Page 19 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)
Behind him, Ronald Vincent drew in a slow, careful breath of recognition, and Charles felt the tenor of the Lads change. They had gathered to defend one of their own; now they were preparing to fight. The one was not the same as the other.
"Should I not," sneered Vowels, as Charles abruptly thought of him. "Do you think you can scare me, you crass piece of?—"
"I should not," Charles repeated, with more heat, "say such things if I were you. Retreat, sir; I will not have my friends insulted and I am not unfamiliar with battle."
"You?" Vowels said incredulously. "You, you little pipsqueak, hardly tall enough to lick my boot? You, with the lazy eyes and quivering thin mouth? I doubt you know what end of a sword to hold, much less have ever fired a weapon in battle. You could not?—"
Even fine accents, it seemed, could be silenced with a fist to the mouth. Vowels howled as Benedict, shaking his fist and glancing at Charles in pained apology, muttered, "Forgive me, I—" Anything else he intended to say was lost in a rush of action as Vowels's men swarmed Charles's Lads.
It was not, from the start, a fair fight. O'Brien had come around to Charles's left while Vowels postured; together with Vincent, the three of them surged forward. It required no discussion for Vincent and O'Brien to attend to the men at Vowels's sides while Charles dealt with Vowels directly.
Vowels was right, of course: Charles was small by comparison, but large men rarely thought that small ones had any advantage in a fight.
Vowels swung; Charles stepped inside the blow and drove his fist deep into the bigger man's gut, doubling him.
He seized the man's ears, lifted his head a few inches, then slammed it down again toward his own swiftly-rising knee; a crunch sounded and blood flew around adenoidal screams in the aftermath of a broken nose.
Charles cast him aside, kicked his jaw to silence him, and looked up to see that the fight was, for all purposes, already over.
Vincent held an unconscious man by his scruff, with a second one at their feet.
Spreading red marks on their foreheads suggested the one Vincent held had been used as a battering ram against the one on the floor.
Vincent dropped the one he still held, and glanced up to shrug apologetically at Charles.
Samuel Ackerman, some feet beyond Vincent at the fringe of the circle, stood with his foot on a man's throat and an expression of mild disdain on his flawless features.
Between them Cringlewood had taken a blow to the corner of his mouth and throttled the offender in return.
The man was, Charles trusted, still breathing, though if Cringlewood wished it, there was no doubt that the law would see to it that he shortly ceased to do so—or look the other way if Cringlewood took care of it himself.
O'Brien, on Charles's left, had struck one man down and chased another into the edges of the watching crowd; they faced off now, though there was little doubt the other man had lost his will to fight.
A few steps behind O'Brien, Hewitt sat astride a doughty-looking fellow, still raining blows upon him.
Charles shuddered from his bones out, trying to settle the fighting rage and confoundedly grateful that it was anger, and not bowel-watering fear, that had come on him this time.
After a few seconds, hoping he could trust his voice, Charles said, “Evander," mildly, and Hewitt stopped with visible reluctance.
Fairburn, standing a few steps behind Charles, murmured, "I believe I could have acquitted myself more handsomely, but there was no one left to hit. Dalton, I am sorry, but I was afraid if that fellow kept on it would be pistols at dawn. A bar fight seemed wiser."
"Probably wise. I'm concerned about this one, though, Fairburn," Charles said, nudging Vowels with one foot. "If his voice is any indication, then despite his face he's Quality?—"
Charles's thought was cut off by the arrival of a dandified man of considerably too great an age to wear the foppish fashion he had chosen. His voice, however, matched the outrage of his outfit, and his whiskers quivered as he shrieked, "That was our theatrical troupe! "
Relief swept Charles so thoroughly he nearly laughed, and the merriment of his expression spurred the fop to greater fury.
"You have spoiled a night's entertainment!
A month's entertainment, for I'm sure they won't play the hall now, not after such rude treatment.
My God, the cancellation fees I'll have to pay!
The word on the street—" His eyes lit with a sudden fervorous greed, as if realizing word on the street of a fight in his dance hall would no doubt bring in dozens, even hundreds, hoping to see another such disruptive show of ill behavior, but he couldn't allow that to stop his tirade.
"—will be ruinous! I shall have to close the hall! Out! Out! Get them out of my hall!"
Like the Red Sea, the hall patrons parted, allowing the Lads to be manhandled and thrust toward the doors.
Manhandled, but not, Charles noted, too roughly; they had done themselves proud, and the proprietor's enforcers clearly weren't certain of their ability to quell the Lads, should it come to it.
Still, they were flung with a certain dramatic flair onto the streets.
All of them—save Vincent, who was simply too large to unfoot—landed on their backsides or backs on muddy, cold cobblestones.
The doors behind them were slammed shut as a final statement, though they were opened again seconds later to allow curious passers-by to rush inside and hear all about the commotion. Some of them even stepped over the Lads, no one offering assistance.
Charles found himself smiling beatifically at the foggy night sky. "Well. I suppose we won't be welcome there for a while."
"Oh dear, sir," was Worthington's only comment upon the arrival home of what he often thought of as his charge, although he had no specific compulsion to care for Charles Edward's well-being, only his clothes.
The young Mr Dalton gave him a positively brilliant grin, promising, "Ah, but you should see the other blokes, Worthington," as the valet helped him out of his coat.
"We're only dirty from being thrown out.
Well, a bruise or two here or there. Cringlewood's sporting a bruise that's swollen his lip up like a girl's and Fairburn's got a mouse that makes him look twice as mean as he is.
Three times," he decided, "Benny's not a mean man.
We've got to keep them out of Mother's sight until they're healed up or she'll want to know what's what. "
"That may be difficult, sir," Worthington murmured. "You have the Thornbury party to attend tomorrow evening. Even if she doesn't see them, word will certainly come back to her."
"Blast!" Charles fell backward onto his bed, splayed out like an infant in a cot.
He was not injured, Worthington surmised, but he was certainly inebriated.
A restorative would be necessary in the morning.
In the later morning; it was already well into the early morning hours, and only dark due to the time of year.
A toot like this in June would have seen the young sir home with the dawn.
The young sir was not, however, so inebriated as to be unable to think, as was evidenced by his eventual, "Perhaps you can run a bit of interference, Worthington. Find a way to distract her from the topic until bruises are faded and gossip is dust."
Worthington replied, "Gossip is never dust," but also—inevitably—promised, "I will do my best, sir.
Now, Mr Dalton, please, we really must do something about your trousers before there is an indelible mud stain on the bed.
Your mother," he added as he set about dealing with the trousers, "did not believe Miss Dalton's claim that you were suffering the headache, and expects you to be at breakfast at nine, Mr Dalton. "
"The headache," Charles echoed. “Just as well she didn't try to claim the pox.
Mother would have been in here fussing over me for days.
I believe I may die if you force me to arise at such an unforgivable hour, Worthington.
You would not be so cruel." With that, Charles rolled over and drew a pillow onto his head, asleep almost before the action was complete, for he well knew that Worthington would, indeed, be every bit that cruel.
Quietly and efficiently, Worthington went about setting the rest of Dalton's clothes and room to rights, even pausing to draw a duvet over the gently snoring youth before pausing at the door to look at his young master in fond concern.
Charles would not have begun the fight; Worthington knew that.
He would, though, have ended it, in hopes of proving something to himself, if not to the world.
It had happened before. The worry was that it would happen again, and again, until the stakes were raised so high than only death would settle them.
On that distressing thought he left Charles to sleep, and went to seek his own few hours of rest before duty called once more.