‘I have heard,’ Pemberton proclaimed, overcoming his annoyance with Radcliffe, ‘that the Duke of Wellington has returned to London. Do you think we shall see him at Almack’s this week?’
‘Wellington always did like a dance,’ Radcliffe said without thinking, and had the immediate punishment of having all eyes in the circle turn upon him. Pemberton scowled to have his moment so overshadowed.
‘You know him well?’ Pemberton asked sulkily.
‘A little,’ was all the response he gave, hoping this would be the end of it.
Pemberton eyed him for a moment, his dislike of Radcliffe warring with his love of discussing the Napoleonic wars – a subject upon which he considered himself quite the expert. Predictably, it was the latter that won out.
‘I, myself,’ he proclaimed modestly, ‘have studied Wellington’s campaigns at length. Indeed, Waterloo is rather my specialist subject.’
‘Oh?’ Radcliffe’s smile grew faintly derisive – and was that a flicker of a cringe on the face of Miss Talbot?
‘The battle was not without its flaws, you know,’ Pemberton told them all confidentially. ‘I’m sure Wellington would be the first to admit that mistakes were made. Why, one only has to look at the use of the cavalry …’
It appeared – it very much appeared – that Pemberton truly intended to deliver a lecture to Radcliffe upon Waterloo. It was so ridiculous as to be almost amusing. Almost. But as Pemberton began to enumerate in excruciating detail all the ways in which he thought Waterloo could have been fought better, Radcliffe felt his humour dissipate, and his temper begin to rise instead.
‘Of course had I been in Wellington’s shoes, I would have—’
‘I wonder if—’ Miss Talbot tried to interrupt, but it was no use. Pemberton simply raised his voice over hers to drown her out, in full swing now.
‘—But really, that is what happens when one recruits from the lower classes, not an ounce of discipline between them—’
The arrogance, the ignorance, the sheer pomposity of this man was breathtaking. How dare he speak of discipline, how dare he disparage those who Radcliffe had fought alongside – as if class had anything to do with courage on such a bloody battlefield as Waterloo had been. Radcliffe felt the fingers of his left hand begin to tremble.
‘Why, what a shame it is that a man of your wisdom could not be there to save us,’ he said coldly as Pemberton paused to draw breath.
The derision in his voice was now quite audible – to all but Pemberton, it seemed, who puffed up in pleasure while the rest of the group flinched a little.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Pemberton demurred, ‘though I own I should have liked to see the battle with my own eyes.’
‘Let me assure you that the view did not improve with proximity,’ Radcliffe said. Pemberton did not appear to hear him.
‘One cannot help thinking that it might have made the world of difference,’ he told the assembled company, shaking his head a little in sadness. ‘My housemaster did always say I had missed my calling as a general.’
‘Oh, undoubtedly so,’ Radcliffe said.
‘Radcliffe, perhaps—’ Lady Radcliffe lay a hand upon his arm, which he shook off. The polite veneer Radcliffe had managed to hold onto for the Season so far – always precarious whenever the war was brought up – was well and truly cracking.
‘Though of course it is much easier to develop a taste for war once the fighting has concluded, is it not?’ he bit out.
At last, the antagonistic tone seemed to filter through to Pemberton. He flushed angrily, his earlier distaste for Radcliffe’s company recollected in force.
‘What, my lord, are you implying?’ Pemberton demanded.
Around them, drawn in by the well-honed instinct of the haut ton for drama and spectacle, people were beginning to stare. Lady Kingsbury – standing in front of Mr Carse’s portrait The Gossips – had a hand over her mouth in faux distress, but was making no effort to hide her avaricious regard. Radcliffe hated them all – but none so much as this trumped-up turkey.
‘My apologies, Mr Pemberton, for only implying what I intended to make very clear,’ he said.
In his periphery, Radcliffe could see his mother’s face, pale with distress, and Miss Talbot’s – mouth set in a firm line, eyes flickering around the room – but the sight was distant in the face of his rage.
‘You sir,’ he continued with a savage smile, ‘are nothing more than a—’