“I pray that is not necessary, sir.”
Rowen shrugged. “We shall see.”
“He will be implicated in murder,” Catrina insisted. “Rowen. If you will not think of yourself, then at least think of Jonathan; he will be an accomplice if you succeed, a victim of lawlessness if you fail.”
Rowen nodded. “Wise words, Catrina.” He stepped to his nightstand and pulled something out of the drawer. Holding it in his fist, he crossed to Jonathan and took his hand, placing the thing in his palm instead. “Regardless of the outcome once the deed is done, you must take a horse—”
Jonathan retrieved his friend’s sword and pistol from their usual places and set them on the bed.
“Good God, you’ll be stealing horses from the militia stalls to do this, too?” Catrina howled, her voice reed-thin.
Rowen’s eyes widened briefly and returned to their normal appearance. “Regardless of the outcome you must take a horse and leave. Get as far away from the city as you can. Go and pack your things now,” he suggested, and Jonathan turned on his heel and left, walking quickly back to the servants’ quarters to obey what might very well be the last request his young lord would make of him.
“Rowen, you cannot do this,” Catrina said.
“You mean to say: Rowen, you cannot succeed at this. That much I know. Do you not realize what I have lost already? I had a friend in Jordan. Not a perfect friend, but a suitable one. A match for me. A friend I was beginning to court. Do you know how few men of any station can say they were fortunate enough to wed a woman they were friends with first? Look at my parents. Most days they barely make it through without throttling each other. There is no love lost between them because there was never any love between them.”
“You can find love elsewhere. If you just look,” Catrina said.
“I do not want to look. And, frankly, I do not care that much for love—if it comes, it comes. But compatibility…” He shook his head. “I had that. Jordan may not have loved me, but she knew me. She understood me.”
“I know you, too…” She reached out a hand and he shook it off.
“No. Not like she did. I cannot explain it. But I had something that was growing—something that was good…”
“And that—what you had—is worth dying for? That—the past—is worth ending your life?” She grabbed his sleeve. “Do not die for something that no longer exists—do not die for the sake of memory or of what might have been. Live for what might yet be. Write the damnable letter! There is still a way out.”
He pulled back from her, hearing the rip of fabric as the seam on his shirtsleeve gave way. “Dammit. As if the day could not get worse…” He pushed past her, brushing the hair back from his eyes and examining the sword lying beautiful and still in its scabbard. His finger traced the length of the metal and leather case hesitantly, pausing on the weapon’s crossguard before he snared the hilt in his hand and yanked it free. “A pretty thing, is it not?” he asked, looking across the blade at her. “I have never truly fought someone with one. I fence, yes. What man doesn’t? But truly fight?” He shoved it back into its scabbard so that it clicked, metal meeting metal. “Perhaps we will not even come to blows with swords … Perhaps it will end before that…” He set the sword down and opened the wooden case that held his pistol, powder, patch, and ball.
“You must stop thinking that way,” Catrina insisted. “You must think of the act itself. Of aiming. Of firing. Of ending a man.”
“A highly unlikely outcome,” Rowen muttered.
“It is possible. Hold that thought in your head. Kill him so that you might yet live.”
“Say I do. Then what? I win, I’m a murderer. I lose, I’m a dead man. I asked for first blood.”
“Write the blasted letter!”
He snorted and raised his chin. “My penmanship is godawful. No one should be subjected to reading what I write.” He attached the scabbard to his belt and, picking up the gun case, thrust it into her arms. “Let us do this thing. Now.”
“No,” she said flatly, refusing to hold the case. “I am not giving up so easily. I am telling your mother.” She turned on her heel and strode out of his room.
“As if the day could not get worse,” he said through a grimace, steeling himself for the next fight of his day.
* * *
Lady Burchette was waiting at the door for her son, hands on her hips like a scullery maid, Catrina standing right beside her, chin tipped up in what surely approximated victory.
“My coat and hat, Jonathan,” Rowen said.
Jonathan obliged.
“Just where do you think you are going, young man?” his mother shrilled.
“Most likely to my death, but I daresay it will be far more peaceful than this household.” He slipped on his coat and took a moment to appreciate her stunned silence.
“You cannot,” she finally croaked. “I will not let you…” Her face was turning red.
“Mother. You cannot stop me,” he said.
“I most certainly can!” She turned to Jonathan. “Stop him!”
Jonathan choked a little at the command. He clicked his heels together and gave a gracious bow, but rising from it, he said, “Dear lady, your good son is three inches taller than I and a half stone heavier. I daresay if he wishes to go somewhere I am not the man to stop him.”
Rowen gave him a small bow of acknowledgment. “I do tend to agree. Although, if Mother insists, we could at least give her a good show…” Rowen bent his knees, widened his stance, and put his arms out at his sides in a braced position, a sharp smile on his lips.
The square’s bell struck the quarter hour.
“As much as I agree regarding the value of a good show, I fear if we pause too long we will miss your date with destiny. And quite possibly muss your outfit. Or your hair.”
Rowen straightened suddenly at that thought. “I do intend to look my best. Less to be done in burying me.”
Lady Burchette stomped her foot. “Stop this madness at once.”
Rowen paused, the sly expression slipping off his face for a moment.
“I have no choice. I said I would do this thing. My word is attached to this—my oath—my value as a man.”
“You were drunk,” Catrina snapped.
“Shut your mouth, Catrina,” Rowen advised, his tone a low rumble.
She did, and he briefly marveled at the fact.
“Mother,” Rowen continued. “I am a man. This is one of the things that matters to a man such as myself. You must respect my decision.” He turned back to the door.
“You are mine,” his mother snapped. “I love you,” she whispered.
Rowen stopped dead at her words. He turned back to her. “It is for that reason that I must go. Because I am your son and I represent our shared name.” He watched her for a moment, and then a strange expression crossed his face and he bounded over to her and laid a kiss on her forehead before settling his hat on his head and pushing the door open.
* * *
The bold stride Rowen had adopted to leave his family home became a sliding creep as soon as he and Jonathan had stepped off of the Burchette estate. Together they moved quickly and quietly in any of the areas the morning light flowed across and then slunk through the remaining shadows on their way to the stables.
They paused beneath the shade of a tree and Jonathan raised one finger to his lips before leaving Rowen to walk toward the large sliding double doors that opened on parade days and the smaller worker’s doorway.
Jonathan looked about and, spying no one to raise questions about his presence at the stables, tried the door.
It opened easily and, startled, Jonathan flashed a grin over his shoulder at Rowen. He disappeared inside a moment, and then stuck his head and one arm back out just enough to signal his young lord.
Rowen hurried across the yard and slipped into the darkness of the unlit stables. He rubbed his nose at the pungent smells of warm horseflesh, hay, and straw. His father might be in charge of
the military stables in Philadelphia and Rowen might be a fine horseman, but neither meant he spent much time in the stables themselves. That was the place for grooms and staff.
Jonathan took him by the elbow and leaned in close to whisper, “I see no grooms. The place seems deserted for now.”
“Excellent,” Rowen said, his eyes adjusting to the dark. He tripped over the corner of something. His eyes adjusting mostly to the dark … “Let’s look at our options.” His arms still loaded with his personal gear and saddlebags, he tried adjusting it all to turn on the lantern he took off the wall.
It was a frustrating, fumbling minute in the dark.
“You should take my old coat,” a voice said, and Rowen and Jonathan jumped at the noise.
Light oozed out of a strangely pierced pattern as a tin lantern glowed to life. Gregor Burchette sat on a hay bale, watching his son and faithful servant of more than a decade prepare to steal the horses under his care.
“Father,” Rowen mumbled. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Burchette nodded. “Rumor spreads faster than western wildfire. And you, dear son, are predictable.” He grunted and patted a bundle at his side. “The coat’s old and far less than the spectacular fashions you’re accustomed to, boy, but it served me well in the militia and, if I reckon right, where you’re going you’ll be needing something serviceable far more than something fashionable.” He rose with a groan and tossed the bundle to Rowen, who caught it awkwardly, balancing his own scant supplies and light.
Jonathan made a tsk-ing noise and helped relieve Rowen of his burdens.
“You know…”
“That you’ve come to steal horses for the ride to your ill-advised duel?” The corner of Burchette’s lips dug deep into his chubby jowl and pushed his cheek nearer his eyebrow on the left side of his face. “Of course. Do I support the potential ruination of our family’s good name because you are in love with Jordan Astraea?”
Rowen began to sputter, “I am not in—”
But his father gave a look and Gregor raised his hand for silence. “Save your protests for the day you try to explain these actions to some low-born girl you finally marry.”
Rowen’s eyes went wide and his cheeks puffed out.
Still his father talked on. “Love is a strange thing. Often not recognized until it is far too late. And for you, dear boy, it is far too late.”
“I do not love Jordan!”
“Of course not. It is not as if you’ve been lost in your cups each night since she was taken.”
“It is not as if I haven’t been drunk before,” Rowen said.
“Not so frequently, nor so solidly,” his father pointed out. “And smelling of the cheapest smoke that has ever assaulted my nostrils…”
“It was all that’s been offered.”
“Then buy your own if you must. And you have not shaved. You look the villain’s role.”
Rowen rubbed the stubble shadowing his jaw so the move was audible. “I am about to steal two military-grade horses and do my damnedest to kill a man. Certainly not the actions of a hero.”
“I’m afraid you are due to learn that heroism is all a matter of perspective, dear boy. The winner writes the story in the end.” Burchette slapped his hands together and the nearest horse snorted. “Well, have at it, why don’t you? Which two are you intent on stealing?”
Rowen swallowed hard, seeing the look in his father’s narrowed eyes. He straightened his back and strode to the first stall. Giving the horse a quick look, he said, “This one will do.”
The old man snorted. “I daresay you’re wrong. Copper develops a soft left hind frog after a three-mile gallop. He’ll lame up on you if he’s pushed much beyond that. And you need a firm and fast five miles between you and the trouble you’ll be making here today.”
Rowen clenched his jaw and stepped to another stall. He glanced at the horse inside, holding his stormlight high, and then stepped away.
Gregor grunted approval.
The third stall held a tall bronze-backed steed. The horse arched his neck and shook his mane out at Rowen, his nostrils flaring as he stomped a broad black hoof.
Rowen stepped away.
“No,” his father said sharply. “Bold choices require bold companions to back them. Ransom is a bit of a handful, but he’ll be more than sufficient for your needs.”
“Ransom…?” Rowen adjusted the height of his stormlight to better see the nameplate hung on the stall’s door.
The horse snorted in response.
“As in King’s Ransom?”
“The same.”
“Do you want me dead, Father? This is Stevenson’s prize stallion.”
“There’s a reason for that. Ransom’s a damn fine beast.” Gregor shrugged. “Why go halfways about something? Commit fully to your actions. Doing a thing halfways only ever gets you halfways to your goal.”
Rowen swallowed. “Jonathan…?”
His father spoke again. The man barely breathed without riding the air out of his mouth with some thought he obviously had to share. “No. Saddle him yourself. You do this thing and you might as well be riding to war. But you will have no army behind you and little to speak of in the way of family, either. You know how your brothers are. If you are going to do this thing, then take all the steps yourself. Steal him, saddle him, own him as you do the choice you make here and now.”
Rowen stared at him.
The stallion shook his head and whinnied.
“Or will you write the letter?” Burchette asked, his voice soft and low. He took a step toward his youngest son. “Will you undo this thing before it goes too far?”
Rowen’s fingers twitched on the lantern’s handle.
“Will you write the letter, man down, and ask for Catrina’s promise as your mother desires? Will you, by this”—he thrust out his bearded chin toward Ransom’s stall door—“inaction prove you are correct about not loving Jordan?”
Rowen’s eyes widened. He stretched his head back on his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I. Do. Not. Love. Jordan. But I did set this duel. And you have said many times that a man is only as good as his word.”
“No, I have not.” He snorted. “I most certainly have not said that.”
Rowen’s eyebrows lowered and a small crease appeared between them before he blinked and banished it away. “Well. Someone did. Repeatedly. And I must agree with whoever it was and act accordingly.”
With that he strode to the tack wall and tugged down the bridle and reins, slapped them across a saddle, and grabbed a blanket. He picked it all up, looked at his father, nodded curtly, and slid into the stall with Ransom.
There was far less fighting than any of them expected, although Rowen strung some choice words together. In a smart six minutes, Rowen led Ransom from his stall. And only had a few bruises as a result. He looked at Jonathan. “Can you…?”
“Choose and saddle my own horse?”
Rowen’s nod was a slow move.
“Of course. Unless,” Jonathan said, turning to Burchette, “his lordship would like to recommend a suitable steed to me…”
“Of course. You have been a faithful servant and a friend to my youngest son. Take Silver. He’ll serve you well. Here,” he added, heading to the tack wall. “I will gladly assist you.”
Rowen let a groan escape his lips and rolled his eyes. “Thank you ever so much, Father. Do not assist me in the slightest in the saddling of the devil you recommend I ride, but do help the help…”
Gregor rounded on his son, his eyes sharp, saddle in his arms. “You have been babied far too long. As my youngest everyone has provided you with everything you might ever want for and—I daresay—a bit more. But you have chosen a path of your own. Finally. Now grow into it. Grow up and do things yourself.” He turned with a huff and bustled into the stall ahead of Jonathan.
Jonathan looked at Rowen and shrugged, his eyes wide. “Sir, I must ask…”
“Speak your mind, Jonathan.”
“Where are the regular grooms and attendants today? Usually there are at least two young men here standing guard…”
“Oh. That. Yes. It was quite unfortunate. Some sudden confusion with the schedule occurred. Quite suddenly, in fact. It would seem they all have the belief they have the day off.”
“Ah,” Jonathan said, giving Rowen a glance just before he stepped inside the stall himself. “Yes. How unfortunate.”
With both Ransom and Silver saddled, they made their way from the barn and out into the widening light of day. “At a trot?” Rowen asked over his shoulder to Jonathan.
“I do believe we must at least go at a trot, young sir. Unless you intend us to only be taken in for horse theft and not for the additional charge of attempted murder…”
“I think it is time to indulge in Father’s advice. What was it he said?” Rowen asked, tipping his head up. Sunlight streaked across his rough cheek and made the stubble glow like molten gold. “Why go halfways about something?” He grinned at Jonathan.
“He also has been known to say that a day spent reading indoors is the finest way to pass one’s time. Are you certain you wouldn’t yet choose that over the other?”
Rowen winked and pushed his heels into Ransom’s sides, sending him shooting forward with a snort.
Chapter Twelve
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around.
—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Philadelphia
The boy waved the newspaper like someone swatting flies. “Frost Giant strikes again!” he shouted. “House Vanmoer’s roses die just outside their estate gates! When will the madness end? Read more in today’s Gazette!”
The dark-haired man shuffled over to the boy and looked down his nose at him. “Here,” he said, pulling out some coins. “I’ll take a copy.”
The boy snatched his money and thrust a folded paper into his chest, shouting his sales pitch all the while.
“Do they know what this Frost Giant fellow looks like?” Marion asked, unfolding the paper and giving it a shake to straighten it out better.
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