by Joan Wolf
“You can’t hurt Adrian through me,” I said. “I won’t let you.”
He said, “I am going to lie with you, and I don’t think your precious Adrian will like that at all.”
My mouth was absolutely dry. I said hoarsely, “If you rape me, Adrian will surely kill you.”
He smiled. His sea-green eyes were filled with a torturous mixture of hate and desire, and had to stop myself from cringing away from him. “Rape?” he said. “Surely not rape, Kate. I think you will enjoy it. You like the idea of a man under your skirt.”
“You are my mother’s brother!” I cried in agony. “How can you say such things to me?”
His face went pitilessly cold. “I know you are Lizzie’s daughter,” he said. “That will make it even better.”
Fear pumped through me with every beat of my pulse. He was warped and twisted, and nothing I could say would mean a thing. He put his hands on the neck of my pelisse and ripped it open. Buttons bounced off the floor.
The blood beat in my head as I realized the strength of those slim hands. I said, “Adrian will...”
His laugh stopped me, it was so full of malice. “Adrian, Adrian, Adrian,” he said, mimicking my voice. “Adrian won’t do a damn thing to me, Kate, because he won’t want a scandal.”
“You’re wrong,” said a voice from behind my uncle. “I have every intention of killing you, Charlwood.”
It was my husband.
* * * *
Charlwood spun around to face the man who filled the doorway. “Greystone!” he said.
I couldn’t believe he had come. I had prayed and prayed for him to find me, but I hadn’t really thought that he would.
“Kate,” Adrian said, his eyes still on Charlwood, “are you all right?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
I couldn’t see Adrian’s face very clearly, but I knew I had never heard that tone of voice from him before. I shivered.
Adrian spoke again in that same chillingly quiet voice. “We started something ten years ago, Charlwood, and now we are going to finish it.” He stepped into the room, and for the first time I saw that he was holding two swords.
I felt chilled to the bone. My lips formed his name, but no sound came out.
My uncle’s laugh sounded genuinely amused. “Are you proposing to duel with me, Greystone?”
“I was a boy the last time we fought,” Adrian said. “I didn’t know then that I should have killed you. Now I do.”
“We were both boys,” my uncle returned. “You forced the swords on me then because you knew you could defeat me. But you can’t defeat me now, Greystone. I have had ten years to perfect my swordplay. It’s you who are going to die.”
I said in a trembling voice, “Adrian, can’t we just leave? I am very uncomfortable tied up like this.”
He came across to me, went behind the chair, and used one of the swords to cut the ropes that tied my hands. Then he did the same for my feet.
I moved my arms painfully and rested my hands in my lap. I looked up into Adrian’s face, and as soon as I saw his eyes I knew that nothing I could say would weigh with him. He was in a white-hot fury.
“Get out of the center of the floor, Kate,” he said to me.
I tried. I put my hand on his arm and said again, “Please, Adrian? Can’t we just go home?”
He didn’t even hear me; his whole attention was concentrated on the other man. Slowly, trying desperately to think of something I could do to stop this, I retreated to the wall. Adrian picked up the chair and plunked it down next to me. Before he turned back to my uncle, however, he reached inside his coat and took out a pistol, which he handed to me. “If I lose, Charlie is outside with the horses,” he said.
My heart stopped. If I lose...
“No!” I said loudly, but Adrian had already turned his back on me.
Charlwood smiled with honest pleasure, and I felt terror surge through my veins. He had been preparing for ten years for this moment, and he was elated that finally it had come.
Adrian himself had not exactly been idle during the past ten years, but neither had he been perfecting his demi-voltes at Angelo’s in London! How could a man who has been using nothing but a heavy saber hope to compete with a man whose chosen weapon was the dueling sword?
I watched in petrified horror as both men removed their coats and their boots. When they were standing in their shirtsleeves, Adrian offered Charlwood his choice of swords. My uncle accepted one, raised it, and attacked.
His thrust was lightning fast, but just as quickly Adrian’s sword lifted to parry it. I forgot to breathe as I realized how close he had come to being skewered. Then the swordplay began in earnest.
They stood barely a sword’s length apart, and their blades slid and tapped against each other with almost unbelievable speed. If this had been a sporting match, it would have been beautiful to watch. The rich glow of late-afternoon sunlight illuminated the white shirts, intent faces, and bright heads of auburn and blond. Their stockinged feet were quiet and the blades gleamed like flashes of lightning as the men engaged and disengaged. Only, it was death that waited in every flicker of those elegant swords, death that waited for one of the duelists at the end of this game.
The picture changed as Charlwood began to increase the rhythm of his attack, pressuring Adrian’s blade so forcefully that he was forced to retreat slowly toward the door. My hand was pressed hard against my teeth as I watched.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
The thought repeated itself again and again in my brain, and I stretched my eyes wide, hoping that I would wake and discover that the scene before me was only a nightmare.
I didn’t wake up, and the duel went on.
The concentration on my uncle’s face as he pressed the attack was fearful to see. His whole being was consumed by only one desire: to avenge the loss and the humiliation he had suffered ten years earlier. Adrian parried and took another step backward.
Both men were breathing audibly, their shirts soaked with sweat. I could see that Adrian was aware of the wall coming up behind him, and suddenly, with a movement that I could not follow it happened so fast, he leaped to the side, out of Charlwood’s reach, while at the same time launching a thrust of his own.
Charlwood cursed and sprang out of the way, and I saw blood stain the sleeve of his sword arm. Adrian took advantage of the break in Charlwood’s rhythm to increase his own, and he began to drive my uncle back across the floor in the other direction, his attack coming so swiftly that all Charlwood could do was retreat and parry.
The swordplay was incredibly fast. I did not know how the men could sustain such a continuous effort. Both of them were gasping for air by now, but the relentless play of the swords went on. Back and back and back my uncle went, Adrian striking, Charlwood parrying. Back toward the window Charlwood was driven, and it was only when they had reached the pool of sunlight that I saw the danger to Adrian.
I cried out a warning, but it was too late. The sun shone through the windows directly into Adrian’s eyes, blinding him. A second later he had leaped like a giant cat, back to the safety of the unlit room, but not before Charlwood had successfully landed a thrust of his own. Blood stained Adrian’s right shoulder. Sweat was running down his face, and I could see the muscles in his back rippling through his soaked shirt.
Charlwood was in no better a case. He was almost sobbing for air as he followed Adrian out of the sunlight and back to the center of the room, where the match had started.
I was beginning to hope that perhaps they would continue on this way until neither of them was able to stand up. They were once more standing a sword length apart, and their breath was shaking their ribs. The swords were still going, but it seemed to me they were moving more slowly than they had. Both men were exhausted.
And then it happened. A stronger pressure on my uncle’s blade, pushing it downward, a second’s opportunity while it was harmlessly lowered, then, instead of the lunge my uncle w
as prepared to dodge, a hard blow on the upper part of his blade knocked the weapon from his hand.
Charlwood was disarmed.
The only sound in the room was the men’s raucous breathing. They stared at each other. Charlwood empty-handed, Adrian with his own sword raised and pointed very steadily at the other man’s throat.
Adrian’s eyes were narrowed, his expression utterly ruthless, and for the first time I truly understood what a terror he must have been on the battlefield. But I could not let him kill Charlwood.
“Adrian!” I said loudly. “No!”
He said to my uncle, “You are a sick and twisted excuse of a human being, Charlwood. The world will be better off without you.”
He hadn’t even heard me. If I didn’t act quickly, he was going to run Charlwood through, and then he would have to live with it. I raised the pistol he had given me, aimed carefully, and shot my uncle in the shoulder. He fell like a stone.
Adrian looked at me. Finally I had gotten his attention.
“Jesus, Kate,” he said. A little color came back to his face as he looked down at Charlwood. “Did you kill him?”
“I don’t think so,” I said shakily. “I was trying to aim for his shoulder.”
“Jesus,” he said again.
I put the pistol down on the chair and ran to him. “Oh, Adrian,” I said, flung myself into his arms, and began to cry.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Adrian bandaged my uncle’s shoulder wound using his neckcloth, and then I bandaged Adrian’s using my uncle’s. Charlwood’s eyes had been open when Adrian first began to work on him, but he had soon passed out. This was just as well, I thought. Certainly neither Adrian nor I wished to speak to him.
Of course, it was Charlie whom I had to thank for my salvation. Adrian told me the story as he worked on bandaging Charlwood’s shoulder. “Somethin’ about that accident smelled bad” is how Charlie had described his feeling as he had watched me drive off with Carruthers. So he had not stayed with the overturned gig as I had ordered, but instead rigged a bridle for the unharnessed cob and followed me. He had rounded the curve in the road to Thatchem just in time to see Carruthers loading my unconscious body into the coach, and he had followed behind the coach all the way to the cottage before going for Adrian.
“Thank God for Charlie,” I said. “I would have been in deep trouble if he hadn’t followed me.”
Adrian didn’t reply, but the set of his mouth bespoke his feelings clearly enough. I said, “Sit down so I can take care of your shoulder. You’re too tall for me to reach it properly.”
“It’s only a scratch, Kate,” he said. “It can wait until we get home.”
“Sit down.”
He began to protest again, looked at me, and stopped.
Apparently what he saw on my face convinced him that I meant business, because he walked to the chair where I had been tied up and sat down.
His shirt all around the shoulder area was soaked with blood and the rest of it was soaked with sweat. I made him peel the whole thing off.
Charlwood’s sword had not cut deeply, thank God, and I wrapped the neckcloth tightly around his shoulder and under his armpit and said, “That will do until Dr. Matthews can look at it.”
“I told you it wasn’t bad,” he said. “What did you do with my shirt?”
“Just put your coat on, Adrian. You will be warmer without that disgusting shirt.”
“All right.” He stood up and took his riding coat from me. “What’s wrong with your wrist?” he said as he began to button the coat over his naked chest.
I realized for the first time that I was cradling my right wrist with my left hand. “Carruthers hit it when I tried to grab the reins from him,” I said. “It’s just a little sore.”
I saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, and for a moment that scary look was back on his face. I said quickly, “It isn’t broken or anything, Adrian. Truly, it’s just a little sore.”
After a moment he nodded. But his voice sounded very clipped when he said, “What precisely do you want to do with Charlwood? Quite obviously you don’t want him dead.”
“It’s not his death I object to so much,” I said honestly, “it’s that I don’t want you to be the one responsible.”
He finished buttoning his coat as he walked toward my uncle’s unconscious body. He stood over Charlwood, stared down into the pale, insensible face, and said, “What worries me, Kate, is that if he lives I won’t be able to prevent him from attacking you again.”
I regarded my husband’s profile, which at the moment looked as chiseled and as stern as a Greek statue’s. That, of course, was precisely why he had been prepared to kill Charlwood. I understood that, but still I didn’t regret what I had done.
I said, “I don’t want a scandal, Adrian, and there will surely be a scandal if it comes out that you killed Charlwood in a duel. I don’t want the whole world to know that my own uncle kidnapped and tried to rape me.”
He pushed a strand of damp hair off his forehead. “I can’t argue with that,” he said wearily.
The dusty gray carpet under Charlwood was soaked with blood, and blood was beginning to seep through to stain the white neckcloth that bandaged his wound. I said in dismay, “Whatever are we going to do with him?”
“The first thing to do is take him back to Greystone and get Dr. Matthews to patch him up properly,” Adrian said. “Matthews is a good man; he’ll keep his mouth shut.”
I spoke with a feeble attempt at humor in order to disguise the fact that I felt like crying again. “Too bad we can’t pack him off to the Continent with Stade.”
Adrian’s gray eyes turned to me. They narrowed thoughtfully. “That’s an idea,” he said.
“It would solve our problem, of course, but I don’t see how we could possibly bring it off.”
“Let me think about it for a while,” he said. “In the meantime, Charlie and I will load Charlwood into the coach and then we’ll get him home to Greystone.”
* * * *
Charlie drove the coach and Adrian and I followed in my uncle’s curricle. It seemed hardly the moment for a declaration of love—we were both exhausted and emotionally wrung out—but I was determined to delay no longer. The look on Adrian’s face when he had held his sword to Charlwood’s throat had convinced me that his feelings for me could not be lukewarm.
I pulled my buttonless pelisse closer around my shoulders and said, “Harry showed me the notice about Lady Mary and Mr. Bellerton this morning.”
“Um,” he said. One of the horses was throwing his head about restlessly, and Adrian spoke to him soothingly. My husband was clearly so uninterested in Lady Mary’s projected marriage that I had to smile.
“I saw you kiss her hand when you came in from the terrace with her,” I said. “I thought you were still in love with her, and I have hated the both of you for weeks.”
I had gained his attention. “Kissed her hand?” he said in bewilderment.
“At the Barburys’ dance. I saw you do it, Adrian.” I folded my arms across my chest and regarded him sternly. “In fact, that was the reason I was so upset that I did not think clearly when I received Stade’s note.”
He glanced at me out of the side of his eyes. “You were upset because you saw me kiss Lady Mary’s hand?”
“Wouldn’t you be upset if you saw me kissing the hand of the man I was supposed to have married instead of you!”
“I saw you kissing Harry on the mouth,” he said quietly.
It took me a moment to remember, and when I did I frowned direfully. “Harry had just saved my life, Adrian. You certainly could not be stupid enough to think that I was in love with Harry.”
“Lady Mary had just told me that she and Bellerton would be announcing their engagement shortly,” he countered. “I kissed her hand because I was happy for her.”
We looked at each other.
“It seems, Kate, that we both have been wearing blinders,” he said softly.
I stared at
him, my lips parted in hopeful wonder.
“I have loved you for so long, sweetheart,” he said. “I thought I would go mad sometimes, thinking that you did not love me back.”
By now the horses were ambling along the road at their own rate, their driver completely oblivious of their direction. I said in amazement, “Are you serious, Adrian? You really did not know that I loved you?”
He stopped the horses completely and turned to face me, sliding one arm along the back of the seat. “You married me to get away from your uncle,” he reminded me. “And I was not very kind to you, Kate. There was every reason in the world for me to think you did not love me.”
“Not kind to me?” I said. “You were magnificently kind to me!”
One long finger traced a gentle path along my cheekbone. He shook his head and a lock of hair slipped over his forehead. He said quietly, “You are the most generous person I have ever known, Kate. And the most gallant.”
I literally stopped breathing. To hear such a thing from Adrian! I inhaled shakily and blurted, ‘Oh, Adrian, I love you so much!” And I flung my arms around his neck and squeezed him so tightly that the poor man was in danger of being choked.
He didn’t complain, however. In fact, his own arms came around me in such a crushing grip that for a moment the air in my lungs was quite constricted.
We stayed like this for rather a long time, his mouth buried in my hair, my nose pressed against his neck, my mouth against his collarbone. Finally he said into my hair, “You would never confide in me. You always seemed to turn to Harry.”
“You were always so busy,” I said. “I thought it wouldn’t be fair to burden you with my affairs.”
“Stupid,” he said.
“Well, you never confided in me,” I defended myself.
“I didn’t think you would be interested.”
“Stupid.”
He chuckled.
I felt as if I were in heaven. I kissed his jawbone and felt the faint prickle of incipient whiskers. I buried my hand in the thick silver-gilt hair just above his nape. I sniffed the scent of him. It was heaven to be with him like this.