And Sir Ian Fielding, the magistrate, has been disbarred and now awaits a trial of his own.

Let this be a lesson to future fortune-hunters to go about their schemes the old-fashioned way: marrying rich.

But that’s not all. The best part is what the new magistrate revealed when he got his hands on the will: Sarah is the baron’s illegitimate daughter, born of an extramarital affair. Like any lord, this baron was too attached to the rules of good society to bring such information to light in life, but unlike any lord, he clearly stipulated in the will that all his considerable property and possessions would pass to Sarah in the event his son never returned. Now we know why Mr James had been so insistent on getting rid of her.

Sarah lives in the manor once more, but no longer in the servants’ quarters. She has bedrooms to spare, so Rupert has joined her too.

What the paper left out, of course, was my favourite part of the story, the part where Rupert kissed me again and again. Between each sentence of the reporter’s story was a stolen glance, a warm embrace, a kiss-smothered sigh.

Like everyone else, George had read the story this morning too. He found me at Barrett’s and told me he was impressed. He didn’t know I had it in me.

‘Then you didn’t know me at all,’ I said and walked out of the building before I’d even ordered food. I couldn’t stomach the sight of him, knowing I had so rashly given up the sight of Rupert Wynn.

Was I wrong to have done so?