Chapter Eighteen #2
“Good luck to you both.” Then Ravenhurst left the center and went to go stand by the doctor. “Ten, nine…”
With each number, both duelists took one long stride apart.
Her chest tightened with each new number. Despite her position in society and his, she gripped Thorton’s arm with a hand. Why was Evan so pigheaded? Didn’t he understand there was more at stake than ego and who would take the title?
“Four, three…”
“I must do something.” When she went to take a step toward the duelists, Thornton encircled her wrist with the fingers of his free hand, and it was like an iron manacle.
“Let it play out, Miss Ulrich. It’s for the best.”
Disgust circled through her stomach. “How is him potentially getting himself killed for the best?”
But the duke didn’t answer.
“One!”
Bang!
The report of a pistol discharging rang overly loud in her ears. Then time seemed to slow as she kept her gaze glued to the scene playing out before her.
Seconds later, Buckthorne fell, and it was both chaotic and excruciating at the same time. A scream loosed from her throat. Every muscle in her body tensed for flight. When she took that first step to run to him, Thornton caught her around the waist with an arm.
“Wait. Don’t ruin it,” he cautioned in a low voice.
Panic and horror became her world, and she was drowning in those emotions. “Don’t ruin what?” Then her brain couldn’t form any more words as her heart beat overly fast, and bile climbed her throat.
The Duke of Othello kneeled on one knee beside Evan’s body while Ravenhurst loomed over them both. The seconds slogged by while the doctor conducted a swift examination.
“What is your assessment, Doctor?” Ravenhurst asked.
The man with the dark brown hair and round, wire-rimmed spectacles glanced up from his contemplation of Evan.
The fingers he’d pressed to the side of the captain’s neck and then to his wrist fell away.
“I regret to inform the company that Captain Buckthorne is dead.” He removed a pocket watch from his greatcoat.
“Let the official record state that Mr. Hubley was declared deceased at fourteen minutes after midnight on November the first, in the year of our Lord 1816.”
The words carried to her location.
“No!” The weight of that intonement fell into the pit of her stomach, crushing her heart along the way.
Thornton wrapped his arms around her and tried to pull her away from the scene.
She was having none of it. Frantic and heartsick, Hannah fought her way out of the duke’s arms, pelted over the dark ground, then fell to her knees beside the still body of the man who had won her heart twice.
Slowly, both Ravenhurst and the doctor moved to stand a few feet away while James and his second retreated to the center of the dueling field. Vaguely, she was aware that Thornton and Foxcroft stood nearby, but she ignored every man there in order to concentrate on Evan.
The lantern light made everything appear far too eerie with the play of shadows. She brushed a shock of hair off his forehead. He was so prideful about that hair, always bragging that it had remained full even though he would turn one and forty later this year.
“Why did you have to be so arrogant and stupid as to challenge your brother to a duel?” she said in a broken whisper as she gazed down at him.
Red stained the front of his shirt, his waistcoat, and had pooled beneath his body.
Tears fell to her cheeks. “You promised me that you were a good shot.” Yet he hadn’t even gotten one off.
Only one shot had been fired, and it had been from James’ pistol.
“Were your reflexes too slow or did something prevent you from firing?” Why hadn’t he gotten off that shot?
Frustrated and wracked by grief, Hannah sobbed.
She fisted her fingers into his lapels and gave his body a bit of a shake.
“Damn you, Buckthorne. I loved you, never had the chance to tell you, but you managed to ruin what we could have had together once again.”
And this time he wouldn’t return.
Of course, Evan didn’t respond. He lay there, pale and still, with his eyes closed. The dark arc of his brown lashes starkly contrasted against his white cheeks.
As her heart broke into a hundred pieces, Hannah glanced across the field where his half-brother basked in his victory even if he was a trifle pale in the lantern light.
“Now I know why you hate him,” she whispered to Evan’s corpse.
“I wouldn’t have put it past him to fire a trifle early, which would explain the reason you didn’t fire.
” Casting a teary-eyed look around the immediate area, she gently removed the pistol from his lifeless grip.
“I may not have been able to save you from death, but I will finish the job you started. If I can’t have you, I’ll damn well have my vengeance.
” Then, scrambling to her feet, she clutched the pistol in her right hand and took a few steps toward his brother.
“No, Miss Ulrich. I can’t let you have such a thing on your conscience.
” Thornton dropped a hand on her shoulder.
“Hold before you do something that will affect your life.” He took the pistol from her and deposited it into a pocket of his greatcoat while Foxcroft joined Evan’s brother in the center of the clearing.
“I hope you are proud of yourself, Sunderingham,” Foxcroft said with a glare that would intimidate most people. “You have murdered the true heir to the Duke of Bettington in an illegal duel.”
James huffed. He handed the pistol to the man who was his second. “Buckthorne was the one who wanted the duel. Father declared me as his heir once it was assumed my brother was dead or lost over nine years ago.”
“That was an assumption, not a fact, though. You usurped the true heir’s title.”