Waking Beauty

London, 1826

“Read this.” Dominic tossed a dog-eared letter across the desk to his friend Charles Adams, the Earl of Clare.

Charlie looked at it with distaste. The paper had suffered mysterious vicissitudes in Dom’s keeping and he was tempted to don his gloves. He scanned the lines quickly, dropping the missive to the desk before its putrefaction permeated his noble fingers.

“Good God. Well, you’re out of the running, my boy. Too bad. You could have used the blunt. Is this aunt of yours a complete crackpot?”

“Evidently. I haven’t seen her since I was a boy. She was a dreadful old dragon even back them. Scared me witless.” Dominic pushed a lock of dark hair from his handsome brow and suddenly smiled, looking not one bit frightened.

Charlie had seen that smile before. And remembered its consequences. “What are you thinking? No, don’t tell me. I won’t like it. You scare me.”

“What if---” Dominic asked slowly, “what if I could find a wife and child for this benighted family reunion?” At Charlie’s gasp, he smiled again. Boyish. Beastly all the same. “Not a real wife, mind you, but an actress who could play the part.”

Charlie was accustomed to playing Viscount Drummond’s ignored Voice of Reason far too often. He marshaled his forces once again. “I suppose anything is possible for the right price. But what about securing an infant? You’d never have any luck. My children certainly don’t do what they’re told and I’m their actual father.”

“Mmm. Bribery. Sweets. Promises of trips to the zoo. Orphans are very underprivileged, y’know. You would not believe the poverty I’ve seen, even in England. When my ships come in---but I digress. I count on you to keep me on track, Charlie. Perhaps this actress will already have a child stashed somewhere. I’m sure I can work out the details.”

Charlie had seen the smile. He’d heard the words before, too. Many an adventure had begun with those eight words, one of the reasons why Dominic MacAllister, the impoverished and reluctant fifth Viscount Drummond, had spent the last seven years outside England, fleeing his creditors and seeking his fortune.

Charlie rose from the torn but comfortable leather chair. “Dom,” he said sternly. “Don’t do this. If you’re so desperate, I can float you a loan again. No, no, make that a gift. What are friends for?”

“This could work,” continued Dominic, undeterred by Charlie’s generosity. In fact, he seemed positively deaf. “No one’s seen me in years. I could have married. I could be a father. I say, didn’t I write you ages ago with my good news?”

“No, you most certainly did not! You’re back in England now, my boy. You won’t last a minute with such a faraddidle!”

“I agree, it might not work, but it certainly won’t hurt to try.”

“What if your aunt actually picks you?” Charlie sputtered. “Then what? Offer the actress a permanent role as your wife? Burp the little guttersnipe? Really, Dom, you’re going to drive me to drink.” Charlie ran a hand through his hair, wondering if his fevered brain was leaching through. Dominic always had a deleterious effect upon his equilibrium.

“What an excellent idea! I brought back a case of the most magnificent cognac. Stolen from Napoleon’s cellars on Elba. And even if its provenance is not quite accurate, it’s still ambrosia. I’ll ring for Bramley.”

With a deep sigh, Charlie sat back down in his chair and accepted the inevitable. Napoleon in his heyday had nothing on Dom.

Dominic rummaged around the desk drawer and pulled out several sheets of shabby writing paper. “You can help me with the advertisement. You have such a way with words, Charlie.”

“Leonie doesn’t seem to think so,” Charlie muttered. Why, just this morning she had burst into tears when he told her he loved how much bigger her breasts were from nursing the latest little Adams.

“That’s to be expected. She’s your wife, after all. What’s the challenge of trying to sweet-talk you now? She’s got you under her dainty foot.” Dominic paused. “How is married life?”

Charlie looked out the window at Dominic’s scraggly back garden. “Not so bad. Just rather settled.” Between the crying and the screaming. And that was just Leonie. Add the children---

“Capital! Then this is just what you need to shake you out of your doldrums. Spice up your life. Now then.” Dominic dipped a pen into a clouded-crystal bottle of ink. “If we don’t get busy, this antique desk will be sold right out from under me. I’ll have to repair to Drummond Hall and start selling more pictures off the walls. If in fact there are any left. I really can’t remember.”

Wanted: A young lady of quality

“You’re asking too much right there,” reasoned Charlie, reading his friend’s bold stokes upside-down. “What respectable young woman would accede to this insanity?”

“Best to begin as you mean to go on. It wouldn’t do to have one of the goddesses from Mrs. Brown’s Pantheon of Pleasure think she could be the next Viscountess Drummond. I need someone who can be a lady at all times. Exposure to my family’s enough to turn anyone into a fishwife.”

Charlie thought of Leonie and closed his eyes.

Wanted: A young lady of quality to be a companion for a gentleman

“No, no, no. Now you really will get nothing but whores. Best not even to mention yourself.”

Charlie downed some of the remarkable cognac that the obedient and unobtrusive Bramley had brought in. Leonie would give him hell if she ever found out. It was, after all, not quite ten o’clock in the morning. He grabbed the pen from Dominic’s hand.

Wanted: A young lady of quality to attend a family country house party. Must be virtuous, intelligent, and good with children. Substantial compensation for a month’s employment plus any traveling expenses incurred.

“There!” said Charlie with satisfaction.

Dominic’s tanned face was marred by a frown. “I don’t know, Charlie. You’ve made her sound like a dead dull governess.”

“Exactly. That’s the kind of girl you want. And if she’s really hard up for money, she’ll play along.”

Interviews to be held

Charlie put the pen down, dropping a splash of ink on his neatly pressed trousers. But he had dozens. “Damn it. When?”

“If I have any chance of getting up to Scotland in time, they’ve got to be soon. I need to make the necessary arrangements.” Charlie scribbled in a date.

“I don’t suppose I could borrow one of your brats for a few weeks?” Dominic asked, an evil twinkle in his eye.

“I wouldn’t wish any one of them on you,” shuddered Charlie, pouring himself another tumbler of cognac. He deserved every drop.

“We’ll visit a foundling home then. How many are in your nursery now?”

“Five,” said Charlie with another sigh, rubbing futilely at the ink stain with a monogrammed handkerchief. He hadn’t missed his inclusion on the visit to the orphanage, either.

“I have been gone too long. What else is new?” The two friends spent the next few hours in happy inebriation and semi-nudity as Charlie acquainted the viscount with the latest talk of the ton and Bramley worked magic upon the earl’s trousers. The butler then set off to the newspaper office with the letter that would soon change all their lives.