Refining Felicity by MC Beaton Page A

under full canvas, straining to leave port.
    Whistling as she walked and enjoying her new freedom and the pleasure of her splendid disguise, Felicity had already forgotten about the Tribbles. That chapter of her life was over. Sussex and home and riding across the Downs on just such a splendid day as this lay ahead.
    She went into a coffee house in Holborn and ordered a meat pie and a bottle of wine. She drank the whole bottle and felt tipsy and ridiculously happy as she set out again.
    It was only when she made her way down to the Strand, now determined to have a stroll about London before leaving, that she realized that all mayhem could be breaking loose in one part of the Town while the other parts remained unaware of it.
    A mob was rampaging down the Strand, smashing into any shops which had been foolish enough to remain open. Sobered with fright, she retreated back to Holborn and so on to Snow Hill and the City of London, the original walled London where all the commerce of the nation now took place.
    She had just entered Candlewick Ward, when a constable seized her and demanded her name.
    ‘Felix Vane,’ said Felicity in as gruff a voice as she could manage.
    ‘Address?’
    ‘Bread Lane,’ said Felicity, remembering a City address from an article in the newspapers.
    ‘Householder?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Felicity, not wanting to have to tell more lies than necessary. For if she said she was not a householder, then that would lead to more and more questions.
    ‘Good, follow me. You will be sworn in as a special constable.’
    ‘What for?’ said Felicity, her knees beginning to tremble.
    ‘What for?’ echoed the constable contemptuously. ‘Why, to put down them murdering rioters.’
    And so it was that Lady Felicity Vane, with fixed bayonet and drawn sword, found herself marching over Westminster Bridge surrounded by men equally armed to put down the rioters. She wanted to know why the mob were rioting, she desperately did not want to have to shoot anyone or to have to plunge that wicked-looking bayonet into someone’s breast, but was frightened to speak lest her voice should give away her sex.
    The sun beat down, her head throbbed in time to the beating of the drums, and she wondered whether she would come out of the whole business alive.
    But as it turned out, she was to be more at risk from her fellows than from the rioters. The mob had massed in St George’s Fields. But no sooner did they hear the drums and see the sun glinting on the bayonets of the forces of law and order than they quickly dispersed. Not a shot was fired. Felicity sighed with relief. Now all she had to do was march quietly back and return her weapons to the City armoury and find that stage-coach.
    But once she had got rid of her weapons, she was quickly surrounded by her fellow warriors, who declared their intention of getting as drunk as possible and then raising the skirts of every tart to be found within the walls of the City. They went on to describe in graphic detail what they would do to said tarts, and Felicity choked and tried not to vomit in front of them.
    ‘If you will forgive me,’ she said, finding her voice, but trying to keep it on as low a register as possible, ‘I must be on my way.’
    ‘Stuff,’ said the leader of her persecutors. ‘You’ll have a few bumpers first.’ They were out in the street now and he had taken her arm in a strong grasp.
    ‘Oho, nephew,’ said a languid voice. ‘I wondered why you were late for dinner.’
    Felicity looked up into the mocking eyes of the Marquess of Ravenswood. Her companions fell back before the magnificence of the marquess’s dress. White as paper behind her whiskers, Felicity fell into step beside the marquess. They walked in silence until the marquess stopped outside a coffee house. ‘I think we should have some conversation before I return you home,’ he said.
    He led the way into the coffee house and found them a table in the corner. He ordered coffee and