“Unfortunately, there is that tiny flaw,” John murmured, stepping aside to allow Wickson to enter Boodle’s first.
“Flaw? Flaw? What flaw?”
“It occurs to me that the element of time is curiously lacking.”
“Time?”
“Indeed. Without the element of time, I believe the only limit one can set would be when it becomes no longer possible for such a marriage to take place.”
“Right. When she marries one of the men on her list.”
Adopting a sad expression, John shook his head. “No, my dear Wickson. It shall only become impossible when either Lady Victoria or I die. After all, if she marries one of the gentlemen on this unseen list, it is possible he may perish, leaving her free to marry again. At that time, she may choose someone not on that ridiculous list.”
“That is all very fine, my lad, but I suggest you visit your lawyer today to ensure your will adequately covers that one hundred pounds. In the case of your death. Tomorrow. As I have no doubt that even you can’t argue that if you’re dead and haven’t married Lady Victoria, you have lost.”
“Naturally. Now let us see what dining opportunities may be in the offing and send a note around to Taggert. He can send his second here, if he wishes, to confirm the arrangements for tomorrow morning.”
As they wandered into the depths of their club, Wickson’s plump face grew graver and graver. He glanced sideways at John and repeatedly rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you quite sure? I can arrange something—I’m sure of it. Call it off. You know.”
“No, my dear friend.”
“No loss of honor…” An anxious expression lined Wickson’s face, carving deep grooves from his nose to the corners of his mouth. “Sure I can manage it. No reflection on you, of course.”
“My honor is remarkably fragile these days, Wickson. I don’t believe it will withstand such an assault. No. If Taggert wishes to reconsider, we shall accept his decision. However, I shall not be the one to back away.”
The next day, at seven o’clock in the morning, John faced Taggert. The morning was misty and damp, and John could feel the chilly dew seeping through the seams of his boots. Taggert had offered to provide the dueling pistols, and John accepted, although he’d loaded his own pair of Manton’s best flintlocks. The weapons had lovely English walnut stocks that fit well in his hand, and he’d brought them along. Just in case.
Even with the best pistols, misfiring was not uncommon and reloading was always awkward.
“I had not expected to see you here this morning,” Taggert said, his gaze fixed arrogantly just above John’s left shoulder. “After all, you have no family honor to uphold, do you?”
The taunts of his half-brothers echoed Taggert’s words. At least he thought of them as his half-brothers. They, of course, thought of him as no one. Nobody, and therefore of no regard or importance.
“We are both here.” John bowed and accepted one of Taggert’s pistols. “Shall we begin?”
Wickson and Taggert’s second marked off the points by sticking swords in the ground. After moving to their location, John and Taggert faced each other. Holding a handkerchief and standing well out of the path of any bullet, Wickson glanced from one to the other.
“Ready?” he asked.
Both John and Taggert nodded.
Wickson dropped the handkerchief.
Chapter Six
“Oh, Lady Victoria! I am so relieved to find you home,” Miss Urick said as she rushed into the drawing room.
Victoria glanced up, her sewing needle poised over the embroidered silk bodice puddled over her lap. She looked at the clock on the mantle. Seven in the morning was a trifle early for visiting, even for a close friend.
Miss Urick stood in front of her, twisting a lace-edged handkerchief between her gloved hands. Her blue eyes were glassy with tears, and the lids were swollen and red, the color emphasized by the pallor of her skin. Despite her agitation, she was neatly dressed in a pale blue walking dress and stout half-boots.
“What is it?” Victoria set aside her embroidery and stood.
When Miss Urick wavered, Victoria threw an arm around her and drew her to the sofa near the fireplace.
While the morning was cool, it wasn’t sufficiently chilly to start a fire, though a maid had laid fresh wood on the irons. However, even without cheerful flames crackling, the area surrounding the hearth always felt cozier and more welcoming than any other location in the large drawing room.
Miss Urick pressed her handkerchief against her eyes, sniffed, and then used her wrist to push a curl of reddish-blond hair off her pale forehead. “My brother is engaged in a duel! I begged him not to do it, but he would not listen to me—he never listens to me!”
Stilling, Victoria stared at her friend. A duel? “Who…?” She couldn’t bring herself to complete the question. She found herself holding her breath as if to halt the relentless momentum of time. For a few seconds in the hushed room, everything seemed to stop.
“That man you danced with at my ball. Mr. Archer. Oh, how I despise him!” Her hands clutched at Victoria’s arm. Anger and fear twisted together in her wide blue eyes as she stared at Victoria, her mouth a thin slit in her pallid face. “How could you have danced with him? He is going to kill Martin—I know it!” She gasped and pressed her damp handkerchief to her mouth. “He may be dead already! What shall I do?”
“Dead?” Victoria echoed. Her dry lips barely moved. “Where?”
Miss Urick shook her head. “Hyde Park—but I do not know precisely where—he would not tell me. I begged him, and he would not tell me!” Her voice was ragged with emotion, and she covered her face with her hands for a full minute. Finally, she took a deep breath and lowered her hands to her lap. She fixed her desperate gaze on Victoria. “He refused to reconsider. Even if he does not—” She broke off to swallow. “If he survives, we shall have to go to the continent for a few years to avoid the scandal. Or a charge of murder. My Season—my life! Everything is ruined.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, Victoria barely heard her. Her hands twisted together. Mr. Archer dead? The room shrank dizzily around her. She deliberately relaxed her icy fingers and rubbed her right temple to regain her composure.
Shaking her arm, Miss Urick said, “What shall I do if he dies? There is no one else—oh, everything is ruined!”
Victoria patted her arm and murmured some reassuring nonsense, forcing herself to think. While it would hardly help to agree with Miss Urick, the fact was that she was largely correct.
Men had no concept of how their foolish actions affected those around them. No matter what the result of the duel was, Miss Urick’s future would suffer. If Lord Taggert perished, Victoria could only hope he’d had the foresight to leave instructions to provide an appropriate guardian for his sister. Her Season would come to a premature end, and her prospects for a good marriage would dim.
Nonetheless, Miss Urick was only eighteen, and even if she observed a full year of mourning, she could have a second Season, if her guardian—and funds—permitted it.
On the other hand, if Lord Taggert killed Mr. Archer—Victoria pressed her hand over her heart at the sudden sick sensation—he and his sister would have to flee to the continent until the scandal died. And there would always be the charge of murder, if anyone wished to press for justice.
Although that alternative would leave Lord Taggert alive, it would create a far bleaker future for Miss Urick, assuming she wished to marry and have her own home and children. She might be considered well past the age to marry by the time they returned.
A surge of sympathy went through Victoria. At two-and-twenty, she was almost in that position, herself. She studied her friend, feeling that inexplicable sense of kinship, of family, that had drawn the two women together in the first place. It was so strange, considering that no matter how hard she tried, she felt nothing—not even a particular liking—for Miss Urick’s brother. Although four years separated the two women in age, there was that sens
e, at least on Victoria’s part, that she’d found the sister she’d always wanted.
“Miss Urick,” Victoria murmured, searching for a way to give her friend the strength she needed.
“Helen—please! It would be an honor if you would use my first name.” Helen gave a watery laugh and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “I am so sorry to lay all my problems at your feet, but I had no one else to turn to!”
“I understand, Helen, and I am just as troubled as you.” Victoria leaned forward to grasp her friend’s restless hands. “Let me send for some tea—and have you eaten?”
“I couldn’t eat.” Helen shook her head.
“Nevertheless, you must. And then—how would you like to stay here for a few days? Or at least the rest of the day? We can have a note—no, two notes—delivered to your house, one for your brother, explaining that you are here, and the second requesting your maid to pack a few things to bring here.”
“I don’t know… Oh, what good would it do?”
“At least you would be here—with me. You would have support.” She didn’t need to explain what eventuality might require her sympathy, as well—they both knew well enough.
Oh, Mr. Archer! Her mouth clamped shut to avoid crying out at the sharp sense of loss. Helen wasn’t the only one who might require sympathy.
“It is dreadfully weak of me.” Helen stared down at Victoria’s hands, clasped over her own.
“No. It is not at all weak. You are a kind, intelligent young woman, and we are both aware of what your brother’s foolishness may cost you.” Victoria felt Helen stiffen at her plain words, but the truth was the truth. There were no sweet words that could make it any easier. “You will stay here for a few days. As my friend.” She smiled. “Besides, we have a pile of new silks and a stack of Ackerman’s magazines waiting for us in the upstairs sewing room. We must make our decision on which designs we like best, so that dear Mrs. Harker can get started on our new dresses. I particularly wanted your opinion on the pale rose for a new evening gown.”
Studying her with reddened eyes, Helen pressed her lips so tightly together that the skin around them turned white. Finally, she nodded. “I don’t know how much my opinion is worth, but I shall try.”
While Victoria did her best to keep up inconsequential chatter as she dashed off the notes for Lord Taggert and Helen’s maid, she was painfully aware of several moments of anxious silence before Helen remembered to reply. The two ladies ate a light—in Helen’s case, practically non-existent—breakfast before they adjourned to the sewing room.
Three lengths of pale, shimmering silk in white, rose, and cerulean lay on the sewing table, next to a stack of Ackerman’s magazines with its descriptions and plates of fashionable gowns. Mrs. Harker had also placed some lengths of muslin, woven with silver threads, as well as some block-printed cottons with lovely floral designs showing soft, rounded pink flowers with delicate green leaves, next to the silks.
When draped over the long, wooden sewing table, the luxurious swaths of fabric proved to be a momentary distraction for Helen, though it wasn’t as absorbing as Victoria hoped. Keeping up the thread of patter over patterns and embellishments, Victoria noted that Helen often paused, her hand stroking a length of silk while she gazed sightlessly into the corner of the room.
She was worried about her brother.
And Victoria was worried about Mr. Archer.
There could be no good outcome to this morning’s evil work. One or the other of the men would be wounded—perhaps severely—or killed outright.
The room shrunk around her for a moment. She fisted her hands, forced a smile on her face, and took a deep breath. One of them had to remain calm. Cheerful. And it had to be her.
With a shock, she realized that her family, even Helen, would fail to understand any show of grief if anything happened to Mr. Archer. Proper, demure sadness, of course, but not grief. He was but an acquaintance, a one-time dance partner, who had never earned the approval of her parents.
But just as she had when she’d met Helen, Victoria had felt that sense of immediate liking—though that was too feeble a word, really—for him; that sense of finally finding someone who was simpatico. Love at first sight had always seemed ridiculous, but perhaps in some ways it was a more accurate way to describe the sense of kinship and affection she’d experienced.
Of course, with Mr. Archer, there’d also been that tingle, that jolt of excitement that curled her toes and made her hopes soar. Anything was possible. The future looked brilliant and filled with joy and unexpected adventures.
Until now. The day had seemed so sunny when she’d woken up early that morning, but now it seemed overcast, with dark gray clouds building over the horizon.
Rubbing her icy hands, she asked Helen about the silver-shot cotton’s potential as an evening gown. As Helen answered, Victoria’s smile trembled, and she forced herself to keep her gaze away from the clock.
She didn’t want to know how late it was growing, or what might have already happened.
Chapter Seven
A flash, smoke, and a deafening explosion echoed under the dripping leaves in Hyde Park. The pistol in Taggert’s right hand disappeared for a split second within a grayish cloud.
Pain slashed John’s side, but he remained on his feet. Aiming carefully, he squeezed the trigger of his pistol. The flash and explosion jerked the heavy flintlock in his hand, and he smelled the acrid odor of burnt gunpowder. Clamping his elbow against his waist, he studied his opponent.
Taggert remained standing, his right side angled toward John. “How dare you!” he exclaimed, striding toward John. “How dare you delope?”
One didn’t delope, of course, unless one felt his opponent was unworthy of a shot. Nonetheless, John had elected to do so, despite Taggert’s attempt to ensure John never left Hyde Park alive. There was Miss Urick to consider, after all. Her future largely depended upon her brother’s well-being.
Then, for a brief, heart-stopping second, he thought the duke’s son, Henry, was striding toward him, anger shrinking his eyes and mouth to narrow slits.
One must take one’s punishment, after all. John’s fleeting thoughts confused past and present.
Shaking his head, he took a step toward Wickson, fighting nausea and dizziness. Best to show why he deloped, what might have happened had he not. “Hand me one of my pistols, would you?”
In silence, Wickson did as requested.
“Throw your hat into the air, will you? There’s a good lad,” John murmured.
“How dare you?” Taggert ground out, his face livid with anger. The muscles in his jaws bulged.
“Wickson?” John prompted him, adjusting his grip on his pistol.
“But my hat, Archer. It’s my favorite.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. Your hat. Please, Wickson.”
With a lugubrious sigh, Wickson gently placed the wooden box containing the matching pistol of John’s set on the ground. He pulled off his hat, rubbed a bit of dust off on his sleeve, and threw it as hard and high as he could.
The black top hat spun crazily as the wind caught it. Ignoring his burning side and dizzy sensation, John took a deep breath. The pain sharpened when he lifted his weapon. His hand shook. He pushed away all the sensations, all the agony.
Another deep breath. His finger tightened.
Dimly, he heard the explosion that shook his arm. The gasps of surprise.
Above him, Wickson’s hat spun and fell lazily to the ground. Wickson hurried to pick it up. Frowning, he stuck a gloved finger through the neat hole just above the brim of the hat.
John had made his point. He always hit his target. But, despite any feelings he may have harbored about Taggert, he had no wish to kill him.
Deloping wasn’t to insult him, it was to avoid harming him.
He’d harbored no ill-will toward Henry—no—Taggert. Had always loved him like a brother. Wait, no, Taggert wasn’t Henry, this wasn’t a boyhood fight, but there was a punishment comin
g after all. Confused, he glanced up, fascinated by the sunshine glinting off the last drops of morning dew clinging to the fresh green leaves of the trees around them. He blinked.
Difficult to focus. Everyone appeared to be shouting at him, and he felt a jarring thud as he slipped to his knees.
“Archer!” Wickson shook his shoulder.
John’s mouth twisted. He grabbed Wickson’s lapel. The smooth wool slipped through his fingers. “My lawyer has the papers. One hundred pounds.” A sigh carried the words softly over his lips before he fell into the dark, losing sight of the dazzling green leaves above him.
Chapter Eight
“Lord Taggert is waiting in the formal drawing room, Lady Victoria,” Mr. Kingston announced from the doorway. “Shall I inform him that you will join him?”
Victoria glanced at Helen. The girl’s legs buckled from relief, and she collapsed onto a nearby chair, one hand pressed to her bosom. What little color Helen had possessed fled, as if she’d just realized what his arrival meant.
In some ways, it was an unsatisfactory outcome, at least if Helen wanted to enjoy a Season in London and become a wife and mother. Now, it was likely she’d have to remove, along with her brother, to the continent.
“Tell him…” Victoria paused. She’d almost told Kingston to inform Lord Taggert that they were not at home. “We shall be down shortly.”
“Very good, Lady Victoria.” Mr. Kingston bowed and retreated, leaving the door open for them to follow.
“Well, this is good news,” Helen said in a shaky voice. A trembling smile twisted her lips. “Is it not?”
“Of course.” Of course, not. Victoria grasped Helen’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
They drifted down the stairs to the first floor in silence, Victoria swallowing back the lump in her throat. The strong urge to weep kept returning in increasingly violent waves, until she had to force herself to think about the soft rose silk upstairs. Smooth, soft, calm. It would make a beautiful gown. She might even embroider flowers around the neckline…
A Lord's Kiss Page 129