Like a Gentleman

James flung the penny serial down on the scarred mahogany desk he’d rescued from the mold and mice of the north attic. Despite the chill that pervaded his little library and study, tucked away in the corner of the moldering ancestral mansion his sister-in-law condemned as positively Gothic, James flushed hot with fury. The bastard. The thieving, lying, hypocritical bastard had stolen his story, and here it was in black and white: The Plucky Cartwright’s Son.

Did the knave think James didn’t subscribe to his own publisher’s competition? Both a thief and a bloody fool, it seemed.

James yanked out the bottom drawer of the desk, the jolt sending pens flying from the top and clattering onto the flagstone floor. He swore, yanked again, and pulled out heaps of correspondence until he found the letter he’d received when the manuscript was returned.

His editor’s letters were typically short but biting, and this one, dated three months ago, was no exception. Dear Mr. Rowley, it read. Regarding your last: our readers continue to prefer heroes whose ancestry includes at least a modicum of nobility. Such men may seem commonplace and dull to one accustomed to ornamenting the ton, but to those of us laboring down here in the muck of common trade — and most of our readership, along with your humble correspondent, can claim that dubious honor — an adventure carried out by a gentleman is more appealing. Might I suggest that your tale of the plucky cartwright’s offspring’s bold doings in Cairo could find a better home than Morton & Co., perhaps behind your fireplace grate? I shall hope to see your manuscript of The Indian Duke within the next month, as defined by the Gregorian calendar. As always, sir, I am your most obedient servant, L. Wells.

What an ass. Even without the postscript, which set James to grinding his teeth to powder even though he’d already fumed over it months before: P.S. I have included an example of said calendar for your reference. Note that next month comprises 31 days, with 24 hours each. A clock cost rather too much to post, so I can only pray you already possess one of those, though you have never given me any indication of such.

The calendar in question had been burned in July; he could hardly crumple it and throw it in the fire again, much as he longed to do so.

James read the letter over again, feeding his rage until his heart pounded and his fists clenched, longing for a target. He exploded from his chair and frantically paced the length of the small room, picturing a bleeding and broken nose and wishing it belonged to the presumptuous, larcenous L. Wells. And what an idiotic way to sign his name, anyway. What was L. Wells’s Christian name? Probably something dreadfully historical and pompous-sounding, like Leonidas. Serve the bastard right. James imagined L. Wells bent over a cluttered desk in a smoky office, grinning with malice as he copied out the manuscript, putting the copy in the post to another publisher at the same time he sent the original back to James with that blasted calendar. His graying hair would be standing out from his head in frizzy, messy locks, tobacco-stained fingers running through it as he shouted orders at his terrorized clerks.

 James paused by the table in the corner to slosh a generous portion of whisky into a glass and knock it back. The burn of it steadied him, and he poured another, drinking it more slowly. He had to consider his options calmly. The Earl of Winthrop, also known as James’s brother Rodney, could crush L. Wells like an insect if he chose; the great irony was that a Rowley sinking to penning sensational stories for money would give the earl hysterics, and so that avenue for redress was utterly closed.

Perhaps that should be his next tale: The Hysterical Earl. L. Wells might like that. He might not like it as much when James stuffed the manuscript down his mocking, plebeian throat…a pleasant fantasy, but that would require going to London, where the potential wealthy wives Rodney loved to throw at him lurked in every drawing room, ready to sink their fangs in a man and drag him down to an underworld of announcements in the Post and morning visits and silk bonnets…James shuddered. L. Wells at least likely didn’t wear bonnets — although James would no longer put it past the fellow.

Thoughts of London sparked an idea in the back of James’s mind, and he swallowed another mouthful of liquor, mulling it over. He would have to visit Morton & Co. in person if he wanted to get his due, but whether that would involve credit for the story he’d written, the money L. Wells had made from it, or simply the man’s face at the end of James’s fist could be determined later.

But did his editor know who he was? James had been fool enough to use his real name in his correspondence, naïve as he had been when he first entertained the idea of writing to supplement his dwindling allowance, though he had retained enough presence of mind to provide a nom de plume for publication. If L. Wells had thought to look him up in Debrett’s, and the jab about ornamenting the ton implied he at least suspected James’s station, he might believe James would ignore the theft to avoid a scandal. In that case this smacked unpleasantly of blackmail, even if indirectly. Or perhaps the editor simply thought James would never find out.

Either way, James had only one card to play: his rank. He would beard the lion in his foul den and overwhelm him with a display of arrogance. These sorts of revolutionary aristocrat-hating hoi polloi were always the ones most susceptible to a fellow coming the great lord, and James, usually just as happy to drink ale with the local yeoman farmers in their well-scrubbed kitchens as to go visiting with his brother, longed to put L. Wells in his place. Make the fellow grovel a bit. And hope to God L. Wells didn’t call his bluff, because damn him, he was quite right if he thought James couldn’t afford to make his brother the laughingstock of the House of Lords.

In the meantime, he’d need to manufacture a reason for his visit to the publisher’s office, where he’d never before set foot. James ran his hands over his newest manuscript, of which half was already cleanly copied and ready. That would do.