Rules of Engagement by Christina Dodd

remember? King William at one end of that long table, the duchess of Kent at the other, and all the rest of us between them trying to keep them from coming to blows."
    "I wasn't allowed to dine with the adults yet, Grandpapa." But Kerrich did remember, for he, as well as the rest of Victoria's youthful visitors, had been allowed to mingle in the second floor drawing room. When their parents went in to dine, these progeny of the noble guests had peeked at the table set with fine plate and sparkling dinnerware. Then they'd been sent away to a separate room to eat and entertain one another.
    Kerrich had been seventeen, the oldest of the three adolescent boys and, in his own opinion, quite superior to the girls for all that one of those girls was the acknowledged heir to the English throne. Another of the girls had been fifteen, a beauty with bright blue eyes and a long swirl of hair the color of caramel. He had tried to be pleasant to her—hell, he had tried to charm her—but she acted as if he were a beast of which to be wary and retreated to another room. In disgust, he had rounded up the two other boys and taken them into the garden.
    Where in a fit of pique, he paced and thought and, finally, conspired to be as contemptible as that girl seemed to believe. He plotted to give her a scare.
    "Her Grace had arranged for fireworks, so the servants left open the drapes." Lord Reynard smiled fondly. "Thank God, or we might never have seen that magnificent sight."
    "Thank God," Kerrich echoed insincerely.
    Leaning across to him, Lord Reynard slapped him on the knee. "You're jealous that you didn't see it. And you were in the garden, too. You should have looked up, lad!"
    "I got sick, took one of the horses and went home." Kerrich stuck by the tale he'd been telling for twelve years.
    "No matter. The fog might have obstructed your view. It kept swirling past the windows like will-o'-the-wisps, catching the candlelight and then dancing away when it heard the king and the duchess quarreling."
    "The dampness covered everything," Kerrich acknowledged. The trellis. The roof. And the windowsill looking into the chamber where one girl, the handsome girl and apparently a house guest, undressed for bed…
    "That young man provided the kind of entertainment one can't pay for." Lord Reynard cackled in that reminiscent sort of way that made Kerrich want to writhe. "Hanging there from a broken trellis, in front of the dining chamber windows, upside down, his pants ripped off except where they were caught on that one boot…" Lord Reynard interrupted his speech to laugh.
    Laugh long enough that Kerrich hoped he was done.
    But no. "His arms hanging over his head. His free leg kicking. And in the light of the candles, that white arse shining like a full moon." More laughter.
    Kerrich smiled with so much simulated mirth that it hurt.
    "And when he twirled in a circle, we saw all the constellations, too." Lord Reynard slapped his thigh and roared at his own wit.
    "How droll," Kerrich said.
    "Yes. I tell you, boy, that comet had a long tail."
    Kerrich wanted to cover his face.
    Still chuckling, Lord Reynard shook his head. "The old boot of a duchess screamed in shock, but I noted, as did everyone, that she kept quiet until we'd seen the full exhibition. And the king quipped… the king quipped…' Tis the first time I've ever seen a full moon on a foggy night." "
    "King William always did have a way with words," Kerrich said.
    "Not really. He wasn't much of a king or a quipster, but the gazettes used that phrase and drew so many versions of that lad hanging upside down." Lord Reynard pointed his bent, arthritic finger at Kerrich. "Do you know I collected all those lampoons and kept them?"
    Kerrich took a good, long swallow of whisky. "No, I didn't know that."
    "We never did find out who that young man was."
    Kerrich sat up a little straighter. "I thought you said it was obviously some lowborn prankster."
    Lord Reynard put his finger beside his nose and