@mettleborn
Sebastian and his friends, idle before a charity dinner at the Rag club, were sitting in the drawing room of the Athenaeum at dull talk about foreign office investments. Sebastian was brushing at pieces of fluff on his no.1 jacket. He had not wanted to come here, but it would have been indelicate to voice his dissent. Ever since he had returned to London, he had felt the prickle of Lord Cavendish’s warning - of which he remembered every word, and often at night did, in the thrall of insomnia - at his back wherever he went. He hadn’t seen nor heard tell of the man at all. It appeared he was out of town; likely at his crumbling old fortress in Cornwall with his coterie of doting servants. Or perhaps still with Miss Adelia, of whom Sebastian also sometimes thought on cold nights in wind-battered tents. And so he sat with relative ease in his armchair at the Athenaeum, one of Cavendish’s old haunts, until at one seemingly harmless moment he looked up from his jacket - and saw the man, standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, with hanging on his arm, Sebastian’s sister Florence.
It took a moment for the sight to register properly. Sebastian’s pale eyes became dilated and a cold flush went through him which drained the colour from his face. It was only when his fellow Second Lieutenant, Henrik, noticed that Sebastian hadn’t passed the tea when asked, that anybody else was drawn to the scandalous sight. Henrik frowned, and then laughed. ‘Well that’s an Emperor’s Triumph if I ever I saw one.’ Indeed, a more perfectly executed glorious return to society could not have been imagined. Only Cavendish could have strategised such a scandal, and Sebastian was suddenly reminded of how deeply he hated the man.
‘How dare he?’ Sebastian breathed, hardly aware that the others could hear him until someone replied. ‘I think it’s very enterprising of him. She’s developing charmingly.’ Sebastian turned with a brow creased in pure bafflement at this assessment. Florence was, despite Sebastian’s myopia, a perfect example of a young English rose. Under the club’s skylight ripples of sunlight streaked her crimped hair, and her little tyrannical mouth, with its expectant parted lips, was as pink as the taffeta bow on her dress. This was all most ordinary in girls of her age and class - as was her slight chubbiness of the arms and ankles, her pale skin and her impudent expressions - and in her ordinariness she never usually made any particularly overwhelming demands on mens’ curiosity.
‘Come Sebastian, it’s only to be expected,’ said one of Sebastian’s superiors, grey-haired and wearing the blue ribbon and garter star. ‘Her mother at that age was just same. There is nothing like breeding, is there?’ Sebastian did not join the light laughter of agreement that followed the comment. Seeing Cavendish turn his back on Florence to approach the bar, he was on his feet at once and advancing towards her, sword on hip, as if approaching an enemy officer. She had one hand on the rail of the balcony and the other still resting on Cavendish’s arm, and was smiling at her brother like the cat that got the cream. Instead of addressing her, Sebastian gave her a silent, stern look, before looking to Cavendish as he turned around from paying the barman.
‘May I speak to you outside, Lord Cavendish,’ he said. ‘Alone.’ A little twitch of pleasure passed across Florence’s chubby face, and she almost - almost - rolled her eyes at him. ‘Don’t pretend you’ve had no part in this, Sebastian,’ she said. ‘Talk at home has been of nothing but your infamous machiavel Cavendish for months. I have been looking forward to meeting him for ages.’ ‘I hardly think there will be much in common between you and Lord Cavendish, Florence. Please go home and for god’s sake say nothing about this.’ ‘Or what, Sebastian? Are you going to strike me down with your sabre?’
