Copper Script

by K.J. Charles

I’m going to ask you again. Was what he said factually accurate?” “If you must,” Paul muttered. “And what was it? I don’t care,” Aaron added. “I don’t give a damn: I just want an idea what this fellow is up to.” “Oh, all right. You’ll keep it to yourself? He told Babs I had another girl.” “That’s all? Nothing more specific?” “Since you ask, he told her I’d been with a girl just before I wrote the letter.” “Been with?” Aaron repeated blankly. “You know what I mean. Or maybe you don’t,” he added snidely. “Gone to bed with. Like normal men do with girls. Do I have to draw you a picture?” “He told her that you bedded a woman, and, what, wrote a letter to your fiancée as soon as you’d finished? And you’re saying that’s true?” “You needn’t be so prissy,” Paul said. “It’s the nineteen twenties, you know. We don’t all have to behave like Victorians any more.” “Rolling out of one woman’s bed to make plans for your engagement to another woman sounds more Georgian to me,” Aaron said. “If not Tudors—wait. Your engagement party was a costume ball? And you were going as Henry the Eighth?” “Oh, don’t you start. Babs made a rotten fuss about that when she gave the ring back. Threw it at me, actually.”