The Scoundrel and I: A Novella (17 page)

Increasingly yours, &c.,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

Fellow Subjects of Britain,

Due to Unanticipated Circumstances my agent in Shropshire is once again detained in pursuing his Falcon Club quarry. In short, I begin to despair of this particular quest.

No—I shan’t cease seeking justice! Yes—I shall hound the members of this wasteful club until they are all discovered!

But, as I have fretfully awaited my agent’s communications, I have learned a valuable lesson: subterfuge is not my bailiwick. I would rather approach a man directly, accuse him of wrongdoing justifiably and without recourse to secrecy, and hear him defend himself with mine own ears than sit like an Eastern despot upon his throne who waits for his henchmen to perform Despicable Deeds in his name. My methods must remain pristine so that my victory is too.

I have not recalled my agent from the countryside; his troubles are sufficiently noisome to inhibit his progress without my intervention. But when he is again mobile I will inform him of my desire to quit this project. For now. For when this Falcon Club member returns to London, I will confront him and he will be obliged to answer to you, the People of Britain, for his criminal excess.

—Lady Justice

~o0o~

My Dearest Lady,

I breathe a sigh of profound relief. Quit your pursuit of my fellow club member, indeed. But know this: I am already in London. I entreat you, pursue me instead. If you should find me, I promise you a most satisfying Interrogation.

In eager anticipation,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

My Dearest Lady Justice,

My admiration for you has grown such that I cannot hide the news: I have lost another member of the Falcon Club. Since you have become so adept at hounding down my fellow club members, I wonder if I could prevail upon you to search out this one and bring her back into the fold. She is difficult to miss: walks with a stoop, carries a cane, suffers from myopia. I haven’t an idea as to where she has gone. Perhaps your sleuthing skills will save the day.

With all my gratitude and ever increasing affection,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

You are a cabbage head. I hadn’t any idea that one of your members was a lady. I am not a nitwit, Mr. Bird Man. You chose to describe a woman of ill appearance to make my quest seem ridiculous. But your attempt at cleverness reveals you; you would not have mentioned a lady at all if there weren’t one in your club. No gentleman would have even paused to consider it.

Point goes to Lady Justice.

You are arrogant and bored, and thus seek to taunt me to amuse yourself. Idle wealth corrupts as swiftly as absolute power. You, Mr. Peregrine, are corrupted.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

My Dearest Lady,

To be corrupted with you would be to live heaven upon earth. Name the day, the hour, the location. I will bring a single red rose and my ardor.

Yours entirely,

Peregrine

~o0o~

My Fellow Subjects of Britain,

The King is dead. Long live the King. And, apparently, his coronation crown. My sources within St James’s Palace tell me that our august new monarch is so enamored of the crown constructed for his coronation ceremony that he has petitioned Government to purchase it outright. An elaborate collection of silver, gold and diamonds that graced His Majesty’s brow for only a few fleeting moments, it cost the Treasury of this Kingdom more than twenty-five thousand pounds to hire the jewels for the occasion. Now he wishes to further deplete the Royal Coffers so that he can, every morning when waking and every evening when retiring, feast his eyes upon its magnificence and in doing so know himself to be worthy of the honor of his God-given place.

I am nearly speechless. Members of Parliament, if you approve this expenditure, the People of this Nation will finally know you entirely bereft of wisdom and restraint, and rise up in protest. Allow good sense to guide you. Dismantle the coronation crown before it dismantles our kingdom.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

My Lady,

It seems from your latest incitation to revolution that you actually glimpsed the coronation crown. You must have been in the crowd at the festivities. Did my gaze traveling over the press of people rest upon your face without knowing you? What a tragedy, that I might have seen you and failed to recognize in your eyes that glimmer of rebellion that is spectacularly, uniquely yours.

But could I have in fact seen you? For on that day as I looked about the place I vow that I felt a frisson of awareness pass through me, a thrilling shock of sensation that I can only call the heat of intimate familiarity. Was I perhaps at that moment looking upon you? I would be wrong to doubt it. For any man knows that the ignorant eye sometimes does not clearly see what the heart recognizes well.

With new hope,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

As always the evidence upon which you base your conclusions is faulty. You assume that I attended the festivities only because I wrote a meager description of the crown that I might have overheard anywhere in London. Even had I attended the event, how do you imagine my face would be one you chose to look upon? Perhaps I was among the people pressing at the barriers along the route but shut out of the sacred ceremony itself. Then you would not have seen me, would you? For you have no interest in such people. If you ever even look upon the faces of your own servants, I would be astonished.

You are nonsensical and lost in adolescent fantasies. Are you a Man or, as I have often wondered, merely a Boy?

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dear Treasured Lady,

That you have wondered about me gives me every kind of hope. As for my manhood, you question it so often that I am beginning to suspect you would like to see it.

Somewhat breathlessly,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

Fellow Subjects of Britain,

While many of you have written begging me to publish that conceited aristocrat’s latest letter, I cannot satisfy you. With it he has descended into puerile taunt, and I publish only that which I hope will edify.

As to you, Mr. Peregrine, I will not blush, stammer, or shrink away from your teasing. I am no fragile flower to wilt over a salacious suggestion, rather the opposite. I am stronger than your wildest dreams.

I say to you, Mr. Secretary: bring it on.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Lady Justice,

You speak of my dreams. Know you, then, how often you appear in them? Take care, dear lady, for you are in danger of making me even more thoroughly your devoted servant.

Faithfully,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

Dearest Lady (without whose attention I languish, and without whose sweet condemnations—offered so generously—I would barely know myself a Cretin and instead be called, mistakenly, Man),

I write to you in dismay, for I have received news of a Most Distressing Nature: The last remaining member of my club is to marry. When marry, how, and to whom, I will leave to your journalistic perspicacity. Know only this, that in anticipation of the event I am bereft. For upon that day when bells chime in the church tower to announce the vows are said, I will be left alone. The Falcon Club that was once five will be only one in number: me.

And so I write to you with this plea: Do not abandon me as my companions have. Remain with me (in such a manner as you have allowed this concourse betwixt us), give me your counsel (as you are ever eager to do) to relieve my dejection, your wisdom (immense, quick, and astonishing) to calm my lonesome fidgets, and your bosom (metaphorically, of course) as a cushion for my cheek when I need the most simple comfort—the comfort of knowing that I am yet in the mind and heart of one inestimable Friend.

I claim this succor of you knowing that your generosity in giving it will only confirm in my breast that Profound Admiration that I have had for you these five years of our correspondence.

Ever Yours,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

My cheeks are free of tears for you. No man who deserves friends has cause to fear their loss. Moping is the privilege of the pampered classes. Boredom that you inflict upon yourself is your true enemy. I recommend that you find some useful employment worthy of a Man rather than a Mobcap.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dearest Lady,

I will make my case more plainly to you: I have lost my friends. Each of them, one at a time, has fallen into Hymen’s choking snare, and I mourn for them as well as for my loss of them. For marriage—as you, a lady of Violent Independence, must agree—is but a prison to subjugate both body and will to the whims of another. Woe to the ensnared whose betrothed in courtship is all charm, laughter, and generosity of spirit, but who after the vows are exchanged is revealed to be capricious, vain, and greedy for attention.

We all know, of course, that this is more common than not.

With great respect,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

You have lost your senses, even those few that you might have previously possessed. That said, at long last I find myself in agreement with you on one matter: marriage is a prison. But not for men. The Law does not bind husbands; rather, wives. Even the sacred vows instruct a woman to love, cherish, and obey while a man must only love and cherish. Why must a wife promise to obey when a husband must not?

Therefore, as ever, I am unimpressed with your woe.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dearest Lady,

You claim that a husband’s marriage vows promise less than a wife’s. And yet here is his vow: “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow.” That is, he gives her everything he has. He worships her like a goddess.

What more, kind lady, can you expect a man to give?

In long-suffering affection,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

No doubt it has escaped your notice from your height of privilege that—despite the sacred words that you quote—when a woman weds, the Law of this Kingdom places her income, belongings, indeed her entire person in the possession of her husband. She has no power or authority over her money, her property, her children, even her own body. She can do nothing without his consent, including leave him if he treats her with cruelty.

Marriage does not bestow upon a woman a devotee. It shackles her to a prison guard.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dear Lady,

I understand. You do not like marriage. Neither do I. From whichever direction one looks at it, it is a trap.

But, if you will, consider the principal benefit of the wedded state, which I cannot give a name to here (out of deference to your modesty), but which, assured every night, must be an advantage to both husband and wife. In rejecting marriage, are you so willing to relinquish that as well?

In doubt, yet most sincerely,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

You seek to shock, or perhaps to titillate. You do neither. What antiquated, patriarchal notion of femininity suggests to you that a woman must first bind herself in marriage to enjoy that benefit which is readily available outside of the wedded state?

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dear Lady,

I can hardly write. My hand quivers so that the ink from my pen splatters on the page and I find myself obliged to blot it again and again.

I renew to you now my invitation to meet. Any time. Any place.

With hope,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

~o0o~

To Peregrine, at large:

In response to the invitation in your last letter, I offer three words: in your dreams.

— Lady Justice

~o0o~

Dear Lady Justice,

In sorrow I write to you a final time. The Falcon Club is no more. I beg of you, do not weep for this loss too bitterly. You have other poor souls to badger and other unworthy causes to pursue for the entertainment of your readers. Know, however, that my days will be duller, my nights meaningless, without your correspondence to sustain me. Only, dear lady, do not forget me. For I will most certainly not forget you.

With eternal admiration,

Peregrine

No longer Secretary, The Falcon Club

* Editor’s Note: Although Lady Justice continues to write publicly to the People and Rulers of Great Britain, she has not again mentioned Peregrine in the months since their last exchange. It is this editor’s fondest hope that they have finally met face-to-face, and that they have reconciled their differences sufficient to find pleasure in each other at long last. —G.M.

THE EARL

How does a bookish lady bring an arrogant lord to his knees?

Entice him to Scotland, strip him of titles and riches, and make him prove what sort of man he truly is.

Opposites…

Handsome, wealthy, and sublimely confident, Colin Gray, the new Earl of Egremoor, has vowed to unmask the rabble-rousing pamphleteer, Lady Justice, the thorn in England’s paw. And he’ll stop at nothing.

Attract.

Smart, big-hearted, and passionately dedicated to her work, Lady Justice longs to teach her nemesis a lesson in humility. But her sister is missing, and a perilous journey with her archrival across Scotland just might turn fierce enemies into lovers.

~o0o~

Turn the page for preview of Lady Justice and Peregrine’s powerfully romantic love story…