Page 86 of Dick Stone, Regency Stud
“But Tencendor is your horse,” she said as if he were a small child saying something unreasonable. “He is your only friend in this world; you told me so yourself. He eats better than we do.”
The boulder where his heart should be sent him sinking into the chair before his desk. “Not my only friend,” he said.
“But…but you didn’t need to sell him!” she wailed.
“How was I to know that?” he shouted back. “All I knew was that you were going to offer yourself to some of the worst men in England. They don’t accept credit at virginity auctions! Certainly not from scapegraces working as studs!”
Tabby rose from the bed as if possessed. “Get him back,” she said lowly, staggering towards him. “Go now.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” said Edward miserably.
“Bang at the gate, wake the horse traders up!”
“They claimed to have a standing order from a buyer,” he said. “It was how I got the banknotes so quickly.” Edward dropped his head to the table to hide how miserable he was. His beloved horse, the stallion he’d selected personally and taken to war, was no longer in the stable Edward maintained for him.
He’d had to sell Tencendor a few years before, when funds were so tight he’d barely been able to feed himself, but since recovering his boy in 1817, the skittish warhorse had wanted for nothing. Now Edward had nothing.
And Tencendor was in unknown hands.
“Get him back!” shouted Tabby, pulling at Edward’s waistcoat like a child begging for coin or bread. Her own humiliation and lost hopes hadn’t upset her, but she was truly crying now, great gulping sobs that filled his whole ribcage with pain.
“I’ll try,” he said, his voice breaking ontry. If a buyer had a standing order with a horse trader for Tencendor, would they be willing to sell him back to Edward? The possibilities for villainy and the potential cost made his head ache.
“You’re going to get him back,” said Tabby, swinging from bereft to resolute. “I’ll help you. I promise.”
He patted her hand. “That’s a good lad.”
And then Edward recalled Tobias was no more, and felt another wave of sadness at what had been lost. Tabby didn’t even have her breeches and boots anymore; the urchin kid he knew was truly gone.
Nothing for it but to keep marching, he supposed.
“And I’ll help you with your project,” he said, attempting to match her strident tone.
“My project?”
“Your…harlotry,” he said, struggling to find a word for what she was aiming to do.
“Well, I could walk outside and be a harlot right now,” she said with equanimity.
“Your…courtesan business,” he said. “I’ll help you become a prized companion to gentlemen.” Better to train her for something more elevated than threepenny uprights and protect her from the worst of it.
He surveyed his friend, cataloging the wardrobe, wigs, and training in everything from French to music that she’d need to command respect, wealth, and protection. Edward sighed and reasoned that he could start dealing with it tomorrow. He was too tired to contemplate moving from this chair tonight.
Edward closed his eyes for a moment, and when he woke in the middle of the night, someone had extinguished the candles and Tabby lay across the rug. He nearly tripped over her when going down to the privy.
After returning, he scooped his friend up and put her on the bed. She didn’t wake entirely, just jolted, placed her hand on his face, and said, “Dick Stone,” before falling asleep again.
“Hush now,” he said, resuming his seat at the desk. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
Chapter 2
When Edward awoke thenext morning, he found himself seated in his desk chair, his chest sprawled on his bed, and his hand tangled in the hem of Tabby’s nightgown. He must have tipped over in the night, he reasoned, setting his person to rights.
Getting cleaned up with a girl — young woman — in the room proved difficult. It was a small space he didn’t share, so there was no screen behind which he could duck after obtaining hot water from Mrs. Chaffinch.
If he still had any doubts about his future in this boarding house, the set of his landlady’s chin when he made his way to the ground floor would have quickly corrected any wrong notions.
Edward was halfway through shaving before a cracked mirror when there was a knock on the door.
