“What in the vilest hell requires that I rise at an indecent hour at your request, Mr. Haddonfield? And what’s he doing here?” Nash asked, blinking at St. Michael.
St. Michael rose. “I’m leaving. Mr. Haddonfield, you may expect further correspondence from me on the subject of serving as my factor in France. Mr. Nash, good day.”
“It ain’t a good day,” Nash said, swiping the drink George had intended for St. Michael. Nash drank about half the toddy before pausing. “Nita sent you packing, then?”
“Lady Nita, to you,” George said in unison with St. Michael.
“She’s not anything to you though, is she, St. Michael?” Nash asked with nasty glee. George could smell the man’s breath from two yards away—rot and ruin blended with poor personal hygiene—which meant St. Michael was getting a blast as well.
“Her ladyship will always have my utmost esteem,” St. Michael said, abruptly sounding significantly more Scottish. “I suggest you guard your tongue, Mr. Nash.”
George had heard that cordial, nearly pleasant tone before, in various gentleman’s clubs, when the hour had grown late and masculine honor was fueled by an excess of spirits.
“Don’t mourn Lady Nita’s rejection too deeply,” Nash said. “My brother Norton said her virginal passions compared unfavorably with Addy Chalmers’s fledgling sorties into sin.”
Before George could act, St. Michael had snatched the drink from Nash and dashed the contents in the idiot’s face.
“Take back those words, sir, on behalf of both women.”
“I must agree, Nash,” George said, rising. “Though your ungentlemanly observation explains why the oldest Chalmers girl looks so familiar.”
A muscle leaped along St. Michael’s jaw. Bartlow stood halfway down the stairs, and the scullery maid scuttled out from the kitchen, turned around, and scuttled right back the way she’d come. On the stairs, four bleary-eyed fellows held perfectly still.
“It’s the damned truth,” Nash said, swiping at his dripping chin with a wrinkled handkerchief. “Nita Haddonfield is a cold fish, poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, basket of medicinals over her arm, while she puts on airs like some angel of mercy when she’s spread her legs—”
St. Michael clipped Nash on the jaw, a mere tap compared to what he could probably do, and compared to what George wanted to do.
“Apologize for that intemperate speech,” St. Michael said. “Admit the mistake of your words, the lingering influence of last night’s drink, and apologize. When your own household has benefitted from Lady Nita’s generosity and expertise, you are the last who should be allowed to malign her. The lady has rejected my suit, but I have not abdicated the honor of protecting her good name. Apologize, Nash. Now.”
Nash cocked back his fist with all the finesse of a first former and swung at St. Michael’s jaw, then further impugned his gentlemanly credentials by shaking his limp fingers as if he’d plowed them into a stone wall.
“I’ll meet you,” Nash cried, “you jumped-up excuse for a Scottish sheep farmer. I’ll meet you and we’ll see whose apology is in order. Nita Haddonfield has long been a plague on this shire. She has no care for a woman’s proper place, hasn’t an inkling of proper medical science, and the sooner she’s—”
St. Michael set aside the tankard from which Nash had been drinking. “As you wish, Nash. Lady Nita has borne the censure and indifferent thanks of her neighbors for too long. Your disrespect of her ends now. Name your seconds.”
Bartlow lowered himself to sit on the steps. The other guests silently exchanged money.
While George tucked the special license and list of properties into his pocket.
* * *
Nita’s throat hurt, her head hurt, her eyes hurt. She sat at the kitchen table sipping a posset that helped with those various pains, but nothing would assuage the ache in her heart.
“I should be drinking pennyroyal tea,” Nita informed a marmalade pantry mouser. “The idea makes me bilious.”
She took another sip of her posset, then another. This was why men got drunk, because it hurt too much to remain sober. Nita would never chastise Mr. Clackengeld for his excesses again.
She was about to drain the contents of her mug when a gust of cold air heralded a commotion at the back door. The cat leaped onto the table and glowered in the direction of the noise.
“Don’t touch my drink,” Nita said, rising—a bit unsteadily. The boot boy had opened the door, though he apparently didn’t know what to make of Addy Chalmers.
“Addy, is Annie well?” Maybe the drink was to blame, but Nita could not find the resolve to don her gloves and cape and slog through a chilly morning to tend the child.
Please, not today.
Though Nita would. Of course she would.
“Annie is fine, but, Lady Nita, I was at the livery, mucking stalls because Mr. Clackengeld is the worse for drink this morning. I knew he would be, and yet the horses must be tended, mustn’t they? The lads were talking, and they’d heard it from Bartlow’s scullery maid when she brought in the eggs.”
Addy was agitated. A mother with a child at the breast shouldn’t be agitated.
“What did she say?” Nita asked.
“Your Mr. St. Michael has been called out by Edward Nash. They’re to fight a duel, pistols, and George is Mr. St. Michael’s second.”
Nita sagged against the wall between her sisters’ everyday cloaks, hung in age order on pegs. A hanging ham dangled by her shoulder, and her posset abruptly provided anything but comfort.
“A duel?” Nita whispered. “Why, in the name of all that’s sensible—?”
That Tremaine St. Michael—shrewd, calculating, brilliant, and dear—would go off to face death, and over what? Some rash words? A stupid exchange between stubborn men?
Nita would have been enraged, but the idea that Tremaine could die kept her pinned to the wall, knees abruptly refusing their usual office. Death had no honor. A man who woke up hale and hearty could repose in a coffin by nightfall. Tremaine was daft if he thought he alone could cheat death.
Daft and endlessly, hopelessly dear.
“Men can be stupidity itself when they get to flinging their honor about,” Addy said. “You should sit down, Lady Nita. You look a mite peaked.”
“Excellent suggestion, but I cannot seem to move.” Or breathe, or think. Tremaine could die. A quick end if he took a shot to the heart. A terrible, lingering death if the wound festered in a limb, and the worst death of all if the bullet hit his belly.
Nita had not absorbed the grief of Tremaine leaving her future, and now this most awful, nonnegotiable, permanent…and he’d apparently chosen this path willingly.
“You!” Addy snapped at the boot boy. “Fetch the countess, or my lady’s sisters, and be quick about it. Mind the earl doesn’t see you.”
“A duel.” A funeral, more like. Nita could adjust to a world without Edward Nash in it, but she could not fathom that Tremaine might have Edward’s blood on his hands. Let cholera end Edward Nash some months hence, or the protracted indignity that was typhus, anything that posed no risk to Tremaine St. Michael’s continued well-being.
“Come, my lady,” Addy said, taking Nita by the arm. They steered around hams, cloaks, boots, braided onions, and the marmalade cat to return Nita to the worktable.
“Why pistols?” Nita wailed softly. “Gunshot wounds bleed like the devil and can so easily kill a man. They get infected, they disfigure. I hate gunshot wounds.” Nita hated all wounds, come to that, wounds to the heart most of all. “I believe I’m tipsy.”
“I’m the last who’d judge you for having a tot,” Addy said. “Norton Nash told me that guns are preferred to swords so the duel is more quickly over, and because guns allow the duelists to delope. Everybody fires into the air, honor’s avenged, and the gentlemen can get back to their clubs and cards.”
“Norton Nash told you that?” The scoundrel with the cowlick, may he rest in peace, whom Nita was relieved not to have
married.
Addy swung the teakettle over the coals. “Norton liked to talk almost as much as he liked to engage in other activities. We were to be married, but because he’d bought his colors, he said we should keep our engagement quiet. You’ll not tell anybody?”
Nothing made any sense. “Why wouldn’t I tell Nicholas, who will hold Edward accountable for Norton’s bad behavior? Nicholas cannot engage in duels because Leah would kill him and he’s the magistrate. Mary is a Nash, isn’t she?”
With the same bright red hair Norton had been so vain about—no cowlick, though.
“Would you turn your bastard daughter over to Edward Nash’s tender mercy? I considered approaching Penny Nash, but didn’t because he might well have left the matter in Edward’s hands. I’m sorry—I know you were sweet on Norton too.”
Half the shire had apparently been sweet on Norton, though what did that matter when Tremaine was facing death?
“Addy, good day.” The countess came down the kitchen stairs, followed by Susannah, Kirsten, and Della. Leah’s greeting held a question, for Addy would no more presume on Belle Maison’s hospitality than she’d open the dancing at an assembly.
“Edward has called Tremaine out,” Nita said. “Tremaine could die in the next hour, and I’m about to be sick.”
* * *
“No wind,” George said. “That’s a good thing.”
The lack of wind was a matter of indifference to Tremaine. “What’s he doing here?”
Here was a clearing in the Belle Maison home wood, one apparently denuded of deadfall and brush by the enterprising Chalmers lads. Patches of snow alternated with bracken and bare, frozen ground.
“Horton is the only physician in the shire,” George said, “and you’ve agreed to face a fellow over a pair of loaded pistols. When you’re through dispatching Nash, you might consider shooting me. Nicholas is the magistrate and takes a dim view of ritual murder because it upsets his countess.”
Other people had woes and worries. Tremaine recalled that as he passed his coat to George. The cold air would wake Nash up, which struck Tremaine as fair, if loaded pistols were involved.
“What would the lovely Mrs. Nash have to say about your demise?” Tremaine asked, passing George two gold sleeve buttons and rolling back a cuff.
“As long as you kill Edward first, Digby will inherit Stonebridge, so Elsie would manage. I’d like to survive until my wedding night though.”
“I thought as much,” Tremaine said. “Never did favor public school, myself. Will Bellefonte truly be upset with you?”
George draped Tremaine’s coat over William’s saddle. “He’ll be upset that he couldn’t be here and must instead bide at home with the womenfolk, pretending he’s not worried to death about you. Nash is not accounted any kind of shot.”
“He’s no kind of man,” Tremaine said, “though I won’t be his executioner. Did you know his brother had taken liberties with your sister?”
A man facing death lost his tenuous grip on the niceties of polite conversation. Then too, George was apparently a friend willing to waive those niceties. Across the clearing, Nash was bouncing around as if boxing with an imaginary sparring partner.
“Norton Nash was a handsome charmer,” George said, “but he’s a dead handsome charmer. Nita never said a word, but Addy Chalmers’s situation bears consideration. Addy was a decent girl until she turned up with child shortly after Norton joined up.”
“And we’re told life in the country is boring,” Tremaine said.
He was not afraid to die. Every shepherd stranded in the high pastures in the midst of an early winter storm came to terms with death. A businessman impersonating a Frenchman on a Continent wracked by war attended to the same reconciliation.
But Tremaine St. Michael did not want to die. He did not want Nita burdened with his death, and he did not want to give up hope that somehow, he and Nita might come to terms.
“I’ll see if your opponent is done impersonating Gentleman Jackson after a few pints too many,” George said, clapping Tremaine on the shoulder and crossing the clearing.
Tremaine had no patience with the aristocratic lunacy of “the field of honor.” Life was precious, and he’d no more blow Edward Nash’s brains out over a few stupid words than he’d drive his sheep into the sea.
And yet Lady Nita Haddonfield’s good name could not go undefended any longer. Her brothers were bewildered by her, her sisters fretted for her, but none of them defended the honor of the only woman Tremaine knew who battled death with no thought for herself. Horton’s criticisms, the vicar’s snide sermons, Nash’s sneering condescension were unacceptable.
Ingrates, the lot of them.
Nash’s heir might be dying of lung fever but for Nita Haddonfield, her courage, her generosity, and her command of medical science.
As George conferred with Nash’s seconds—he had two who apparently knew little about the entire undertaking, for they’d had to consult Dr. Horton frequently—Tremaine was smacked by an insight.
He was risking death because of a stupid slur to Nita’s good name. When Nita risked death, she at least did so in the name of restoring some helpless soul to good health.
Though Nash would delope. The bad shots always deloped rather than expose their lack of skill.
“Gentlemen, take your places,” George said.
Tremaine went to the middle of the clearing and turned his back to his opponent. When Nash took his place, Tremaine could smell rank sweat and gin, and the entire undertaking acquired a pathetic quality.
Tremaine might want to shoot the bastard, but Nita wouldn’t appreciate that.
As the count slowly progressed, Tremaine paced along, sorrow and sweetness walking with him. He might never kiss Nita Haddonfield again—“five”—never hold her again—“seven”—never argue with her again—“ten”—never see her smile again.
Sorrows, all of them.
But he had kissed her—“twelve”—held her—“fourteen”—argued with her, and beheld her many smiles—“sixteen.” God willing—
On the count of eighteen, a pistol shot rang through the clearing, and a burning pain cut through Tremaine’s right calf.
Incredulity leaped along with physical agony, for the bastard had ruined an excellent riding boot.
And fired early.
“Foul!” George cried. “Mr. Nash, you’ve fired before the end of the count. Mr. St. Michael, you may take your shot.”
Fire, Tremaine would, though turning around was a bloody uncomfortable undertaking with a boot full of hot coals. He raised his arm, straightened it—the gun shook not at all, while Nash was wetting himself—then cocked an elbow and fired aloft.
As the second shot rang out, George dashed to Tremaine’s side and got an arm around his waist.
“I’ve never seen such poor marksmanship or such bad form. We can have Nash arrested, you know. Nicholas will oblige.”
“Why is Horton coming over here?”
“Because you’ve been shot, old boy,” George said gently as he helped Tremaine to the edge of the clearing. “You’re leaving a brilliant little trail of blood in the snow, and that can’t be an encouraging sign.”
Horton bustled up, a black bag clutched in his hand. “Cut that boot off him, Mr. Haddonfield. My scalpel will do the job.”
He produced a thin knife from his bag, a rusty stain along its blade.
“And then you’ll use that knife on me?” Tremaine asked.
“The blade is sharp,” Horton retorted, “and you’re not in a position to be choosy, sir. Damned lot of nonsense, if you ask me.”
Nita Haddonfield’s good name was not a damned lot of nonsense. Blood created a sticky warmth inside Tremaine’s boot, his calf was on fire, and George Haddonfield was all that held him up.
“Doctor, your services will not be needed,” Tremaine said. “My thanks for your time.”
“St. Michael, don’t be an idiot,” George hissed. “You’re losing blood. A bullet could
be poisoning your leg as we speak. I can’t carry you back to Belle Maison.”
“William can carry me,” Tremaine said, though his own voice sounded far away and very like his grandfather’s. “The question is, will Lady Nita treat me if I survive the journey?”
* * *
“Two shots,” Leah murmured as she paced her private parlor. “They couldn’t even take their stupidity out of hearing of the house?”
“Sounds travel in cold air,” Kirsten said. “Nita, are you feeling better?”
“I’m not as queasy.” But Nita was not better, for those pistol shots only confirmed that two grown men with far better things to do had aimed deadly weapons at each other.
“If Edward survives, I will cut him directly in the churchyard,” Susannah said. Titus Andronicus lay open on her lap. “I’ll be sure the entire village is watching, and Vicar too.”
“Vicar has already taken me into dislike,” Nita said. “No need for you to get into his bad graces too.”
“We can start our own congregation,” Addy suggested. “Women who refuse to let Vicar’s opinion of them rob them entirely of faith.”
“Hear, hear,” Della said, raising the teapot as if it were her personal drinking horn. “At least the duel is over. Those shots came from the direction of the home wood. Shall we send Nicholas to investigate?”
“I’ll go,” Nita said, rising. “If a duel has been fought over me, then I have no more good name to protect, do I?” For her sisters’ sake, that notion really should bother her, but all that mattered was that Tremaine be alive and remain that way.
“You certainly do,” Addy retorted, “but I’ll go with you.”
The other women were on their feet in an instant.
“I’ll give Edward the benefit of my opinion regarding dueling,” Susannah said, tossing poor Titus in the direction of the sofa.
“I’ll bribe George,” Kirsten added, “for he was present when Edward issued his challenge. Men never tell us the parts that matter, and Della says she saw George in a compromising situation with a certain comely widow.”
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