Wednesday arrived, a hot, blustery day. As night came on, the wind picked up: the Palace windows rattled in their frames, making the curtains billow. Katie prepared for the assignation in the dead of night. Passing Grace’s room, she found her standing beside her wardrobe, trying to get dressed. ‘Do you want to die as well?’ Katie exclaimed. ‘You can’t possibly come.’
‘I cannot let James kill himself over my precious reputation,’ Grace gasped, flinging a dress over her head. ‘You have been a tremendous help to me, and I am grateful. But I am several years your senior. I know what I am doing.’
Katie looked at Grace. Her hair was tangled in the collar of her dress and she was struggling to get it on. ‘What would Alice do?’ Katie wondered. ‘She has such tact. She’d know how to talk to Grace.’ Katie gently detached Grace’s hair from the dress, and sat her down on the edge of the bed.
‘It must be hard for you,’ Katie said. ‘Both Jack and James are in danger. But if you come tonight, will you really make it any better? Little Riordan needs you here. And you know James. He’s going to fight this duel. You can’t change his mind. If you are there, he will be even more worried, and distracted. Really, do you think it’s a good idea to see Lord Twisted again? If I had a choice, I’d skip that one.’
Reluctantly Grace went back to bed. After weeks of decreasing her laudanum, Katie gave her a double dose. She didn’t want Grace rising in the middle of the night to follow them.
At least dressing was less of a fuss than normal. Katie had got used to most of her new clothes – the chemise, the long drawers, the endless petticoats; everything except the corset. The corset was unbearable; she couldn’t eat properly, couldn’t run, or bend; she could barely walk without getting a horrible stitch in her side. And despite the agony of the corset, her waist, by Victorian standards, was still huge.
So it was with relief that she put on a flannel vest and shorts, a white shirt, cravat and long trousers. She did struggle with the wing collar of her stiff white shirt and made a mess of knotting her cravat, but she actually quite liked the trousers with the braid down the side. The men’s black kid boots were comfortable, and a perfect fit on her big feet. Katie bundled her bushy black hair on top of her head, and shoved a black silk top hat over it. She could imagine Mimi wearing the long black coat she put over everything; but with a sequined body stocking and fishnets of course. Looking in the mirror, she found herself quite dashing. ‘Next time I come back, it’s going to be as a boy,’ she said. She always talked to herself when she was nervous, and the impending duel had her on edge.
It was easier to get out of the Palace than she had imagined. As the Royal Family was away, the Palace was functioning with a skeleton staff. There were no soldiers in the guard rooms; the nurseries were not under lock and key. At one time she had hidden all over the Palace – there’d been a lacquered Chinese chest and a large picnic basket and she’d tucked herself into corners and thrown herself under beds. But now Katie simply made her way downstairs, through the upper servants’ passage, and out of a back door into the bright moonlight. James was waiting outside for her. His face had been quite pale, but flushed with anger and embarrassment when he saw her.
He held tight to his case of pistols, but thrust a bulky leather bag into her hands.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘You look ridiculous,’ he replied.
‘I didn’t ask how I look. I asked what’s in the bag.’
‘It’s my medical kit,’ James said. ‘If anything happens, please try to use it wisely.’
Katie remembered the pamphlet under her bed at home in New York. Tourniquets and Their Uses. Was she really going to use a tourniquet now, tonight? Silently they trudged out of the Palace courtyard, through the wide, cobbled entrance and the broad stone gates, their long black overcoats flapping in the wind.
‘Aren’t you going to get your horse?’ Katie asked, clutching her top hat against the weather.
James snorted. ‘I’m not going to ride all the way to Hampstead with you gasping and jabbering behind me. We’ll take a hansom cab.’
Katie thought it seemed strange, even prosaic, to take a taxi to a duel. But it also seemed very James. He was scared, and he was trying to make it all as normal as possible.
‘I love cabs,’ she told James. ‘We have yellow ones in New York; millions of them in the streets, motorized ones.’ Usually James would have jumped at the chance to discuss twenty-first-century engineering but now he was silent. Katie continued. ‘The taxi drivers are from all over the world. They never know where anything is, ever, but if you . . . ’
‘You are babbling.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, please try to stop. I need to find a cab.’
They found one halfway down the Mall. Not a hansom cab, but a big, lumbering, four-wheeled growler. The driver balked at the destination, so far from the centre of London, but James agreed to pay double, with a 10s deposit. They bumped along, due north, towards Hampstead Heath. The silence inside the cab was thick and deadening; the weather outside angry and insistent. James stared out of the window, trying to memorize the gaslights in the streets, the straggling pedestrians bent double by the wind, the stars in the sky and the moon.
Finally Katie couldn’t take it any longer. ‘You can’t win,’ she cried. ‘You’re going to get shot, maybe even killed. This must be some really stupid boy thing. Do you want to die?’
James didn’t shout or sulk. He was silent for a moment and then turned to her.
‘I never really know if you are real,’ he said. ‘You come through time, or so you say, and then you’re gone. I can only question the phenomenon that brings you to us. But I do know you are a friend, a true friend.’
Katie looked at James. He’d never spoken so openly or honestly to her. He seemed much older tonight, but still far too young to take part in a duel against a notorious rake. He meant a great deal to her and, she knew, even more to Princess Alice. And then there was Grace, unable to protect the brother she loved so much . . . and little Riordan, already without a mother. Katie had to make sure James did not die.
‘You are my friend, James,’ she said, ‘If I had a brother, I’d want him to be just like you. And I’d want him to live a long, healthy, happy kind of life. You’re, like, the least romantic person I know, James, and you don’t believe in this overwrought kind of thing. I mean, a duel! Jesus. Please, can’t we just stop this now?’ James shook his head.
‘I’ve seen the way Lord Twisted looks at my sister. It’s not healthy and it’s not right. I have spoken to my father about it, and he will not act. Indeed, for some vain and worldly reason, he seems to desire the connection. Someone must protect Grace. Jack has gone off to war and Riordan is still so little. It has to be me.’
She leaned forward and took James’s hand. For once he didn’t recoil. ‘I’ve been reading up on duels,’ she said. ‘A second can take the place of a participant if the participant is incapacitated. Couldn’t I take your place? I mean, who knows if I can even be killed, because I’m not in my own time, and . . .’ The intimacy between them was shattered.
James flung himself to the opposite side of the cab. ‘Do you think for one moment I would let a girl stand in for me? That I would place you at risk, gamble on your immortality? Do you think that I am a coward? That I would hide behind a girl’s skirts?’
Katie held her nerve. ‘I don’t see us as boy and girl,’ she told him. ‘At least I try not to. I see us as friends, really good friends. And I see us, as, like, equal. I mean, I’m not even wearing a skirt. I’m offering to do what one best friend would do for another. You’ve risked your life for me. You have done that before. And just because of the way you view girls, you won’t let me do the same for you.’
The horses slowed as they ploughed up a steep incline. They were nearing Hampstead. James knew there was no point being angry with Katie. She had been a loyal friend to him. She was sitting in a musty old growler in the middle of the night.
She was offering to risk her life for his. He couldn’t accept it, of course. But he could at least be polite about it. He tried to shake off the attitudes of his own time, to see her the way she saw him. ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I know you only wish to help. The best thing you can do now is to familiarize yourself with the contents of my medical kit.’
The cab came to a halt at the top of Prospect Hill. The driver had observed the pistol case, the medical kit and the dark concealing clothes. He knew what he had in his cab; a young duellist and his second – two foolish boys out to defend their honour. ‘I reckon you’re looking for South Wood,’ he remarked. ‘Just pass through them oaks. From there you can skirt across the grounds of Kenwood House – don’t be worrying about the Earl, he’s in Scotland. The meadows are on the one side, the South Woods are on the other. Head southeast and you’ll be finding the duelling grounds. If you pay another 10s in advance I’ll wait. You might be needing me to carry a message, or fetch a doctor.’
Katie shivered, but James was steady. ‘I thank you,’ he said and gave the driver twice what he’d asked. ‘If you would wait; we will be several hours.’ The driver weighed up the coins in his hand and squinted down at James. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘You are a young ’un for such doings. I wouldna want my own son out on the heath t’night.’
The wild night wreaked havoc on the heath. The ancient oaks creaked and groaned as Katie and James passed underneath. The tall grasses in the meadow whipped and stung their legs. Katie’s hat went flying through the air. She caught it, and jammed it down tighter on her head. In the distance lay the stately manor, Kenwood House. The driver had been right; the house was in darkness, but the white stone glowed, stark and ghostly in the moonlight. In front of them was the dense mass of the South Woods.
The trees, thick with foliage, threw their branches across the sky, crossing and re-crossing the moon. ‘Maybe Lord Twisted won’t show,’ Katie shouted through the wind. ‘Maybe he’ll get lost.’ The woods offered a respite from the fierce squalls. Above them the branches rattled and shook in protest, but the woodland floor was dark and almost still. A whisper of a wind scattered the rotting leaves. The undergrowth rustled with small animals, the underside of a bat’s wing caught the glint of moonlight.
Just when they thought the woods would never end, they came abruptly to a clearing. The trees hemmed in the spot, giving it complete seclusion. ‘Do you think this is it? I mean, it’s really such a small space, maybe we should turn back.’ Katie said.
‘It’s not too small, it’s fifty paces, there’s room to spare,’ said a voice from behind a tree. Bernardo DuQuelle stepped forward, and waved his walking stick. ‘I’ve measured it myself.’
‘You’re just, like, so helpful, I can’t thank you enough,’ Katie said, her voice thick with sarcasm. DuQuelle, though, was immune to sarcasm, along with almost everything else.
James looked around the clearing. ‘Where is Lord Twisted?’ he asked. ‘I am ready to begin.’
Bernardo DuQuelle lifted his head, and sniffed the air around him. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I suggest we begin immediately. There’s something in the air tonight which I do not like at all.’
Lord Twisted emerged from the woods and handed his case of pistols to DuQuelle. He looked at James, a sneer screwing up his dandified face. ‘Let us make quick work of this,’ he said. ‘I have someone waiting for me, in a supper house in Haymarket. I would not wish them to grow cold.’
James stood stiff as a rod at his words. ‘You cannot open your mouth, but to be vile,’ he said to Lord Twisted. ‘I will never be more ready than I am now.’
‘Then you shall never be ready,’ Lord Twisted laughed; ‘for tonight I take aim. Who knows if you will see tomorrow?’
Bernardo DuQuelle stepped between them. ‘There is no need for insults,’ he said, ‘no need for threats. Do you not think the duel is enough? I am certain each contender will rise and greet the sun tomorrow; let us rethink that turn of phrase. Lord Twisted, you have agreed to a duel of the “first blood” – and both gentlemen shall shoot to disable, not to the death.’
Lord Twisted smiled, and adjusted his white cuff meticulously. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘as agreed. But with the winds so high, the light of the moon is fitful, unclear. I cannot vouch for my line of vision. What is meant to be a nick to the leg might become a shot through the heart.’
DuQuelle leaned forward and spoke low. A chance gust of wind carried his words to Katie. ‘Dr O’Reilly is much favoured by the Queen. What would she think if his son were to die at the hands of a courtier? My dear Lord Twisted, your sojourn to the Crimea might become an exile.’
Lord Twisted stopped smiling, and Bernardo DuQuelle stepped into the centre of the duelling grounds. ‘These are the rules,’ he announced. ‘At my count, both gentlemen shall turn, back-to-back and walk twenty paces to the end of the grounds. At twenty they will turn to face each other, and then fire.’
Katie bit her lip to stop from crying. DuQuelle just had to put an end to this. He couldn’t let James go on, like a lamb to slaughter.
‘Do you both agree?’ DuQuelle asked.
‘I agree,’ James said.
‘But of course,’ Lord Twisted replied. He looked almost bored.
DuQuelle sniffed the air again, and scanned the dark woods behind him.
‘One last thing,’ he said. ‘James O’Reilly, as the challenged, will fire first.’
Lord Twisted was suddenly paying attention. ‘We fire together,’ he said, ‘at the drop of your handkerchief.’
Bernardo DuQuelle shook his head. He was smiling ever so slightly. ‘You are familiar with the Code Duello – the first shot is awarded to the challenged? James O’Reilly will fire first.’
Lord Twisted’s attention drifted again. ‘Fine,’ he replied, ‘I have little to worry about, a boy like this, at forty paces . . .’
James ignored the insult. He was concentrating with all his might on the next few minutes. Bernardo DuQuelle began to count. ‘One, two, three, four . . .’ Katie could hear a twig breaking in the woods behind her, but she could not take her eyes off James. ‘Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.’ He looked even younger than his years, with the tall trees swaying above him. ‘Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.’ Katie was screaming inside her head. What if Lord Twisted did kill James? How could she ever face Alice, or Grace? DuQuelle caught her eye for a moment. What could his look mean? ‘Nineteen . . . twenty.’
Both James and Lord Twisted turned. Lord Twisted wasn’t even nervous. He looked half asleep. Slowly James raised his arm and pointed the pistol at Lord Twisted. Katie’s heart ached for him. His hand shook badly and his face was crumpled. He looked about eight years old. For a moment James hesitated, aiming for the upper leg, and then deciding on the shoulder. Then his face cleared and his hand grew steady. Looking Lord Twisted in the eye, he raised the pistol and shot. High. High over Lord Twisted’s head. ‘I will not injure him,’ he said. ‘It is against my principles.’
For one moment Katie’s heart sang with joy – of course he couldn’t do it. He was James the thinker, James the healer – not James the killer. She started to run towards him, but stopped as Lord Twisted’s voice rang out.
‘How dare you,’ he cried, now wide awake with fury. ‘How dare you choose to shoot above my head? As if I were some novice, some green young bounder who must be protected from his own mishaps.’
James stood his ground. He looked taller now, and older. ‘I will live by my principles,’ he said.
‘Your principles? Don’t you know, to shoot above my head, to delope – is the gravest insult? Well, if you live by your principles you shall also die by them.’
Katie gasped as she remembered the rules. James had taken his shot, and now it was Lord Twisted’s turn to fire. The man was very, very angry. She turned to Bernardo DuQuelle. ‘Please,’ she cried, ‘you have got to do something. Look at Lord Twisted. He’s going to kill James. You have got to stop this.’
Bernardo DuQ
uelle did not reply. He stood stock still, unblinking, staring at something Katie could not see. Perhaps it was the moonlight, but he appeared bloodless as a statue. She ran over and shook him by the shoulder. No, he was flesh and blood, or at least as much as Bernardo DuQuelle could be. Why then, would he not speak?
‘Do something!’ she repeated.
Lord Twisted now raised his arm. His pomaded hair was on end, the curls whipped by the wind; he was smiling, laughing, but with no joy, no mirth. With casual expertise he cocked his pistol. He was aiming directly at James – at his heart. Bernardo DuQuelle continued to stare, trancelike, into the dark woods.
Katie followed his gaze, squinting. Then she saw it: a hooded figure, coming towards them, low to the ground, its cloak sweeping the leaves from its path. It was a figure she recognized, and dreaded. ‘Belzen!’ she cried.
This seemed to rouse DuQuelle. Springing forward, he flung himself between the two duellists, directly into the line of fire. Lord Twisted could not stop himself. His shot rang out, and Bernardo DuQuelle staggered backwards, falling to the ground.
‘Run, you fools!’ DuQuelle cried. ‘There’s something far worse than a duel in the woods tonight – if you value your life, run!’
Lord Twisted needed no further invitation. He knew he’d bungled and shot DuQuelle. To kill James was one thing, but to kill Prince Albert’s Private Secretary was another. He turned tail and fled.
DuQuelle dragged himself onto his knees. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Run!’ The duelling ground had given them some shelter from the wind, but now it rose up with a roar. The trees around them bent double. Dark clouds scudded across the moon. The ground flickered with light and dark. Around them, large branches began to fall.
‘We can’t leave you here,’ Katie yelled into the storm. ‘You’ve been shot. You need help.’ James shook himself, and suddenly seemed to realize what was going on. He ran forward and, taking DuQuelle’s arm, hooked it over his neck. Katie understood, and did the same. They held DuQuelle between them.
The Queen at War Page 12
