Enlightened

by Joanna Chambers

  It was early. The hard gaming that came later and that would have scores of gentlemen crowding round the tables wouldn’t begin for a while. Only a small number of older gentlemen were sitting around, enjoying a few hands of cards for what appeared to be modest stakes. And again, there was no sign of Kinnell.

  “He must have decided to stay at home this evening, with Elizabeth,” David said. The thought made him shiver. What would Kinnell do to her? What about when he discovered she was with child? He pushed that thought away determinedly. Enough time to think about that later when he lay sleepless in bed, as he knew he would tonight.

  “Probably,” Murdo said. “Let’s get back and see whether Liddle’s found out any more for us. We have to do something before he gets her out of London.”

  They made their way back down to the ground floor, wending their way through the maze of rooms. Murdo wanted to avoid the room he’d seen his father and Hartley in earlier, so he slipped a coin to a footman who took them down a service corridor that bypassed it, leading them straight into the largest and quietest of the lounges, where members could read their newspapers in peace while they drank their port.

  At the same moment that David and Murdo entered the lounge, another pair of gentlemen strolled through the door on the opposite side of the room.

  One of them was Kinnell.

  He was pink-cheeked from the cold, and he was smiling—grinning, in fact—bright-eyed and pleased with himself, seeming well disposed towards his fellow men.

  “Bring us your best brandy,” he told the same servant who had greeted David and Murdo earlier. “I’m celebrating.”

  His companion—short, tubby and balding—laughed. “I wish you’d tell me what this celebration is about!”

  But Kinnell’s glee was already fading. He had seen Murdo, and David, and he was observing their approach. His thin, hawkish features were taut with bristling anger that was kept in check by what David suspected was a touch of fear.

  “Yes, do tell, Kinnell,” Murdo said with the bland, easy smile he wore when he was masking his thoughts. “What are you celebrating? Or perhaps I should take a guess?”

  Kinnell went to walk past Murdo—to cut him entirely—but Murdo put out a hand, easily detaining him. He tsked. “Come now, you aren’t going to ignore me, are you?” he said. “I do so hate to be ignored!”

  Kinnell wasn’t a small man, but Murdo topped him by a couple of inches and his broad shoulders dwarfed the other man’s thinner frame.

  “Let me by,” Kinnell gritted out. “We are not friends, but at least let us not make a scene.”

  Murdo laughed, and his expression was not pleasant. “Ah, but perhaps I want to make a scene,” he said, not lowering his voice in the slightest, his big hand still on Kinnell’s shoulder. A few heads turned and newspapers were lowered as the encounter began to attract attention.

  Once again, Kinnell tried to shrug him off and walk away, but Murdo wouldn’t let him. He stepped closer, crowding Kinnell till the other man was forced to take a step back.

  “Steady on there!” the tubby man protested weakly.

  Murdo turned his head and smiled at him, his geniality oddly unnerving. “Do you want to participate in this conversation? Or are you going to be a good chap and keep your trap shut?”

  The tubby man’s face burned, and he slunk back, leaving Kinnell alone.

  Murdo turned his attention back to Kinnell. “You were looking ever so pleased with yourself when you came in here,” he said. “I think you must have been reunited with your lovely young wife. Am I right?”

  David caught a flurry of movement at the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see a few more men entering the room. They filed in and leaned against the back wall, blatantly watching the drama. Now it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

  “Well?” Murdo prompted.

  “And what if I have?” Kinnell bit out, a faint sneer of triumph lifting his thin upper lip.

  “No, it can’t just be that,” Murdo mused, tapping his chin with his forefinger. “You look far too happy for merely that. Oh, wait, I have it! Did you give her a sound thrashing before you came out? Now that’d put a smile on your face, wouldn’t it? You do enjoy handing out a thrashing. Especially to someone smaller and weaker than you.”

  There were a few gasps at that, and Kinnell went white.

  “How dare you!” he hissed.

  Murdo’s gaze bored into him. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said. “I’d love to be wrong, believe me. But I fear Elizabeth is probably tending her injuries as we speak.”

  “Do not call my wife by her given name!” Kinnell shouted, pushing Murdo’s arm away. He managed it this time, but his voice shook with what sounded like real fear when Murdo stepped into his path to stop him passing, making him halt in his tracks.

  “Enough of this, Balfour,” a deep voice interjected from the back of the room. “She’s his wife and his business. Leave it be.”

  Balfour didn’t even look round. “Stay out of this. Anyone who cares to stand at the shoulder of this dog is going to get the same that’s coming to him.”

  Whoever it was that had spoken fell silent. Murdo smiled at Kinnell. A wolf considering how to take down its prey.

  Kinnell tried to gather his dignity about him, but his fear was pouring off him now. He cast a look of loathing at David.

  “Is this what comes of associating with commoners?” Kinnell loaded his words with enough disgust to clearly imply that there was something untoward about David. David kept his eyes on Murdo and Kinnell, but he felt the gazes of the audience to this drama moving over him. Heard their murmurings as they speculated about his identity.

  Fortified by the reaction of the onlookers, Kinnell added more arrogantly, “Besides, what business of yours is my wife?”

  Murdo smiled again, and again David thought of a wolf, that unblinking regard, that predatory stillness. Kinnell’s arrogance faltered. He saw that Murdo was pleased by the question and couldn’t understand why.

  “Oh, your wife is very much my business,” he said, his voice ringing clearly for all to hear. “When she left you, she came to me. She’s been sharing my bed for months.”

  “No, Murdo—” David said, horrified, but no one paid him any attention. Every gaze was fixed on Murdo and Kinnell.

  Murdo was moving in for the kill now, stepping right up to Kinnell, crowding him till the man had to step back to put space between them. Step back and then step back again, till he collided with a table and could go no farther.

  “Murdo—for God’s sake!”

  David turned—everyone did, every head in the room swinging round to see the Marquess of Balfour standing in the doorway on the other side of the room, Hartley at his elbow. The marquess’s expression was rigid with shock and fury, and Hartley looked ready to have an apoplexy, his already ruddy features practically puce.

  “It’s not true,” Kinnell said loudly, and, of course, it wasn’t. But no one would ever believe that. Murdo had just delivered a staggering insult, and everyone present realised there was only one way a gentleman of honour could react to such an insult. A cold blade of panic slid into David’s gut as he waited for the inevitable.

  “What kind of man are you?” Murdo taunted. “If you had any self-respect, you would throw your glove in my face right now. But you’re too much of a coward.”

  There were gasps at that, and a few shouted protests from their audience. Bad enough to call the man out for cruelty and announce you were his wife’s lover. But to call him a coward? The men gathered around waited, impatient for Kinnell to do the right thing.

  Kinnell looked sick with misery and fear, but he knew too. There was no escape from this, not with any pride or honour left intact. At last, he lifted his arm and dragged his glove off with shaking fingers. The blow he struck to Murdo’s cheek had little vigour, and Murdo merely grinned to feel its impact.

  “I demand satisfaction,” Kinnell said, his gaze bleak. “Name your second.”

&nb
sp; Murdo’s wolf smile grew. “Mr. Lauriston will be my second. And yours?”

  Kinnell looked about the room. The companion he’d arrived with appeared to have melted away entirely. He scanned the crowd of observers.

  “Lennox?” he said at last. “Would you?”

  The onlookers parted, and a man stepped forward, a man David knew very well. David’s heart began to thud in his chest as the man’s gaze flickered briefly to David, then back to Kinnell. His face—that once dear, familiar face—carried a trace of panic, but when he answered Kinnell, his voice was sure.

  “I will,” said Sir William Lennox.

  Will Lennox. David’s first love. The man who had once broken his heart.

  Once the challenge had been issued and accepted, a number of the gentlemen stepped forward to offer their advice. The two principals were separated, and an older gentleman, a military type, took it upon himself to educate the two seconds on their duties and obligations, ushering them over to a group of chairs on the far side of the room.

  “Do you know each other?” he asked first.

  David opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Will held out a hand.

  “Sir William Lennox,” he said. “And you are?”

  David followed his lead, disappointed and relieved at once. “David Lauriston.”

  They shook hands briefly. A distant part of David’s mind noted that Will had lost the willowy grace of his youth and the prettiness of his boyhood features. His features had settled into a blander maturity, though he was a pleasant-looking man.

  Their guide introduced himself as Major Donaldson. They sat down to listen while he explained the business of how a duel worked. In the first instance, he began, the seconds should meet, to see what could be done to resolve matters by apology or otherwise. If that wasn’t possible, there were arrangements to be made—a location to be agreed upon, weapons to be approved, a surgeon’s services to be secured. The major sent a footman for pen and ink so he could write down the name and direction of a surgeon who was discreet and “good at patching up bullet wounds”.

  David listened attentively, even as his heart beat hard with panic and his stomach churned at the thought of Murdo coming to harm. Strange, he thought as he watched the major laboriously scribe his recommendation, that when he finally came face-to-face with Will Lennox, he could think of nothing but Murdo. He had spent years thinking about what he would say to Will if they ever met again. How he would tear up at Will over the other man’s long-ago betrayal—telling David’s father that the kiss the older man had witnessed between them had all been David’s doing, and leaving him to face the consequences alone.

  And now he realised that he had nothing he wanted to say to Will at all.

  Will was writing now—his address for David’s visit the next morning. When he was finished, he handed the paper to David, and all three men stood up.

  “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your arrangements, then,” the major said, giving a stiff little bow.

  David and Will murmured their gratitude and their farewells.

  When the major had gone, Will turned back to David. “Will ten o’clock tomorrow morning suit?” he asked, all politeness.

  “That will be fine,” David said, tucking Will’s address into his pocket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should find Lord Murdo.” He went to move away but Will detained him with a hand on his forearm.

  “Davy, listen—”

  Their eyes met, and for a moment, David was taken back years. That moss-green gaze was still so very familiar. Then he shook himself and pulled his arm free.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said and walked away.

  MURDO HAD BEEN TAKEN to another room. He sat in an armchair beside the fireplace, staring at the flames. Several other men milled around, murmuring, but none of them spoke to Murdo.

  He didn’t look up when David entered the room. It was only when David stood directly in front of him, on the hearth rug, that he finally tore his gaze away from the fire.

  “You’re back,” he said, his expression oddly guarded.

  “Yes,” David replied stiffly, conscious of their audience. “I’ve arranged to meet Sir William tomorrow morning. Shall we go—” He was about to add home but stopped himself at the last moment, making his words sound oddly cut off and awkward.

  Murdo nodded and rose from his chair. They weren’t quite halfway across the room when Hartley appeared in the doorway, the marquess slightly behind him. It seemed the night’s confrontations were not yet over.

  Murdo stepped slightly in front of David in a subtly protective gesture.

  Hartley didn’t waste any time on bluster. “Lord Murdo, you may take it that your engagement to my daughter is at an end as of this moment,” he announced loudly. His face was cold and expressionless, and somehow his words sounded all the more powerful for the lack of emotion in them.

  The audience for this encounter was smaller than for the one with Kinnell, but this was no less public. This evening’s events would be the talk of every drawing room in London come tomorrow afternoon.

  “Neither I nor any of my family will acknowledge you after this moment,” Hartley continued. He paused before adding, “You have brought shame on your father’s name. If you were my son, I would disown you.” He turned to the marquess. “You have my pity, Balfour,” he added, then stalked out of the room, leaving Murdo to face his father.

  Another glove thrown down, David thought. By Hartley this time, for the marquess. And David somehow knew it was a glove the marquess would not want to pick up.

  “If you were my son, I would disown you.”

  Hartley was a man of considerable political power, a Tory, like Balfour. The marriage of their children could have been the start of a new political dynasty.

  For three decades, the marquess had determinedly set about binding Murdo to him. His ropes were made of secrets and threats and promises, and he had stubbornly held on to every one, resisting his son’s attempts to get free of him.

  All of his efforts had been leading up to this marriage. And now it would not happen.

  The knot of ropes that bound Murdo to his father was Gordian in its complexity and subtlety. Tonight, Murdo had swept a sword through it, disdaining its cleverness. Severing it with determination and without concern for the consequences.

  David watched the marquess. Examining that cold, harsh face for clues to his anger and frustration, wary of his ire. He was ready to see evidence of every one of those emotions. What he was not prepared for was what he actually saw.

  Naked grief.

  The small audience of men in the room waited for the marquess to speak, and Murdo waited too, seeming resigned. Even so, the marquess’s decision did not come easily. He did not want to do what needed to be done. But when all was said and done, he was a politician and a pillar of respectability. And he had been put in a position that offered him no alternative.

  At last, his voice ringing out over the silence, he said, “You are no son of mine.”

  Then he turned and walked away, his shoulders rounded with defeat.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Shortly after the marquess left, the servant who had first greeted David and Murdo earlier that evening approached them. He carried their greatcoats and hats in his arms.

  “My lord,” he said, bowing to Murdo, then turning to David, “Sir.” He paused, a patient, pleasant expression on his long, thin face.

  David glanced at Murdo, who looked coolly amused.

  “I believe,” he informed David, “we are being asked to leave.”

  The servant managed to demur politely, even as he handed them their hats and held their greatcoats open while they shrugged into them. The group of men who had watched the confrontation between Murdo and his father continued to silently observe, with grim, disapproving faces, as Murdo and David readied themselves to leave.

  David wondered whether, despite Murdo’s unfazed demeanour, the judgment and disapproval of these men weighed on him. Sur
ely it must do—it weighed on David and these men were nothing to him. To Murdo, they were his peers, men he’d been educated with, socialised and done business with. He didn’t have to like or respect them to feel injured by their treatment of him.

  As they walked from the smaller lounge into the larger one, it was worse. Every head turned, and the murmurings of conversations came to an abrupt halt. But Murdo didn’t even seem to notice. He had spied Kinnell on the other side of the room.

  Kinnell was ready to leave too, his companion from earlier back at his side. His eyes widened in alarm to see Murdo, and he turned away, making for the door.

  “I hear a swift bullet to the brain is more merciful than one to the guts, Kinnell,” Murdo called after him. “If you don’t want your death to be slow and painful, do not lay a hand on your wife tonight.”

  Angry murmurings rose at that further insult, and David took hold of Murdo’s upper arm, afraid he would go after Kinnell again and stir the ire of the men present. There was no doubt that Murdo was the villain of this piece in their minds, despite the accusations Murdo had levelled about Kinnell’s brutality.

  Kinnell didn’t look round at Murdo’s threat, but he’d heard, all right. David was glad to see the hesitation in his step before he moved on. Perhaps he’d think twice before raising his hand to Elizabeth again tonight.

  As Kinnell disappeared, a slight, nondescript man approached them. He looked like a clerk, anonymous and somewhat out of place amongst the elegant aristocrats surrounding him.

  “Lord Murdo,” the man said, stopping in front of them. “I wonder if I might have a private word with you and your friend? I am the owner of this establishment, Mr. Robertson.”

  Murdo glanced at the man and became, in an instant, the archetypal aristocrat, expressing with a single raised brow cool astonishment at being so addressed. To his credit, Robertson didn’t flinch, and at length Murdo shrugged.

  “Very well.”

  “This way, please.”