by Ingrid Hahn
But every time he thought of how Sir Domnall had had Eliza pushed up against a wall, he thirsted for blood all over again.
“Don’t worry.” Corbeau, Jeremy’s second, came from behind the carriage to clap him once on the back. “Nobody thinks you’ve done the wrong thing.”
The words almost didn’t suit the man. But Corbeau continued. “Had any man threatened my wife, I’d have done the same. Without the least hesitation.”
If only Corbeau knew. It wasn’t a mere bodily threat. Jeremy was willing to accept the scandal of the duel if it meant stopping the greater scandal of what Sir Domnall had done to his wife. It wasn’t fair, but Society would scorn her for what had happened, and the Landons would suffer for it.
No small part of him hated each and every person in all of England for their righteous hypocrisy. He couldn’t suffer those fools ever again. What a man was forgiven would ruin a woman forever. It was hateful, that set of contrasting principles. But that was the world they lived in. And if a duel meant protecting his family, a duel it would be.
Trying to keep in check the fiery ball of rage threatening to consume him, Jeremy squinted at a man with curly golden hair who had come with Corbeau. “I’m sorry. We’ve met but…who are you again?”
“Sir Harold Alcott.”
“Ah. Yes. The ball. Forgive me, but what are you doing here? I could have sworn you didn’t like me.”
“I don’t. And I’m not here for you. I’m here because I’m a friend of your wife.”
A carriage approached, coming at some speed. Before it was fully stopped, Eliza was tumbling down and running toward him. The hem of her gray skirts darkened with the damp from the ground.
Jeremy stiffened. “You weren’t supposed to know. How did you find out?”
“Margaret told me.”
For a resentful moment, he wished he’d insisted Eliza find herself a new maid. But the feeling quickly deflated. Vengeful anger had brought him here this morning. If he was to die, he didn’t want to leave this world with the burdens of resentment, anger, or regret on his soul.
But he did have regret. Regret that he’d put living aside and focused so hard on the estate. Regret that he hadn’t forgiven Eliza sooner, forgotten what she’d done, and rejoiced in their being together. Life wasn’t about one’s reputation.
If only he’d never put down his violin. If only he’d set aside his absurd dislike of London sooner and attended the Season, if only in the name of making friends. If only he’d never turned his back on his cousins’ lives.
The laments he didn’t want to carry to his grave weren’t making the situation any easier. “You shouldn’t be here. This is no place for a lady.”
She ignored him. And good on her. There was that power of spirit he’d first admired in those secret letters she’d sent him. “Don’t do this, Jeremy, please. It’s not worth it.”
Corbeau sidled away and went to help the other coachman with the horses.
“I have to.” Jeremy was aware of Sir Harold’s lingering stare and of the sadness in his eyes before the man moved to follow Corbeau.
“Don’t take this risk. I don’t want to be widowed.”
“I don’t plan on leaving you a widow.” His words were boosted with no small measure of bravado. He was all too aware of the stark reality of the situation. Death could be hovering behind him even as they spoke.
“Please. Call this off. I beg of you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? For honor’s sake?”
Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair. His pulse beat steady and hard. “He hurt you.”
“I’ve told you, it’s none of your concern. What happened was years ago. Long before you.”
“He deserves to suffer.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She stepped back from him, dark eyes huge in her fair face. Her lips were parted. A wisp of hair played in an errant breeze. “Don’t do this. Run him out of London if you want—nobody will be sorry to see the back of him, I’m certain. But don’t fight this duel. I’m not a damsel in distress, he’s not a dragon, and you are not St. George.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“Forget honor. Forget Sir Domnall. Forget any of this.”
“I can’t.”
Eliza tugged on Jeremy’s arm. “What will become of me if you’re dead?”
That stopped him cold.
A horse approached at a fast clip, the sound of the hoofbeats preceding the appearance of the rider. But instead of Sir Domnall, Arthur appeared from the mists. He saw Jeremy, and his mouth split into a grin. “I didn’t believe it when I heard. My upstanding brother who can do no wrong”—he spoke mockingly—“would never participate in a duel. Think of the scandal.”
Jeremy waited for the annoyance to rise, but it didn’t come. There were too many other emotions taking precedence in his breast. He had no room, no time for anything else. Still, it wasn’t precisely a happy reunion. “What are you doing here?”
His brother swung down from the horse. “I had to see for myself, of course.”
“Of course.”
“That and Mother would have my hide if I weren’t here in case of injury or death to her favorite son.” He gave a terse smile.
“If you think that, you’re more a fool than I ever believed you to be.” Jeremy grabbed Arthur by the arm and made his brother face him. “When this is over, things are going to be different. I don’t know what happened to make us enemies, but that’s not how I want things to be—not anymore. We’re family. We must be loyal to one another.”
The thoughts brought a powerful resurgence of determination pounding through Jeremy’s veins—determination to finish Sir Domnall once and for all. To fight for Eliza so she didn’t have to fight alone.
All his brother did was give a careless shrug and turn on his heel, walking away.
Another carriage approached. Jeremy tensed. When the conveyance stopped, Sir Domnall stepped down. The wind caught, blowing the longish ends of his sandy hair.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t pure for you.” Eliza’s voice wavered. She spoke softly. For his ears only. Her eyes fell shut, and a heavy tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry, please believe me, I’m so desperately sorry. But this won’t change anything.”
Not believing what he was hearing, Jeremy stared at his wife. “You don’t really believe I think any less of you because you weren’t a virgin, do you?”
“Of course you must.”
Jeremy gave Sir Domnall a hard look. This was his fault. And she didn’t want him to rip this rotten blackguard limb from godforsaken limb?
But before Jeremy could call the whole thing off, the other man cast Eliza a look of pure scorn and sneered. “I broke her in well, didn’t I, my lord? I hope you enjoyed her as I did.”
Eliza’s fingers dug into Jeremy’s arm as she struggled to keep him in her grip. “Don’t give in to him. He’s trying to bait you.”
Sir Domnall stepped close, his eyes spitting daggers, and spoke in a low voice. “All this trouble over a worthless whore. Tell me, Lady Eliza—pardon me, Lady Bennington now, isn’t it? How many others have you spread your legs for as easily as you did for me?”
Jeremy’s control turned to ash. That despicable apology his wife had given him—Sir Domnall was the one responsible for making her feel she was less worthy. The horrid man had all but outright forced her, and she was the one who apologized.
It wasn’t right. The world would never be a better place until men like Sir Domnall could no longer hurt people in pursuit of their own godless pleasures.
Jeremy wrenched from his wife’s grasp. His veins burned with blood heated to a steaming boil. “If you live to see the sunset tonight, Domnall Gow, you worthless, blue-deviled swine, it won’t be because I didn’t try.”
Sir Domnall offered a mockingly flourished bow.
The pistols were checked. The paces called. Jeremy stood alone in the field staring into a bleak morning, the sound of his breathing unnat
urally loud to his ear. The firearm was heavy and cold in his hand.
It was like he’d stepped from his own body and watched the proceedings from a distance. He was disassociated from everything.
Somehow, he knew to turn. His fingers squeezed. There was a click. A burst of smoke. A crack and a jolt. And then an acrid scent wiped away all trace of the air’s wet morning sweetness.
Sound came as though he were submerged underwater. Shouting.
And a burst of pain.
Then…slowly, as if falling from a great height, he was swallowed into a black abyss.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Eliza wiped perspiration off her brow and dipped the rag into the porcelain basin. Red permeated the clear water, contrasting with the stark white of the vessel.
Blood. Jeremy’s blood.
She sat on a stool next to the sofa where he’d insisted upon being placed after refusing his bed. “Only invalids take to their beds,” he’d bitten out when they’d brought him home, jaw clenched in pain he refused to acknowledge.
They were alone in the upstairs drawing room, but the house was far from empty. Lord Corbeau and Sir Harold had returned with them, trying—without success—to be helpful. It wasn’t that either was an incompetent man, but it was an unusual situation. Nobody quite knew what to do—except on one score. Lord Corbeau was a force in Parliament. Very few men risked being on his bad side. For that, he promised to see that the powers of the land overlooked the fact that Jeremy had so publicly flouted the law. Corbeau didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep, so Eliza was free from worry.
Jeremy’s brother had come with them, too, though his motivations were less clear. He didn’t seem to want to help, although he appeared uncharacteristically gray faced and thin lipped. It hadn’t taken long before Grace and Hetty had arrived—and thank heaven for them. Eliza had sent them a pleading look. They’d exchanged a glance and herded the men out of the room. The whole lot of them were now in the breakfast room.
The doctor had been and gone, leaving instructions to keep the wound clean and the patient fed, quiet, and dosed liberally with laudanum as required.
She brought the warm cloth to the injury. Jeremy hissed as she gently pressed it against him. The bullet had grazed him, tearing away a notch in his upper arm. Stitches, darkened to black and hardened by blood, stood in a neat line on the swollen area.
Sir Domnall hadn’t been so lucky, taking a bullet in his thigh. They’d received word that it had missed the artery and hadn’t shattered the bone. So long as his wound didn’t fester, he’d live.
Eliza wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She couldn’t hope for death. Not even for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve it, but such a desire would mar her soul. And that she couldn’t permit. The man had cost her too much to allow him that, too. But would it be so terrible to wish he’d been incapacitated? Or horribly disfigured. That would have done, too.
Jeremy winced.
“If you’re in pain—”
“No. No laudanum. I hate that stuff.” He grimaced. “I won’t be without my reason.”
“Then what made you fight that duel?”
“What?”
She bent her head and spoke softly. “It wasn’t for me.”
“What are you talking about?” His brow furled. “Of course it was for you. How could you think anything else?”
“Never mind.” As much as she’d thought about needing to have this conversation with Jeremy, it was too soon. The pain was too acute. When she’d seen the rage take hold of him…seen him lift his weapon and point it at Sir Domnall…it had crushed her heart. “Now’s not the time for this discussion. You’re newly injured and—”
He stayed her hand and spoke between clenched teeth. “Now is the time. Tell me.”
Eliza withdrew her hand from his grip and rinsed the cloth in the basin again. She didn’t meet his eye and took a shaky breath. “You let your rage get the better of you.”
“That vile b—pig hurt you.”
“Yes.” The water in the porcelain was turning dark. “And it wasn’t your fight to fight.”
“You’re my wife.”
“And that means you make decisions for me? Besides…” Her voice turned soft. Her next words took a certain amount of courage, because they opened a tender vulnerability that Jeremy might or might not accept. If he didn’t, she didn’t know how she would stand it. “What use would your heart have been if you’d gotten it shot through?”
A dark shadow crossed his face. “Who said anything about hearts?”
Eliza went cold. Weight settled over her limbs as if she were made of lead. Of course, she’d been foolish. Who had said anything about hearts? She’d assumed something was growing between them.
“Forgive me for my mistake. I’d forgotten that you’d already told me quite some time ago in your letter that you don’t have one.”
“Eliza—”
About to be sick with the nauseating anguish of having been so wrong about what had been developing between them—nothing, apparently—she plowed onward. “You couldn’t have done anything more scandalous. Dueling is illegal—”
“You don’t think I know that?”
“You’re lucky I have Corbeau for a dear friend. In his eyes, a friend of mine is a friend of his. You’ll have to thank him later for the fact that you won’t be driven out of England. All you’ve worked for would have been left in the hands of others. It’s practically like you were ready to throw it all away.”
“That was the last thing I was doing. On the contrary—think what would have happened to your name and reputation had he begun boasting of his exploits.”
“That leads directly back to decisions again. Specifically, how do you have the right to make that decision for us? You didn’t consult me.”
“A man generally doesn’t before fighting a duel for his wife’s honor.” He grimaced and rolled his head away.
“Jeremy, I did not need your protection. I did not need vengeance, nor did I ask for it. I don’t want to live in the past any longer.”
“Then it’s a good thing one of us considered what the impact of the scandal would have been on the family had he began talking about his exploit.”
“Pardon me?” She froze. “On the family?”
He winced and shook his head a little, breathing deeply as if trying to block out the pain. “The scandal of what he did to you would have been far, far worse for the Landons than the scandal I’ll bear for having dueled.”
“Is that what this is about? The family name?” He said nothing. “I think you owe me an answer.”
“What do you want me to say? That I can let it all go? You have no idea what it means to have been born a Landon.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m beginning to have a pretty good idea of what it means to live inside the cage of a self-imposed prison.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Choice, Jeremy. I’m talking about choice. You have a choice about how you’re going to live, what you’re going to say, and the actions you’re going to take. What you don’t have a choice in is what people say about you.”
“What does that have to do with self-imposed prisons?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Because you don’t have to live this way. You’re living in fear and motivated by fear. All you’ve done since you inherited your title is live your life in the wake of a scandal that wasn’t your own.”
“And I very well don’t want to live in the wake of yet another scandal that wasn’t of my own making.”
They sat together in tense silence.
It was a long time before she could speak again. “I’ve never felt more alone than I do now.”
For some reason, she needed him to know.
“What are you talking about?” He scowled. “I’m right here.”
“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? You’re here, but that’s not enough for me. I’m not going to hide my feelings. Not anymore, and certainly not
with you. Whom would I be protecting? You? That’s not fair to me.”
“Those are dangerous words, my lady.”
“Good. I won’t shy away from them. And I won’t shy away from this, either. I deserve better than what you are willing to give me.”
…
Jeremy’s mind spun. What use would his heart be if he went and got it shot through?
She was right. He was being a stubborn ass trying to argue with her. He’d spent so many years working—all to the detriment of a life. A real life, with love and laughter, companionship and intimacy.
Moreover, she did deserve better. Better than him. Better than his paltry excuses designed to keep her at arm’s length. Designed to prevent himself from acknowledging the bond growing between them.
If he survived this, he would never choose work over living ever again. He would resume his violin and play every day. Take long walks in the gardens. Restore the orangery to its former glory. Make love to his wife in the afternoon.
Why had he written that stupid nonsense about his heart? Force of ludicrous habit? It was like he’d been trying to protect himself. And from what? Admitting that he’d made a mistake? Or was he trying to protect himself from something far more dangerous?
He covered his face with his hands and heard the airy swish of Eliza’s garments as she stood, the soft treads over thick carpet, the door to the drawing room opening. And the click of it shutting again.
“Eliza?” But, of course, no answer came.
At least not the one he wanted. As to his assertion whether or not he had a heart, that place in the center of his chest was proving him the world’s worst liar. If he hadn’t one, there would be no pain. Jeremy had no description for what he felt, except that being shot in the arm and stitched up afterward was nothing—nothing—if he lost Eliza forever.
What have I done?
Chapter Thirty-Four
A week later, Eliza was in Grace’s drawing room with Hetty. It was a gray day. Rain spattered the windows, and the sound of carriage wheels splashing through standing water could be heard from the streets. The same as every other day since she’d walked out of Jeremy’s house. She stabbed at her embroidery.
