Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Well, that tears it!” Charley smacked down the glass he’d just emptied of Darien’s best whisky. “Mauling m’sister in full view of the Pennyroyals? It’s the leg-shackle for you, that’s certain!”
“Lower your voice,” Darien said, arranging his cravat. “Your clabbering will wake Rufie.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Charley said in a stage whisper. “Don’t you think you ought’ve?”
Darien shook his head. “I don’t want him caught up in this mess. He’s to be married.”
“Well, so are you, from the sounds of things,” Charley grouched.
They stood in Darien’s library, which held the only mirror in the house, since his sorry excuse for a valet had still not installed a looking glass in Darien’s dressing room. Charley poured another glass from the sideboard and threw it back in one swift gulp.
It was not yet daybreak, but Darien guessed that the young baronet had not wasted a night that could be spent gaming, drinking, and lingering in the arms of his mistress with activity as pedestrian as sleep.
He would furthermore bet that more than once in the night, Sir Charleton had cursed the misfortune that made him the only man who’d stepped forward when a drunk, furious Freddy Highcastle stormed into the Bicclesfield card room demanding Daring produce a second.
Morning stubble shadowed Charley’s jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot with weariness. Brash he might be, but he clearly had never before had the solemn duty of escorting a man to the field of honor.
Charley held up his coat and Darien squeezed into it. The younger man cleared his throat as Darien saw to the intricate row of buttons, then pulled the lace of his shirt sleeves free of the wide cuffs. “Did you leave letters?”
Darien suspected he, too, looked the worse for wear.
He had at least lain down to rest, though sleep eluded him, not due to thoughts of pistols at dawn but to wondering how soon he might call on Henrietta.
She’d gone stiff and cold after the discovery of their kiss in the British Museum, without a word to him thereafter.
All the maids Lord Daring had rejected, and Miss Wardley-Hines marched up the stairs of her father’s house without even acknowledging his offer, much less swooning with acceptance. He would get through this part of the morning, and then he would address her.
“I left them in my study.”
Atop his designs for a drainage pump for Henrietta’s estate lay two vellum envelopes imprinted with his seal, one inscribed with his father’s full titles and one that simply read “Henry.” What a terrible and liberating exercise it was to tell someone you loved everything you most longed to tell them but for very good reasons would never utter without the threat of loss of life.
Not that he had any expectation of giving up his life in this venture. It was an annoyance, but it would be only an hour, maybe two, and then it would be over. He could close the chapter on Celeste and every bitter memory associated with her, and he would call upon his intended.
He wanted to marry Henrietta Wardley-Hines. Quite the surprise, that.
“I wish you would have let me tell her about the duel,” Charley said.
Darien shook his head. “There’s no reason she needs to know until after, if she needs to know at all. Did you find a sawbones?”
“He’s outside. We picked him up on the way.”
“We? You brought another witness?”
Darien saw for himself as they stepped out the door. In Charley’s phaeton sat the surgeon who had attended his last duel with Havering. And, lounging against the tying post, James chewed a pie wrapped in grease-soaked paper. He scowled at Darien. Darien scowled back.
“He won’t cry rope on us, but that’s all I can say about him,” Darien said.
“Did ye only offer for her as you meant to get yerself killed the next morn?” James barked.
“Stand down, halfling,” Darien said. “No one is getting killed today.”
“Wish ye’d brung the toledo instead o’ the pops,” James said, eying the pistol case Charley carried. “Swords is better.”
“And the injuries potentially more lethal,” Darien replied. “It was Freddy’s challenge, so my choice of weapons. Freddy faints at the sight of blood. Has ever since Eton.”
“Cove oughtn’t be tilting if ’e can’t stomach the claret,” James scoffed. He held the horses while the men mounted, then tossed the ribbons to Darien with an agile flick. “Meself, I’d pink ’im, just to show ’im what’s what.”
“You will hold your peace,” Darien said. “I’ll delope, Freddy will miss, and we’ll all go to the pub and have a pint. Saving for Charley, who will continue with whisky, or cast up his accounts all over his spanking new vehicle.”
Two shadows stood in Hyde Park in the spot known as the Nursery. Above them draped a great willow that had witnessed many a senseless wounding and death in its long life, among various other follies of men. Freddy came first out of the mist.
“I thought Perry’d be with you.”
“I thought he was with you,” Darien answered. “You seemed rather thick a few months ago.”
Freddy scowled. “Ain’t seen him in days, and now Celeste is gone too.”
“Gone where?”
“You tell me!” Freddy exploded. “Don’t you have her pocketed somewhere?”
“I haven’t seen your sister since we parted ways and she shattered a priceless Oriental vase to honor the occasion.”
That gave Freddy pause. “So that’s what happened to the Ming! She told Mother it was the dog.” He frowned. “So she didn’t send the brat to you, then follow behind?”
Darien shook his head. “She gave the child to a foundling hospital. Is she really fit for traveling so soon? Perhaps your parents sent her away.”
“Mum’s up in the boughs,” Freddy reported. “No note, nothing.”
Darien turned to the second man inspecting the pistols, a set custom-crafted by Wogdon, the craftsman known for making beautiful instruments of death. “Hullo, Havering. You look the worse for wear.”
“Heard your news at Boodle’s,” Havering said. “Felicitations.”
“Thank you,” Darien replied.
Havering turned to his challenger. “See here, Freddy. If your sister’s flown the coop, there’s really no call to blow Daring’s brains out, is there?”
Freddy’s scowl deepened. “Felicitations for what?”
“Parson’s mousetrap.” Havering pointed. “Charley’s bluestocking sister.”
In the gray light, the rage that spread across Freddy’s face was a dull brick red. “You’ll marry his sister but not mine? I’ll have your blood, Daring!” He roared and lunged for the pistols.
Fog skimmed the field as the men counted their paces.
James, holding both teams in the narrow rut of the road, soothed the horses against the coming noise.
The surgeon shook his head and retreated, his face showing what he thought of waiting for two perfectly healthy men to damage each other when so many ill people required his treatment.
At least he stood to make ten times his customary fee.
Charley and Havering stood back, the viscount’s son shoulder to shoulder with the tradesman’s son, the accidental baronet. The duelists turned to face one another, two spare sons of the nobility who had been bred to no career, no vocation, no purpose in life but entertainment.
Darien had considered, in the small reaches of the night, what it would mean to his father if he lost his third son. Rathbone would become heir presumptive, and Rathbone was a man Darien couldn’t like, no gentleman in any sense of the term.
A year ago—even a few months ago—the degenerate Lord Daring would have been relieved to punctuate his life with a bullet in the chest over a woman.
He had been pursuing his own destruction, letting practiced hoydens like Celeste seduce him to their beds and canny innocents like Forsythia Pennyroyal drape themselves around his neck.
But now, though the morning seeped with fog and the early stink of this bustling city, his head was clear. He had, at the bottom of his cloudy darkness, glimpsed a pure light that pierced his gloom, a woman whose good sense and energy and spirit sliced through his self-pity and despair.
There was a child who, his get or not, he had promised to support. He had no notion what a future with Henrietta might look like, but he wanted to reach for it with both hands.
Havering dropped the handkerchief. Darien lifted his right arm and shot to the side, firing into the ground. The noise thudded through the clearing, the echo dampened by fog. The horses shook their heads and stamped.
“Damn you, Daring!” Freddy bellowed, aiming at his chest. “I want satisfaction.”
“Then take your shot,” Darien said. “I ruined your sister. I made it impossible that any decent man would have her, not even Havering. Whatever her other failings, I am responsible for Celeste’s child.
” He dropped his arm, the spent pistol dangling from his hand.
Honor demanded he stand his ground and let his challenger take aim. “Get it over with, Freddy.”
Freddy’s arm wavered as several expressions chased across his young face. Then, hissing a curse, he swung the barrel of his pistol and pulled the trigger at the same time.
Darien flinched. Every man on the field saw his body recoil, smelled the report, and heard the odd, particular sound of a lead bullet tearing through fabric and flesh. A hammer hit him in the chest. Even from twenty paces, Darien saw the whites of Freddy’s astonished eyes.
“Ye plugged ’im!” James shrieked.
“Damn you all!” Freddy howled. “I meant to miss!” He threw the gun aside and started forward.
Darien’s hand went cold and numb. His pistol thudded to the ground, and he thought hazily it would get dirt in the inlay or damage from the damp.
Together, he and Freddy stared at his chest, the spatter of bright red across his crisp white neckcloth, the dark stain spreading across his exquisite plum coat.
The polish on his buttons would never be the same.
The thought came from somewhere outside him, as if his spirit had already unhooked from his body.