by Mary Balogh
“I have always said so,” his grace agreed.
Kirby chuckled. “And there will be an extra charge to her first client,” he said. “It will be worth it, your grace. You will acquire considerable prestige in the eyes of your acquaintances as the first to bed the delectable Lilian Talbot in two years.”
“One always likes to bolster one’s prestige in a worthy cause,” Tresham said. “Miss Talbot is, ah, eager to return to work?”
“Work!” Kirby laughed heartily. “She calls it pleasure, your grace. She would start tonight if I would let her. But I wanted to give her to someone … ah, shall we say, special, the first time?”
“I do like to consider myself special,” the duke said. “Dear me, whatever is going on up ahead of us, I wonder?”
Up ahead of them, on the grass to one side of the path along which they drove, there was a considerable gathering of people. It was strange, really, as all were on foot and this particular part of the park, shaded by trees and hidden from much of the rest of it, was not one of the most frequented. As they drove closer it became clear that all the people were men. One of them, a little apart from the others and lounging at his ease against a tree trunk, his arms crossed over his chest, was in a shocking state of semi-undress. He wore a white shirt with tight leather riding breeches and boots, but if he had worn a waistcoat and coat and hat into the park, there certainly was no sign of them now.
“A fight?” Kirby suggested, his voice brightening with interest.
“If so, there seems to be only one participant,” Tresham said. “And dear me, it appears to be my brother.” He slowed the pace of his horses until they came to a halt altogether beside the relaxed figure of Lord Ferdinand Dudley.
“Ah,” he said with a grin, “just the man I want to see.”
“Me?” Kirby asked, pointing to his own chest when it became obvious that Lord Ferdinand’s gaze was not directed at his brother. He eyed the gathered throng, all of whom had fallen silent. “You wished to see me, my lord?”
“You are Lilian Talbot’s manager, are you not?” Ferdinand asked him.
Daniel Kirby smiled jovially, if a little self-consciously. “If that is what you wish to see me about,” he said, “you are going to have to stand in line behind his grace, your brother, my lord.”
“Let me understand you,” Ferdinand said. “You manage Lilian Talbot, whose real name is Viola Thornhill.”
“I like to grant her some privacy, my lord, by keeping mum about that second name,” Kirby said.
“Natural daughter of the late Earl of Bamber,” Ferdinand added.
There was a murmuring from the spectators, to whom that detail appeared to come as news. For the first time, Kirby looked uneasy.
“Bamber.” Ferdinand had raised his voice. “Is this true? Lilian Talbot is really Miss Viola Thornhill, your father’s natural daughter?”
“He acknowledged her as such,” the Earl of Bamber agreed from close by.
“I did not—” Kirby began.
“Miss Thornhill lived quietly and respectably with her mother and half-brother and -sisters at her uncle’s inn until you bought up the debts of Clarence Wilding, her late stepfather?” Ferdinand asked.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Kirby said, “but—”
He was about to clamber down from his seat, but the duke set four gloved fingertips lightly on his arm, and he changed his mind.
“You offered her the chance of saving her family from debtors’ prison?” Ferdinand asked.
“Here, here,” Kirby said indignantly, “I had to recover that money somehow. It was a large sum.”
“And so you created Lilian Talbot,” Ferdinand said, “and put her to work and took her earnings. For four years. They must have been astronomical debts.”
“They were,” the other man said indignantly. “And I did not take more than a small fraction of her earnings. She lived in the lap of luxury. And she enjoyed what she did. There are men here who can vouch for the fact.”
“Shame!” several of the gentlemen present murmured. But Ferdinand held up a staying hand.
“Miss Thornhill must have been disappointed, then,” he said, “when Bamber, her father, discovered the truth, paid off all the debts, received a written receipt to that effect from you, Kirby, and gave her Pinewood Manor in Somersetshire, where she could live out her life in a manner suited to her birth.”
“There was no such receipt,” Kirby said. “And if she says so—”
But Ferdinand had held up his hand again.
“It would be wise not to perjure yourself,” he said. “The paper has been found. Both Bamber and I have seen it—and Tresham too. But when I won Pinewood from Bamber, you assumed that the late earl had played her false, did you not, and that the receipt had been discarded or lost. A foolish assumption. Bamber has discovered that his father did indeed change his will. Miss Thornhill is mistress of Pinewood.”
There was a smattering of applause from behind him.
“You discovered more debts when you believed her to be destitute,” Ferdinand said. “You have been attempting to force her return to prostitution, Kirby.”
The murmur behind him was louder and uglier now.
“I have not—”
“Tresham?” Ferdinand asked coolly.
“I was to have her within the week,” the duke said. “At something over and above her usual high fee, since apparently it would add to my prestige and make me appear, ah, special to be her first client after two years.”
Ferdinand’s jaw tightened.
“I was about to decline when I spotted this interesting gathering,” Tresham continued. “The duchess, it is to be understood, would carve out my liver without bothering to kill me first.”
There was a burst of laughter from the spectators. But Ferdinand did not join in. He was gazing at a clearly nervous Daniel Kirby, his eyes very black, his jaw hard, his mouth a thin line.
“You have terrorized and ruined a gently born lady, Kirby,” he said, “whose only fault has been love of her family and a willingness to sacrifice her honor and her very self for their freedom and happiness. You are looking at her champion, sir.”
“Look,” Daniel Kirby said, his eyes darting about as if to search out a friendly face or an escape route, “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Quite frankly,” Ferdinand said, “I do not care what you want, Kirby. It is trouble you have found this morning—six years too late for Miss Thornhill. Get down from there. You are going to be punished.”
“Your grace.” Kirby turned frightened eyes on Tresham. “I must call upon you to protect me. I came with you in good faith to arrange an assignation.”
“And an assignation has been arranged,” the duke said, vaulting down from his seat and tossing the ribbons to his groom, who had been up behind the curricle. “This is it. Get down from there or I will come around and help you down. You will be given five minutes to strip to the waist and prepare to defend yourself. No, don’t look so alarmed. We are not all about to pounce upon you like a pack of wolves. The idea has considerable appeal, it is true, but most of us gentlemen are constrained by a damnable sense of honor, you see. All the pleasure of the encounter falls to Lord Ferdinand Dudley, who has appointed himself Miss Thornhill’s champion.”
There was loud jeering from the spectators while Daniel Kirby sat where he was. There was laughter and then cheers as the Duke of Tresham stalked around his curricle and Kirby scrambled hastily down. Ferdinand pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the grass. Kirby cast one horrified glance at his hard torso and rippling muscles and looked away again. Even though no one touched him, he was being herded onto the grass by the sheer menace of a few dozen gentlemen moving purposefully to form a ring about an ominously empty area of lawn.
“Strip down,” Ferdinand said tersely, “or I’ll do it for you, Kirby, and I’ll not stop at your waist. It will be a fair fight. If you can fell me, you are free to go. No one here will stop you. I am
not going to kill you, but I am going to thrash you within an inch of your life—with my bare hands. If you imagine that going down will save you, you are mistaken. It will not. You will be unconscious by the time I have finished with you. So I will say the rest of what I have to say now. After you have recovered from your beating well enough to travel—it may take a week or two—you are to travel until there is an ocean between you and me. That ocean will remain between us for the rest of your life. If I ever hear of your returning, I will hunt you down and punish you all over again—to within half an inch of your life. I will not ask if you understand me. You are a weasel, but you are obviously intelligent too—intelligent enough to choose a young, vulnerable, loving girl as your victim. This is going to be for her—to restore her honor in the sight of these witnesses. Get that shirt off.”
A moment later, Daniel Kirby, small, pudgy, and pasty-skinned, stood shivering within the hostile, jeering ring of spectators. He was visibly shaking as Ferdinand strode toward him. He fell to his knees and clasped his hands together.
“I am not a fighter. I am a peaceable man,” he said. “Just let me go. I’ll be gone from London before the day is out. You’ll never see me again. I’ll never trouble you again. Just don’t hit me. Arrgghh!”
Ferdinand had reached out and grasped Kirby’s nose between the middle and forefinger of one hand. He twisted and raised his arm until Kirby was standing on his toes before him, his hands flailing helplessly, his mouth wide open to gasp in air. There was a roar of mirth from the spectators.
“For God’s sake, man,” Ferdinand said in the utmost disgust, “stay on your feet and throw at least one punch. Show some self-respect.”
He released his hold and for a moment stood before the other man, within arm’s length, his own arms at his side, unprotected. But Kirby merely covered his injured nose with both hands.
“I am a peaceable man,” he wailed.
And so it was punishment pure and simple. And coldly and scientifically meted out. It would have been easy to render him unconscious with a few powerful blows. And it would have been easy to pity a man whose physical stature and condition gave him no chance whatsoever of winning the fight. But Ferdinand did not allow himself either the luxury of fury or the weakness of pity.
This was not for himself or for the spectators. This was not sport.
This was for Viola.
He had said he was her champion. He would avenge her, then, in the only way he could, inadequate as it was—with his physical strength.
She was his lady, and this was for her.
The spectators had grown strangely quiet and Ferdinand’s knuckles on both hands were red and raw by the time he judged Daniel Kirby to be within the proverbial inch of his life. Only then did he draw back his right fist and drive it up beneath the man’s chin with enough force to send him into oblivion.
He stood looking down at the plump, unconscious body, his hands still balled into fists at his sides, his mind bleak with sorrow and near-despair as the men around him, his friends and acquaintances, his peers, clapped slowly.
“If anyone,” he said without looking up—there was instant silence so that everyone could hear what he had to say—“has any doubt in his mind that Miss Viola Thornhill is a lady deserving of the deepest honor and respect and admiration, let him speak now.”
No one spoke until Tresham broke the silence.
“My duchess will be sending out invitations within a day or two to a reception at Dudley House,” he said. “It is our hope that the guest of honor will be Miss Thornhill of Pinewood Manor in Somersetshire, natural daughter of the late Earl of Bamber. She is a lady we wish to have the pleasure of presenting to society.”
“And it is my hope,” the Earl of Bamber said unexpectedly, “that she will arrive at Dudley House under my escort, Tresham. M’half-sister, you know.”
Ferdinand turned and walked away to where he had left his clothes in the keeping of his friend John Leavering. He dressed in silence. Although there was now an excited buzz from those who had watched the punishment, no one approached him. His black mood, so uncharacteristic of him, was too obvious to them all. But his brother clasped his shoulder as he pulled on his waistcoat.
“I am prouder of you today than I have ever been before, Ferdinand,” he said softly. “And I have always been proud of you.”
“I wish I could have killed the bastard,” Ferdinand said, pushing his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Perhaps I would feel better if I had killed him.”
“You have done much better than that,” his brother told him. “You have restored life to someone deserving of it, Ferdinand. There is not a man here who would not gladly kneel to kiss the hem of Viola Thornhill’s garments. You have shown her as a lady who sacrificed all for love.”
“I have done damn all,” Ferdinand said, gazing at his raw knuckles. “She suffered for four years, Tresham. And again in the last few weeks.”
“You will have to spend a lifetime soothing the pain of those four years, then,” Tresham said. “Shall I come with you to the White Horse?”
Ferdinand shook his head.
His brother squeezed his shoulder hard and comfortingly once more before turning away.
24
HE GUARD HAD ALREADY BLOWN ONE LONG blast on his horn—the final warning for any laggards among the passengers to scramble on board the stagecoach before it pulled out of the inn yard and began its journey west. But only one outside passenger had yet to board. The guard slammed the door on the inside passengers and moved to take his place at the rear of the coach.
Mrs. Wilding stepped back, a handkerchief pressed to her lips. Maria clung to her free arm. Claire, smiling bravely, raised one hand in farewell. Viola, seated beside the window, smiled back. Farewells were so hard. She had tried to persuade them not to come with her and Hannah from the White Horse Inn, but they had insisted.
She would see them all again, of course, perhaps soon. Her mother had declared adamantly that her home was with her brother, that it was with him she would stay. But she had agreed to come to Pinewood for a visit later in the year. Maria and Claire could stay longer if they wished, she had said. Maybe Ben would wish to spend a part of his summer holiday there.
But the moment of parting was still hard.
She was leaving London behind forever. She would never see him again. He had sent her those precious papers this morning, but he had not seen fit to bring them in person. And in the accompanying note he had signed himself merely F. Dudley.
She had heard nothing from the Duke of Tresham. It did not matter. If he had already paid Daniel Kirby, then she would repay the loan.
She was going home, she reminded herself as the guard blew another deafening blast on his yard of tin as a warning to anyone on the street outside to make way. She had been happy there and would be happy again. Soon the memories would begin to recede, and she would start to heal once more. All she needed was time and patience.
Ah, but the memories were fresh and raw now.
Why had he not come? She had not wanted him to, but why had he not? Why had he sent the papers with a servant?
Ferdinand.
The coach lurched into motion and the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves drowned out all other sounds. Mama was crying. So was Maria. But they were all smiling too and waving. Viola smiled determinedly and raised her hand. Once the coach had turned onto the street and she could not see them anymore, she would feel better.
But just when she expected it to begin its turn, it jerked to a sudden halt and there was a great deal of shouting and general commotion from the direction of the street.
“Lord love us,” Hannah said from beside Viola, “what now?”
The man opposite them, who was facing the horses, pressed the side of his head against the glass and peered forward.
“There be horses and a carriage of some sort drawn across the entrance,” he announced to his fellow passengers. “He’ll be in trouble, that driver will. Be he deaf?”
And then the sounds of merry laughter and another voice dominated all others.
“Come, now,” the voice called gaily, “you can do better than that, my fine fellow. You have not yet turned the air blue. I have business with one of your passengers.”
Viola scarcely had time to feel shock before the carriage door was wrenched open.
“In the nick of time,” Lord Ferdinand Dudley said, peering inside and then reaching up a gloved hand to her. “Come, Viola.”
A moment ago her heart had felt as if it were breaking in two because she would never see him again. Now she was furiously angry. How dare he!
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you know—”
“I went to the White Horse Inn first.” He grinned. “I have just put terror into half of London by springing my horses through its streets. Come down.”
She clasped her hands firmly in her lap and glared at him. “I am going home,” she said. “You are holding up the coach and making a spectacle of us both. Please shut the door, my lord.”
If the coachman had not turned the air blue before, he must surely be doing it now. Other men were shouting indignantly too. Only the inside passengers remained quiet, their attention focused on the interesting scene before them.
“Don’t go,” he said. “Not yet. We need to talk.”
Viola shook her head while one of the female passengers informed the others in an awed whisper that the gentleman was a lord.
“There is nothing more to say,” Viola said. “Please go away. Everyone is terribly angry.”
“Let them be,” he said. “Come down and talk to me.”
