A scary glint in his eye suggested that he’d just been thrown his favorite red meat.
It was a moment before he spoke.
“Bored, wealthy men are indeed one of England’s greatestresources. But do we exploit chickens for their eggs? Do we exploit sheep for their wool?” He paused. “Do pretty, penniless women exploit wealthy men when they marry for money?” He’d lowered his voice confidingly, which started a traitorous, fuzzy heat at the back of her neck, as if he’d blown a breath there.
She cleared her throat again. She was parched from nerves; a gentleman would have offered her tea. She would not even have rejected a glass of something stronger. Marchand clearly intended to hasten her out of here.
“Quite apart from the fact that those are all debatable and perhaps even specious examples,” she continued recklessly, and had the satisfaction of witnessing that scary glint flash again, “all the things you mentioned have in common some useful societal function.”
“So your position is that any male recreation that serves no redeeming social purpose is contemptible.” This he said neutrally, as though humoring a madwoman.
She was beginning to feel the impact of their exchange in her back teeth, as though they were instead swinging broadswords at each other. She resented Marchand’s immovable calm in the face of her barely contained, sweaty desperation, his glossy confidence, the almost banal efficiency with which he conducted a business built on terrifying gains and losses and the destruction of lives, the fact that his waistcoat, striped in chestnut and pewter and done up with silver buttons, looked gorgeous with his coloring. Unusual yet tasteful, dashing without being gawdy. Perfection.
“There’s always cricket, I suppose,” she said. “It fosters sportsmanship, at least. And if a man takes a ball to the head and drops dead, it only destroyshislife, not the entire team’s.”
“The risk is thepoint, Miss Woodville. The risk is thefunpart,” he said with sorrowful incredulity. As though he was disappointed in her powers of reasoning. “Man wasn’t fundamentally intended to exist in ceaseless ease, like a pet. A little peril is the spice of life, particularly for a certain kind of comfortable gentleman. They find it stirring to feel a little frightened as long as they’re certain they’re safe. It’s a game in every way to them—even ‘the Reaper’ nonsense.” He gestured; his skull ring winked in the light. “If Lucifer’s Fall were to vanish off the face of the Earth tomorrow, they would simply search out this type of experience in some other way, in some other place. I provide a valuable service by allowing them to forget their responsibilities for a time and indulge sometimes outrageous risks in a discreet, beautiful, safe environment.”
This sounded like so much elegant hucksterism; she could imagine the gentlemen who applied for membership lapping it up. What stopped her from rolling her eyes was the unsettling grain of truth she sensed in it.They were laughing right up until the high-flyer rounded the bend, the neighbor who’d witnessed her parents’ accident had told her. As though she would somehow find this comforting.
How could a man with a wife and four children be bored enough to be so reckless?
And even if hehadbeen bored, how could he be so self-indulgent?
Had these qualities merely been lying dormant in Hogarth?
“But that’s not the whole picture, is it, Mr. Marchand? A... business... such as yours depends upon the whims of fashion.” She was proud of her strategically skeptical pause, andMr. Marchand actually nodded, as though he was amused. “It’s about wanting to belong, to be accepted by your peers, to be apartof something. But if, for instance, the London Bridge suddenly acquired the sort of mystique that compelled men to flock to it, but they continually plummeted to their deaths from it, the public might eventually demand that the government block it off. Or even tear it down.”
He tipped his head and gave her a “come now” look, as if to say they both knew that was a ridiculous example. “IthinkI understand what you’re trying to say, Miss Woodville. But I can hardly help my mystique, can I?” He fanned his hands self-deprecatingly.
It occurred to her then that Mr. Marchand was toying with her.
Their contest of stares was interrupted by the slap of little running feet on marble floors.
To her amazement, a little boy burst into the room, waving what looked like half a sheet of foolscap.
“Help! What did I do wrong?” He shoved the paper in front Mr. Marchand.
“Fergus, you must ask politely to enter when I’ve a guest, and say ‘please’ when you request help.” Mr. Marchand was stern but unruffled. He glanced at the paper, frowning slightly. “Look at this. Did you forget to do something?” He pointed.
The boy, towheaded and surprisingly clean for a boy of about seven years old, sucked his bottom lip in thought. Then his face cleared.
“Carrying!” the boy said and slapped his forehead. “Cor, I forgot aboutcarryingthe two. Sorry! Sorry, miss! Please! Thank you!”
Mr. Ogden all but slid into the office, panting as though he’d given chase. “My apologies, sir. I was just headed to the side entrance to take delivery of the Malbec order and he raced past me.”
With one hand firmly on the boy’s shoulder, he steered him out.
Ginny stared after them.
Then pivoted to look at Mr. Marchand.
A little silence ensued.
“That was a child, Miss Woodville.” For the first time since she’d arrived, genuine amusement haunted his mouth.
“I recognized that, thank you.”
“It’s just that your eyes have gone the size of dinner plates in wonderment.”