This had gone much farther than Wyatt had intended. Should anything happen to her brother, Cassandra would never forgive him. In all likelihood, she would never forgive him this night’s disasters as it was.
Wondering at the man who had seemed to instigate these proceedings, Wyatt threw the enigmatic American a narrow-eyed look. Jacob had said he’d arrived with Rupert. Yet he did not behave in Rupert’s best interests.
Puzzled, Wyatt turned back to Duncan. “As your second, I must seek some form of amelioration with Rupert’s man. Rupert, who stands with you?”
As Merrick suspected, Rupert turned immediately to the American. “Wyandott, will you second me? It’s a mere formality. We’ll have this done in a trice.”
The tall silver-haired stranger lifted his gaze to Wyatt’s hostile look, then nodded. “I’ll act for you. Lord Merrick, shall we discuss the terms?”
Rupert waved his hand in dismissal of the ritual. “We have the pistols. The garden isn’t large enough for more than ten paces. There’s nothing to discuss. Let’s have this over so I can find my wayward wife. It is past time that she learned her place.”
Every other man in the room tensed. Bertie caught his younger brother’s shoulder, pressing him into silence. They glanced at Wyatt, but his normally reasonable expression had turned hard and cold.
~*~
Jacob caught up with Cassandra as she fled down the darkened city street in the wrong direction. A few more blocks and she would be in the slums by the river, fair prey to every thief, murderer, and rapist in the city. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and this wasn’t the time to indulge in female histrionics. He daren’t grab her, but raced in front of her to hold her up.
“Don’t, my lady! You’ve got to come back. Them pistols are rigged. Hurry, now. I ain’t got time to linger.”
The proper valet’s lapse into the vernacular brought Cassandra up short. She had run senselessly, simply avoiding what she didn’t want to hear. Jacob’s warning made too much sense of the world as she knew it, and she turned hastily.
Rigged! Of course they were rigged. Neither Duncan nor Rupert had performed an honest act in his life. She would take the wretched pistols to their foul hearts herself. That was the only suitable ending to this affair.
It might already be too late. Jacob’s long legs carried him back to the house at a lope Cass could scarcely emulate. Luckily, freed of her hampering skirts, she arrived at the mews behind the house within seconds of him.
The men were already spreading out around the garden with the two duelists in the center. Jacob cursed as he noted they already held pistols in hand. Holding up his palm, he halted Cass before she could break through the bushes. It was too late.
Duncan and Rupert stood back-to-back, pistols pointed upward as Bertie began the count. Duncan looked almost regal with his ebony hair gleaming in the moonlight, his broad shoulders in their elegant black evening coat thrown back as he counted out his steps. Rupert, the smaller man, seemed almost impatient as he moved forward jerkily, paying little attention to the pace.
At the count of nine, Rupert swung and lowered his pistol. Cassandra’s warning scream had scarcely passed her lips when Duncan, too, swung before the final count. But Duncan’s foot slid in the moist grass, and he stumbled in the same instant that Rupert’s shot fired.
Spun sideways with the force of the first shot, Duncan fired wildly. Rupert staggered, but he did not fall. Even as the witnesses converged upon the two men, cursing their cowardice, Rupert reached in his coat pocket to produce a small gun that he aimed unwaveringly at his enemy.
Caught in a nightmare, Cassandra saw but could not act. Her feet seemed mired in quicksand. The scream was in her throat, but time stood still. In horror she watched the gun aim—not at Duncan’s kneeling figure, but on the man bending to help him up.
“Wyatt!” Her scream split the air in the same instant as the gun’s report shattered the night.
A fourth shot followed, and Rupert crumpled, leaving the American standing alone, a smoking pistol in his hand.
~*~
Merrick felt the pain in his side. Grabbing his ribs in surprise, he lifted anguished eyes to Cassandra’s pale face. Gad! How could this happen in front of her?
He couldn’t reach her in time. He glared accusingly at the American; then, too weak to stand, he lowered himself to one knee beside Cassandra’s fallen brother. As he feared, Cassandra vanished. Silently, he cried futile protests. Not now! Not when he couldn’t go after her.
Bertie tore off Merrick’s coat while the American tended Duncan. Wyatt tried to concentrate on what needed to be done, but in his head, he could see only Cassandra’s shock. A sticky warmth ran down his side, and even the pain couldn’t distract him. It hurt like all the hinges of hell, but Cassandra was gone. Somehow, he had to go after her. He tried to struggle to his feet, but Bertie pressed him down.
“I have a ship that can carry you out of here tonight,” the American was telling Duncan. “You’ll live, but I’ll not recommend remaining here until the hue and cry of the cad’s death blows over. If word of your cowardice gets out, you’ll be cut from society. Here, hold this cloth in place while I open the brandy.”
Groggy from pain, held down by strong hands, Merrick heard this offer in amazement. The older man calmly bent to give Duncan a swig from his flask, before applying the strong spirits to Duncan’s thigh beneath his torn breeches.
Rupert’s gun must have misfired to shoot Duncan so low, particularly with his unexpected fall. The more amazing thing was that the American now meant to pin Rupert’s death on Duncan, who had done no more than wing his opponent.
Duncan, too, seemed to find this grossly unfair. “Wait a minute! I ain’t going nowhere! You killed him. My sister’s a widow now. She’ll need me. Bigad, you killed him in cold blood! You’ll be the one going to Newgate.”
“I don’t think so. I merely acted to prevent murder. Lord Merrick, I apologize for being a little slow on the draw. Age has a habit of slowing the reflexes,” the American said. “On the other hand, Lord Eddings, you behaved with despicable dishonor. Even if the law does not come after you, you are certain to be held in contempt. I recommend a long journey for many years to come.”
“With Rupert’s wealth in my hands, I can withstand contempt.” Duncan winced and uttered a groan as the brandy soaked his wound.
From out of the darkness Jacob appeared bearing a lantern and accompanying a portly gentleman with a familiar physician’s satchel. The cloaked figure behind him blended into the shadows and scarcely drew notice.
“You’ll not get a bloody shilling out of the bastard unless you’ve got his signature on a piece of paper,” Jacob announced. “The whole lot goes to his wife. I already made certain of that.”
Duncan didn’t bother to look at the lanky valet. “Cass won’t know how to handle it. As her only male relative, I’ll be appointed trustee, so don’t set your bloody sights too high, lackey.”
The American surrendered his place to the physician. Gazing down at the haughty marquess, he replied with contempt, “As her father, I rather think I’ll object to that.”
Jacob’s reply covered the hasty intake of breath behind him. “That ain’t to the point. Lady Cass ain’t his widow. My sister is. They were wedded when she was but ten-and-six, and she’s got the lines and the child to prove it.”
With a bellow of rage, Merrick shook off his caretakers and lurched toward Jacob, his fist balled in a deadly knot. “You bastard! You let Cass go through hell and didn’t tell her...”
His side ripped in half as he swung, and Jacob easily dodged the blow, catching him by the arm to keep him from falling and handing him gently back to Bertie and Thomas.
“Wasn’t anything I could do about it, my lord. I didn’t know the lady until she was wedded. And afterward, there weren’t no sense in saying anything. She was determined not to marry you, to keep her brother from picking you clean. I’d only cause her more trouble by saying the marriage wasn’t
legal-like. My sister and her boy were living in the streets when I came home from the war. There wasn’t no one else but me to see to their welfare. I did it the best I could. I had those pistols ready, thinking to use them the first opportunity. The mark would have gone wide had Lord Eddings not turned and slipped when he did. I would have called him out myself, but who would take notice of a batman? I’ll make it up to the lady in any way I can.”
Jacob turned to apologize to Cassandra, but the cloaked figure in the shadows had already disappeared.
Catching sight of the cloak’s movement, Wyatt staggered toward the path she must have taken, but the American halted him.
“Let me go after her. If I am any judge, you have caused her enough pain as it is.”
Merrick clamped his hand to his side and grimaced. “You don’t know the half of it, sir. She’s carrying my child. I’ll have her back if I must turn the world sideways, but right now, I’d just see her safe. She’s not well, and traveling isn’t good for her.”
Wyandott’s wide jaw set in a fierce frown. “You’ll pay for this. You damned aristocrats...” He cursed and hastened down the path Cassandra had taken.
Swaying on his feet, Merrick watched him go. He had lost her. His mind told him that, but his heart just wouldn’t believe.
Chapter 29
Wesley Wyandott concealed his concern as he gazed upon the drooping figure of his youngest daughter on the carriage seat across from him. She had come without protest when he had caught up with her, but he was beginning to suspect that her lack of speech now was unnatural. The fiery creature who had earlier turned a room full of experienced men into chaos, challenged her husband to a duel, and chastised her lover in no uncertain terms could not be the same person as this weary creature.
He studied the unhealthy pallor of her cheeks and remembered Merrick’s words. Mentally he calculated the years since he had been here last, deciding she could be no more than nineteen, wondering that a girl of that age could behave as she had in these last hours.
He knew the British considered his homeland less than civilized, but even in the States his other daughters retired to dim salons and couches and were treated as delicate porcelain after they announced they were expecting. And his other daughters were well into their twenties and thirties and long married with husbands and servants to wait on them.
How on earth had it come about that his youngest and frailest daughter, the one brought up in the lap of the oldest aristocracy in civilization, could be pregnant and unmarried and garbed in outlandish stockings and little more while entertaining a table of all-male card players?
It staggered the mind, but comparing her sunset hair, flashing eyes, and fiery temper to his memory of his younger self, Wyandott had to reflect that she came by it naturally. She should have been a male, but he had to admit he was glad she was not.
“You will make Lord Merrick a good wife,” her father announced.
Long gilt-edged lashes lifted, but the murky color beneath revealed none of the flash and fire of earlier. The lashes returned to ivory cheeks again, and the carriage fell into silence once more, except for the jerking creak of ropes and leather.
“The wound was not deep. He will be fine in a few weeks. I don’t know how things are done over here, but I should think a quiet wedding in the country would be suitable.”
This time, the lashes didn’t even lift. Wyandott had the urge to shake her, but reasoning that the travel made her ill, as Merrick claimed, he kept his tongue. There would be time enough in the future to learn more of this daughter he had never known he had.
The next few weeks proved him wrong. Merrick’s driver returned them to the estate in Sussex, but even their ecstatic reception by Cassandra’s mother did not return the life to Cass’s eyes.
Scarcely acknowledging this reunion of lovers torn apart long ago, Cassandra drifted up the stairs to the bedchamber she had once shared with Merrick.
She continued to drift, unsmiling, through the days that followed. Questions met with silence. Angry pleas met with the turning of a cold shoulder. Only simple requests elicited any response, and that was only by silent action.
Elizabeth’s nails bit into her palms as she watched this pale ghost of her daughter through the front window. Cassandra had taken to daily walks along the coast, staring for hours at the sea, and Elizabeth could not help but consider this a dangerous sign. Desperately she turned to the man also staring at the waif on the cliffs.
“You must do something, Wesley. Write to Merrick. Tell him he must come. He will marry her, won’t he? He hasn’t set her aside?”
“Of course he hasn’t. If I am any judge, he will do his duty. He’s aware of his obligations. I daresay the scandal of the duel is enormous, and he must deal with that. I shouldn’t think he would be able to travel for a while, either. I’ll write and see how he fares.”
Even to himself this sounded like cold reassurance. Words like “duty” and “obligation” were not ones a nineteen-year-old girl would care to hear. But Merrick was older, a man of the world. He had not taken a well-bred young lady to bed without expecting to pay the price. Except, at the time, he had thought her married.
That was no excuse. Wyandott fired off a letter that afternoon, demanding to know Merrick’s intentions. He also included a brief description of Cassandra’s withdrawal to spur her lover along.
The creamy vellum with the earl’s frank appeared in the next post, addressed to Cassandra. She took the folded missive from her father’s hand and drifted up the stairs with it. She held it a while longer as she stared at the spiky writing on the outside as if she could hear the contents without seeing the words. Then ever so gently she laid the thick package in the center of her small writing desk, then left it unopened.
A second letter arrived a week later. When Cassandra returned from taking it upstairs and once more headed for her silent walk along the coast, her father took the liberty of invading her empty chamber. There, in quiet companionship with the first, lay the second letter, still unopened.
He swore. He cursed. He contemplated ripping both letters open to scan the contents, but just the idea of tearing into those perfectly arranged elegant packages seemed to shatter the brittle silence of the darkened room.
Out on the cliff, Cassandra found her favorite perch overlooking the ocean’s hypnotic undulations. The sea gulls’ cries seemed piercingly lonely, and she felt content in their company. The wind lifted her hair from her face, since she made no attempt to conceal it with bonnet or hat. Freckles had begun to frame the bridge of her nose, but she had little concern for her appearance.
The weather was growing cooler now. She supposed it must be mid-September. As she often did when she considered the lateness of the season, she raised her hand to the curving plane of her abdomen. She felt nothing there, no sign of the life within, and she removed her hand, disappointed. There ought to be something, some signal to indicate the truth. What if Wyatt were wrong? What if she did not carry his child?
She didn’t know whether she would be relieved or not. She didn’t know if Wyatt would be relieved or not.
So she sat there waiting for some sign from beyond to tell her what to do.
~*~
“Dashitall! I cannot lie here a moment longer.” Merrick threw the sheaf of papers in his hands to the floor as the physician examined his side and shook his head. He winced as probing fingers found the infection, shooting fiery spirals of pain through his chest.
“If you do not lie here a week longer until the inflammation goes away, you will be lying forever in a cold grave,” the young physician informed him sternly.
“By Jove, man, if you only knew...” Merrick leaned back against the pillows piled at the head of his bed, closed his eyes, and groaned. The pain in his side was as nothing to the pain of the words on those pages cluttering the floor. The blasted American was threatening to take Cassandra away. What in hell was the matter with her? Why didn’t she answer his letters?
He
knew the answer to that. With Cassandra, words were useless. Only actions counted. And he was laid up here in bed with a damned physician telling him it would be a week or more before he could even rise from the mattress. He gritted his teeth and cursed a particularly vivid phrase.
“I haven’t heard that one before.” The physician finished taping the fresh bandage in place, despite the invective blaspheming the ancestry of all physicians and dogs. “A man as inventive as you should be able to write a book of curses in a week. It will keep you occupied.”
“I’d be better occupied tarring and feathering the drunken sot who leeched me and left me to fester like a two-week-old pox. I’ll carve his eyeballs out of his head so he can never mistreat some other poor unfortunate again.”
The doctor, who had heard all this before, began to pack his bag. “You would do better to use your influence to improve licensing laws. Write letters to your peers describing the quacks allowed to roam the streets under the questionable title of doctor. Medicine is a science. It is time society recognized it as such.”
Merrick growled something incomprehensible. The sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs caught his attention, however, and he waited impatiently for the door to open. At the sight of Bertie’s fair head, he grimaced with relief and began to maneuver himself from the bed.
“It’s about time you got here, bigawd!” Merrick shouted. “This devil has threatened the servants into disobedience, Jacob’s deserted me, and I’m too damned helpless to find a shirt. Find me some clothes, Bertie. I have to get out of here.”
Thomas followed his brother in and the brothers turned to the young physician they had brought to the house a week ago. They awaited his reply with a respect bordering on religious fervor.
“If that wound opens again, the inflammation will flare up all over, and he is too weak to fight it any longer. Just the act of going down the stairs could kill him until the infection is gone.” The physician jerked on his gloves, picked up his bag, and gave a curt nod to the Scheffings. Without a further reprimand to the fuming earl, he strode out.
Dash of Enchantment Page 27
