"All… the Brandens," said Damon faintly, "have a good seat. It'll come to me, Luke."
"But—"
"Lift me, dammit!" he roared. "Lift me!"
At once, those mighty arms closed around him. He shut his eyes tight, but the smell wafted to him. Hands were thrusting his feet into the stirrups. Fighting a sick weakness, he bowed forward.
"For God's sake!" Whitthurst"' pleaded. "You cannot ride to Tottenbury with your eyes shut!"
"Oh, hell!" groaned Clay. "Catch him, Luke!"
But Damon got a grip on the pommel and somehow dragged his failing body upright. He could feel sweat pouring down his face; horror was rushing over him in debilitating waves, but he slapped the reins feebly against the glossy neck and croaked, "Come… on!"
The bay trembled and ignored him.
Clay, his face grim, reached over and gave Rajah a swat on the rump. The bay lunged forward. Whitthurst shuddered and awaited the inevitable.
Damon was flung back. He gave a gasp and wrenched himself forward. The animal's mane slammed against his bruised face, awakening a sense of deja vu as brief as it was terrifying. He twisted his shaking hands in that coarse hair and hung on somehow, the smell gagging him. His brain reeling with the nightmarish need to escape, he dug in his heels.
Whitthurst, watching that indomitable effort, gave a slow smile.
Clay said softly, "By God! Old Hookey never fought a battle more valiantly!"
Ariel's face was twisted with anxiety. "Look at him, milord! He'll break his neck surely. Already, his boot fell iff!"
Whitthurst said gravely, "All the Brandens have a good seat."
Ariel groaned.
By half past five the rain was being swept into flurries by the gusting wind. A sullen daylight touched the hill with grey fingers, and the crumbling ruins of Tottenbury Castle crept stealthily into view and crouched there, grim and forbidding.
A luxurious carriage already waited beneath the dripping trees, lamps burning brightly. Inside, the Duke of Vaille trimmed his fingernails with a steady hand. Seated opposite him in the chill interior, Geoffrey, the Earl of Harland, watched his friend, his smoky blue-grey eyes, unusually beautiful for a man, now shadowed with worry. "Philip," he murmured, "is there nothing I can say to dissuade you?"
Without looking up, the Duke replied, "Nothing."
Harland leaned forward persistently. "But he is your cousin!"
Vaille lifted his head, ice in his blue stare. "And Ninon was my loved wife."
"But—surely…after twenty years…?"
"Admittedly, a regrettable delay." The Duke unbuttoned his magnificent coat and pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket.
"And what," frowned Harland, "of poor, patient Charlotte?"
Vaille's fingers clamped convulsively over the timepiece. "Damn you, Geoff," he said unevenly. "To remind me of… of her… at this moment! Damn you!"
A low rumble of thunder delayed Harland's response, but he had no intention of neglecting the chink in Vaille's armour. "You love her, you blasted idiot!" he accused angrily. "Oh, save your breath! You may fool everyone else but not me! I've seen it in your eyes this year and more whenever you think she is not looking at you! You push her away because your nonsensical moral values say you are too old for her! Much she cares! If you die today—she will die an old maid! And not very long after you, I'll warrant!"
"Be done!" Vaille snarled, his face twisted. "Good gad, but you've a merciless tongue, Harland! Lucian has my sympathy!"
"We do not speak of my tongue—nor of my son! Must you add this folly to—"
"To my incredibly long list of follies?" Vaille's smile was bitter. "Yes! This has hung over all of us for too long. Now I've proof of Ridgley's treachery! He must be dealt with— and… if I do not… emerge victorious…" He shrugged. "As well, perhaps. Charlotte will—eventually—find someone of her own age."
"Fool! She adores you! Must you break her heart, as well as—"
Vaille's eyes narrowed a trifle, the sudden glare stilling his friend's impassioned utterance. Harland sighed, gave a helpless shake of his handsome head, and leaned back against the squabs. Vaille held his watch to the lamplight and peered at it. "Half an hour. Typical!" He replaced the watch and frowned into the gloomy morning.
A chaise splashed up. Harland said, "It's the surgeon, I believe. With Moulton." He put on his high-crowned hat and buttoned his coat. "I'd best get over there." Stepping into the rain, he muttered, "Beastly morning."
Ridgley's carriage tore into the clearing. He alighted and came toward them with his seconds. At once, Vaille joined them, also. "My apologies," said Ridgley with a nod to his cousin. "Overslept." Vaille's brows rose, but knowing the man, he didn't doubt it and assured him gently that it was, of no least importance.
The surgeon, accustomed to these early-morning encounters and far from entranced despite the fat fees they paid him, begged them to reconsider and, this plea having fallen on deaf ears, assured them he would do his best in behalf of whichever of them might require his services. He then acquainted them with the fact that they were a couple of damned fools and he'd say the same if it was the King of England and the Pope he addressed. Vaille murmured that he believed this an unlikely confrontation. Ridgley, a twinkle appearing in his brown eyes, allowed that "By Jove! That would be something to see!" The other gentlemen, exchanging resigned glances, indicated their readiness, and the small, grim group stepped into the rain.
The protagonists having disdained to have the distance paced off and the preliminaries having been dispensed with, Ridgley, his back to his cousin, waited out a grumbling peal of thunder, then said softly, "Philip—whatever you may believe—I did nothing of which I am ashamed."
"It grieves me to learn that," said Vaille acidly. "But—I suppose we all have our standards."
Harland's clear voice began to count off the paces. The two straight figures moved steadily apart, in each hand a gleaming duelling pistol; blue eyes and brown drinking in the glories of this morning that most men would have found dismal. Again, thunder pealed ominously, as on the count of ten they spun around.
A muddied, lathered bay gelding, his rider more out of the saddle than in it, galloped over the far side of the hill and halted between the duellists. A croaking voice was raised indistinctly; one hand flung upward in a restraining gesture. But in vain. The thunder was echoed by the sharp and deadly reverberations of two shots. The bay horse reared with a scream of fright, and the rider toppled to the ground, started up, then slumped back and lay motionless.
An agonized cry was torn from the Duke. He threw the smoking pistol from him and rushed forward. Ridgley was already running. Together, they fell to their knees beside the sprawled figure.
"Now—may God forgive me!" cried Vaille on a near sob.
Damon, watching that tortured face between his thick lashes, lay as one dead.
"Oh, hell! Oh, hell!" Ridgley groaned. "Where is he hit? Don't say… Please don't say… we've killed the boy!"
The surgeon and the seconds ran up as Vaille raised that limp and battered head into cherishing arms.
Harland, appalled, gasped, "Camille! Dear Christ! What the devil's happened to him?"
Damon, peering up at the ring of horrified faces, sighed, "Mon père... thank God!"
The doctor knelt beside him, heedless of the mud, and said an astonished "Sir—you look more like a man who's walked through the fiery furnace than the victim of a duel! Where are you hit?"
"Nowhere," Damon murmured. "Awful shots… both of 'em. Didn't even come close to—" Through the wet shrubbery nearby, he glimpsed a hate-contorted, scowling face—a hand that aimed a long-barrelled pistol at Vaille's back. With an inarticulate cry, he wrenched upward, shoved his father roughly aside, and pulling Clay's pistol from his belt, fired with lightning speed.
For an instant, Phineas Bodwin stood rigid. His fingers tightened about the weapon he held. A shot rang out, but he was already falling. By the time the surgeon reached him, it was too
late. Lord Sumner Craig-Bell's second-in-command had slid into whatever dark future awaited him beyond the fringes of this life.
Standing with one hand on the mantle, the Earl scowled into the fire in this best parlour of "The Oaken Bucket" in Tottenbury and breathed, "Bodwin!" He glanced to where a grim-faced Vaille was engaged in converse with the village constable and, shaking his head for the fourth time, said, "I still cannot credit it!"
Damon, sprawling in the deep armchair, was feeling considerably better. His head still ached; his face felt raw and painful; his bandaged wrists throbbed; and he was aware of the discomfort sustained by those who, not having ridden for a number of years, suddenly undertake a lengthy journey on horseback. But he had bathed and, thanks to his father's crisp and unquestioned commands, now enjoyed the comfort of clean clothes. A hearty breakfast, washed down by scalding coffee, had also gone a long way to restoring him. He started up as Vaille approached, only to lean back to the authoritative wave of one white hand. The Duke scanned his son's unfortunate features and swore. "When I think of what that animal did to you… and young Whitthurst!"
"Do not forget… Ninon!" grated Ridgley.
Vaille drove a fist into his palm. "Damme! I'm not likely to!"
"Speaking of Mama," said Damon. "While I was…more or less… riding here—"
"More or less?" Ridgley interrupted curiously.
Damon shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "There were some hedges, you see, Ted. Clay's horse and I parted company—several times."
Vaille smiled thinly. "I noted that your arrival was— somewhat precipitate. As well as being damn ridiculous. Your death scene, especially."
Damon flushed. Ridgley sprang to his defence. "Ask me, it was dashed spunky! If you had any feelings at all, Vaille— which you ain't—you'd have some idea what it must've cost the boy to climb into that saddle! And as for—"
"Any man," Vaille sneered, "who rides a horse between two individuals aiming loaded pistols at one another is a blasted fool."
"Yet you are both alive," Damon murmured.
"And you, sir," the Duke snapped, "interfered in a matter of honour which—"
"Which had no business taking place at all!" And having interrupted his sire in this daring fashion, Damon stood. He moved slowly and painfully, yet—somehow he seemed taller. "If you will permit me, sir—I shall explain."
Ridgley watched him in considerable astonishment. Vaille, his face thunderous, closed his mouth, but those blue eyes surveyed his heir with blazing anger.
"I have," Damon said quietly, "remembered that whole lost week, nineteen years ago."
All traces of colour faded from Vaille's face, and he sank into the nearest chair.
"Good… God!" Ridgley gasped. "Cam—you've taken the devil of a beating. Are you sure?"
Damon sat down again. "I'm quite sure." He gazed at the fire. "Once I was on that bay, I was too petrified to do any more than point him in the right direction and hang on. But then… gradually, it began to come back to me. And so clearly that I can picture it as if it was yesterday… I'd gone to Mama's bedchamber that morning to wait for her." He slanted a quick look at Vaille. "You were both in the music room, and I could hear you arguing." The Duke winced, put a hand across his brow, and waited in silence. "You were quarrelling," Damon went on, "about me going away to school. I remember that I didn't want to go. I knew the other boys would mock me because… I am a cripple. When Mama came upstairs, she was weeping." His eyes returned to their preoccupation with the flames, and he murmured, low-voiced, "I can even recall that she wore a pale-blue gown and how very beautiful she looked when she called me over to her. She held my hands, and she said that if I went to school, you would find out… about me. And we would both be sent back to France…"
Ridgley swore under his breath, stalked to the window, and stood staring out at the rain. Vaille's eyes closed very briefly, his head bowed, his hands fastening like claws on to each arm of his chair.
Damon was aware of none of this, seeing only that elegant bedchamber and the lovely woman, now so clear in his mind's eye. He had tried to comfort her, and she'd gathered him into her arms and had said in French in her soft, pretty fashion, "I am going to do what Cousin Edward wishes, Camille. He has a good friend who is also very clever. He is going to make your foot well again so that your Papa will be proud of you, and you can go to school like other boys and play the cricket, and he will not be angry with us anymore. You must be very brave because it will hurt quite badly. But you will never again have to wear that horrid shoe. You will walk easily— straight and proud. Do you think you can do that, my dear, brave son?"
He had assured her that he could do it as easily as the cat could flick her tail. Mama had dried her tears, kissed him, and summoned her abigails, and they had begun to pack for their sudden journey.
Through the breathless quiet, Damon looked up and said, "And that, Papa—is why she was leaving you… Only to take me… to have surgery done."
"B-but…" gasped Vaille, "I thought… Did she say… anything to you—?"
"She said that you were the most valiant gentleman she had ever known and that—no matter what it cost, we must never… either of us… fail you—or—or make you ashamed of us." A groan was torn from his father, and he went on hurriedly. "She said that Ted was ever dear to her heart because he loved us both and was trying to help—even though she would not do as he wished and tell you—about my foot."
"Oh…my…God!" cried Vaille. "Ted—why did you not tell me? You damned idiot!All these years!"
"Couldn't," Ridgley said in a husky, shaken voice. "Deathbed promise, y'see, Vaille. The dear soul was in a coma for two days, but—just before the end, she roused a little. She made me promise never to tell you—so that you would not remember her… with disgust."
A strangled sound escaped Vaille. Damon was aghast to see tears on his father's cheeks, and then the Duke swung away from them and, stumbling to the fireplace, leaned there, head bowed upon one hand. After a minute or two, he said hoarsely, "It would appear… that I owe you a—most profound apology, Ted. She was not… running away from me, after all."
"Not with me, at all events," said Ridgley. "Though I'll admit I would have been the happiest man in the world if she had."
"No," Vaille argued. "I do not believe you would have run off with her—even had she gone to you. Not—loving her, as much as you did." His tearful eyes fell. He drew something from his pocket and, staring down at it, said brokenly, "I am ashamed to say that I had intended… to throw this in your face—after you'd fallen. Now—" He lifted his head and, his face working, held out the locket. "You may have it. It probably means as much to you… as it would to me."
Ridgley stared down at it in puzzlement.
"It means nothing to Ted, Mon—er—sir." Damon stood and added softly, "He's never seen it before." Vaille's shocked glance flashed to him, and he explained, "Bodwin bought it when I was so stupid as to sell it with—all the rest. He had the miniatures painted purely to provoke you two into killing one another!"
Ridgley, having opened the back, gave a gasping cry and, looking at Vaille, said, "By thunder! So this is why… ?"
"Damn his twisted soul!" Vaille's face was a study in hatred. "And I almost fulfilled his hopes!" He brightened suddenly. "Then—Ninon had not forsaken me!"
Damon said, "You were her world, sir. She loved you to the moment she died."
Wordlessly, Vaille again turned away. Ridgley, still staring down at the locket, wandered toward the door.
Vaille glanced round. "Edward!"
Ridgley stopped but did not turn.
Vaille came up behind him. "We came damned close to killing one another today. I know—it was all my fault. That my curst…pride. My—as you've said so often—my—mania for perfection… caused the entire tragedy. I… don't know if I can change, Ted. But… I could try." His voice petered out.
Damon, watching breathlessly, wondered if this grieving, humble man could possibly be his proud fa
ther. Ridgley neither moved nor spoke. Vaille sighed, started to move away, then stopped again.
"Edward," he pleaded, "I'd have you know… that I always—" He checked and stepped closer, his gaze sharpening. A small loose thread hung from the back of Ridgley's jacket.
Vaille frowned a little and pulled at it. Unhappily, it gathered before it broke, opening a gap in the arm hole. Vaille gave a guilty gasp and drew back. Damon shook his head in a mixture of mirth, affection, and incredulity.
Ridgley swung about, clapping a hand to his shoulder, his face flushing with irritation. "Damme, Philip! If that ain't just like you! Tidying me up when you're supposed to be down on your infernal knees, grovelling an apology!"
Recovering himself, Vaille drew an impatient sleeve across his face. "I am apologizing, blast your eyes! Are you going to accept it or not?"
They glared at one another.
"What amazes me," murmured Damon, "is that you stood twenty paces apart—crack shots—and could not so much as graze my horse!"
Two angry faces suddenly became very red. Vaille looked away. Ridgley said, "Well… It was… Ah… humph!"
"The one who should really be cursing and stamping about"—Damon nodded—"is me! What I went through: wallowing in mud, being tossed around on that blasted nag's back, thinking of you killing one another… Did you both intend to delope?"
"Certainly not," said Vaille haughtily. "I chanced to see you at the last instant and was able to swing my pistol aside."
"I see. And you, Ted? Did you also swing your pistol aside because of me?"
"Well…" stumbled the Earl unhappily. "I—er—that is to say…"
"You… swine!" raged Vaille. "You'd have stood there like a blasted martyr and let me kill you! How the devil d'you suppose that would have made me feel?"
Amused by this rather quaint reasoning, Damon grinned.
Ridgley, however, hung his head. "When the time came… I just couldn't bring m'self to aim…"
For a moment there was a deep silence. Then Vaille leapt forward, seized Ridgley's right hand, clasped it within both his own, and pumping it up and down, cried, "Damn you, Ted! You shall shake my hand!"
Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 04] - Love's Duet Page 34
