Page 40 of A Problem Princess

And yet, with its leather furniture, fully stocked liquor cabinet, and basement kitchen capable of serving up roast pheasant, was this place any different from the private clubs on St James’s? Had the men of the Armory turned into the soft-bellied, pampered gentlemen they’d once despised?

He blew out an aggravated breath and called for the former aide-de-camp they’d hired to keep the place for them. “Alfred!”

“He’s retired to his room for the night.” Merritt Rivers stepped out of the training room, wiping down the blade of a rapier with a soft cloth. “No one here tonight but us street rats.”

“I’ve seen the size of London’s rats.” Clayton nodded grimly toward the sword. “Don’t give them any ideas about arming themselves.”

Merritt grinned and stepped back into the training room. Clayton followed.

Based on his clothing—all black from neck to boots, including a tight-fitting tunic—and the discarded black greatcoat slung over one of the sawdust dummies, Merritt had also been out prowling the city streets tonight, but for a completely different reason.

By day, Merritt was a well-respected barrister and King’s Counsel, like his magistrate father, who helped victims gain restitution for crimes committed against them. By night, however, he trained a group of women who lived in a derelict warehouse known as the Court of Miracles to patrol the city to prevent crime and keep innocents from becoming victims in the first place. Until recently, his wife, Veronica, had worked at his side, but the baroness could no longer venture out into the city with him. Her leather combat corset didn’t fit now that she was heavy with child.

“You’re here late,” Merritt commented and reached to pull down a second rapier from the wall. Hundreds of weapons covered nearly every inch of the training room, from small pocket pistols to heavy claymores, and every last one of them was a functioning deadly weapon.

“I checked with my contacts in Seven Dials to see if they’d heard anything new about Scepter.”

“And?” Like Clayton and Marcus, Merritt had been uneasy over Scepter’s sudden disappearance.

“Nothing.” Clayton shrugged out of his coat and placed it over Merritt’s. “Not one peep.” He frowned as he rolled up his sleeves. “It’s as if they’ve simply disappeared.”

Merritt tossed him the second sword, and Clayton easily caught it. “Or perhaps, with their leader executed, they’ve moved into other existing groups. England’s full of reformists and revolutionaries these days.”

“Don’t confuse the two.” Clayton slashed the rapier through the air to gain a feel for the blade, then moved to the piste in the center of the room. “I’m all for reform. Love it, in fact.”

“Careful,” Merritt warned as he took his position in front of him. “Talk like that will get you stripped of your viscountcy.”

“Is that all it takes? Then by all means, reform is the way forward into the future.” Clayton lowered into the en garde position and added, “But I’m against violence and bloodshed.”

Without warning, he lunged, plunging the rapier directly at Merritt’s chest.

But Merritt was too skilled as a fencer not to anticipate the attack and easily stepped aside as he parried Clayton’s blade and then delivered his own thrust.

“Including that done by my own country,” Clayton bit out through clenched teeth as he and Merritt chased each other up and down the piste in a melee of parries and thrusts. The clank of metal on metal reverberated off the thick stone walls. “When the Home Office can’t find enough revolutionaries to arrest to appease Whitehall, they send out their spies to create them.”

Merritt darted away from the strip and gave chase through the row of sawdust dummies that dangled on chains from the ceiling beams. “You mean the three men who were executed the day Princess Charlotte died?”

“Yes.”Among others.

When the Home Office spies’ reward money dried up because they couldn’t easily find true revolutionaries to report, those same spies coerced men into committing suspicious activity to fill the void. Too many good men had gone to prison, Australia, and the gallows during the past year to count.

Clayton angrily slashed the blade at Merritt’s chest, but Merritt skillfully parried each attack.

“The palace didn’t even have the decency to commute their treason sentences to simple hangings,” Clayton blew out between labored breaths.

No, the day the regent’s daughter and grandson died, the prince regent showed so-called mercy by reducing their punishment for treason from being drawn and quartered to only a hanging and beheading. For that alone, Clayton had half a mind to tell his newfound friend to take his viscountcy and shove it up his fat arse.

And Cordelia planned on marrying into that family?Christ.

He slashed the blade again in anger, but this time he overextended his reach and lost his balance. It lasted only a moment, but he was unbalanced just long enough that Merritt scored a touch by tapping the side of his blade against Clayton’s hip.

“Keep your head in the fight,” Merritt warned and stepped back, once more falling into his well-practiced en garde stance.

Clayton bit out, “I am.”

“Are you?” Another quick slap of the blade against the other hip proved his point.

Damnation.Clayton recovered and charged, chasing Merritt around a rack of dumbbells and a stand of wooden poles and clubs.