The Wallflower Wager

by Dare, Tessa

  She managed to nod.

  “Excellent.” He turned to Bradford and Lambert, making a welcoming gesture in the direction of the corridor. “Shall we? I have brandy in my study.”

  She watched the men as they left the ballroom, paralyzed with indecision. The little girl inside her still trembled with fear. But she wasn’t a little girl any longer. The woman she’d become refused to stand by, silent and ashamed.

  She ran after them, pushing open the door of the study—

  Just in time to see Gabriel’s fist connect with Lambert’s jaw.

  Penny shrieked.

  Bradford launched himself at Gabriel, dragging him backward before he could land another blow.

  “You miserable blackguard.” Gabriel struggled against Bradford’s restraint. “I can’t believe you would show your face in this house.”

  “What the devil is this about?” Bradford asked.

  “Ask him,” Gabriel spat. “Your father-in-law.”

  “I’ve not the slightest notion, Bradford,” Lambert said. “No idea what he’s on about.”

  “You know precisely what I’m on about.” Gabriel pushed away from Bradford, grabbed Lambert by the lapels, and slammed him against the wall. “You’ve avoided the reckoning for years, but now it’s arrived. You’re going to pay for what you did to her.”

  “Stop, please,” Penny cried. “Bradford, we need to talk.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to talk,” her brother said. “A whole week’s journey to Cumberland. You’re leaving with me.”

  “Get away from her,” Gabriel threatened. “Or I swear I’ll take you down, too.”

  “Gabriel, he doesn’t know.”

  “Then he deserves to pay for that.” He let Lambert drop to the floor, then turned on Bradford. “How could you? How could you not know? Didn’t you see her changing before your eyes? A bright, lively little girl turning shy and withdrawn. Hiding from you, from everyone. Surely you knew something was wrong. You never bothered to ask.”

  After a moment passed in silence, Bradford turned to her. His eyes were full of questions. “Penny?”

  Lambert pressed a handkerchief to his lip. “She’s confused, Bradford. Not difficult to see why, if she’s fallen under the influence of this brigand.” He glared at Gabriel. “See here, Duke. I demand an apology.”

  “Go to Hell,” Gabriel snarled.

  “Then I demand satisfaction.”

  “I’d be glad to give it.”

  Penny’s lungs seized. A duel? She couldn’t let this happen.

  “Name your second, then. Bradford will serve as mine. They can set the time and place.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I do my own negotiations, and I’m not giving you any time to escape. Tomorrow. Pistols at dawn in St. James Park.”

  Lambert tugged on the lapels of his coat. “I look forward to it. I’m an excellent sportsman and a keen shot.” He glanced at Penny. “Isn’t that right, poppet?”

  Gabriel cocked a fist. “Get out of my house before I grind you into pulp beneath my boots.”

  Before they could go, Penny ran to plead with her brother. “Bradford, you can’t allow this to happen.”

  He regarded her with disappointment in his eyes. “It seems as though you’ve allowed this to happen. What were you thinking, associating with such a man?”

  “He’s a good person. You don’t know him.” You don’t truly know Lambert, either.

  “I know enough,” he said. “I know he’s gone unchecked for too long, destroying our peers and neighbors. For God’s sake, we are standing in a house he shamelessly stole from the Wendlebys.”

  “He didn’t steal it.”

  “I’ll brook no more argument. I’m only too happy to help bring him to account.”

  Penny knew her brother well enough to recognize the expression on his face. His mind was made up. No amount of dissent would sway him now.

  She stepped back and gave him the space to leave.

  Once Bradford and Lambert had departed the room, Penny rushed to Gabriel. Perhaps he could be made to see sense. “A duel? Surely you don’t mean to do this.”

  “I do mean to do this. I wish I could find a way to go back in time and hunt him down there, but I can’t. This is the next best alternative.”

  “If going back in time were possible, we’d miss one another entirely—because I’d go back in time and rescue you from everything you endured. We’ve known pain, the both of us. No one came to our rescue. We are survivors, and we didn’t come through all that only to lose our lives now.” Her voice broke. “Gabriel, he stole years from me already. Don’t let him take our future from us, too.”

  “He already has your future. Part of it, at least. I saw the way you reacted when he entered that ballroom. I felt it. As long as he’s alive and connected to your family, you’ll never be free of him.”

  “Can’t there be some other way? Why must it be a duel?”

  He gave her a wry smile. “I swore you’d marry nothing less than a gentleman. Dueling is the gentleman’s way.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want a dead gentleman. I’d prefer a living bastard, thank you. And what about George? You have a goat now, and he’s depending on you. If nothing else, think of your kid.”

  “Penny.” He touched her cheek. His eyes brimmed with tenderness. “I’m only thinking of you. If I don’t defend you, I’m not worthy of you. Not in the world’s eyes, nor in my own.”

  “We have to do something,” Penny said firmly. “Ideas?”

  She looked around at her friends. After Gabriel left, she’d sent for Ash and Chase, and they’d all adjourned to her house for an urgent strategy session. In the most direct and matter-of-fact of summaries, she’d relayed the facts of the situation and the imminent danger. Considering the formidable amount of wits and determination represented in her drawing room, surely they could come up with a brilliant way to avert disaster.

  Unfortunately, no one was quick with a suggestion.

  She turned to Chase and Ash. “Can’t you go after him? Punch him in the jaw, or tie him to a chair, or hold him at knifepoint until well after dawn?”

  After conferring with Chase by eye contact, Ash rubbed the back of his neck. “As delightful as that all sounds, I don’t think we can.”

  “Surely the two of you put together can overpower him.”

  “It’s not that.” Chase sat across from her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Perhaps we could restrain him. But I’m not convinced we should.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we agree with Gabe, that’s why.” Ash crossed his arms. “In his position, I’d do the same. In fact, I’d be tempted to call Lambert out myself if he hadn’t already. The man deserves to die.”

  Chase reached forward and took her hand. “Penny, what he did to you . . . I can’t imagine what you suffered. But I believe I can come uncomfortably close to imagining it, when I think of Rosamund and Daisy. I can certainly understand why Gabe feels the need to defend you.”

  “I don’t need defending,” she protested. “It’s in the past. And while I’m sure you do have strong emotions, aren’t my feelings and wishes more important right now? Perhaps Lambert deserves to die. But we all know it’s far more likely that Gabriel will be the one wounded or worse.”

  Nicola joined her argument. “Dueling is an archaic, barbarous, stupid practice in which men pretend to defend a woman’s honor by robbing her of any self-determination.”

  “Is that so?” Ash looked at his wife. “Emma didn’t mind it when I snuck through her despicable father’s window at night and made him piss the bed with fear.”

  “That was different!” Emma said. “There were no bullets involved.”

  Alexandra spoke up. “I was highly put out with Chase when he punched a man on my behalf.”

  “At the time,” Chase argued. “Looking back, would you rather I hadn’t?”

  Alexandra went silent.

  “See?” Chase said.<

br />
  Penny jumped to her feet. “Listen, all of you. This isn’t a matter of punching or climbing through windows. A duel means life and death, and considering that Lambert spent every autumn shooting partridges with my father, I have reason to believe he’s the superior marksman of the two. I love Gabriel. I mean to marry him, have a family with him. In order for that to happen, he needs to not die tomorrow morning. And if you care about me at all, you’ll do everything you can to prevent it.”

  After a moment of quiet, her friends mumbled and nodded in agreement.

  Chase rose from the chair. “Ash and I will go after him. We may not be able to stop the duel, but there are ways of settling these things without bloodshed.”

  Penny exhaled with relief. “Thank you.”

  “Besides, he’s going to need a second,” Chase said.

  Ash nodded. “I’ll do my best to negotiate a resolution that doesn’t involve black powder.”

  “Hold a moment,” Chase objected, pulling on his coat. “Who said you were the second? I’m the second.”

  “You can be the third.”

  “The third? There’s no such thing as a third.”

  Ash groaned. “We’ll sort it out on the way.”

  After the men had left, Penny paced the floor. “There has to be something more we can do,” she told Alex, Emma, and Nicola. “I can’t simply sit here and sip tea all night.”

  “If I could move,” Alexandra said, “I’d be a great deal more help. Perhaps you could set me rolling like a giant pumpkin, and I could mow them down?”

  “Tempting.” Penny was grateful for the smile that image brought.

  “To be truthful, I’m not certain we can stop them,” Emma added. “Nicola’s right when she calls it archaic and stupid, but these are men we’re talking about. Wounded male pride has caused the world more destruction than the Black Death and the Great Flood put together.”

  Nicola’s eyebrows lifted. “Are we entirely certain men’s bruised feelings weren’t to blame for the plague and the deluge, too?”

  “A fair point,” Emma conceded.

  “If men are bent on destroying the world, we women must be the ones holding it together,” a newcomer to their gathering said. “The earth hasn’t crumbled yet.”

  Penny turned toward the familiar voice. “Aunt Caroline.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she rushed to her aunt and clasped her in a hug.

  “Oh, Penelope.” Her aunt patted her on the shoulder. “That’s enough.”

  Penny drew back.

  “Now”—Aunt Caroline sat in the nearest chair without even inspecting it for cat hair first—“tell me everything.”

  Chapter Thirty

  In St. James Park, fog swamped the new shoots of grass and wound through the budding tree branches. At the opposite end of the green, Lambert and Bradford were indecipherable figures in the mist.

  “We’ll have to reschedule,” Chase said. “As your second, I’ll go have a chat with the enemy.”

  Ashbury grabbed his friend by the collar, holding him back. “As the second, I’ll do it.”

  “No one is postponing anything,” Gabe said. “This bastard will not live to see another dawn. Not if I have something to say about it.”

  “Precisely how much shooting have you done?” Chase asked.

  “A fair amount.”

  “Right.” Ashbury looked grim. “So scarcely any.”

  “I’m not in the country shooting pheasants. The man’s going to be standing right in front of me.”

  “To be sure he will be. Right in front of you, somewhere in this soup of fog,” Ashbury complained. “You can scarcely see twenty paces, let alone hit a target with any accuracy.”

  Gabe shrugged. “His weather isn’t any better than mine.”

  “But his facility with a pistol is,” Ash replied. “Don’t be a clod. In particular, don’t be a dead clod.”

  Gabe extended his right arm, arranging his fingers into a mock pistol, and sized up the shot.

  “Allow me.” Chase nudged his friend aside. “Listen, Gabe. I feel bound to explain the potential consequences here. Dueling is illegal, to begin. It’s also bloody dangerous. Men die.”

  “Yes,” Gabe said impatiently. “That’s the point.”

  “There’s a solid chance you’ll be grievously, if not mortally, wounded. And if by some miracle you do kill Lambert, your chance of dying only increases. Odds are, you’d be charged with murder and hang for it.”

  Gabe shrugged. “Not much I can do about it now, is there?”

  “There is,” Ashbury said. “Delope. Count off the paces, and when you turn, fire your pistol straight up into the air. Then pray Lambert does the same.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “It’s a sort of truce. Means honor is satisfied.”

  “I will not be satisfied until that villain is dead. He doesn’t deserve honor. What he did to Penny was not merely despicable. It was unforgivable.”

  “We know. Her suffering is unfathomable. So if you love her, don’t put her through even more pain. If you were to die, she’d be devastated. Hell, even Chase and I would be . . .” He looked to his friend for the word.

  “Disappointed?” Chase suggested.

  “Let’s go with inconvenienced,” Ashbury replied.

  Chase nodded. “Someone has to eat the sandwiches.”

  “Thank you both for this touching moment.” Gabe shoved past them. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a rotting pile of human filth to murder.”

  “She loves you,” Chase said.

  “She loves anything with a face.” Gabe gestured at Ashbury’s scarred visage. “In your instance, half a face. If I die, she will find someone else.”

  “I’ve known Penny since we were children,” Ashbury said. “Yes, she’ll extend love to the most miserable of creatures. But much as I hate to admit it, this is different. I’ve never seen her like this before.”

  “Delope,” Chase said. “Do it for her.”

  Gabe spoke through a clenched jaw. “Everything I will ever do for the remainder of my life—whether that life lasts ten minutes or fifty years—is for her. I don’t require your approval, and I don’t need you as my goddamned second and third.” When neither of the two men moved, Gabe bellowed at them, “Begone.”

  Before walking away, Chase leaned close. “Just as a point of clarification, in case you do die . . . Which of us would you say was the second, and which the third?”

  “For Christ’s sake.” Gabe was going to finish this. Now. He stalked across the green, took one of the prepared dueling pistols from the case, and approached Lambert until they stood toe-to-toe. “We don’t have to do this.”

  “Are you offering to apologize for this grievous misunderstanding?”

  “No.” He jammed the barrel of the pistol into Lambert’s gut. “I’m thinking I’ll skip over the ten paces nonsense and shoot you right now in cold blood.”

  Lambert made a croaking noise. “You’d hang for that.”

  “Perhaps.”

  The fact might have dissuaded Gabe—if he wasn’t a dead man already.

  Ash and Chase were right. He would be at a disadvantage shooting from any distance, and he’d be committing a crime punishable by death. Maybe he’d survive the duel, but he’d be captured soon afterward—and if he didn’t succeed in killing Lambert, it would have been for nothing. If he was going to swing from the end of a noose, he might as well go out knowing he’d meet this monster in Hell.

  “You won’t get away with it,” Lambert said. “Everyone knows what you are. Word about the ton is that you’re nothing but a lowborn guttersnipe.”

  “The word about the ton is right.” Gabe cocked the pistol. “And this lowborn guttersnipe is sending you to Hell.”

  “Wait!”

  The cry pierced the fog. It was a high-pitched, desperate cry. Female. Familiar.

  Gabe closed his eyes and cursed.

  Penny.

  “Wait!” Penny cried, dashing over the damp grass with her hem hiked to her ankles. By the time she arrived at Gabriel’s side, she was panting. “Wait. Don’t shoot him.”

  “Penny, what are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she hissed. “I’m preventing you from doing something that will get you killed.”

  “You need to leave. You don’t belong here.”

  “You’re wrong. I do belong here. If anyone’s going to defend my honor this morning, it’s going to be me.” She put her hand over the barrel of the pistol. “I’m the only one who can do this.”

  Gabriel reluctantly fell back a step.

  Penny took his place, standing directly in front of Lambert. She looked him in the eye. “I have things to say to you. You’re going to listen. Silently. Not one word. Otherwise, Mr. Duke will have my permission to do with you what he will. Understood?”

  “Now, poppet. We—”

  “Not. One. Word,” she growled.

  Gabriel aimed the pistol.

  Lambert displayed his open hands. Silently.

  “I was a child. I trusted you. My family trusted you. What you did to me was an unconscionable betrayal of that trust.”

  Bradford turned to his father-in-law. “What does she mean?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Lambert said.

  “He touched me,” Penny told her brother. Her voice was flat, drained of emotion. “In ways a grown man should never touch a girl. He did it for years.”

  “I would never hurt you, poppet. You must have misunderstood.”

  “I understood perfectly. You gained my trust with gifts and attention, and then you manipulated that trust to hurt me. You drove a wedge between me and my parents. You made me feel dirty and ashamed.”

  “Penny,” her brother said. “If what you’re saying is true, why did you never say anything before now?”

  “Oh, Bradford. Because of this. Precisely this. I knew you would doubt me.”

  “I don’t doubt you believe you’re telling the truth. But I do wonder if you might be confused.”

  “Calling me ‘confused’ is doubting me.” She kept her gaze on Lambert. “I’m not confused. I recall everything. Every hug that lasted too long. Every kiss in exchange for a sweetmeat. Every ‘dancing lesson’ in the ballroom that one rainy autumn. And I remember every caution to keep those things secret. I knew it was wrong, even as a child. You knew it was wrong, too.”

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