London's Hyde Park was decked out in all the splendor of a
May morning. Sunlight beamed down from a clear blue sky
and twinkled off a million dewdrops, giving a fresh, newly
washed appearance to trees and grass. It was a perfect
setting for the customary promenade along fashionable
Rotten Row, the riders cantering along the wide stretch of
turf that ran from Hyde Park Corner to Queen's Gate, the
pedestrians strolling on the footpath beside it, separated
from the equestrians by a sturdy rail.
Perfect except for one discordant detail. In the middle of
an open stretch of grass well within sight of the Row some
sort of commotion was rapidly drawing a crowd of the
curious. That it was a fight became quickly evident. Not a
duel-there were four participants instead of two and the
morning was far too well advanced-but an indecorous
outbreak of fisticuffs.
Gentlemen, and a few ladies too, rode closer to see what
was transpiring. Many of the gentlemen stayed to watch the
progress of the fight, their interest in the morning
considerably piqued. A few, those unfortunate enough to be
escorting ladies, were obliged to ride hastily onward
since it was most certainly not a genteel sight for female
eyes. Some pedestrians too approached the scene along the
path that ran close by and either hurried on past or drew
closer, depending largely upon their gender.
"Scandalous!" one haughty male voice declared above the
hubbub of the crowd gathered about the empty square in
which the brawl was proceeding apace. "Someone ought to
summon a constable. Riffraff should not be allowed into
the park to offend the sensibilities of decent folk."
But althoughthe shabby garments and generally grubby,
unkempt appearance of three of the participants in the
fight proclaimed them to be undoubtedly of the very lowest
classes, the elegant though scant clothing and general
bearing of the fourth told an entirely different story.
"It is Ravensberg, sir," the Honorable Mr. Charles Rush
explained to the outraged Marquess of Burleigh.
The name was apparently explanation enough. The marquess
raised a quizzing glass to his eye and from the vantage
point of his position on horseback peered through it over
the heads of those on foot at Viscount Ravensberg, who was
stripped to the waist and at that particular moment was
having much the worst of the encounter. He had an
assailant clamped on each arm while the third pummeled him
with hearty enthusiasm in the stomach.
"Scandalous!" the marquess declared again, while all about
him gentlemen cheered or jeered, and two or three were
even engaged in laying wagers upon the outcome of such a
seemingly unequal contest. "I did not believe I would live
to see even Ravensberg stoop so low as to brawl with
riffraff."
"Shame!" someone else called as the red-haired giant who
was doing the pummeling changed the direction of his
assault and planted a fist in his victim's undefended
right eye, snapping his neck back in the process. "Three
against one is no fair odds."
"But he would not accept our assistance," Lord Arthur
Kellard protested with some indignation. "He made the
challenge-and insisted that three against one suited him
admirably."
"Ravensberg challenged riffraff?" the marquess asked with
considerable disdain.
"They dared to be insolent after he rebuked them for
accosting a milkmaid," Mr. Rush explained. "But he would
not simply chastise them with his whip as the rest of us
suggested. He insisted-oh, I say!"
This exclamation was occasioned by Lord Ravensberg's
response to the punch in the eye. He laughed, an
incongruously merry sound, and suddenly lashed out neatly
with one slim leg and caught his unwary assailant beneath
the chin with the toe of his boot. There was a loud
cracking of bone and clacking of teeth. At the same moment
he took advantage of the astonishment of the two who held
his arms and twisted free of them. He spun around to face
them in a half crouch, his arms outstretched, his fingers
beckoning. He was grinning.
"Come on, you buggers," he invited profanely. "Or do the
odds suddenly appear less to your advantage?"
The opponent whose jaw had just been shattered might have
thought so. But although his eyes were open, he appeared
more intent upon counting stars wheeling in the morning
sky than considering odds.
There was a roar of appreciation from the ever growing
crowd of spectators.
Viscount Ravensberg showed to far better advantage without
his shirt than with it. A gentleman of medium height and
slender grace, he had doubtless appeared an easy mark to
the three thugs who had taken him on with a collective
smirk of insolent contempt a few minutes before. But the
slim legs, encased in fashionable buff riding breeches and
top boots, showed themselves to be impressively well
muscled now that he had descended from the saddle. And his
naked chest, shoulders, and arms were those of a man who
had exercised and honed his body to its fullest potential.
The white seams of numerous scars on his forearms and
chest and one the length of the underside of his jaw on
the left side proclaimed the fact, as his clothes did not,
that at one time he had been a military man.
"Atrocious language to use in a public place," the
marquess remarked disdainfully. "And an unseemly display
of flesh. And all over a milkmaid, you say? Ravensberg is
a disgrace to his name. I pity his father."
But no one, not even Mr. Rush, to whom his remarks were
addressed, was paying him any attention. Two of the
bullies who had thought to amuse themselves by coaxing
unwilling kisses from an unaccompanied milkmaid in the
park were taking turns rushing at the viscount, who was
laughing and repulsing them with his jabbing fists every
time they came within range. Those who knew him were well
aware that he spent a few hours of most days at Jackson's
boxing saloon, sparring with partners far his superior in
height and weight.
"Sooner or later," he said conversationally, "you are
going to put together your two half-brains to make one
whole and realize that you would stand a far better chance
against me if you attacked simultaneously."
"This is not a sight for ladies," the marquess said
sternly. "The Duchess of Portfrey is walking past with her
niece."
But although one gentleman detached himself hastily-and
perhaps reluctantly-from the crowd at mention of the
duchess's name, his lordship's disapproving voice was
largely drowned out by a roar of enthusiasm as the
viscount's remaining two assailants took his advice and
charged him in tandem, only to find their progress checked
when he reached out his arms and cracked their heads
together. They went down as if their four legs had turned
to jelly, and they remained down.
"Bravo, Ravensberg!" someone called above the chorus of
whistles and cheers.
" 'E's bloomin' broke my jaw, 'e 'as," the third young man
complained, clutching it with both hands and turning over
on the grass to spit blood and at least one tooth onto the
grass. He had abandoned counting stars but did not look as
if he were about to resume the fight.
The viscount was laughing again as he wiped his palms on
his breeches. "It was too easy, by Jove," he said. "I
expected better sport from three of London's choicest
laboring men. They hardly merited my getting off my horse.
They were definitely not worth stripping down for. If they
had ever been in my regiment in the Peninsula, by thunder,
I would have put them in the front line to shield the
worthier men behind them."
But the morning had one more incident of interest to offer-
both for him and for the cheering spectators. The milkmaid
who had been the unwitting cause of the fracas came
hurtling across the grass toward him-the crowd parted
obligingly to let her through-flung her arms about his
neck, and pressed her person against his.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, your worship," she cried
fervently, "for saving a girl's virtue. I'm a good girl, I
am, and they would of stole a kiss or p'raps worse if
you 'adn't 'appened along to save me. But I'll kiss you, I
will. For a reward, like, being as you earned it an' all."
She was plump and shapely and ruddily pretty and drew
shrill whistles and admiring, bawdy comments from the
spectators. Viscount Ravensberg grinned at her before
dipping his head and availing himself of her offer with
lingering thoroughness. He tossed her a half sovereign
along with a wink from his good eye when he was finished,
and assured her that she was indeed a good girl.
There were more whistles as she made her unhurried
departure, all dimples and saucily swaying hips.
"Scandalous!" the marquess said one more time. "In broad
daylight too! But what can one expect of Ravensberg?"
The viscount heard him and turned to sketch him an ironic
bow. "I perform a public service, sir," he said. "I
provide topics for drawing- room conversation that are
somewhat more lively than the weather and the state of the
nation's health."
"I believe," Mr. Rush said with a chuckle as the marquess
rode on, his back ramrod straight and almost visibly
bristling with disapproval, "you are barely whispered
about by the more genteel, Ravensberg. You had better come
to White's and get a beefsteak on that eye. That rascal
gave you one deuce of a shiner."
"Hurts like a thousand devils," the viscount admitted
cheerfully. "Egad, life should always be so exhilarating.
My shirt, if you please, Farrington."
He looked about him after taking it from the hand of Lord
Farrington, to whom his clothes had been entrusted at the
start of the fight. The crowd was dispersing. He raised
his eyebrows.
"Frightened all the ladies away, did I?" He squinted off
in the direction of Rotten Row as if searching for one in
particular.
"It is an alarmingly public place, Ravensberg," Lord
Farrington said, laughing with him. "And you were bare to
the waist."
"Ah," the viscount said carelessly, taking his coat from
his friend and shrugging into it, "but I have a reputation
for wild living to live up to, you see-though I believe I
must have done my duty by it for one morning." He frowned
suddenly. "What the devil are we to do with these two
slumbering bodies, do you suppose?"
"Leave them to sleep it off?" Lord Arthur suggested. "I am
late for my breakfast, Ravensberg, and that eye is crying
out for attention. The mere sight of it is enough to
threaten one's appetite."
"You, fellow." The viscount raised his voice as he drew
another coin out of his pocket and tossed it onto the
grass beside the only one of his opponents who was
conscious. "Revive your friends and take them to the
nearest alehouse before a constable arrives to convey them
elsewhere. I daresay a tankard or two of ale each will
help restore you all to a semblance of good health. And
bear in mind for the future that when milkmaids say no
they probably mean no. It is a simple fact of language.
Yes means yes, no means no."
"Bloody 'ell," the man mumbled, still holding his jaw with
one hand while setting the other over the coin. "I'll
never so much as look at another wench, guv."
The viscount laughed and swung himself up into the saddle
of his horse, whose bridle Mr. Rush had been holding.
"Breakfast," he announced gaily, "and a juicy beefsteak
for my eye. Lead the way, Rush."
A few minutes later Hyde Park in the vicinity of Rotten
Row was its usual elegant, tonnish self, all traces of the
scandalous brawl vanished. But it was one more incident to
add to the lengthy list of wild indiscretions for which
Christopher "Kit" Butler, Viscount Ravensberg, had become
sadly notorious.
"I cannot tell you," the Duchess of Portfrey had been
saying to her niece a few minutes earlier, "what a delight
it is to have your company, Lauren. My marriage is proving
more of a joy than I ever expected, and Lyndon is
remarkably attentive, even now that I am in expectation of
an interesting event. But he cannot live in my pocket all
the time, the poor dear. We were both pleased beyond words
when you accepted our invitation to stay with us until
after my confinement."
The Honorable Miss Lauren Edgeworth smiled. "We both
know," she said, "that you are doing me a far greater
favor than I can possibly be doing you, Elizabeth. Newbury
Abbey had become intolerable to me."
She had been in London for two weeks, but neither she nor
the duchess had touched upon the underlying reason for her
being here until now. Elizabeth's supposed need for
Lauren's company while she awaited the birth of her first
child two months hence had been merely a convenient
excuse. Of course it had.
"Life does go on, Lauren," Elizabeth said at last. "But I
will not belittle your grief by enlarging upon that theme.
It would be insensitive of me, especially when I have
never experienced anything to compare with what you have
suffered-and when I have finally found my own happiness.
Though that fact in itself may be of some reassurance to
you. I was all of six and thirty when I married Lyndon
last autumn."
The Duke of Portfrey was indeed attentive to his wife,
with whom he was clearly deeply in love. Lauren smiled her
acknowledgment of the words of intended comfort. They
strolled onward through Hyde Park, as they had done each
morning since Lauren's arrival, except for the three days
when it had rained. The broad, grassy expanses on either
side of the path looked enticingly and deceptively rural
despite the frequent glimpses they afforded of other
pedestrians and riders. It was as if a piece of the
countryside had been tossed down into the middle of one of
the largest, busiest cities in the world and had survived
there, untainted by commerce.
They were approaching Rotten Row, from which Lauren had
shrunk in some alarm the first time Elizabeth had
suggested they walk there two weeks before. The morning
gathering was nothing like the crush of the fashionable
afternoon promenade in the park, it was true, but even so
there were too many people to see and-more significant-to
be seen by. She had thought she would never find the
courage to face the beau monde after the fiasco of last
year.
Last year half the ton had been gathered at Newbury Abbey
in Dorsetshire to celebrate the wedding of Lauren
Edgeworth to Neville Wyatt, Earl of Kilbourne. There had
been a grand wedding eve ball, at which Lauren had thought
it was impossible to feel any happier-and how horrifyingly
prophetic that thought had proved to be! And then there
had been the wedding itself at the village church, which
had been packed to the doors with the creme de la creme of
the beau monde-a wedding that had been interrupted just as
Lauren was about to step into the nave, on her
grandfather's arm, by the sudden appearance of the wife
Neville had thought long dead and of whose very existence
Lauren and his whole family had been totally unaware.
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