Somewhere on the road from Wildacre to Seapoint, she had smacked up hard against the logic of Teddy’s reasoning. And been unable to deny it. If Lawrence was right in his assertion that no judge or jury in the state of Georgia would pronounce sentence on him, then there was no point debating the fine points of the law. They ceased to have any meaning in this case. A more primitive code had taken over, one the Bennett men recognized, accepted, and were prepared to administer. Firing pistols at point blank range with the intent of killing one another made perfect sense to them.
In the absence of any alternative, it had also begun to make sense to Prudence.
Philip Dickson instructed the head groom to have a carriage ready in time to make it to the dueling ground well before the sun was up. Abigail, despite her scorn for the way Teddy was choosing to obtain justice for Eleanor, refused to be left behind. Prudence declared that she, too, intended to be a witness to whatever happened beneath the live oaks. She’d already told Geoffrey to expect her.
As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, certain she would not be able to sleep a wink, Prudence wondered if a second coffin would join Eleanor’s in the Seapoint chapel.
And then what? Eleanor to the Dickson family mausoleum in New York, Teddy to the Wildacre burying ground?
Briefly together in life, would the lovers be forever separated in death?
* * *
Geoffrey couldn’t sleep.
He ran over in his mind everything he and Elijah had discussed and agreed upon, the arguments he had used in a futile attempt to make Teddy change his mind about dueling with his brother, the careful inspection of the weapons to be used. Everything had been accomplished according to the strictest injunctions of the code duello. Nothing had been slighted or omitted.
He had insisted on sleeping on a valet’s couch in Teddy’s dressing room so as to be nearby if either duelist had second thoughts during the night. He could hear Teddy’s steady breathing and light snore through the door he had left cracked open to the bedroom. The prospect of his own death or the deliberate murder of his only brother did not seem to be interfering with Teddy’s slumber.
Geoffrey lit the candle lantern sitting on the floor beside his narrow bed.
Perhaps a small whiskey would help.
Padding barefoot over Wildacre’s wide-planked flooring, Geoffrey eased himself into the second-floor hallway and down the stairs to the main floor. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the house. He wondered if Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane slept, then remembered that most ladies resorted to laudanum in difficult times. And Elijah? What kind of father turned such a seemingly indifferent eye when mortal conflict erupted between his sons? Or perhaps it was just one son who would be sincerely mourned if the worst were to happen.
The nighttime whiskey tray was in the library.
So was Lawrence. Asleep or passed out in his father’s great armchair, one hand curled around an empty glass resting on his knee. Above him, over the fireplace, Ethan and Elijah Bennett, stiffly handsome in their braid encrusted gray uniforms, stood watch. Except that their eyes weren’t cast downward at the slumped figure below. Whatever their blank eyes were seeing, it wasn’t the tragedy to be played out in the morning.
Careless, Geoffrey thought, watching Lawrence for signs of consciousness as he poured himself the whiskey he’d come downstairs to find. Depending on how much he’d had to drink, Lawrence could have a shaky hand and blurred vision when he faced Teddy. There would be shadows under the trees; the dim, ethereal predawn light made outlines uncertain and the placement of a bullet difficult to calculate. Still, it wasn’t his place to wake him up and hustle him off to bed for what remained of the night. Only his second could do that.
Geoffrey had half a mind to knock on the door of Elijah’s bedroom on the way back to the hard couch in Teddy’s dressing room. He couldn’t remember anything in the code duello that addressed this precise situation, but common courtesy and fair play should cover it.
Elijah and Geoffrey had locked the matched sets of dueling pistols inside a glass-fronted cabinet in the hallway once both seconds were satisfied that the pistols were of exactly equal range and caliber. Each of them pocketed a key. There were, Elijah said, only two.
As he headed toward the staircase, Geoffrey glanced at the cabinet. With one foot already on the first step, he paused, turned around. Something was not as it had been.
He stood in front of the cabinet, eyes tracking the precise angles at which the two leather cases were aligned. One of them was off by less than a finger’s width from where he was sure it had been placed. A barely discernible difference, but enough to jolt his Pinkerton-trained powers of observation.
Before he did anything else, he had to make sure he would not be interrupted. It took only a moment to check that Lawrence was still unconscious, then close the library door.
Geoffrey had pulled on his trousers before shrugging into the borrowed dressing gown that was too tight across the shoulders but better than nothing. The key to the cabinet was still in his pocket.
He opened the lid of the case that seemed out of alignment. Teddy’s gold inlay initials winked up at him in the flickering light of the candle lantern. He saw no finger smudges on the pistols’ gleaming barrels, and every one of the small tools and molded bullets lay in its velvet bed.
Perhaps, when they closed and locked the cabinet door, either he or Elijah had accidentally nudged the pistol case. He tried to remember which of them had last touched the boxes. Both, he thought. Elijah had placed Lawrence’s set of pistols on the shelf, and Geoffrey had done the same with Teddy’s. The door had swung closed on well-oiled hinges, Elijah had locked it, pocketed his key, then waited while Geoffrey tested the key he had been given. Unlocked, then locked the cabinet again.
How then, had one case been moved?
And why?
Because someone, not he, had moved it. Elijah? The elder Bennett’s careful adherence to the role of second, as prescribed by the code duello, made that seem unlikely. Yet the case had definitely been moved. Just a fraction of an inch, but not accidentally.
By someone who had a key. Or who had been given a key.
Geoffrey lifted one of Teddy’s pistols from its bed. The greatest, perhaps the only flaw in its design was the absolute need for the firing pin to strike the cartridge precisely in its center. In no other way could the lead ball be made to streak with deadly speed and accuracy down the length of the barrel and through empty air to find its target. The firing pin. Loose, it would wobble, lose its tensile strength. Too long and it would scrape rather than strike. Too short and it would flail uselessly against nothing.
Geoffrey opened the case containing Lawrence’s pistols. He laid Teddy’s weapon beside Lawrence’s, compared the length of the firing pins. Saw clearly the duplicity, the tampering that would not be obvious to the casual eye. One pin would strike true; the other had been filed short by perhaps an eighth of an inch.
Both of Teddy’s pistols had been tampered with. So that whichever he chose in the morning would misfire. Leave him the exposed victim of his brother’s aim. Which Geoffrey did not doubt would be true and lethal.
Working quickly, using the precision tools fitted into their velvet beds, he removed the useless firing pins and replaced them with the spares that lay beneath the bullet mold. No experienced dueler neglected to carry extra firing pins; his life depended on them.
When he had finished, Geoffrey checked Teddy’s pistols carefully for other signs of tampering, but found none. Lawrence’s strategy had been the essence of simplicity. And it would have succeeded, too, if he hadn’t taken that one additional drink of whiskey that made him nudge the closed case out of line and never notice the discrepancy.
For the briefest of moments, Geoffrey considered what would happen in the dawn stillness of the live oak forest. Teddy and Lawrence would each fire one shot. Whether either or both would find their mark was out of Geoffrey’s control. Out of Lawrence’s now, too. The match was once a
gain as equal as it had been when Teddy struck his brother across the face with a leather riding glove.
One or both of them might die.
The odds were even.
As they should be in a combat of gentlemen.
CHAPTER 30
Until the early morning sky turned pearly gray, the only light illuminating Wildacre’s dueling field came from half a dozen lanterns marking its perimeters. The flat, sandy ground was covered by a thin layer of last year’s live oak leaves, sodden underfoot from the storm that had raked the island. Immensely tall, twisted trees encircled the open area, embracing the men who had come to redeem their honor in bloody courage.
The saddle horses were led away from the shooting area and hobbled. The carriage in which the Seapoint witnesses had traveled stood nearby. Empty. Prudence and Abigail had chosen to wait in the open air, Philip beside them. All three wore unrelieved black, stark acknowledgement that one or both of the Bennett brothers would be dead before the sun dried last night’s dew. In somber silence they waited as Elijah and Geoffrey completed the rituals entrusted to seconds by the code duello.
When each of the seconds had counted off ten paces, he drove a sword into the ground to mark the spot at which a duelist would turn and fire. Elijah had provided the swords he and Ethan had worn when they fell at the battle of Peachtree Creek. Polished to a high gleam, the steel of both blades shone, dented and nicked by bone and bullets. Below each pommel hung a gold bullion sword knot, dulled by the mud and blood of combat.
Fitting, Prudence thought, since what brought them to this beautiful, desolate spot this morning was rooted in the conflict for which those swords had been struck. She saw Abigail slip her hand into the crook of her husband’s arm, heard the faintest of whispers as Philip bent to say something to her. A bouquet of slightly wilted white roses lay on the seat of the carriage out of which they had climbed. In memory of Eleanor, Abigail would strew the flowers on the bloodied dueling ground when it was all over.
Teddy and Lawrence met in the center of the field. It was the first time they had come face-to-face since Teddy had deliberately provoked the duel. Both men wore blindingly white shirts, open at the throat, billowy sleeves cuffed at the wrist. It was traditional to wear white above the waist so the location and severity of chest wounds became immediately apparent. Blood would bloom, is how it was sometimes described.
The seconds asked one last time if honor could be served in no other way. Then Geoffrey, whose role as spokesman had been determined by the toss of a coin, outlined what would happen next. Weapons would be loaded by the seconds in full view of each other and the duelists. In this case, since the brothers had agreed to use pistols marked by their initials, Teddy would choose one of the matched set he had received on his twenty-first birthday; Lawrence would do the same. They were to stand back-to-back and then each walk ten paces from the other in cadence with Geoffrey’s count.
At ten, when they reached the swords that marked the farthest limit of the agreed-upon distance, the command would be given to turn and fire. One shot each. If only one man loosed a bullet, he must remain immobile on the field until his opponent retaliated or it was determined by the seconds that he was incapable of discharging his weapon. At that point, honor would have been served.
And someone would almost certainly be dead or fatally wounded.
Prudence clasped her gloved hands together to control their trembling.
Geoffrey caught her eye as if to reassure her that although he couldn’t be at her side, he was standing there in spirit. She straightened her spine, holding herself as rigidly upright as any governess could wish. Thinking to herself even as she did so how ridiculous all of this ritual was. Wanting it to end. Wishing fervently there was some way to stop it.
The lanterns were extinguished and carried from the field. Curtains of gray Spanish moss waved in the freshening morning breeze. It had grown light enough to make out the features of Teddy and Lawrence’s faces—grim, determined, devoid of any trace of fear. Mechanical men, ready to be wound up and set on their automated march.
Geoffrey’s voice echoed across the sand and into the trees. Deep and profoundly solemn, it counted off the paces.
“One. Two. Three. Four.”
The sand squeaked beneath the duelists’ boots, oak leaves wet and slippery.
“Five. Six. Seven. Eight.”
Prudence’s nerves screamed with silent tension.
“Nine.
“Ten.
“Turn and fire.”
Lawrence might have raised his weapon a fraction of a second earlier than Teddy. It was enough. Bright red blood bloomed on Teddy’s white shirt and he fell to the ground, still clutching the pistol he had not discharged.
No one moved. It wasn’t over yet.
Lawrence stood facing his brother, the full width of his body exposed to the shot Teddy had yet to take. Slowly, with infinitesimal movements, Teddy raised the long-barreled pistol, propping it on his wrist. All eyes were on the finger wrapped around the trigger. But it didn’t move. His head drooped on his neck, slipping downward until his eyes closed and he seemed to lose consciousness.
Was it over?
Lawrence looked at the seconds as if to ask their authorization to leave the field. Seeing their heads bent toward each other to confer, he smiled in satisfaction and glanced toward where Philip and Abigail Dickson stood. Then he whirled and bowed a mocking salaam in the direction of Eleanor’s parents, his back turned rudely to where Teddy lay.
Your mulatto daughter is dead. I killed her, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Teddy’s bullet caught him full in the base of his spine with an earsplitting crack of lead entering bone.
The pistol flew from Lawrence’s hand.
He fell facedown in the sand.
And did not move.
* * *
Prudence rushed to where Teddy had collapsed as soon as Lawrence fell. Each man had discharged his one bullet. There was no longer any danger of a wild shot being fired. With Philip and Abigail beside her, she ripped open Teddy’s bloodstained shirt. Lawrence’s bullet had passed cleanly through the flesh and muscle of his lower left side, missing bone and vital organs. The hole it left pulsed blood, but slowly. No artery had been nicked, no vein ripped apart. As long as putrefaction didn’t set in, he would probably live.
If there were onlookers to the white men’s duel watching from deep in the live oaks, they chose not to make their presence known.
Philip unstoppered the flask he always carried with him and poured whiskey into the wound and down Teddy’s throat. Abigail had ordered a basket of ripped linen bandages and lint before she left Seapoint. She packed the wound and, as Philip propped Teddy’s upper body into a seated position, wrapped the linen strips tightly around his torso.
Satisfied that Teddy was not gravely wounded and was receiving good care, Geoffrey turned his attention to where Elijah knelt over his unconscious younger son.
The muscles of his face convulsing with the effort to hold back his anguish, the Bennett patriarch stared at the spot where Teddy’s bullet had entered Lawrence’s body. There wasn’t much blood. It had been as clean a shot as it was calculated. Of the two brothers, Teddy had always been the one with the more precise and perfect aim.
Lawrence’s eyelids fluttered and his fingers clawed weakly at the ground.
“We won’t know for sure until a surgeon can get a probe in him,” Geoffrey said, “but my guess is that the bullet is lodged in bone.”
“I’ve seen this kind of wound before,” Elijah said. “If he lives, the slug will have to be left where it is and he’ll never walk again.” He got slowly to his feet. “I expect he’d rather be dead.”
“We’ll take them both back to Wildacre in the Dicksons’ carriage.” Geoffrey signaled the coachman to bring the vehicle out from under the trees. “We can tie the extra horses onto the back.”
Elijah looked toward where his other son was sputtering whiskey as he regained
consciousness. “I don’t guess Teddy and I have much to say to each other. He’ll hold me responsible, seeing as how I was the one who recognized her for what she was. Can’t say that I blame him, but I don’t see that there was anything else I could do.”
He was so wrong that Geoffrey knew there was no point trying to change his mind.
* * *
The doctor who came from Savannah two days later confirmed that the bullet Teddy fired had embedded itself in Lawrence’s spine. “We saw this frequently during the war,” he told them, packing up his instruments and declining an invitation to remain overnight on the island. “Have your blacksmith put wheels on a chair to roll him around in. That’s the best you can do. Your son is paralyzed throughout his lower extremities, Mr. Bennett. He’ll need someone attending him night and day. And I’d make sure he doesn’t have access to a pistol.” He saw no point hiding the truth, either from a patient or the family.
“Will the bullet stay where it is?” Elijah asked.
“It could shift. But without his being able to move, I doubt that will happen.” He spoke directly to Lawrence, who hadn’t said a word or uttered a single groan during the doctor’s examination. “You won’t feel anything either way.” And because he thought the man deserved to know exactly what lay ahead of him, he added, “There’s no reason you won’t live your allotted span of years. Your heart seems sound and your lungs are clear.”
Lawrence stared at him. He hadn’t felt the touch of the doctor’s hands on his body or the probe he’d heard clink dully against the flattened bullet that was depriving him of all sensation below the waist. He’d seen enough veterans of the war to recognize a future he didn’t want to live. He’d have to bide his time, though. Teddy would see to it that he got the best of care. Day after long day Lawrence would stare at the four walls of whichever room he was deposited in or stew in the heat of the veranda, wondering if curious eyes watched from the live oaks. Torturing himself imagining the whispers that he’d gotten what he deserved.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he said, wondering how long it would be before the body servant who shaved him left the razor within reach when he emptied the slop bowl.
Death Brings a Shadow Page 28
