“I’m inimitable,” Lucien replied complacently.
“It’s very disappointing when something so cherubic turns out to be so obnoxious,” Delacorte said.
“Exactly what I said when I first met you, Delacorte,” Captain Hardy said.
“Ha!” Mr. Delacorte was always a great appreciator of a well-landed joke. “Marchand... how did you come by your knack with the brats, er, bairns?”
Hell’s teeth. Marchand’s chest tightened. Though he was certain these men were well-meaning, a truthful answer would require saying a certain name aloud, and he just didn’t want to do it in this smoky little room. He hadn’t actually said it aloud to another human in years. The truth was, hardened bastard though he was, he wasn’t certain he could trust his voice to remain steady if he did.
“Here’s the trick,” he told them. “Do you know when you go to a pub, and one of your friends gets too foxed? Sings sentimental songs one moment, picks fistfights the next, laughs hysterically for no reason you can comprehend the next, starts singing off-key nonsense songs, falls asleep in odd places, needs to be carried home?”
All the men nodded in recognition.
Delacorte had gone misty-eyed at this recitation. “Let’s all go off to the pub after this! Say, how do you feel about donkey races, Marchand?” Donkey races were Delacorte’s favorite pastime, a notch above singing bawdy songs in pubs.
“Very young children are a bit like that. You variously laugh at them and with them, humor them, scold them a little, sing along if you have to, and do your best to keep them safe.Lovea good donkey race, by the way.”
“Knew I liked you,” Delacorte replied complacently.
“Children are like drunks. Huh.” Hardy was bemused.
“No children among the three of you?” Marchand asked.
There ensued a little silence.
“We’ve both been married for about a year.” Hardy gestured at Bolt.
“To our respective wives,” he added after a moment.
“Thanks, Hardy, I think he grasped that,” Bolt said.
Marchand knew very well that marriage was hardly a prerequisite for having children.
“How about you, Delacorte?” Marchand asked.
“None that I know of. One never knows, of course.”
Everyone stared at him, a little nonplussed.
“I’ve traveled up and down the coast selling my wares to apothecaries and surgeons for years now, and I’ve enjoyed a few happy romps with a widow or two,” Delacorte told him. Bolt and Hardy tensed. Mr. Delacorte had more than once shared a few too-detailed anecdotes about these romps. “I would be distressed to leave a woman alone with that responsibility, but none of us never know for sure, do we? Even if we’re careful.”
The other men in the room entertained the sobering and uncomfortable truth of this. Both by the possibility of inadvertent thoughtlessness (though none of them had ever really been rakes) and by the idea of possible little Delacortes running about.
“So what other wares do you sell, Delacorte?” Marchand asked, to change the subject.
“Oh, all sorts of remedies from the Orient, herbs and ground of bits and bobs of this and that, animal horns and testicles and what not. Some of them even work a treat—stopfevers, slow bleeding, heal wounds. Others don’t do much at all, but people want ’em anyway.”
“I’ll be damned.” Marchand was intrigued. “Which remedies are the most popular?”
“Oh, like I mentioned, the impotency cure is popular with apothecaries—they buy a lot of it. Especially the ones near St. James’s Square, where all the gentleman’s clubs—like yours, Marchand—are. Same with a certain headache powder. Works straightaway, but it can sometimes cause hallucinations. I’ve tried it. Had quite a few wild dreams. Though some people like that sort of thing. Bloke I know took it and when he looked in his own mirror he saw Queen Elizabeth scowling back at him. Gave him quite a fright.”
“Was she sittingnextto him when he saw her, or did the queen look back at him from the mirror? Was shehis reflection?” Marchand asked.
“The latter,” Delacorte said. “Kind of makes you wonder whoyoumight see if you take it, doesn’t it?”
“Bolt would no doubt see a tree,” Marchand said slyly.
Lucien shot him a dry look.