The Earl's Betrothal

by Tuft, Karen

  “What was I thinking?” Anthony shot back at Lucas. “You knew I was confronting the man. Did you expect we would have a little chat and he would meekly apologize and all would be well?” He closed his eyes at the image of the welts on Amelia’s back. “Her back is raw, Lucas; the welts were deep and bloody ones. She will have scars from this. And why? Because the duke could not accept that Lady Elizabeth and I decided not to marry and chose to blame Amelia instead. What he did is beyond the pale.”

  “And what happens if he does not delope?” Lucas asked. “Do you intend to kill the man?”

  “I do not know,” Anthony replied truthfully. “I have killed before, in battle, as have you. And I am sorely tempted. Sorely tempted.” He was through talking. He mounted Bucephalus and turned in the direction of home. It was time to be with Amelia for as long as he could and await the dawn.

  Chapter 18

  It was dusk, and the house was quiet when Anthony and Lucas returned, having parted from Kit and Phillip. Lucas took both horses to the stable while Anthony went inside, anxious to see Amelia now that his meeting with the Duke of Marwood was set. He hurried up to her bedchamber.

  His mother sat quietly in a chair next to Amelia’s bed, reading. The fireplace crackled, providing a soothing heat while Amelia slept on, a sheet lightly draped over her back. “I could not leave her,” the marchioness whispered to him, setting her book aside. “She was my support when Alex died and again when we thought you were gone too. She sat with me as I stayed at your father’s bedside. How could I not do the same for her?”

  Anthony took his mother’s hand in his and kissed it. “How has she been?”

  “Asleep mostly, which is a blessing,” she said. “The laudanum will begin to wear off soon though, and she will need more.” She yawned as she gestured toward the bottle that stood on the bedside table.

  “Go rest, Mother,” Anthony said. “I will stay with her.”

  “Very well.” She stood and placed a gentle hand on Amelia’s head. “Sleep, dear girl. I am so sorry you are having to endure this.” She turned away and wrapped her arms tightly around Anthony’s waist. “Watch her well,” she said.

  He embraced her, his arms around her shoulders. “I intend to,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. It was a rare, intimate moment with his mother, and he held her close, relishing the love and warmth when he still felt such rage inside.

  Perhaps he had taken his family’s love for granted when he had gone off to war, but no longer. He was facing a new battle at dawn, and there was no guarantee how things would turn out, despite his intention to live through it.

  Eventually she drew back and left him to his lonely vigil. Dawn would come soon enough with its unsure outcome. In the meantime, Anthony would sit with the woman he loved.

  * * *

  Anthony felt something crawling through his hair. He jerked his head away, his hand reaching for the culprit.

  There was a hissing sound followed by a deep moan.

  His eyes immediately flew open. Fingers. Amelia’s fingers. He had apparently fallen asleep in the chair, his head resting on the bed next to Amelia’s own. Now her eyes, bleary and tight with pain, looked back at him.

  Quickly loosening his grasp on her fingers, he brought them to his mouth and kissed them. In turn, she ran her forefinger slowly over his lips, her touch a benediction to his soul. “My love,” he whispered, his voice gravelly from sleep.

  “On fire, Anthony,” she managed to say, wincing. “My back.”

  “I understand,” he said. He kissed and relinquished her hand, and, shaking the fogginess of sleep from his mind, poured water into a glass, then added the laudanum. He held the glass to her lips. “Drink this, love. All of it.”

  It was difficult for her to drink, for any movement sent her into spasms of pain. Anthony tried to hold her head as she drank, and some of the liquid spilled, but he eventually got most of it into her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as he dabbed at her chin and mopped up the spills as best he could from the bedding. She closed her eyes.

  “Marwood will not go unpunished for this,” Anthony told her. “I will see to it.” He nearly told her he had challenged the duke to a duel and was meeting him in a few short hours, but it would only agitate her, so he stopped himself.

  “Closer,” she whispered.

  He moved the chair out of the way and knelt by the bed, resting his head on the pillow next to hers. He traced her face with his fingers: her brow and delicate cheekbones, down her nose, along her jaw . . .

  “Promise,” she said.

  “Anything,” he vowed.

  “Promise . . . no vengeance.”

  The image of the woman from Badajoz flashed through his mind again. “I could not save you from this. I must do something.”

  She shook her head and winced at the effort. “All my life”—she stopped speaking as she dealt with a wave of pain—“my father taught me.”

  “Hush, love,” Anthony said to her, brushing her hair from her face. “Rest now; don’t speak. Just rest.” Anthony prayed the laudanum would begin to work soon.

  She forced her eyes open. “God said . . . vengeance is His,” she whispered.

  “My brave girl,” he said softly as he continued to stroke her face. “Not vengeance, then, my love. Justice. That you cannot stop me from.”

  “Oh, Anthony,” she breathed, her eyes drifting shut, the laudanum finally, thankfully, showing its effects. “How you have suffered.”

  Anthony knelt there and watched as her breathing deepened and her body, freed temporarily from pain by the medicine, gradually relaxed.

  She had spoken to him of his suffering when she was the one suffering now. How incredibly special she was. How he loved her.

  He stood and placed a final kiss on her brow. It was nearly dawn, and he had preparations to make in order to be ready to meet the Duke of Marwood. Amelia would sleep restfully, and God willing, he would be back at her side before anyone realized he’d been gone.

  He needed time to consider his promise to Amelia and how he could keep it when his blood pulsed hotly through him, urging him to take the duke’s life.

  Anthony had experienced it before—the blood pumping through his veins, the hellish desire to do the unimaginable. Storming the breaches at Badajoz had been a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno, as brave men had attacked the wall, thousands of them dying horrible deaths, others being driven to inhuman brutality.

  Anthony knew well what it meant to be driven to the very edge of his humanity, and it had happened to the Duke of Marwood as well. But the duke had made the dire mistake of directing that brutality at Amelia, and for that he would pay.

  One way or another, justice would be served.

  * * *

  The stars were fading, the sky turning from black to gray as Anthony and Lucas quietly walked their horses down the alley leading from the mews, anxious not to stir anyone from their slumber. Soon enough the houses on the square would be filled with servants lighting morning fires and hauling water, but not yet.

  The men were silent, the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones the only sound. Mist swirled about, adding to the grimness Anthony felt.

  Kit was waiting for them when they reached the corner of the square. “Phillip has gone for the surgeon,” he said in a low voice. That was all that needed to be said. They mounted their horses and proceeded forward at a walk.

  The meeting place that had been selected was a remote area of Hyde Park known for its duels and, appropriately enough, was not far from the spot where the duke had attacked Amelia. When the trio arrived, they could see that Phillip and the surgeon, a man Anthony recognized as an old army sawbones, as well as the duke and Baron Lawton, were already there. In the distance were the duke’s and baron’s carriages as well as the hackney coach Phillip must have used to b
ring the surgeon, their coachmen standing huddled together.

  Anthony dismounted and left Bucephalus in Lucas’s care. Kit walked forward to consult with the baron, each of them examining the chosen pistols, making sure the weapons were equal and in working order and measuring out the distance between the duelists. The signal to shoot, it had been decided, would be the drop of a handkerchief.

  The Duke of Marwood stood off by himself while the seconds conferred. Anthony watched him closely, trying to read his behavior in order to assess his state of mind. The duke was a gambler, so he was used to steeling his nerves under pressure. But would the same hold true in a duel? Anthony, on the other hand, knew intimately what it was like to face the killing end of a weapon.

  Kit returned to his side and handed the pistol to him. Anthony took a moment to check over the weapon himself. “The points are set,” Kit said. “All is ready if you still wish to pursue this, Tony. But I would ask you to think of Amelia.”

  “She is precisely who I am thinking of,” he answered, and yet he understood it was Kit’s job as his second to attempt reconciliation.

  Kit’s words and Amelia’s promise forefront in his mind, he approached the duke. “I see you are ready, Your Grace,” he said.

  The duke only cast a disparaging look at him.

  “Do you wish to make amends?”

  “Do not insult me,” the duke replied icily. “The settlements were made, and you let that cheap bit of muslin distract you. She is nothing, nothing compared to my Elizabeth, who is worth her weight in gold. She ruined everything.”

  “I agree that your daughter is exceptional, but she is not a commodity, as you seem to forget. The lady and I both agreed we did not suit. You would do well to accept this, Your Grace. Miss Clarke is her equal in my eyes, and I will have your apology.”

  “Let’s get on with this. You are wasting my time.”

  Anthony looked into the duke’s eyes and saw no remorse there, only greed and dissipation. “As you wish,” he replied. He turned to Kit and gestured for him to proceed.

  Kit and Baron Lawton exchanged resigned expressions. “Gentlemen, take your places,” Kit said in a voice just loud enough to carry over the green.

  Anthony and the Duke of Marwood each walked to their designated points and saluted each other. Then they waited, pistols at their sides, their eyes on Baron Lawton, whose duty it was to drop the handkerchief.

  Lawton rubbed his hands together nervously and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket. “Ready, present,” the baron called, raising his arm and holding the white linen high. It caught the breeze briefly, fluttering, reminding Anthony of a flag of surrender. But it was not.

  The baron dropped the handkerchief, but just before he did, he turned his head slightly, glancing toward the duke.

  The duke raised his weapon and fired. Anthony, his reflexes honed from his years of military service, saw the handkerchief drop and fired his own weapon at the exact moment the duke’s bullet whizzed past his ear.

  The Duke of Marwood crumpled to his knees. Lawton and the surgeon hurried over to him. Anthony stalked over to him as well.

  The surgeon was hunched over the duke, moving his clothing away from the wound in his shoulder so he could inspect it while Lawton flailed his hands about fretfully. “Be of some use, man, and stanch this blood,” the surgeon snapped at Lawton.

  Lawton’s face was as gray as the duke’s, and he looked as though he would keel over at any moment, but he dutifully squatted to hold a wad of rags at the ready for the surgeon and dabbed gingerly at the blood in question.

  “You shot a duke,” Lawton choked out when he noticed Anthony.

  The duke in question hissed in pain as the surgeon examined the wound.

  “No one would ever fault you for your powers of observation,” Anthony said, earning a glare from the surgeon. Anthony did not care. He knew well enough that His Grace had not been mortally wounded by his shot, not that he wouldn’t suffer for a while as Amelia now suffered. Anthony knew his own abilities well enough to know where it would hit, and despite his own inclinations, he had made a promise to Amelia.

  Kit and Phillip hurried over as the surgeon assisted the duke to his feet. He was staggering and sweating profusely from the pain. “Help me get His Grace to the carriage,” the surgeon barked. “He needs to be lying down if I am to get this bleeding under control. Quickly.”

  The men moved to carry the duke and secure him in his carriage, the surgeon climbing in afterward. Anthony had followed behind, and now he leaned in through the carriage door.

  “What do you want?” the duke hissed, clenching his teeth as the surgeon applied more pressure on the bandages. “Haven’t you gotten your satisfaction yet?”

  “You aimed to kill,” Anthony said.

  “So did you. Now get out so I can leave.”

  “I did not. I promised Amelia I would not.”

  “Please, my lord,” the surgeon said. “I really must get His Grace home—”

  “You also fired before the signal,” Anthony said. And then something dawned on him, something his reflexes had responded to that his conscious mind had not picked up on until now. “In fact, you signaled him,” Anthony said, turning from the carriage door and pointing to the baron. “I saw you look at him before you dropped the handkerchief.”

  “No, I swear!” the baron cried, flushing beet red. “Just never been a second before. And the first time would be for a duke, no less. Nerves got the best of me.”

  “I do not believe you,” Anthony said.

  “’Tis true,” the baron insisted. “I never—”

  “The fool has a tell,” the duke snapped. “When he has a bad hand or is into the pot too deep, he gives himself away. I was counting on it.” He snapped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

  “Blast you, Marwood,” the baron said, dropping his head. He turned on his heel and stamped off to his carriage.

  “I doubt those two will be playing cards together anytime soon,” Kit said wryly.

  “My lord,” the surgeon said. “I would like to take the duke to his residence now, if you please, before he loses any more blood.”

  Anthony gripped both sides of the carriage door and leaned in to confront the duke face-to-face. “You owe your life to my promise to Amelia. Do not ever forget that or that it was she who exacted the promise from me.”

  Anthony moved and shut the door with an emphatic bang, then watched the carriage drive away before turning to join his friends, who were walking away from the carriage toward their horses and the hackney coach. The sun’s rays lined the sky, softening the gray dawn and hinting of the light to come.

  It was a new day. One Anthony hoped would herald the beginning of his life with Amelia at his side and his ghosts fading away with the mist.

  Chapter 19

  Jane had pulled the curtains partway open, so fresh morning sunlight brightened Amelia’s bedchamber. Anthony quietly shut the door behind him and stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, taking in the scene before him.

  Amelia was sleeping soundly, thankfully; the laudanum would be a necessity for a few more days until she healed enough that her movements would not cause her too much pain. The sheet across her back had slipped, baring one vulnerable-looking shoulder and part of her bandage. Her hair was an endearing tangle of curls that cascaded over her pillow and was shot with golden highlights from the sun’s rays.

  Amelia stretched in her sleep and winced, and Anthony started forward, concerned that she might be in need of more medicine, but she settled and breathed deeply and calmly again.

  He took the seat he had spent most of the night in, exhausted from the duel, and laid his head on the pillow next to hers. “Amelia, my dearest love,” he whispered, gently plucking an errant curl and winding it around his finger. “Sleep and get well. You are safe now. He will not bother you again.”
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  Anthony had seen things brought to their conclusion this time, unlike his experience in Badajoz. There was such a sense of satisfaction in it—to act for himself and to achieve victory for one of the defenseless.

  More than that this time though. The victory was for his woman, his love.

  “Amelia,” he said again. And then he closed his eyes and slept.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, after Anthony had rested, washed, shaved, and dressed—with the assistance of his new valet, Charlie Bates by name, and under the careful supervision of Lucas—he went to his mother’s favorite sitting room and found her seated on the floral damask sofa there, doing needlework with Lady Walmsley. His father was there also, seated in a chair near his marchioness, reading.

  This particular sitting room was a wash of creams, yellows, and pale pinks—a decidedly feminine, sunny room. His father had always tended to prefer his more masculine study, with its dark woods and filled bookshelves.

  “Ah, Anthony,” Lady Ashworth said, setting her sewing aside and taking his hands in hers for a quick squeeze. “Amelia is still sleeping soundly, thank goodness. Jane has been instructed to inform us the minute she awakes.” She looked carefully at him. “I must say, you look much better than you did now that you are rested. Indeed, I believe you look better than you have since your return to us.” She patted the cushion next to her.

  Lady Walmsley peered at him through her lorgnette after he sat. “Your mother is quite right,” she said. “You are a handsome young man, tall and fit and with those dazzling blue eyes of yours, but you looked weary to the bone before. I am glad to see you looking so well, as if a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.”

  A tap at the door interrupted Lady Walmsley’s embarrassing soliloquy about his looks, for which Anthony was grateful. Gibbs entered. “Please excuse the interruption,” he said. “There are two gentlemen here to call on Lord Halford. A Mr. Swindlehurst and a Mr. Abbott.” He walked forward and handed a calling card to Anthony. “I have put the gentlemen in the front parlor, my lord.”