Dair Devil (2 page)

Dair was oblivious to the cool spring air, toes curling in the cold earth beneath his stockinged feet as he unbuttoned the three covered buttons at his knees, and then proceeded to undo the fall of his breeches. He looked up when directly addressed.

“Hold on!” demanded a tall white-blond gentleman, stripped to his breeches. He pointed the neck of the wine bottle in his friend’s direction. “There was no mention of getting naked as a newborn babe.”

“To raid Romney’s studio as an American Indian you can’t be dressed as an Englishman,” Cedric Pleasant enunciated as if talking to a small child.

Dair let his breeches drop to his feet, stepped out of them, removed his stockings, wrapped these in his breeches and tossed the lot to Farrier.

“Breechcloth, Mr. Farrier, if you please.”

“So you
do
wear drawers,” Lord Grasby stated with satisfaction; he of the white-blond good looks. “That’s one wager I will win. A guinea is now owed to Yours Truly!”

Cedric Pleasant slipped his silver pocket watch into a deep frock coat pocket.

“Wager? About Dair’s
drawers
?”

“Whether he wears ’em, or not,” Lord Grasby said. “
I said
, contrary to what
others
might think,
I know
Alisdair Fitzstuart for a gentleman.”

“Thank you, Grasby.”

Lord Grasby saluted Dair with the neck of the wine bottle to his temple.

“Who the devil would wager otherwise?” Cedric Pleasant wondered aloud.

“Or care,” Dair added with a huff.

Lord Grasby drank heartily from the wine bottle before he said, “Brother Weasel. That’s who! Weasel said a soldier—a
dragoon
no less—would have no use for such a useless article of clothing as drawers, because a soldier is required to have his weapon at the ready
at all times
.” He snorted. “Did you hear that, Cedric? Weasel—weapon at the ready—at all times.”

Cedric grunted in acknowledgment and made a grab for the bottle Lord Grasby was swinging about, and missed.

Dair rolled his eyes to the blackening night sky and motioned Farrier to his side.

“Carriage up the laneway?”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“And the beadles paid off?”

“To be deaf as a plank of wood? Yes, m’lord. We won’t hear a cry for assistance from that lot.”

“Good. Once Lord Grasby and I slip through the garden door, you hare off with the kit and we’ll see you at the carriage in the Square. Not outside Romney’s house. Position it across the street. We’ll make a dash for it.” He caught Farrier’s glance of skepticism at his drunken blond school friend. “Don’t worry. I’ll sling him over a shoulder if necessary.”

“Very good, m’lord.” Farrier said no more about it. “Breechcloth?”

“Breechcloth.”

Lord Grasby propped a bony elbow on Cedric Pleasant’s shoulder, so he could lift a foot to remove his stocking without falling flat on his face. “Oi! Dair! Tell me again—Why are we undressing in a laneway?”

Cedric Pleasant sighed his annoyance and was about to answer when Dair said patiently,

“Two reasons: We are about to break in to a painter’s studio in an attempt to spark Cedric’s non-existent love life. Secondly: You want to embarrass your no-good-weasel-of-a-brother-in-law; your words, not mine. Thus, your best friends are obliging you with this piece of theater.”

Lord Grasby took a moment for this to penetrate his inebriated brain.

“Good. Glad to help, Cedric. Hope Weasel chokes on a lamb chop! Ugh,” he added, pulling a face as if he had tasted something unexpectedly bitter. “Why did I have to be shackled with Weasel Watkins for a brother-in-law? The man is a-a…” He searched his limited-by-alcohol vocabulary. “
Weasel
.”

Dair grinned. “That’s the spirit! Now get undressed.”

Lord Grasby obediently pulled off his other stocking. “You know what I detest about him more than anything else, more than his sanctimonious whining, more than his small-minded self-importance, more than the way he hovers about m’sister—”

“Surely that’s enough of a list—”

“—It’s that he had the vileness to put forward the opinion Charlie Fitzstuart would make a more fitting Earl of Strathsay than Dair. He even said that’s what Dair’s relatives think, too! Damned cheek!”

“My brother
would
make a more fitting earl,” Dair agreed, pulling on the drawstring bow of his drawers. “And, yes, my esteemed relatives think likewise.” He shrugged. “Nothing new there. The Weasel is a boot-licking understrapper, but I’ll grant he uses to advantage what brain matter he does have between his shop sign ears.”

“Cowpats to that!” Lord Grasby declared, and took another swig from the wine bottle. He wiped his mouth on the back of the hand that held fast to the discarded stocking. “I like your brother well enough, Dair, but Charlie ain’t you. Is he, Cedric?”

“Certainly not!” Cedric Pleasant agreed. “Charles is a bookworm; you’re not. What does a bookworm know except what’s on paper? Written by dead people, books. Ghastly lot, authors.”

“Can’t have a bookworm inheriting an earldom,” Lord Grasby stuck in. “Would make the rest of us look less than the full deck of cards. There’s nothing wrong with being all brawn and no brain, and so I told the Weasel. If it weren’t for you brave chaps in uniform, sniveling fellows like the Weasel would spend their days shivering with fright under their bedcovers! And so I told him.”

Dair gave a huff of laughter. “I’m not in uniform now, Grasby. But thank you for your spirited defense; well, at least I think that’s what your speech was about.”

“I’d take what Grasby says with a pinch of salt,” Cedric Pleasant said as a confidential aside. “The claret is doing most of the talking.”

Dair’s dark eyes held Cedric Pleasant’s gaze.

“But Weasel Watkins does not drink… Of course I won’t take it to heart, Cedric,” he said, forcing a grin when his friend looked uncomfortable. He clapped him on the shoulder. “As well as not having a brain, apparently I don’t possess a heart either. Ha! I wonder what internal organs Weasel Watkins will allow me to own?”

“No heart? That’s a new one on me,” Cedric Pleasant replied with a smile, following Dair’s nonchalant lead. “Perhaps he secretly thinks you’re an automaton? You come to life with the turn of a key. What do you think of that, Grasby? Mystery solved! The Major survived nine years in the army because he’s not flesh and blood, but made from cogs and coils!”

“Automaton? No brain and no heart? Well that might explain why he’d accept a God-awful wager to tup a cripple for a shilling,” Grasby declared, rounding on Dair with an instant of lucidity. “Did you? Did you accept such a contemptible dare,
Dair
?”

Cedric Pleasant was astounded. “The devil he would! Who says so?”

“The Weasel, that’s who!”

Cedric looked at Dair, astonished. “You never did! You couldn’t!”

Dair looked momentarily uncomfortable but quickly masked this, saying with a forced nonchalant laugh, “If she’s halfway to being pretty and willing, why not?” He looked from one grim face to another, not comprehending the sudden tension between his two best friends. “What of it? I was drunk. It was years ago.” And to make them laugh, added with a sheepish grin, “Lame doesn’t mean
lame-brained
. As I don’t have a brain, she’d find me out for an automaton and remove my key before I could no more than kiss her luscious lips!”

“You’d not get close enough to do even that!
My
shilling on
that,
” Lord Grasby proclaimed.

They laughed and amity was restored.

“Isn’t it about time you removed your breeches, Grasby?” Cedric demanded, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand.

Lord Grasby’s shoulders slumped.

“Is it absolutely vital I remove m’breeches
and
drawers?”

“It is,” Dair replied with a hint of apology. “It’s crucial to the success of our mission.”

“And the pocket watch is ticking towards the half hour…” Cedric Pleasant added with a lift of his eyebrows.

“All right. All right,” Lord Grasby grumbled as he reluctantly pulled at the large horn buttons of his linen breeches. Unable to stifle the bubble of air in his throat, he let out a loud belch and felt better for it. He chuckled. “Methinks I’ve drunk rather too much claret. Drusilla—Silla—my dear lady wife, will scold me severely when I return home.
Harvel Grasby, you are drunk and will spend tonight in your own bed
.” He looked up from tugging on the fourth and final button. “You know the wife, don’t you, Dair? Cedric?”

“Yes,” Dair replied, rolling his eyes at Cedric, who grinned. “We were both at your nuptials.”

“Ah! That’s
right
!” said Grasby with a moment’s lucidity. “It was m’sister who was missing from my big day. Bedridden. Fever.”

“Dair wore his regimentals,” Cedric Pleasant added. “It was just before you were shipped over to deal with that
ghastly
business in the Colonies…”

Dair grimaced at the word
ghastly
, as if the war in America was akin to suffering toothache. He stripped out of his drawers and, as had always been his practice, made no comment about his time in the army, particularly his involvement in the bloody struggle across the Atlantic, between those loyal to the crown and the troublemakers who had taken up arms against their king. He had made choices in life to which he now wished he had given more thought, but he had no regrets, and he was philosophical enough to hope he had learned something along the way.

When Bill Farrier handed him a thin braided leather belt, he slung it low on his bare narrow hips, fastened the leather ties into a knot and gave it a tug to ensure it was secure. He then slid the knot to sit just below his right hip so that the two rectangular flaps of soft calfskin sewn to the belt were positioned front and back, providing a covering between his legs. Looking up, he saw Lord Grasby frowning in puzzlement.

“It’s called a breechcloth. Farrier has one for you, too.”

Lord Grasby stared at his best friend, naked but for a strip of cloth between his muscular thighs, and his self-confidence plummeted into his stomach. He gawped.

“Is that
all
an American Indian wears?”

“In summer—Yes.”

Lord Grasby gave a snort of panic. “You’re hoodwinking me!”

“No. It’s this or nothing at all,” Dair responded, comfortable in his own skin. “Make your choice.”

Lord Grasby made an agitated motion with his hand, as if shooing away a bee. His friend’s unperturbed attitude increased his panic.

“It might as well be nothing at all because that animal skin barely covers your gingamabobs. No reason to grin about it! Dair! Cedric! Oh?
Ha
.
Ha
. Yes, all right, so you need extra length in your cloth, but what about the rest of us, eh? What about the rest of
me
?”

“You weren’t this coy at school.” Dair added, as he braided a section of his shoulder-length black hair. “We were the first to strip for a dare and run the quad, or out across the rugby field with our lobcocks free to the wind.”

“At school we were the same size; you weren’t so big and hairy
then
.”

Cedric Pleasant made a face. “With that pout you look no different to one of my eight sisters when told they can’t have a new pair of gloves, but not one of them is a pocket full of complaint! At least you have height. I was a runt at school. Still am. You don’t hear me complaining about
that.
”

Dair chuckled and clapped a hand to Cedric’s shoulder.

“With eight sisters, you’re six feet tall in my eyes, Cedric. One is enough of an inconvenience. Mary teased me mercilessly. Older sisters are particularly good at it. Damned awkward having chest hair and hairy calves at fourteen.”

Lord Grasby blinked. “What? Lady Mary has a hairy chest, too?”

Dair and Cedric Pleasant shared a startled look then fell about laughing at the picture in their mind’s eye of the pretty, petite and golden-haired elder sister of Dair Fitzstuart covered in chest hair. When Cedric could breathe enough to speak, he said between gasps,

“Not the divine Lady Mary, Grasby, you piece of burnt toast! Dair.
Dair
was a hairy oaf at Harrow. Still is.”

“Well, you’ve grown into your hairs. I’ve not changed,” Grasby admitted sulkily. “And you at least have width and muscle, Cedric. Just like Dair. Females admire width and muscle. I still look the undernourished ferret—That’s right! Keep the laughter coming! Kick a man when he’s drunk! It’s bloody true, I tell you!”

“You’ll feel less the ferret and more the warrior once the war paint is applied,” Dair assured him. “Every man can hide behind war paint. Now, do get a move on, Grasby, before the ladybirds flit away into the night.”

Lord Grasby liked the idea of hiding behind war paint. He whipped off his drawers, snatched the belt with breechcloths attached from the ever-patient Farrier, who had been standing at his side for some little while, and threw it around his waist. Being acutely self-conscious, he secured the belt ends in a rush, and breathed a sigh of relief to have completed the task in record time. Unbeknownst to him, the two breechcloths were not front and back as he thought, but left and right, against his bare flanks.

Cedric Pleasant could not contain himself. The laughter burst from him; the look of relief on Grasby’s face the final straw. Dair turned away to hide his grin, and the two friends staggered about, hunched over with uncontrolled mirth. Hands on hips, Grasby glared at them, wondering what was amiss. Finally, Cedric turned and, unable to speak because he was laughing so hard, waggled a finger in the direction of Grasby’s groin. His lordship glanced down, gave a start when he saw the source of his friends’ mirth, and was swift to try and set matters to rights, face ablaze.

“Blast it! It’s all caught up now!”

“May I be of assistance, my lord?” Farrier asked at his most bland, as his master and Mr. Pleasant continued to fall about, unable or unwilling to control their laughter.

“Yes. Yes. All right! And be quick about it!”