A physician had come in tow with Ponsley and Warren—though it was Tristan’s understanding that Hayden had requested this man’s presence. He was tall and older than Tristan by a good two decades. He had graying hair and a chestnut beard clipped close to his face. He wore a suit in brown herringbone twill and a tall beaver hat. The doctor stood next to a folding table, his hands tucked behind his back as he awaited the proceedings.
A wooden case sat open on top of the wooden table, the black dueling pistols displayed neatly inside. Gilt decorated the nozzles, and the handles were carved wood—the set looked as old as Ponsley and hopefully was in good working order.
The cock had yet to crow this morning, and a thick fog blanketed the ground around them. It was a perfectly macabre setting for what was to transpire.
“The rules, gentlemen, are simple,” Warren said. “The field of honor was given to you, Castleigh. Ponsley will choose his pistol first.”
“Let’s be sure there is no funny business,” Hayden interjected. “The pistols came with you, so Castleigh has every right to choose his firearm first.”
Warren looked at Ponsley with a droll expression. “Do you have a preference?”
“Let him have his pick.” Ponsley crossed his arms over his midsection. “Castleigh, you’ve been a thorn in my side since your father died. It’s about time I plucked the nuisance free.”
Tristan was sick to death of the delay. He wanted this over with. He took the pistol closest to him and handed it to Hayden, who would load it for him.
“We’ve agreed on first blood, not death,” Hayden reminded everyone present.
Though that wasn’t a problem for Tristan in the least. It was a shame his wife wouldn’t forgive him if he accidentally grazed Ponsley. Such was life.
He had avoided marriage like the plague, and then when he finally took the plunge, he wanted nothing more than to please his wife.
“Why are you even here, Warren?” Tristan asked. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe you of all people have been wronged where Ponsley’s daughter is concerned.”
“My business is my own,” Warren sneered and looked at Tristan as if he were the lowest form of life.
“If it’s your own, then why do you stand here for his honor?” Tristan nearly spat the words at his foe.
“She was to be my wife.”
“I’ve saved her a great deal of misery. I should be lauded and congratulated for my good sense in marrying her.” Tristan fixed his gloves and nodded to Hayden when the pistol was loaded. “You don’t deserve her.”
Warren came forward like a barreling bull, rage clear in his eyes as he locked his gaze on Tristan. Hayden stepped forward, grabbing Warren’s arm in a viselike grip. “Stand aside and mete this out as was predetermined.”
Warren shook Hayden off and made his way back to Ponsley’s side, all the while glaring at Tristan. They spoke too low for him to hear as Warren went about his task of loading Ponsley’s weapon.
“This is a bloody joke,” Tristan hissed at Hayden.
“Just see it to the end, and all will be fine.”
He wished he was as sure as Hayden, but he wasn’t. “Let’s finish this, then. I can’t stand the build-up.”
Hayden turned to the challenger. “Are you ready?”
Ponsley nodded.
They put their backs together and stood in the center of the field, which was ten minutes on horseback to Hailey Court, should he need to be rushed there in the event Ponsley didn’t spare him any injury.
Tristan closed his eyes and breathed in deep. “It’s pointless to have to come to this point,” he said to his father-in-law.
“You’re no more than a cur and you need to be put in your rightful place.”
“If you want to hurl insults, you should remember that my rank and my title stretch a great deal farther back than yours. Wouldn’t that make me the better man?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Castleigh.”
“I’m not. But if I’m a cur, I’m not sure what that makes you. A mongrel, perhaps.”
“Can you be so sure you aren’t a mongrel, considering you mother’s history?”
“That’s a low blow, even for you.”
“You should have left well enough alone. I had my daughter’s future set out.”
“To benefit you, no doubt.” Tristan couldn’t keep the scorn from his voice. “She was never a good fit for Warren—and should you ever want a story of male sluts, perhaps you should ask him why exactly I loathe him so much.”
“That’s rich coming from a man that cats about Town, creating bastards at every turn.”
“Only two,” he corrected the earl. Even though there was just his daughter, he was not willing to give away his sister’s secrets to this man, or any man for that matter.
“Shut your mouth and take your paces,” the old man spat out. “I’d like to be home before nightfall.”
Tristan supposed he couldn’t talk all day and delay what was inevitable. It was a great shame that Ponsley couldn’t be sweet-talked out of the duel—perhaps if he survived this he could brush up on his skills of persuasion. With a heavy sigh, Tristan counted his twenty paces and turned to face Ponsley.
“First blood. So if he hits me, we’re done here?” he called over to Hayden.
Hayden nodded. “But you will have to take aim and shoot at the same time.”
“Bloody hell,” Tristan cursed. He’d look like a bloody coward aiming wide.
Reluctantly, he brought up the pistol and closed one eye to measure the distance. It was tempting to miss Ponsley altogether and put a bullet through Mr. Warren, but then he’d just have to explain why the blighter was being cared for under his roof when they arrived back to the house, doctor and bleeding man in tow. Tristan suspected his sister wouldn’t be too appreciative of the gesture either.
Ponsley did the same, his arm raised, and his hand steady as he rested his finger on the trigger. “Hayden, if I should perhaps be maimed beyond saving…”
“Don’t even think it,” Hayden said. “And I hear riders; this needs to be finished or we’ll be discovered.”
“We’re on my land.”
“The women?” Hayden asked.
“Shit.” Now there was a stronger urgency to finish this—before anyone could interfere. “Are you ready, Ponsley?” Tristan called to his opponent.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Both seconds moved out of the range of the pistols, standing on either side of the doctor. The hooves of horses running at full gait grew louder. Tristan pinched his eyes closed, gave a quick prayer to the Almighty Lord, and squeezed the trigger. Smoke came up from the pistol and filled his nostrils just as a bite of pain lanced his side.
He looked at Ponsley, whose pistol was still pointed toward Tristan, lowering marginally as four horses came into the clearing. Tristan brushed his hand over his side. It was slick to the touch.
Raising his hand to his line of vision, he saw the telltale signs that Ponsley’s aim was indeed true and collapsed to his knees.
“Damn that bastard,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure the words actually made it past his lips as the pistol fell from his limp hand.
* * *
It was the realization that Tristan wasn’t lying next to her, keeping her warm, that had Charlotte jumping out of bed before the sun rose for the day. She’d gone straight to Bea’s room, and they’d dressed quickly as the servants were ordered to ready horses. They had taken a footman and the stablehand around the property in search of her husband and the duke.
Bea said that there were four possible places on the thirty-acre property that would work as a dueling field—all far enough from the house that the children would be unlikely to hear pistols going off or the ring of steel. The first two places had been nothing but empty fields.
As they came upon a lea and saw the dueling field, the unmistakable reports of two pistols going off gave flight to the birds perched in the trees around them.
“No!” she shouted and pulled back on the horse’s reins.
She was too late.
Her horse reared up and neighed. She held the reins tight and once the horse was on all fours again, she jumped off, twisting her ankle in mud as she hit the ground hard. But she didn’t care. Tristan fell to his knees and she knew … she knew that a bullet had found him while her father stood with a smug expression of satisfaction on his face. She picked herself up from the mud with the help of one of the staff that accompanied them, all pain forgotten in her need to be by her husband’s side.
She ran as fast as she could to Tristan. Tears streamed down her face, sobs wrenched from her throat. She thought she might have shouted something, but the only thing she could hear was her blood pounding and ringing in her ears as she ran. Faster, faster, but not fast enough.
It felt like an eternity before she reached Tristan’s side, sliding on her knees in the muck and mud. She caught him around the waist as he fell to his side, a stupid smile tilting his mouth up when he saw her.
“Don’t you dare do this to me,” she cried, touching his face, ready to smack him if he so much as closed his eyes.
“Don’t cry, Char.” His voice was so calm and steady, but the color was quickly draining from his face. “Oh, love. I’m sorry.” He reached for her face, running his knuckles along her cheek before his dead weight took them both down to the ground.
“Tristan!”
Taking his shoulders in both her hands, she shook him.
When he did not wake, she started pulling off his clothes; she had to find his injury.
“You cannot leave me when we’ve only just fallen in love. You told me no harm would come to you.” She ripped his coat as she pulled it back over his shoulders, but it got stuck midway off.
She turned to Hayden, tears blurring her vision. “Help me!”
Bea was next to her in the mud. “Here, let me help.” She pushed her brother to his side and pulled his frock coat the rest of the way off his arm. “Can you see where he’s injured?”
His left arm was clean, but a dark stain of red bloomed at his side. She wasn’t sure where her strength came from, but she ripped his shirt open from the center down and spread the material wide. She moved slowly and carefully, feeling around where she thought he’d been shot.
A man she did not know knelt next to her with a white cloth in hand. He pressed it to Tristan’s side, dabbing away enough blood to see the wound caused by the bullet her father had so callously put there. The man leaned over and prodded at the raw wound.
“It’s no more than a grazing,” the man said to her in a calm, even voice. “Bullet only skidded across his ribs.”
Despite the good news, Charlotte was still worried, but her sobs were less of fear and more from her relief that her husband wasn’t seriously injured. “Why isn’t he awake?” she asked, still not fully convinced of the doctor’s prognosis.
“Could be the shock,” he said.
“The blood,” Bea said, taking Charlotte by the shoulders, urging her to her feet, and moving her away from Tristan. “Let the doctor look him over. We’ll be back at the house soon enough—you can fuss over him there.”
She felt numb and let Bea pull her into a comforting hug before she turned and looked her sister-in-law in the eye.
“He is going to be fine,” Bea said, her voice surprisingly steady. “The best thing we can do right now is get him home and comfortably situated before the children are awake. They need not know of the ill-conceived vagaries of men.”
Charlotte nodded. Bea was right. “How long will it take to bring the carriage around?”
“Not more than fifteen minutes,” Bea said. “I’ve already asked the stablehand to have it hitched and brought immediately.”
Charlotte looked around her; light was finally stretching across the sky and dissipating the fog that lingered on the ground. The ground seemed so cold and lifeless where her husband lay. The doctor had a listening device stuck in his ear and pressed to Tristan’s bared chest, right where his heart was.
Turning, she saw the duke discussing something with her father and Mr. Warren. They were responsible for this. She’d nearly been widowed … and for what reason? There was no reason good enough to take away the man she loved.
“Charlotte,” Bea said, sternly drawing her attention away from the men she needed to have words with. “Have you heard a word I said?”
She shook her head and moved out of Bea’s reach. “My father,” she said.
Rage unlike anything she’d ever felt in all her life took hold of her. She fisted her hands at her sides and barreled toward her father and ex-fiancé.
“What did you think to accomplish?” Her voice was low and surprisingly calm.
“You don’t belong on the field of a duel,” Warren said carelessly, drawing all her focus on him.
Charlotte pointed her finger at him, stepping threateningly closer as she glared at him. “You will never tell me what to do. Your worth as a decent man was called into question with this little charade.”
Mr. Warren only cocked his brow at her and crossed his arms over his chest. “I was not the one to call out your husband.”
“She’s right, Adrian,” Bea hissed and came up to stand next to Charlotte. There was solidarity in numbers. “You have no honor so you could never have called a challenge to begin with. Yet here you stand as though to prove something.”
“I ought to put you in your place, Beatrice.” Warren flicked his eyes over Bea in a cold manner. “You’ve no right to talk to me as you are. There are things I know.”
“And you’ve no right to step foot on my property without a proper invitation. You can hurl as many insults my way as you wish. They no longer have the leverage they once did, because I know you. I know the real you. And you’d do well to hide yourself away from the truth of your vile nature, lest the world find out what sort of man you really are. Leave,” she demanded in so low a voice that even Charlotte was afraid of the wrath that might befall the man should he disobey her.
What was their past that they addressed each other familiarly? It was a question for another time, for the carriage came around and her focus returned to her husband. First, she needed to have a few words with her father.
“Your Grace,” Charlotte said, reaching for the duke’s arm. “Will you help my husband into the carriage?”
“Of course.”
“And you, Father. Was all this,” she waved her hand around the field, “for your honor? Have you been so wronged because of a decision I made?”
“You knew your place and your duty, daughter.”
“I begged for an alternative to marrying him, even a delay in the nuptials. Perhaps your pride and your grand love for politics got in the way of seeing just how much Warren disregarded me and how miserable life with him would have been for me.”
“You know nothing of how life works.”
“Oh, but I do. I loved you unconditionally as a child, Father, as any doting daughter would. No longer. You have betrayed me—your only child. You wanted to take away the one thing I cherished most in my life. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for this.”
“You’re acting like a child. You don’t know what you’re saying.” His expression seemed wounded. Did he have regrets? She hoped he did.
“You would have married me to your dear friend Mr. Warren. I hope you have found your honor, because if not, it will be me on the other end of the field for your next duel.” She pounded her fist against her heart. “And you taught me well as a child—my aim is always true.”
“You speak blasphemy to your own flesh and blood.”
With a heavy heart, she said, “My only loyalty now is to my husband and his family. You have brought this outcome onto yourself. Ask yourself, Father, what is honor without love?”
With that parting comment, she turned on her heel, grabbed up Bea’s hand, and made her way to the carriage. Tristan’s eyes were open, but he was not lucid.
“Wife,” he whispered as his eyes slipped closed once more.
She took his hand and remained quiet for the rest of the trip home.
* * *
Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed, tucking and retucking the sheets around her husband’s prone form. The doctor had given him something to keep him asleep while they cleaned out the wound at his side—which wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d originally thought.
She hadn’t been able to leave his side all morning. Bea had gone down to amuse the children. They’d been told that their father had taken ill and that they must let him rest for the remainder of the day.
“What am I going to do with you?”
She sighed, and took his hand in hers. He squeezed it back. Her gaze flicked up to his open eyes. “How much damage? I thought I was a dead man when my hand came away soaked with blood.”
She gave him a wry grin. “It’s good that you are awake.”
“How can I not be with a lovely angel watching over me?”
“Still charming even when injured, I see.” Though she was pleased by his good spirits. Surely that meant he was on the mend.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the details.”
“But you didn’t escape me for long,” she said sternly.
“Do you think we can start our life now without worry of reprisal from our hasty marriage?” he asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position, cringing while he did so. She helped him, leaning forward to grab more pillows and shoving them behind his back so he was better propped up.
“Come here.” He motioned with his head toward the empty spot next to him. “Sit with me for a while.”
She scooted up the bed and sat next to him, thigh-to-thigh, hip-to-hip. She rested her head on his shoulder and let out a deep breath. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I told you I would be fine.”
“I think my father very much wanted you dead. I’m not sure why he didn’t put the bullet right through you.”
Midnight Temptations With a Forbidden Lord Page 27
