It wasn’t too much of a chore, although perhaps he should have let the man Wesley remain. But he’d had eighteen months to get used to managing studs and buttons with fewer fingers, and to preserve his independence in dress only took him perhaps three times as long as when he had been an able-bodied man.
He adjusted his white piqué waistcoat and tweaked the collar points to his satisfaction. A little pomade controlled his thick blond hair’s tendency to wave, and he was ready.
He assessed himself in the mirror. He was dressed like a gentleman; with his bearing and his skin tanned by the African sun, he still had the air of a soldier. He didn’t look like a spy, a sneak, a liar. And, unfortunately, he didn’t feel much like one either.
He was the last into the drawing room, and Lady Armstrong clapped her hands for attention. “My dears, our final guest. Mr. Archie Curtis. Sir Henry Curtis’s nephew, you know, the explorer.” There was a murmur. Curtis smiled, resigned to this by a lifetime of similar introductions. The adventurous African trip that had made his uncle rich some twenty-five years ago was still a matter of public fascination.
“And now, I must introduce you to everyone,” Lady Armstrong went on. “Miss Carruth and Miss Merton.” Miss Carruth was a pretty, vital young woman in her early twenties, dashingly dressed and with a twinkle in her pansy-brown eyes. Miss Merton, who seemed to be her companion, was a couple of years older with a plainer style and a watchful look, but she murmured the right courtesies.
“Mr. Keston Grayling and Mrs. Grayling, of Hull.” Provincial money, Curtis thought, as the couple smiled their greetings. Mr. Grayling looked a rather silly sort of chap, expensively dressed but lacking polish, and with a hint of double chin. Mrs. Grayling wore a gown that was cut rather too tight and too low for Curtis’s approval. He wondered if she was the sort of lady who enjoyed a little country-house intrigue, of the conventional kind.
“My brother John Lambdon, and Mrs. Lambdon.” In this pair it was the man who looked like he passed between bedrooms. Lambdon had his sister’s striking good looks and was well-built enough, though not of Curtis’s breadth. Mrs. Lambdon was a pallid presence beside him, with lank hair, a limp hand, and the air of the professional headache-sufferer.
“Hubert’s son, James.” Curtis knew this was the product of Sir Hubert’s first marriage. The man looked to be in his late twenties, no more than five years younger than the current Lady Armstrong. He had a cheerful look on a broad, open face, which was weathered by outdoor pursuits and bore no great signs of intelligence.
“Curtis, good to meet you.” James Armstrong put his hand out. Curtis extended his own right hand and winced as the young man took it, his powerful grip crushing the scar tissue.
“Darling, I did tell you,” said Lady Armstrong, voice sharp.
“Oh, so sorry, mater.” Armstrong gave her an apologetic smile, then turned it to Curtis. “Completely slipped my mind, what.”
“Mr. Peter Holt. James’s dear friend,” Lady Armstrong went on. The man she indicated was a striking piece of work. He matched Curtis’s own size and build, a good six foot two, with powerful shoulders, a nose that had been broken at least once, and a pugilistic air. His bright, observant hazel eyes suggested intelligence as well as strength, and his grip on Curtis’s hand was definite, without painful pressure. A man who knew how to use his muscles.
Impressive, Curtis thought, then frowned in an effort at memory. “Were you at Oxford?”
Holt smiled, pleased to be recognised. “Keble. A couple of years below you.”
“Mr. Holt took a boxing blue as well,” Lady Armstrong put in.
“Of course. I’ll have seen you in…Fenton’s?”
“On Broad Street, yes. I wasn’t in your league, though,” Holt said with cheerful frankness. “I was at your fight with Gilliam. Superb match.”
Curtis grinned reminiscently. “Hardest fight of my life.”
“You two may talk boxing all you like when I’ve completed the introductions,” Lady Armstrong put in. “Mr. Curtis, this is Mr. da Silva.”
Curtis looked at the gentleman indicated and decided on the spot that he’d rarely seen a more dislikable man.
He was about Curtis’s age and just a few inches shorter, close to six foot, but with nothing of his own bulk. A slender, willowy sort, and very dark, with sleek and glossy black hair, brilliantined to within an inch of its life, and eyes of such a deep shade that it was nearly impossible to tell pupil from iris. His skin was olive-tinted against his white shirt. In fact, he was quite obviously some kind of foreigner.
A foreigner and a dandy, because while his shirt was impeccable and the tailcoat and tapering trousers cut to perfection, he was wearing a huge green glass ring and, Curtis saw with dawning horror, a bright green flower in his buttonhole.