Caroline straightened her shoulders. “I am the widow of an earl and the owner of this house. You can’t possibly require any further authority. But if you are so presumptuous as to request more, I will remind you that I am the woman who has refused your suit, and I can’t see what further we have to say to one another.”
“Look, Frances,” Henry said ruthlessly. “Wadsworth has turned the color of snail mucous again.”
He probably shouldn’t have said that. It was not the act of a gentleman to heap further humiliation on a man who’d just been publicly chastised.
But since he had said it, he probably should have expected the punch.
Thud. A perfect, whole, five-fingered fist hit Henry just below the ridge of his left cheekbone. The shock snapped his head back, echoed through the bones of his skull. The dull sound of it seemed still to be ringing in his ears when the pain hit his face in a sudden, hot wash.
His first emotion was surprise; the viscount had more spine than Henry had credited him with.
His second was a desperate calm, the calm of a man scrabbling to hold together his fortune during a deep gamble. Frances was ashamed of him, and now she’d seen Wadsworth strike him. A roomful of people had seen that. The pain in his face was nothing compared to that agony of humiliation.
He lifted his hand to his aching cheek and pivoted toward Frances as deliberately as he could, as though he had all the time and self-control in the world. The coiled spring within him wound ever tighter. “I believe I’ve just been batted by an insect,” he said in what he hoped was a tone of calculated wonder. “I didn’t realize they flew in the better households. Did you see it? Was it hideous?”
“Don’t.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, her eyes fixed on his. The ring of green around the edge of her irises looked particularly bright. “Don’t make it worse.”
For an instant, Henry was back in her bed, sliding skin over sweat-slick skin, making her cry out. We saw each other naked; we shared each other’s bodies. How had they left that intimacy behind so quickly? It was not a mere flight of stairs away, but the unbridgeable distance of her unspoken regret.
“There’s no way to make it better,” he said.
He could see now, no woman would protect him against men such as Wadsworth. Not even Caroline, with all her money and influence, could keep the golden muzzles of London society tied on tightly enough. If Henry was to emerge victorious, he would have to fight his own battles.
He turned to Wadsworth, standing almost nose-to-nose with the viscount, close enough to smell the starch of his clothes and the sharp, oily bergamot with which he scented himself.
He was the cleanest foe Henry had faced in several years, that was certain.
“You’ve struck me,” Henry said as though reading a mildly interesting article out of a newspaper. “I wonder what you think will happen next. Do you think I can possibly let that pass?”
Wadsworth swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think you’ll take it.” Again, he launched a fist at Henry.
With a quick snap, Henry caught the viscount’s forearm and warded off this second blow. He held the arm tight, pushing it back from his face, letting it struggle and flex inside its carefully tailored sleeve.
He stared into Wadsworth’s eyes and saw his own face reflected in their gray gloss.
There was his greatest foe; there. And he was strong enough.
“Name your second, Wadsworth,” he said. “And choose your weapon.”
At these words, the drawing room exploded with the din and chaos of canister shot.
Henry smiled. Yes, London was full of its own little wars. And he was determined to win.
Twenty-One
“You have to be playing a joke on me,” Jem said. His light eyes were open so wide, they appeared to be trying to escape his head. “That’s what this is. A joke? You’re very funny, Hal. Very funny.”
The earl sat heavily in the chair at his study’s desk, breathing hard. His cravat was starched and tied high and tight as fashion dictated, and he tugged at it fruitlessly with a forefinger. “God, Hal. An excellent joke. But you must not say it in that serious way. I almost believed you for a second.”
Once again, Henry faced his brother across the massive desk in Jem’s study, but this time he needed no advice. He had made his decision; now he needed only the blessed, unthinking relief of action.
“It’s true,” Henry said. “I challenged Wadsworth to a duel. We’ll meet tomorrow at dawn.”
Which was just the way Henry wanted it. He was spoiling for a fight, for the chance to prove something, anything. He must win. His letters had not been enough, a minuet had not been enough, his body had not been enough. He was not sure how much of his heart had been ventured. Too much for comfort’s sake.
He smiled, knowing the expression must look gruesome.
Jem unsnarled the end of his cravat from its elaborate folds and coaxed the long starched rectangle away from his throat. “Good God, Hal. I can’t credit it, even from your own lips. You issued the challenge. For a duel.”
“He struck me, Jem. I couldn’t let that pass.”
“He struck you?” Jem blinked, then shook his head, loosening the cravat further. “No, no. That can’t be overlooked. But how did it ever come to that, Hal? Wadsworth outranks you. He should never have struck you in public.”
“Apparently he disagrees.” Henry shrugged. “I suppose I baited him. I meant to.”
Jem rubbed a hand over his eyes and pressed at his temples with long fingers. “You baited him in Caro’s house, before an audience? He could hardly ignore the humiliation you caused him.”
“Just as I could hardly ignore his own insults.”
“But a duel. Damn it, Hal.” Jem fixed him with bright blue eyes. “Maybe the situation can yet be smoothed over if you both send apologies. Who is your second?”
Henry had expected this part to be difficult. “Well.” He crossed his left arm over his chest, gathering his thin right arm into his grasp. “Well, I hoped you would do it.”
Jem sat up straight in his chair. “Did you, now? Me, your second to a duel.”
Henry nodded. “I couldn’t ask Bart to do it. He’d never have the stomach for it. Also, he’s leaving London any day for the country. I don’t want to ask him to postpone his journey for—”
“An illegal and quite possibly fatal duel,” Jem interrupted. “No, of course not. No one should regard that with any degree of seriousness. It’s only a duel. Hal.”
This last word was groaned, as Jem rose from his chair again and grabbed a brandy decanter from a sideboard. He splashed brandy into two generously sized snifters and shoved one across the desk to Henry.
“No, thank you,” Henry said. He felt remarkably calm now. The die had been cast, and he had only to do what came next, and next, and next. No more choices until the duel was over. By then, everything else might work out.
Many more impossible dreams than this had come true. For others.
Jem shrugged and drained one snifter, then the other. With a cough, he sat back down and began fussing with the items on his desk. A ledger, an inkwell, a fistful of quills. A quizzing glass. A watercolor miniature of Emily that Henry had painted long ago.
Jem had never wanted to snap the tiny portrait away inside a watchcase as Henry had intended. He said he wanted to look at the miniature always because it would remind him of his wife and his brother, two of the people he loved best in the world.
Henry sighed. “I should have brought you an ice from Gunter’s,” he muttered. He should have done a lot of things. He should have tried harder to make his brother happy, time and again. Happiness was all Jem had ever wanted for him, and this was how Henry repaid him.
No wonder Jem had had to loosen his cravat. It was a wonder his head hadn’t blown apart, like a kettle with no outlet for steam. But it was too late to go back now, and Henry would not change the path he was walking even if it were possible.
Jem lined al
l the quills up into a neat row, and Henry remembered Frances teaching him how to hold a quill in his left hand. A quiet day in this very house. He’d had such hope then, but already the two women—Caro and Frances—had begun to mix and muddle in his mind, and he did not know exactly for what he ought to be hoping.
“Those are taken from the left wing of the goose,” Henry said stupidly.
Jem looked up. “These are from a swan.” He stretched his mouth into a tight shape that approximated a smile.
He looked calmer now, as if the ritual of shuffling the objects on his desk—not to mention gulping two snifters of brandy—had soothed him.
“So you want me to be your second,” Jem said again. He leaned back in his chair again and spun one of his long swan quills between his fingers. The feathery barb tapped against his thumb, over and over, and Henry began to wonder what his brother was thinking. It was rare that he ever had to speculate. Usually the expression on Jem’s face was as easy to read as a printed page.
“That’s a hell of a thing for you to ask of your brother, you know,” Jem said mildly, still spinning the quill.
“I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
“That’s a hell of a way to be.” Jem set the quill down on his desk and nudged it into a neat row with its fellows. “But I suppose it makes sense. A man with many friends doesn’t find himself getting snared in a duel in the first place.”
“Anyone could get into a duel with Wadsworth,” Henry said. “You’d have challenged him too if he’d insulted you in front of Emily the way he insulted me before—” He cut himself off just in time. Frances did not want anyone to know about their relationship. He wanted to give her all that was honorable: his name and everything he owned on earth. But in her shame for him, all she wanted was secrecy, so he could at least give her that.
“Your lady,” Jem finished, and Henry nodded his gratitude. Jem’s mouth curved again, and this time it seemed a real smile. It was only a shadow of his brother’s usual buoyant grin, but it would do for a start. “Yes, I suppose I can understand that. I’d have wanted to kill him with my bare hands.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Henry protested.
“I’m not saying I would have succeeded. But I would have wanted to. Why are you belittling my skill, though? You want me as your second, don’t you?”
“You’ll do it?” Henry didn’t know why he was holding his breath, as if everything rode on this. He didn’t have to have a second.
“Ah, Hal.” Jem raked his hands through his hair. It was still the rich dark of lamp-black, but Henry noticed that it was beginning to gray at the temples. He had a sinking, shuddering feeling of having been gone for an unutterably long time, of having missed an unfathomable amount.
Jem, it seemed, agreed with him. “Hal, the war is over. Our society rests on peace now, and we must keep peace amongst each other. You can’t threaten people and challenge them to duels. You especially can’t challenge a peer. We don’t kill here. The whole world knows that.”
“Bollocks,” said Henry. He disliked the idea of the whole world facing him down, telling him where he’d gone wrong.
“What does it do to your lady’s reputation if it becomes known that you are going to fight a duel on her behalf? Are you going to offer for Lady Stratton?”
Henry stared at him. “No, indeed. And I’m sure she wouldn’t have me if I did. I’m fighting for myself, not for her.”
Jem drew in his chin until it was hidden amidst the loosened points of his cravat. He peered at Henry with what was apparently intended to be a terrifying stare. “Not Lady Stratton after all. So who is your lady, then?”
Henry suddenly felt ashamed. His left hand grasped his wasted right arm more tightly, reminding him. “Mrs. Whittier. Or…I thought she was.”
“Mrs. Whittier.” Jem tilted his head. “Is she, now? That’s an interesting choice, Hal. I like the woman myself. But what do you know of her family? You’ll be opening yourself up to a lot of talk if you court a lady’s companion.”
Henry’s fingers gripped his right arm so hard that it would have gone numb if it was not already. “She’s the daughter of a baronet. And she’s cousin to a countess, so that ought to be a lofty enough connection for any of the gossips.”
Jem drummed his fingers on his desk, once, twice, then nodded his agreement.
“Such questions don’t matter,” Henry said. “As I told you, I’m fighting this duel for my own reasons.”
Jem leaned forward, propping his elbows on his desk, then gave up on trying to look terrifying. He folded his arms on the desktop and sunk his chin onto them. He looked tired, as tired as Henry felt inside.
“All right, then. I’ll be your second,” Jem said quietly. “Oh, Hal. I’ll do what I can for you. I’ll help you go through with it and hide the scandal however I can, or if you want to call it off, I can try to negotiate with Wadsworth’s second.” He lifted his head up, hope sparking in his blue eyes. “What d’you say? There’s no shame at all in that. Calling it off. I’m sure I can get some sort of apology from Wadsworth if you’ll offer one of your own.”
Henry appeared to consider this. He gave it his best, dropping his right arm and stroking his chin in an expression of thought, though he knew it was impossible. An apology would not protect Henry. He needed the certainty of having defended himself. Of having fought and won at last.
Before he could demur, the door flew open. “Jemmy!”
Emily bustled into the room in a whirl of poppy-red muslin and a cloud of rose perfume, waving a note. “Jemmy, you will not believe what Caro told me. Only listen! Oh, Hal, hullo. Er…” She looked uncertain, and her hand with the note in it dropped to her side.
Jem sat up straighter. “Em, this isn’t a good time. We’re discussing… well, men’s business.” He tried to compose his face into a stern expression.
“Fiddle,” Emily said. She sat on the edge of Jem’s desk, twisting her torso so she could glare at both brothers at once. “If you’re discussing what I think you’re discussing, then you both ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
“What do you think we’re discussing?” Jem was tugging at his cravat again.
“One of you has done something very stupid.” Emily waved the note again. “Maybe both of you have. Hal, you young idiot, Caro has told me everything, and I simply can’t believe you would let yourself be—”
Henry could not be seeing right. He snatched at the paper. “This is from Caro?”
“Yes, and as I was saying, she told me all about the challenge you issued. Jem, you must make this tangle go away. You can’t permit—”
Henry cut her off again. “This note. This one in my hand. This is from Caro.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
She kept talking; Henry heard the smooth flow of her words, lifting every once in a while for emphasis. Sometimes Jem’s low voice would answer. But Henry had no idea what they said. He just stared and stared at the paper in his hand.
It was wrong. Something was very wrong.
He knew this paper well, the heavy, cloth-like feel of it. He knew the seal pressed into the thick splotch of red wax. But he had never seen this handwriting before in his life. It was a careless thread of nearly illegible loops, not the angular, confident script he knew as Caro’s.
Yes, Henry had done something very stupid, though he did not know what. And someone else had done something stupid too. He felt as if he were stumbling through the Bossu Wood again, seeing nothing that was important.
“This note was written by Lady Stratton?” he demanded through the clutter of voices. One last time, to be absolutely sure.
Emily and Jem fell silent, and Emily looked more worried than Henry had ever seen her. “Yes,” she confirmed. “But if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to clout you with a poker.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Henry said. “Excuse me, I have to go. Emily, if you need to clout someone, Jem will have to stay behind and serve the pu
rpose.”
He took the note with him, and he left.
Twenty-Two
“Henry, thank God you’re here.”
Caro rushed forward across her morning room to meet Henry. Her eyes were wide, her full lips parted, eager as Venus riding to shore on a shell. A lamp made a halo of her Indian yellow hair, ruddy gold in the dim room.
Indian yellow. Henry remembered now, the pigment was made from the urine of starving cattle. It was precious, but it was foul. One could not trust in the true nature of anything that appeared to be beautiful.
The room was close and poorly lit, not meant to be used at this late hour. The walls that looked so sunny in morning were now a drab, dirty mustard. Frances’s dark gown and hair blended into the nubby forest-green upholstery of the sofa on which she sat.
How many secrets had been told in the privacy of this morning room, he could not say. He had told all of his own. But someone else had not.
He drew back his shoulders. “Lady Stratton. This is yours, I believe.” He thrust forward the note he’d taken from Emily.
“Yes, I suppose it is.” Her voice was hesitant. “Yes. This is the note I sent to your sister a little while ago. Did you read it?”
“I didn’t have to read it,” he said. “I only had to look at the form of the handwriting. So it is from you. It’s written in your hand.”
Henry looked up at Caro, ignoring Frances. Her presence prickled at his skin, though, like the itch of a wool coat on a hot day. He did not want to be aware that she was but three feet away. That her citrus perfume had been rubbed off by his body that morning. That she had gasped when he handed the note to Caro.
That he was right, then, about the letter. All the letters. Damn it. He had hoped even against hope that he was wrong, and that everything was just as it had seemed for the past several weeks.
“Ah. So you know at last,” Caro said. “What a relief.”
“Not precisely the word I would use, my lady,” Henry said in his sunniest voice, his own smile a dead thing. “Would you be so good as to allow me a few moments alone with your companion?”
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