“Stay in there,” Rissa hissed at him. “I shall send whoever it is away.”
He gave a brief nod and ducked into the chamber and shut the door.
Rissa hurried to get off the bed herself, hastening to straighten her dress and running both hands through her hair to tame the flyaway curls. Finally, she felt presentable.
Going to the door—thank the Goddess she had locked it when they came in from their walk!—she peered through the spy hole. Standing there, his face red and his mustaches twitching like angry tails, was Duke Grabbington.
Rissa felt a flash of irritation. How dare the nasty Duke interrupt her private time with James? She’d had the distinct feeling the big Kindred was going to say something important to her just before the interruption. Maybe even a confession of love.
No matter what he said about not having emotions, Rissa couldn’t help thinking he certainly acted like he was having them. Why else would he have gotten so upset with her about the tea? Or gotten so angry about the way Duke Grabbington had grabbed her and kissed her the night before?
Speaking of Duke Grabbington—what was she going to do about him? He was pounding on the door again, now—demanding to see her. Reluctantly, Rissa decided it was better to open the door, though she was determined not to allow him admittance to her rooms.
“Yes, Duke Grabbington?” she asked coldly, as she swung the door open and glared at him. “What can I do for you?”
“What you can do, Princess Ka’rissa, is acknowledge in writing that I am to be your Royal Consort,” he snapped, pushing his way past her, into her rooms.
“Please go back,” Rissa said coldly, “I did not invite you into my apartments and I would like you to leave.”
“Not until I get a written statement from you!” He turned and glared at her, tapping one foot impatiently. “I told you I wanted it in writing by this morning. I must have it to present to the Steward so that I can claim your hand in marriage when you officially accept me tomorrow.”
Rissa reflected that only hours before she had nearly poisoned herself just to get away from this horrid little man. He had kissed her against her will, made her think she was pregnant, and threatened her with ruin. And now he had interrupted her lovely experience with James as well! She frankly couldn’t think of a word bad enough to call him.
“No such statement will be forthcoming,” she told him coldly. “I am not going to marry you, therefore you will not become my Royal Consort.”
His piggy little eyes narrowed to slits.
“Think again, my dear Princess. Do you not remember the kiss we shared last night?”
“You mean the kiss you forced on me!” Rissa exclaimed. “Of course I remember—it changes nothing.”
“It changes everything!” Duke Grabbington insisted. “You, my dear Princess, have been compromised. All I have to do is let one person know how you succumbed to me last night and it will be all over the Court in a trice!” He snapped his fingers, as though to illustrate his point. “Your reputation will be in tatters before a quarter of an hour has passed.”
For a moment, Rissa felt the pit of her stomach grow cold. A lady’s reputation was a fragile thing—so easily besmirched and sullied! But then she thought of a lifetime with the horrid Duke and how awful it would be to let him do the things James had told her about on her wedding night. She had nearly gagged from having his tongue in her mouth—how much worse would it be to have his shaft in her pussy? The very thought made her recoil.
No, she thought, straightening her spine. No, I will not let him bully me into a lifetime of misery and regret!
“Very well, Duke, you may spread rumors if you like,” she said coolly. “But if you do, then I shall spread some of my own.”
“What?” The Duke looked astonished. “Whatever do you think you could say that would harm me?”
“I…I shall say that I saw you abusing one of the maids,” Rissa said.
He smirked.
“Believe me, my dear, that will make no difference to me. That ridiculous Lady TittleTattle has already printed such things about me and yet I am going to be the Royal Consort, nonetheless.”
His arrogance grated on Rissa’s nerves and she sought for something else she could say. Suddenly, she remembered the conversation she’d been having with James about when a man’s shaft was limp or hard and what it meant.
“I shall say that I saw you trying to abuse one of the maids but that you were unable to do so,” she said, thinking how James had said that an “inability to perform” was considered shameful to a man.
“What?” This time, the Duke looked actually angry and discomforted. “What are you saying?” he demanded.
“I shall say that I saw you chasing her down the hallway and that your…your manhood was hanging out of your breeches, flopping around, limp as a noodle,” Rissa went on, making things up as she went along. She could tell by the way the Duke’s face was growing darker and darker that she was on the right track. “I shall say that she was laughing at Your Grace and saying that you could not catch her and that even if you did, you would not be able to…to do anything to her,” she finished triumphantly. “And I shall tell it to as many people as I can,” she added. “So there!”
Duke Grabbington’s face was nearly puce with fury.
“You would not dare to say such things about me, you little minx!” he exclaimed.
“I most certainly would,” Rissa said, lifting her chin. “In fact, I shall ring for my maid and tell her to spread the rumor to all the servants in the palace as soon as you go, if you do not leave me alone at once!”
“You little liar! You wouldn’t dare!” Duke Grabbington snarled.
“I certainly would. In fact, I will!” Rissa reached for the button that, when pushed, rang a bell to call a maid to her room.
The Duke snatched her hand away, his meaty fingers tightening around her wrist.
“Let me go!” Rissa exclaimed, trying to pull away from him. “Unhand me at once, Sir!”
“No.” A nasty look was growing on the Duke’s face and his mustaches twitched menacingly. He began dragging her further into the room, towards the somewhat rumpled bed. “I can see, Princess, that I did not go far enough with you last night,” he snarled at her as Rissa continued to fight him. “I thought a simple kiss would be enough to compromise you. But since you insist on playing the tease, I see I shall have to get you into a much more compromising position in order to convince you to name me your Royal Consort.”
Rissa felt sick.
“What are you talking about? Let me go!” she exclaimed, fighting against him with all her might. “James! James, help me!” she shouted, raising her voice for the first time. She hadn’t wanted to involve the big Kindred in this conflict—especially knowing how angry he got when it came to the Duke. But now things had gotten completely out of control and she needed him to save her.
“Let us see you refuse me once I plant my baby in your belly!” the Duke snarled.
“Let’s see how well you walk once I plant my foot in your ass,” a deep, growling voice said.
Twisting her head around, Rissa saw that James had opened the bathing chamber door and was stalking towards the Duke.
“Oh James, thank goodness!” she gasped. “Help me!”
The Duke turned as well, but he didn’t release his grip on her arm.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he snarled at James. “Well you can bloody well leave and go power yourself down, Sir Robot. This is a private matter between myself and my betrothed.”
“I am not your betrothed and I never will be!” Rissa exclaimed. “Let go of me, Sir! I want nothing to do with you!”
“You heard the Princess.” James was still stalking towards them, his metallic blue eyes now blazing a deep, angry red. He seemed to be growing bigger somehow, as though he was swelling with rage. “Let go of her, now!” he snarled at the Duke. “Before I rip your fucking head off!”
His last words were a roar that seemed to sh
ake the entire room and his face was so filled with fury even Rissa was frightened.
The Duke had turned white as a sheet, but still had her by the wrist and wouldn’t—or else couldn’t—let go. To Rissa, he seemed like a man who had clutched something electrified and couldn’t release it because of the current. Only in this case, the current was fear. Whatever it was, it caused him to grip her even harder until the small bones in her wrist ground together and she gasped in pain.
“You…you cannot touch me,” he said to James, his voice going nervously high and shaky. “I am…I am a Peer of the Realm! You cannot lay a finger on me!”
“I’ll do more than lay a finger on you.” James’s voice had dropped to a low, menacing growl. “I’m going to rip your fucking throat out with my teeth!” he snarled and when he opened his mouth, Rissa saw that he had somehow grown fangs. They were long and sharp and curving and they looked completely deadly.
She gasped at the sight and the Duke went even paler and began sweating. Finally, he dropped her hand.
“Look, see? I am no longer holding her!” he said to James, as he began backing away from the big Kindred. Unfortunately, he was backing further into her bedchamber and away from the door. “I will leave her be—I swear it!” he exclaimed.
James shook his head.
“It’s too late for that now,” he growled at the Duke. “I heard the things you said to Ka’rissa—the way you were threatening to spread lies and rumors about her. The way you were threatening to rape her. I’m going to kill you here and now and shut your fucking mouth forever.”
“No—no, please!” Great beads of sweat had broken out on the Duke’s broad forehead and he was trembling as he backed up until his backside met the wooden post of Rissa’s bed. “You cannot kill me,” he exclaimed, putting out both hands as though to try and ward the angry Kindred off. “If you do, you will be indicted for murder!”
“You think I care about that?” James demanded. He was almost within biting distance now, Rissa saw. Oh Goddess, was he really going to rip the Duke’s throat out with his fangs?
“You’ll be tried for murder and condemned,” Duke Grabbington continued, in a shaky voice. “Killing a Peer of the Realm is a hanging offense!”
Rissa felt sick as the reality of what the Duke was saying sank in.
“He’s right, James!” she exclaimed. “Don’t kill him—they really might hang you.”
Her words seemed to cut through the fury that had fallen over the big Kindred. He stopped advancing on the Duke, though he was still close enough to keep the other man cornered.
“What would you have me do, then?” he asked, his voice still thick with rage. “He dishonored you and tried to force himself on you, Princess! I can’t let him get away with that!” He started forward again. “Maybe I should just maul him a bit—rip off his ears and nose, bite off a few fingers…”
“No! You must face me with honor!” the Duke cried. He was shaking now and a dark spot had appeared on his sky-blue satin breeches as the room filled with the reek of his urine. “I…I challenge you to a duel, Sir Robot! If you want satisfaction for whatever crimes you imagine I have committed, you must face me at dawn!”
“A duel?” James stopped and Rissa could see that he was considering it. “A contest of honor that ends in the death of one of the participants?”
“Yes, yes!” Duke Grabbington nodded eagerly. “If you wish to try and kill me, that is the only way to do it without getting hung for it! I challenge you to a duel—only a coward would fail to accept!”
James took a deep breath and then a step back. It looked to Rissa as though he was making a concerted effort to calm down.
“Very well,” he growled. “Name the time and the place and I will be there. But I won’t just try to kill you, Grabbington.” Leaning forward he pushed his face into the Duke’s. “Your Grace is as good as dead.”
37
“I do not like this! I do not like it one bit!” Rissa paced anxiously in the grey, early morning light, her skirts swishing in the long grasses of the dueling field. In just a few hours, she must appear before the Steward and formally reject the Duke’s suit. That was, if there was a suit to reject. It would depend upon how the duel went but something told Rissa she couldn’t trust the outcome.
James raised an eyebrow at her.
“Are you afraid I’ll lose? I assure you, Princess, I have been well trained in any and every kind of weapon and combat.”
“Are…are you planning to rip his throat out with your fangs, as you threatened before?” Rissa whispered. The fangs in question had shrunk back down to normal teeth after the altercation, but she couldn’t get the memory of James with those frightening fangs out of her mind.
The big Kindred shook his head.
“No, I will use whatever weapon he chooses. I think the fangs only grew because I was going into Rage at the idea of the bastard hurting you.” His face grew fierce for a moment, the blue eyes glowing briefly red. “I have Blood Kindred DNA in my biological makeup as well as Beast Kindred DNA, you know,” he added.
“I suppose,” Rissa murmured. But it wasn’t the fangs that worried her so much now as the idea of the upcoming duel. “I still do not feel right about letting you duel for my honor,” she told James. “I feel like all of this is my fault.”
“None of it is your fault,” James said, frowning. “And please don’t worry, Princess—no matter what weapon the Duke chooses, I will kill him.”
“I know you will—if it is a fair fight,” Rissa said anxiously. “But I do not trust the Duke to fight fairly. He is a man without honor, James!”
“He’s soon going to be a dead man,” James said confidently. “Don’t worry, Princess—I can handle anything he tries.”
Rissa wished she could be as confident as the big Kindred. But she had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach that the impending duel was a bad idea. She and James had sat up most of the night, arguing about it. But just as she opened her mouth to voice more objections, Duke Grabbington rolled up in a fine off-road sedan.
The Duke’s vehicle was gold and gaudy and even grander than the Royal carriage she and James had come in. Clearly, Grabbington was showing off his wealth and privilege.
The golden door opened and the Duke descended, followed by a doctor in a buff blue medical coat and another nobleman whom Rissa didn’t recognize. He was carrying a large leather case which probably contained the dueling weapons, she realized with a shudder.
“Greetings, Princess.” Duke Grabbington waved at her airily, as though they had met each other in the Public Park by happenstance.
He seemed a lot calmer than he had the last time Rissa had seen him, which made her even more worried. Did he have some dastardly plan up his floppy lace sleeve? But, no. Surely not even a man as wretched as the Duke would dare to dishonor the sacred tradition of the duel…would he?
She didn’t reply but only nodded back frostily, giving him the least polite greeting possible.
Duke Grabbington’s face darkened at her deliberate discourtesy, but he said nothing else to her. Instead, he turned to James.
“Sir Robot,” he said formally. “This is Dr. Dowdy, my personal physician and Lord Flobberton, who will act as my second.” He frowned. “But…where is your second, Sir?”
“I don’t need a second,” James said shortly. “I intend to kill you on the first shot.”
Duke Grabbington paled a little, but only shrugged.
“Very well—if you do not wish to have a second, you do not have to have one. You can check the weapons yourself, if you are so inclined.” He nodded at the man he had introduced as “Lord Flobberton,” and the man made a bow and opened the leather case to display its contents.
Inside were two old-fashioned looking pistols, such as people had used a hundred years ago or more. James looked at them and frowned.
“What weapons are these? I expected that we would be using blasters. Or maybe swords, given the nature of your society.”
“It will be a pity to break such a long tradition,” James remarked dryly. He picked up the other weapon and the scope on the side of his head came out and fitted itself over his right eye. He examined the pistol rapidly and then took the other from Duke Grabbington and examined it as well before handing it back. He nodded. “Everything seems to be in order. Shall we begin?”
“A moment, if you please, Sir Robot,” Dr. Dowdy said importantly, stepping forward. He was a fastidious little man with short gray hair and a rust-orange frock coat. “We have a few conditions before the duel can begin,” he said.
“What conditions?” James asked, frowning.
“Well…am I correct in thinking that your right arm is, er, mechanical?” the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows.
James nodded.
“It has been enhanced with electrodes, nanites, and smart metal.”
“And that scope we saw you use to look over the dueling pistols,” the Doctor continued, gesturing to the right side of James’s head. “Is it not true that it enables you to have preternaturally excellent sight and therefore impeccable aim?”
James nodded.
“That would also be correct.”
“In that case, I must ask you not to use either of your, er, enhanced body parts during this duel,” Dr. Dowdy said. “Otherwise, how can this be a fair contest?”
“But you can’t ask Sir James to shoot with his left arm instead of his right!” Rissa exclaimed, speaking up for the first time. “He is right-handed!”
“Actually, I am equally skilled in combat with my unenhanced arm and hand,” James said mildly. “And I don’t need my scope to shoot straight.”
“Are you certain?” Rissa asked anxiously. “It doesn’t seem to me that what they are asking is fair!”
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