A Woman of Virtue

by Liz Carlyle

  There was a quick scuffle of blades, and soon both men were panting. For a time, David let Rutledge press him as he studied the younger man’s moves, taking careful note of his shortcomings. But it seemed Rutledge mistook his patience for reluctance, a common error of the inexperienced. Suddenly, Rutledge delivered a rapid but awkward thrust. He attacked high and left, his movement obviously aimed to slash David’s right shoulder.

  With an artful guard, David deflected the blow, reveling in the confidence which surged through him. Again and again, Rutledge attempted the attack, but each time, David met him with a swift parry, neatly catching his blade and turning it aside.

  Still, Rutledge was a worthy adversary. For one fleeting moment, David let his attention flag. With an elegant motion, Rutledge executed a near flawless redoublement. David was ready. He lunged again, this time to the left. Then he followed with a sharp, low thrust which nearly pinked Rutledge in the thigh.

  Again, the younger man came at him, propelling him backward, his thrusts made more dangerous by their swiftness. David felt his brow begin to sweat. What Rutledge lacked in finesse he more than made up for in speed. The young man’s feet flew across the cold winter’s ground, his stockings catching lightly in the stiff grass.

  Again, David lunged, pushing Rutledge back with a swift clash of blades, feinting, thrusting, and driving him toward the tree. Fleetingly, he saw fear flash across Rutledge’s face. In the air, their blades met again, glided, then clashed low, the metal scraping downward until David’s tip caught in the grass.

  Rutledge was quick. Too quick. His blade broke free, and Rutledge jumped. David deflected, but Rutledge recovered, performing an awkward but powerful coupé, slicing David across the right forearm.

  At once, Rutledge dropped his point and stepped back. Fleetingly, all eyes darted toward the slashed shirtsleeve.

  No blood.

  “En garde, Mr. Rutledge,” David repeated, lifting his weapon once more.

  And they were at it again. The cold, damp earth was almost invigorating beneath his feet. David felt the muscles of his sword arm bunch, give, and thrust smoothly with his every instinct. Time and again, Rutledge came at him with his glittering eyes and mocking smile. Time and again, David drove him back, turning his blade aside, parrying high, then low, the slice of metal ringing through the cold air.

  Once or twice, David suspected he could thrust past Rutledge’s swift defenses, but with a calculated deliberation, he pushed the younger man on. Rutledge was good, but he was flagging, his skill more dependent on the physical than the mental.

  Again, Rutledge desperately attempted to break through David’s guard, to no avail. David caught his blade and, in a swift parry, hurled it aside, catching the folds of Rutledge’s neck cloth.

  The fabric flapped free in the breeze, a dangerous distraction. At once, David backed away. “Have it off,” he demanded, dropping his point. “I wish to draw your blood fairly.”

  Rutledge was breathing heavily now. Awkwardly, he reached up with one hand to rip away what was left of his cravat, hurling it to the ground. “En garde, my lord.”

  David fairly flew at him, driving back until Rutledge’s movements slowed. His body was tiring, but his expression was still vicious, and twice David let pass a clear opportunity to draw his blood.

  “Damn you,” panted the younger man.

  Well! At least Rutledge knew mercy when he saw it. David smiled bitterly, parrying again, their swords ringing. It was clear the younger man had little fight left in him. It was time to have some answers.

  Again, David pressed, driving Rutledge almost against the tree. “I wish to know,” he ruthlessly demanded, “what business you have in Black Horse Lane.”

  At that, Rutledge truly faltered. “You wish to know what?” he asked, stumbling backward.

  “Black Horse Lane!” repeated David. “Tell me! What is your business there?”

  Again, their blades met high. “I was—looking—looking for someone,” Rutledge insisted, feinting awkwardly.

  David drove his point home, drawing back just before he took Rutledge in the chest. “I shan’t stop,” he warned, “until you tell me who and why.”

  “None of your damned business, Delacourt,” Rutledge hissed. His jaw was set grimly, but his blows had lost their rhythm. He was beaten, vulnerable, and he knew it.

  He fought back with a flurry of strikes, but still David drove him, taunted him. “And what were you doing in the Prospect of Whitby?”

  For the second time, fear and confusion lit Rutledge’s face. Awkwardly, he dropped his point, and almost unintentionally, David’s blade glanced across Rutledge’s right shoulder. The white cambric split in a long gash of red. The young man jumped backward, tripped on a tuft of grass, and fell into a graceless sprawl upon the lawn, his weapon flying backward into the rose garden.

  Ruthlessly, David bent over him, placing his point neatly above the center of Rutledge’s collarbone.

  “For God’s sake, don’t!” shrieked Cecilia, as if from a distance.

  Until that moment, David had not known she had disobeyed him and returned to the gardens. Now, with her voice, reality intruded. The soughing wind, the cry of a bird wheeling overhead, all of it was new to him. Undeterred, David shook it off, pinking Rutledge ever so slightly in the throat. With one last motion of surrender, Rutledge let his head fall back into the grass.

  “Now!” said David, gritting out the word. “You will first beg the lady’s pardon for wrongly impugning her honor.”

  “Your—pardon—Lady Walrafen,” Rutledge managed weakly. “It seems I... was mistaken.”

  “David, he is bleeding.” Cecilia’s voice was weak.

  David barely heard her. Deliberately, he narrowed his eyes. “And now, sir, we have business to discuss.”

  “You are a confusing bastard, Delacourt,” said Rutledge, the breath heaving in and out of his chest as he stared at David’s sword point. “Go on, damn you! Have done if you mean to!”

  “Oh, no,” insisted David quietly. “First, I want something more. And you know what it is. Now, Mr. Rutledge, you may die slowly. Or you may die quickly. Choose!”

  “David!” cried Cecilia more stridently. “I’m trying to tell you! I think we’ve made a mistake!”

  But Rutledge thrust out his left arm, scrabbling through the grass beneath the elm tree. “My coat, then,” he rasped. “Give me my damned coat.”

  Grabbing it in one fist, Cecilia rushed forward, her face drained of all color. “Mr. Rutledge, you are hurt!”

  “ ‘Tis a scratch,” he said gruffly. “Give me my coat, my lady.”

  At once, Cecilia dropped it by Rutledge’s hand. He clutched at the fabric, digging desperately through one pocket until he withdrew a fistful of paper, hurling it almost disdainfully at David’s face. Not one, but half a dozen bits of paper, scattered across the wintry grass.

  “There is what you came for,” he spit. “Now, take it, and begone! Or take it, and kill me. I hardly think I care.”

  Without removing his blade, David knelt and picked one up. With two fingers, he gingerly flipped it open. The words which danced before his eyes squeezed the breath from his chest: “I owe to the bearer, payable upon demand, the sum of £1,150.—Lord Robert Rowland.”

  David blinked his eyes, inadvertently letting the point slip from Rutledge’s throat. “Well, damn me for a fool,” he whispered. A bloody gaming debt? Surely, he had not well nigh killed a man for this?

  But Rutledge was still breathing heavily. “The other five are there as well,” he insisted. “Take them and be damned. I never meant to collect. I wished only to teach the whelp a lesson.”

  “I don’t understand,” David muttered. Almost blindly, he stooped and picked up another IOU. £2,200! And signed by Robin. Suddenly, it all began to make a frightening amount of sense.

  But Rutledge was still speaking. “Good God, Delacourt, what manner of man do you think me?” he continued. “He’s little more than a child. If you tru
ly wish to protect him, tell his doting mama to keep him home where he belongs. God knows I wish someone had done that much for me.” The last was said bitterly, Rutledge’s voice catching at the end.

  Against his will, David’s fingers unbent, letting his sword drop into the grass. “Let me understand you, Mr. Rutledge. You think I’ve been following you? And for... for these?”

  Scrabbling awkwardly to his feet, Rutledge looked suspicious. “Well, haven’t you?” he demanded. “And I own, I ought not have been surprised, for half of society believes you his father.”

  It was an old rumor, one which David had hoped had been laid to rest by Jonet’s marriage. But Rutledge had been away for two years. Perhaps he did not know. Or perhaps old rumors died a slow death.

  Quietly, Cecilia stepped forward, offering Rutledge a handkerchief for his bleeding wound. If Delacourt felt confused, Cecilia looked quite the opposite. “But you did come in on the Queen of Kashmir,” she insisted. “From India.”

  Beside the elm tree, Rutledge slid down, bracing his back against the tree trunk and pressing the linen against his shoulder. “Yes, amongst other places,” he agreed, looking up at her from beneath a shock of black hair. “But what has that to do with any of this?”

  Cecilia’s pale brow furrowed. “And you have been gambling with Lady Kildermore’s son?”

  Despite his near-death experience, Rutledge threw back his head and laughed. “I do beg your pardon,” he said dryly, waving his arm at the garden, “but was that not the very point of this?”

  Roughly, David gathered up the rest of Robin’s vowels and shoved them back into Rutledge’s coat pocket. “Rest assured, Mr. Rutledge, I had no idea my friend—my friend!—was in debt to you. Had I known, I should have insisted that he make good his losses. Indeed, I may yet do. Believe me, a night in the sponging house with the threat of The Fleet hanging over one’s head is the best cure for his sort of intemperance.”

  As if to clear his vision, Rutledge shook his head. “Well, if you didn’t want the boy’s vowels, why the deuce have you been following me?”

  “I’ve followed you nowhere, Rutledge,” David quietly admitted. “But I own, I’m deeply suspicious of your involvement with Mother Derbin. Not to mention your hanging about the Prospect of Whitby and asking suspicious questions.”

  At once, Cecilia stepped forward, her hands set on her hips. “And you’ve been asking questions at the mission, too, I think?” she gently challenged. “Perhaps you did not know that we work there. It was you who came to the shop that day in search of Mary O’Gavin, was it not?”

  At last, Rutledge nodded, tearing his gaze from theirs as he lifted the handkerchief from his wound. Thank God the bleeding had stopped. Despite his rage, David had no wish to kill him.

  Now, as if drawing some carefully thought-out conclusion, Cecilia nodded. “Yes, after last night, I had almost puzzled it all out. And that is what brought me here.”

  Immediately, David’s hand came down upon her shoulder. “Cecilia, my dear, explain this.”

  But Cecilia did not look at him. Perplexingly, she stared directly at Bentham Rutledge. “You were the father of Mary’s baby, weren’t you?” she softly said. “And I daresay you merely wished to find her.”

  At that, what little façade of strength Rutledge possessed seemed to crumple. He let his head fall back against the tree, the bloody handkerchief clenched in his fist. “I cannot understand,” he said, squeezing shut his eyes. “I simply cannot understand. How can a woman give up her child—my child—and leave it in a foundling home to die? How—?” he cried. “Why did she not simply tell me?”

  “You really had no idea?” whispered Cecilia.

  Blindly, Rutledge shook his head. “Of course not! Not until it was too late.”

  Slowly, David was beginning to understand—and yet, it left him feeling all the more confused.

  Rutledge’s attention was focused on Cecilia now, his eyes searching hers as if he sought some measure of understanding. Or forgiveness. “I got myself into a foolish scrape,” he confessed in a tortured voice. “But I sent Mary money by a trusted messenger—enough, I thought, to keep her for a good long while. And then I made for Ostend on the first vessel out. Mary hadn’t said a word about a child. Had she done—why, good God! I would have taken her! Or sent her to my family. Something!”

  David looked at them both incredulously. “And so all this time—” He broke off, shaking his head. “All this time, you’ve just been searching for Mary O’Gavin?”

  “At first,” Rutledge admitted. “But eventually, I found out about her murder, and about the babe having died...”

  David swallowed hard. “And then you went to Black Horse Lane to ask Mother Derbin what happened,” he stated flatly.

  “I went to Mother Derbin to choke life’s breath from her body,” Rutledge corrected, rising unsteadily to his feet. “I know damned well she had something to do with Mary’s death.”

  “And what did she say?” asked Cecilia softly.

  Solemnly, Rutledge shook his head. “She insisted she knew nothing. She said that when Mary returned to the brothel from the rooms I’d set her up in, she was not pregnant, and hadn’t a ha’penny to her name. She claimed she’d done the girl a favor by taking her back in.”

  David felt deeply confused. “But why did you let me think—” He hesitated, his mind still churning with thought. “I mean, why did you not simply tell me you held Robin’s vowels?”

  “Oh, gentleman’s honor—?” suggested Rutledge sarcastically. “Or if you no longer subscribe to that, perhaps you’ll believe I was curious to see what kind of man you thought me.”

  He had a point, David inwardly admitted. Age, self-discipline, even the limitations of the law aside, a gentleman’s debts of honor were his own affair. “My apologies, then, Mr. Rutledge,” he said, carefully measuring his words. “You have acted with remarkable restraint and respect toward my young friend. Lord Robert will be making good his vowels.”

  “I don’t want his damned money.”

  David inclined his head. “Then you may donate it to the Middlesex Foundling Home,” he said softly.

  “And if it is of any consolation to you, I don’t think Mary O’Gavin knew she was carrying your child when you left England. As for the money, God only knows. Any number of things—robbery, misfortune—anything could have happened.”

  But Rutledge appeared not to be listening. His eyes squeezed nearly shut, he still stood in his stocking feet, leaning back against the elm tree with his arms crossed protectively over his chest. His suddenly boyish face had drained of all color. It was an appalling contrast to the brilliant blood which stained his shirtfront from collar to mid-chest.

  The afternoon had grown late, and a chilly breeze had picked up, tossing his disheveled black hair in the wind. Wearily, David bent down to gather up the swords, tossing them into the case with a careless clanking sound. He did not feel good about the emotion—or lack of it—on Rutledge’s face. Nor did he feel proud of what had just occurred here. And yet, he did not perfectly understand what he could have done differently. Perhaps he was lacking in some moral compass or intuition which others possessed. He hoped not. He prayed not.

  He did understand one thing, though. He understood why a skilled marksman might choose swords over pistols: to avoid the temptation of killing a man who had sorely tempted him to do precisely that. And perhaps because he cared more about what people thought of him than he wished to admit. Bitterly, Delacourt wanted to laugh. It was odd how clearly he saw such things now.

  But his bitterness vanished when he stood up to see Cecilia holding out one hand to him and the other to Rutledge.

  “Come,” she said softly to the wounded young man—for wounded he surely was, and the cut went deeper than the bite of David’s sword.

  Slowly, Rutledge lifted his eyes to hers. “Come,” Cecilia repeated. “We must go inside and dress that wound.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  In Which Lady W
alrafen Must Pay the Piper

  “Where are we going?” Cecilia finally asked some time later, one hand clamped firmly down upon her bonnet.

  His once neat neck cloth now flapping unheeded in the wind, David made her no answer. Upon leaving Roselands Cottage, he had curtly ordered Jed to take Cecilia’s horse to Park Crescent, then whipped up his cattle, leaving Jed standing in the dust of Hampstead.

  The phaeton had been hurtling madly through the countryside ever since, David’s mouth drawn taut and white, his brows knitted into a frown so deep that Cecilia had been afraid to disturb his concentration.

  Well, that was rather a lie, wasn’t it? She admitted it, just as the carriage hit a deep rut making the turn onto the Marylebone Road. Awkwardly, Cecilia straightened herself on the seat. The truth was, she feared what he might say once the fragile silence was shattered. It was not that Cecilia was afraid to stand her ground. No, not usually. But in the case at hand, her ground was perilously shaky.

  David had been right. What she had done had been exceedingly foolish, and she’d known it the moment Rutledge jerked her against him. In truth, she still believed him a gentleman. But had he been otherwise, Cecilia would have been alone in a very precarious position. And the fact that her rash behavior could have gotten Rutledge—or, heaven forfend, David—killed did nothing to ease her mind.

  Still, curiosity ate at her, for they had missed both the turns which would have taken them into Regent’s Park. “Where are we going?” she asked again, more breathlessly this time, for it was apparent he did not mean to take her home.

  At last, he turned to look at her, his face tight and pale in the early dusk. “To Curzon Street,” he said curtly, as if he were surprised she found it necessary to ask.

  He whirled the carriage expertly to the right as they hit Oxford Street, pitching her against him again. With an impatient noise, he thrust the ribbons into one hand and lashed the opposite arm possessively about her shoulders, as if he were oblivious to the late-day shoppers who lined the streets.