“Now there’s another thing, Miss Hetty. I can’t be dressing you. And more than that, you can’t be sneaking back here to Sir Archibald’s house looking like a gentleman.”
“Already you lack confidence in me. When next you come to visit me, I will introduce you to my maid, Millie. You can both preach doom to me, if you like. But I warn you, I have quite secured her cooperation, so it will do you no good to plot against me.”
“All right, all right. I’ll bite my nails and keep my mouth shut. Ah, yes, I’ll need some guineas for the rooms, Miss Hetty, not to mention a credit for the tailor.”
“Thank you for reminding me, Pottson. I shall see to it now. It’s fortunate that my mother left me my own money. We shall use my quarterly allowance until circumstances or my ill-luck at the gaming tables force me to dip into the principal. One other thing, Pottson, don’t forget that my new name is Harry Monteith.”
“Where’d you get such a name, Miss Hetty?”
“From an old atlas of world explorers. I really don’t remember what the man discovered,” she added, the lie clean. She knew very well that hundreds of years ago, a Baron Monteith had set himself against the de Medicis, vowing revenge for the poisoning death of his sire. It had seemed like the biblical David and Goliath struggle, and Hetty’s casting herself in the role of the avenging Monteith had quite stirred her imagination. The only note that jarred her fantasy was the fact that she could not discover whatever became of the baron.
Someday she’d tell Pottson the truth.
“Come, my lord, your wrist is flaccid. An iron wrist, my lord, you must have an iron wrist.” Signore Bertioli stepped back from Lord Monteith and leaned lightly on the handle of his foil. Not one bead of perspiration was evident on his forehead, and his bushy black brows drew closely together at the heaving, sweating young gentleman. How very intense and eager the young lord was, so unlike the vast majority of his other pupils young dandies who sought to exhibit good form and style, the practice required to become truly proficient in the art an abhorrent thought to most of them. He softened his tone, but it had to be said. “It is strength you lack, my lord.”
Hetty wondered if she would survive her first lesson, for her heart was pounding so wildly that she feared it must burst. She managed to gasp out between heaving breaths, “Yes, Signore, I fear what you say is true. But there must be something I can do.” At least, her main fear that Signore Bertioli would realize that he was instructing a female had not come to pass.
Signore Bertioli drew back, surprised at the seriousness in the lad’s voice. “Actually,” he said, “strength need not be everything. You have the grace and agility. Perhaps with much work, my lord, I can teach you some of the more, er, unusual techniques. It would hold you in good stead, if,” he paused pointedly, “you are willing to apply yourself.”
Damn, Hetty thought, rubbing her arms, he was right about her endurance and her flaccid wrist. She focused upon his last words. “You mentioned unusual techniques, Signore?” Hope reared itself and she gazed at the olive-skinned master with such intensity that he turned suddenly away from her. “Signore, I’ll do anything, anything you say.”
“Sit down, my lord,” he said, sweeping a face guard from a chair.
Hetty nodded gratefully and sank down, wiping her white full sleeve across her sweating brow.
“You are new to London, my lord?”
“Yes, Signore, I arrived just this past week. You wonder at my lack of skill. I come from the far north of England, where, unfortunately, there were naught but cows and girls to fence with. My apologies for being such an inept pupil, Signore.”
There was much earnestness in the young gentleman’s unabashed candor. And yet, he thought, even if Lord Monteith never became a credit to the noble art of fencing, it made no great difference, at least in England. With dueling outlawed for some years now, fencing had become a showy sport for Englishmen, just as playing the harp was for the young English ladies. An accomplishment, nothing more. He fanned his hands and said with a chuckle, “Cows and girls, you say, my lord? It’s a pity to be sure. You have courage, my lord. But no duels for you as yet.”