His Lordship's Last Wager

by Miranda Davis

  The duke’s valet, Smeeth, helped Clun and Seelye shuck their coats, waistcoats and shirts.

  In another chair, George Percy, newly-created Earl of Theydon, lounged at his ease.

  The three losers had shaved their chests that morning as instructed, but Clun and Seelye still awaited Percy’s specific intentions. In the meantime, they helped themselves to the duke’s brandy and leaned over the back of the sofa to examine the pattern appearing, one needle prick at a time, over the ducal heart.

  “Rather complicated,” Clun grumbled.

  “Could be worse,” the duke said but refused to elaborate.

  “I’m sick of suspense,” Clun said. “What’s it to be?”

  Percy handed him and Seelye folded, sealed sheets of foolscap. “I’ve something special for each of you.”

  They broke the wax wafers.

  “My luck, Bess’ll think it dashing and want one for every pledge of affection she presents me,” Clun said glumly. “We talked about a large family but there’s only so much skin that’s suitable.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Ainsworth muttered to no one in particular.

  “Not to worry, Clun,” Percy said, “you’ve space for a baker’s dozen at least.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  Examining his own paper, Seelye said, “Very clever. S’pose we should be grateful Percy’s sentimental.” With a newlywed’s sly grin, he added, “Wonder what Jane’ll think of mine.”

  “Why, Percy?” Clun demanded.

  “These,” according to the wager’s complacent winner, “reflect your grudging, denied, and inescapable surrender to love. Let this remind you that I am unusually perceptive and therefore right about most matters.”

  “It’ll remind me not to bet with you again, that’s all,” Ainsworth grumbled. “Bloody hell, it stings.”

  Mr. Hsieh made handsome work of Percy’s sketch on the duke. His grace’s stippled skin bled, but he flinched very little despite the peculiar nature of the discomfort.

  When finished, Ainsworth’s fresh tattoo was discernible on his abused flesh: a thorny, green-stemmed rose intertwined the black calligraphy of ‘Prudence.’ Below which, a Latin motto on a banner.

  The duke stood and Clun took his place on the sofa.

  The tattoo artist studied the forfeit.

  “Why so silent, Mr. Hsieh?” the duke asked, wiping his bleeding chest with one of the damp cloths Smeeth had at hand. “Needn’t worry. These are voluntary.”

  Smeeth snorted once then faked a sneeze, saying, “Pardon.”

  The duke’s man stood ramrod straight, eyes to the ceiling, until he regained a valet’s sober mien.

  “It is my way, Your Grace,” Mr. Hsieh said, keeping his head low in deference. “Excuse me, please. I must not talk. To make beautiful, no mistakes.” Thereafter, he was silent, tap-tap-tapping the inked needle under the baron’s skin.

  “What do you suppose Ainsworth meant by ‘voluntary’?” Seelye asked Clun.

  “Can’t talk. Go away,” he ground out. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

  “Yes, remind me, Ainsworth,” Percy said, “how are you and Mr. Hsieh acquainted?”

  “No gloating, damn you,” was the duke’s terse non-answer. He ignored Percy while making liberal use of his wife’s arnica salve.

  “What’s that?” Seelye asked.

  “An analgesic. Clun may have some. You may not. You’re the reason we need it.” Ainsworth handed the squat glass jar to the baron. “Hope it hurts like hell. Ask you to do one bloody thing—”

  “But no—ow-ow-ow—” Clun said while the Chinese artist plied the needle in rapid strokes.

  The duke and scrutinized himself in the glass Smeeth held for him chest high. “Why not ‘Pru,’ damn you?”

  “Double entendre,” Percy replied.

  The duke turned and waited.

  “If I say more,” Percy said, “I will be gloating, which you’ve forbidden me to do.”

  “Explain yourself,” the duke said. “Then shut up.”

  “Prudence, your beloved duchess and what is needed when betting against me,” Percy said almost apologetically.

  The duke scowled.

  Clun twitched and grimaced during the first half of his tribulation. Fortunately, Percy’s design made use of the baron’s pet name for Elizabeth. Unfortunately, the letters of ‘Bess’ had florid curlicues within a wreath of green holly leaves and red berries to compensate for its brevity. The same banner and motto flew beneath the wreath.

  “It had to be holly?” the baron asked. “There are so many—ow-ow-ow—little pointy places.”

  “You let her into your prickly heart,” Percy told him with cloying sweetness. “And ancient Romans gave gifts of holly plants to newlyweds. I looked it up.”

  “WonderRful, he likes to read,” Clun growled.

  Seelye waved a small brown bottle in front of Clun’s taut face and asked, “Want some of this, it’s bear tranquilizer. Where’s your glass?”

  “Yes. Don’t care. Don’t know. Find it,” the baron said.

  Having tossed back brandy with Bibendum’s tooth-drawing tincture, Clun was able to bear the balance of his tattooing with equanimity.

  After Clun, came Seelye. He drained the dregs of the tincture into his own brandy glass and drained that.

  Seelye’s design was, of course, ‘Jane,’ with a large, intricately-ornamented capital J resembling a bear’s curled paw shackled with a red heart-shaped padlock on a chain that formed a border around the initial J. All of it was as ornate as a medieval illuminated manuscript with the same banner below.

  Percy had outdone himself and, if it weren’t destined to be punched into his own flesh, Seelye might have admired it. Instead, he prayed for deliverance from pain by bear drops.

  But no.

  It hurt like hell. Evidently, what remained rendered one careless of pain but not insensible to it. So, he drank more brandy. He might’ve grown sleepy, too, if he hadn’t been stabbed repeatedly with a needle-sharp instrument.

  Afterward, Ainsworth and Clun refused to share the salve with him, but the three did share a thorough disgust for their self-satisfied friend. They also had the Latin motto in common. The painfully long phrase from Ovid read: Amor tussisque non celantur, or, ‘Love, and a cough, aren’t concealed.7’

  “I’m just a romantic at heart,” Percy told his glowering friends.

  “Ha, ha, ow,” Seelye said, pulling his shirt over his muzzy head.

  “Is it petty to pray for Lord Theydon’s comeuppance?” Clun asked.

  “I’m tempted to do more than pray,” Ainsworth said.

  “My lords, Duke, I must be off,” Percy said, rising gracefully to his feet. “Always a pleasure. Your servant—when not your master.” And on that note, George Percy, first Earl of Theydon in its third creation, took leave of his disgruntled friends.

  “Remarkably immune, ain’t he?” Seelye said. He felt rather off. “He’s too damned elusive for feminine wiles to work on him.”

  “Not every female needs wiles to make an impression,” Ainsworth said, as if recalling fond memories.

  “No man’s elusive enough,” Clun observed. “Best-laid plans can still go awry.”

  “Care to wager on it?” Seelye asked.

  “Done,” the two replied in unison.

  Later that evening, Lord Seelye returned to his new Mayfair residence driven in a spanking new town carriage, part of what the Duke of Bath provided for ‘the care and upkeep of my hellion sister. Best of luck, sincerest apologies, etc.’

  He was helped out by John Coachman the younger. (Jane had offered John the position when they took up residence in Berkeley Square and, being of stout heart, he’d accepted the post.)

  Their new butler, Malcolm, whom Jane also hired away from her brother’s staff, helped him inside and upstairs to the master bed chamber, wherein he was deposited face down on the mattress. Montret removed his boots and clothes down to his shirt and pantaloons without rousing his lordship from his stupor.


  After the valet exited, Jane entered from the connecting dressing room. “Lord Seelye?”

  He muttered, “Cut tha’ out.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Brandy. An’ bear drops,” he mumbled, still face down on the counterpane. He lapsed into silence, then gusts of snoring. His bemused wife left him to sleep it off.

  The next morning, he revived and let himself into Jane’s sunlit suite of rooms wearing his favorite dressing gown. Jane lay abed. Her hair gilded the pillow because he forbade her to wear a lace cap there as well.

  The door’s creak woke her.

  She propped herself up on her elbows to ask, “Did you four have a pleasant time yesterday?”

  “Only Percy did. But I’ve a big surprise for you, madam.”

  She threw back the covers in invitation.

  “Unwrap me first,” he said and came to her bedside dangling the ends of his dressing gown belt.

  “Am I not acquainted with your big surprise, my lord?”

  “Not that one, naughty minx, ‘nother one,” he said. “ Not as big but I hope you like it.”

  She did as he bid and drew on the ends of the belt.

  After a moment to take it in, she said, “Is that my—?”

  “It is,” he murmured and let the robe fall.

  “But how—”

  “I don’t remember the details, Jane. But from now on—” he joined her in bed and tucked her snug against his body before whispering, “—you are the Indelible.”

  The End

  If you enjoyed the third book in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse series, please leave your review online.

  Historical Notes

  About the Kennet & Avon navigation:

  I found a copy of The Strange Adventures of a House Boat by William Black, pub. 1888, the novel was set on a “Nameless Barge” traveling the “purely pastoral and peaceful” districts of the Thames, the Severn, the Kennet, and the Avon. Sadly, the author didn’t think the surroundings, geography or wildlife merited much mention. I looked for other, earlier 19th century sources for the appearance of the entire canal navigation or the towns that serviced the canal system. (The term navigation refers to the entire connected waterway, a combination of river courses and man-made canals.)

  In the case of the Kennet and Avon navigation, the most challenging areas were tamed by canals with locks, or bored through hills with brick-lined tunnels, or traversed by magnificent elevated stone and brick aqueducts. These last were engineered to cross over river valleys while maintaining a precise grade needed from hill to hill, as in the Avoncliff and Dundas aqueducts.

  To understand the workings of locks, I used to 20th century guide books for narrow boat vacationers, videos about narrow boating and an invaluable encyclopedic reference, Canals of Britain, a Comprehensive Guide. This last, excellent book includes many historical images, illustrations and descriptions of the towns and countryside along the canal, as well as the canal system itself.

  I wasn’t surprised by the dearth of writing from the Regency period about the canal system. After all, it was practical infrastructure that facilitated industrial development, not an object of romantic fascination at the time. It provided a fast, efficient means by which raw materials as well as manufactured products were transported throughout much of Great Britain. By mid-century, railroads supplanted the canal system, but not before private investors financed construction of more than 3000 miles of canals.

  That said, I could only imagine the K&A canal of 1817 based on these resources.

  About European brown bears:

  Bears were not native to Great Britain or Ireland after the Ice Age. Any bears found there were imported from the continent.

  During the Elizabethan Age, dedicated bear-gardens stood in Bankside near theaters like the Globe for the ‘entertainment’ of London. By the turn of the 19th century, the number of bears imported to Great Britain dwindled due to the protracted war with Imperial France which resulted in trade embargoes; bears native to Scandinavian countries were available but a rarity.

  Bear-baiting, although legal, was extremely rare. Tamed, performing bears were used as entertainment, but were not commonplace.

  Nor was it common to keep a tamed bear as pet; however, there was a famous exception. Lord Byron himself kept a pet bear when he attended Cambridge.

  In 1807, while at Trinity College, Byron mentioned in correspondence that he had a tamed bear8 at school. He did so because university rules prohibited dogs, which prevented him from having his beloved Newfoundland, Boatswain, with him. (But you see, the rules did not explicitly prohibit bears.)

  To learn more about bears, and which species of bear Bibendum would likely be, I was fortunate enough to consult with the St. Louis Zoo’s large carnivore curator, Steve Bircher. My depictions of how bears are tamed, how they behave, the dangers of a tamed bear without its original handler, bear vocalizations, escalating levels of threat, and how one might be transported all come from these conversations and the additional resources he recommended to me.

  Mr. Bircher’s generosity and his enthusiasm for the bears in his care made a deep, lasting impression on me. His willingness to entertain my hypothetical questions, ranging from how a bear might behave exploring a new enclosure to how to transport it from point A to B, enriched my story and inspired several situations depicted.

  Perhaps the most important thing I learned was that each bear has intelligence and a distinct, highly individual personality. For the purpose of my story, Bibendum is a tolerant, curious bear, one amused by humans and willing to cooperate. I take as my precedent certain wild bears described by zookeeper Else Poulsen, in her wonderful memoir, Smiling Bears, A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Life of Bears.

  Obviously, with the benefit of so much expertise, any mistakes I’ve made here are mine alone.

  About Richard Martin:

  Irish MP Richard “Humanity Dick” Martin (b.1758-d.1834) did lead the effort to outlaw cruelty to animals. (Other sources indicate the Prince Regent’s original epithet was Humanity Martin, but ‘Humanity Dick’ appeared in print. And I think it’s snappier.) Martin was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (est.1824).

  Before serving in Parliament, Martin established his own rules prohibiting cruelty to animals on his estate in Connemara, Ireland, and personally enforced them. I like to think Farmer Duane ran afoul Martin for mistreating his livestock, though I have no factual evidence of it. As a matter of historical record, Richard Martin did run a Farmer Duane off his tenant farm in the manner described.

  During the Regency, he became active in the political effort to protect animals from mistreatment and joined forces with Lord Erskine, another noted advocate for animal protection. In 1809, Erskine and Martin drafted a bill to prevent ‘wanton cruelty to animals’ which passed in the Lords but failed in the Commons. By 1822, Martin’s bill ‘to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of cattle’ passed both houses. It was a first step in the arduous effort to extend protection to all domestic animals and animals misused in ‘sport.’

  According to Parliamentary records, on 11 February 1824, Mr. Martin offered up a bill ‘to prevent bear-baiting and other cruel practices.’ As part of his argument, he reasoned that cruel sports had “a mischievous effect on the morals of the people.” A dissenter, Sir R. Heron, offered this snide supposition, “He must carry his protection to animals still further…praying that his majesty will enter into a convention with the king of France, for the purpose of abolishing the torture of frogs in that country.” Martin’s bill was defeated.

  In 1832, the first anti-cruelty legislation in the world (so far as I know) passed both houses of Parliament. Certain animals, such as bears, were excluded to achieve the necessary majority. However, bearbaiting was explicitly outlawed three years later, when Martin successfully amended the original law to broaden its definition of protected animals.

  Richard Martin inherited the
family’s 200,000-acre estate in Connemara in northwest Ireland, including Ballynahinch Castle and a great deal of coastline. The ‘castle’ was a sprawling manor house, though ruins of a Tudor-era stone castle stood on a small island in the nearby lake. The estate was a remote, wild area favored by pirates for centuries and, in his lifetime, by free traders. Martin allowed smugglers safe harbor in the many inlets on the coastline and they compensated him for access, helping defray costs of his encumbered estate.

  In the Elizabethan period, Ballynahinch was the remote hideaway of Grace O’Malley, the famed female pirate mentioned. She built the castle stronghold in the middle of the lake which Martin’s Ballynahinch overlooked. I believe the ruins still stand today.

  I named Martin’s free trading associate O’Malley and made him one of Grace’s descendants as a tribute to this enterprising woman.

  A notorious duelist, Martin was reputed to have fought with sword or pistol twenty times in Ireland. He suffered only minor wounds. Irish duels were carried out in the more lethal fashion described, with opponents striding toward each other, armed with two pistols, presenting their bodies’ breadth as targets in the process. Opponents did shoot to kill. Point being, never slap an Irishman on his home turf in 1817, whatever one’s good intentions.

  Martin served in the House of Commons, off and on, as the member from Galway. His frequent political opponent was in fact Denis Bowes Daly. Between them there were periods of rivalry, alliance, and treachery, culminating with Martin challenging Daly to a duel which was never fought. (Daly avoided it by having Martin arrested for disturbing the peace.)

  Oh, really? Jane and a bear?

  Fine, you’re right. It’s unlikely. More on this in a bit.

  Here is what was demonstrably true of the time: 1) There were reform movements and social causes supported by some in the aristocracy, for climbing boys, abolition of slavery as well as preventing cruelty to animals. 2) Tamed wild animals, including bears, entertained city and village dwellers for centuries. 3) At least one bear ‘attended’ Cambridge University in the early 19th century with Lord Byron. 4) Astley did add a bear to his pageants. 5) Bears were and still are tamed as cubs, often with female dogs serving as surrogate mothers to teach bite-y little cubs to behave. 6) Tamed bears do respond to confident handling and the use of rewards, consistent with methods used to train dogs. 7) In the first quarter of the 19th century, the K&A canal would have been the fastest, most efficient way to haul cargo—such as a bear in a big wood crate—from London to the Severn estuary on the west coast. (It was clever of Lady Iphigenia Thornton to think of it.)