by Abigail Agar
He had volunteered immediately on the dance floor to be her second, and in the quiet moments after they had left the party and he had seen her to her room, he had promised to teach her to shoot.
Then she had been too preoccupied by his presence in her bedroom, the closeness of them in the small servant’s quarters. Now it seemed strange for him to take that responsibility on himself for the foolishness of his own manservant.
‘If I hadn’t made up that lie about you being a Polish Royal’s bastard you’d have got a thrashing for what you said about Fitzwilliam and Lady de Montfort. Instead, your life is on the line. Besides, I like to think of you as a bastard son of my own. Or perhaps a cousin. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Fitzwilliam could use a seeing too himself.’
His arm was along hers now and his chest pressed against her back. ‘Think of something that makes you feel at ease, and then think of nothing. That’s when to pull the trigger.’
She could feel him breathing once again.
‘You’ll want to pull on the trigger hard, that will be your instinct, but you need only squeeze.’ He adjusted his hand along hers. ‘Do you feel that positioning? Be firm, but not so much so that your knuckles are white.’
Vera focused on the knot and thought of the sound of Lord Stanley’s voice, then she let her mind go blank.
‘Do it now,’ Lord Stanley ordered.
Vera squeezed the trigger. The gun barked, and the shock of the blast travelled through her fingers and into her shoulder.
Breathing hard, she lowered the gun and opened her eyes. She felt powerful, excited. She stared at the grass by her feet afraid to look up and see how she’d done.
‘Well done,’ he said.
‘Did I hit it?’ Vera asked, without looking up.
Lord Stanley laughed. ‘Goodness no, Fidel, but look.’
Vera raised her head and directed her gaze to the target. The knot was untouched, but just above it was a lead-loaded patch of bark.
‘I hit the tree!’ she exclaimed, delighted with herself.
Lord Stanley gave her a hearty slap on the back. ‘Well done, lad. Keep in mind though that if this were the duel, you would have missed your opponent’s head entirely and shot the air above it.’
‘Oh,’ said Vera, wilting somewhat.
‘It’s still very good for your first try,’ Lord Stanley said.
‘I suppose I would be dead now, though?’ Vera asked.
Lord Stanley shrugged. ‘Quite possibly.’
Vera allowed herself a handful of harsh words.
‘Easy, Fidel. Let’s try again.’ He held out the bag of powder. ‘This time you load.’
Vera’s hands felt clumsy at first as she tried to emulate Lord Stanley’s skilful motions. She tapped in the powder, following it with the bit of cloth, and finally the ball that she hoped would find its way into the tree’s knot.
Lord Stanley watched and corrected her motions until the pistol was loaded. ‘Ready to try again?’
Vera nodded. ‘Ready.’ She felt determined this time.
‘Show me your stance,’ he said, staying back this time.
Vera wished he would show her with his body as he had before, but she pushed this desire away. Obediently, she placed her legs slightly apart and distributed her weight evenly between her feet. ‘Like this?’ she asked.
He looked over her stance. ‘Good. Side on, make yourself a smaller target. Now take aim.’
Vera took a breath and raised the pistol. Once more she thought of the calm she felt at the sound of Lord Stanley’s voice, and then she bid her mind be clear of any thought.
‘What are you waiting for? The tree to shoot you first?’ Lord Stanley heckled. ‘Shoot it.’
Vera squeezed the trigger and filled the clearing once more with the sound of the combat. This time she did not need time to recover but immediately began looking for the injury she’d caused her tree-victim.
Panting, she ran forward for a better view. ‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘I missed again.’ She gestured to the wound she’d created, now just below the knot-target.
Lord Stanley took long strides forward to examine the damage. ‘This is good, Fidel. Had the knot been William Fitzwilliam’s head, you’d have struck him in the chest.’
Vera brightened. ‘Would that have killed him?’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Lord Stanley cheerily. ‘At the very least, he’d be badly injured.’
‘Well, good,’ said Vera, feeling encouraged.
‘Let’s try once more,’ he said. He placed a hand on her back, and Vera felt her senses heighten as he let it linger there.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Vera reloaded the pistol until it became as second-nature as eating breakfast. Over and over, she set her sights on the knot and promised herself she’d drive lead into its centre.
Sometimes she nearly nicked its side, but several times she missed the tree entirely. Lord Stanley remained methodical and calm, throwing her instruction and correcting her mistakes.
Finally, as the sun became low and the shadows longer, Lord Stanley held his hand up. ‘You are as ready as can be made today. If you can’t hit him in the skull, the chest is plenty large enough, and a man with a punctured lung is unlikely to shoot straight when he takes his shot.’
Vera glanced at the pistol that had begun to feel like the most powerful part of her arm. ‘Are you sure? Shouldn’t I give it one more try?’
Lord Stanley shook his head. ‘We don’t want you to dull your senses with exhaustion.’
Vera handed the pistol back to him, sorry to see its sleek design leave her possession.
Lord Stanley took the weapon and tilted it in his hand. ‘Just for fun, I’ll take a shot, shall I?’
Vera was curious to see her teacher’s skill at the task she had laboured so long on. ‘You’ll use the same target?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ said Lord Stanley as he deftly reloaded.
Vera watched as he effortlessly took the stance she’d been trying to master all day. As he raised his hand, the toned angle of his arm showed, even through his white shirt.
A focus entered Lord Stanley’s eyes, and Vera held her breath as his hand completed the task it knew well. The pistol sounded, and Vera exhaled.
Lord Stanley lowered his hand, and both of them looked towards the tree. In place of the knot was a black wound. He’d hit the target dead on.
Vera stepped closer, mesmerised at seeing the seemingly impossible task completed in one try. ‘You got it. Right in the centre,’ she said.
Lord Stanley pursed his lips. ‘I should hope so. I have been the one teaching you.’
Vera walked all the way to the tree as if to confirm what she was seeing. She extended her fingertips to touch the bark around the perfectly placed cicatrice. As she stared, she realised Lord Stanley had come up behind her.
She looked over her shoulder, her face close to his. ‘My Lord, if I cannot do it this well, what chance do I have?’
Lord Stanley cleared his throat. ‘Don’t be foolish, Fidel. You’ll do fine. Fitzwilliam’s no great shot, and even if his nephew were to take his place, I’d still wager my tuition against any of the king’s marines.’
Vera nodded slowly. Lord Stanley’s words were nonchalant, but in his eyes she saw something else, something like concern. She shoved away the notion.
Why would such a man waste emotion on the lad you’re posed as? she thought.
Still, as they walked back from the clearing, Lord Stanley remained quiet, his brow furrowed. Vera felt the sense of worry lingering in her master, though she could not explain it.
With all that followed in the wake of the ball, Vera found Caruthers avoided her apart from to issue brusque commands. But when she came in from shooting, breathless and burning with desire for Lord Stanley, she found him drinking an ale and looking at her morosely.
‘I thought I had been proved mistaken,’ said Caruthers looking suddenly very sheepish. ‘But now I see I was not wrong – you
just long for His Lordship. A foolish love to bear, my boy.’
‘You were mistaken, Sir. I am not of your ilk, and though I cannot love you, you remain safe in my confidence. I believe everyone is entitled to their secrets. I have many of my own and would no more bruit yours about than I would have my own spoken of. You remain my master and my friend, sir.’
She bowed politely and turned to leave.
‘What is your dark secret, Fidel? What brought you out here to Avonside Manse, so far from home?’
‘I would not be so careless as to speak my own secret when you have been so careless of your own. Sir.’
She left him sitting with his ale and a sad look on his face that nearly broke Vera’s heart.
Chapter 11
Vera continued to practice shooting at the tree in the following days during which Lord Stanley in his role as second spoke several times with Fitzwilliam’s nephew about the arrangements for the duel.
The day drew close, and the whole house seemed to feel the tension of their one member’s danger. Helen would frequently seize Vera and deliver a powerful squeezing hug.
Lord Stanley had her read to him in much of the time off, largely to distract her. They were working through The Mysteries of Udolpho the fantastical flights of which she found lifted her somewhat out of her death row sadness.
The night before the duel, Vera did not sleep a wink.
When dawn eventually broke, it had the same ominous blood red hue as the day of the ball. Not a superstitious woman herself, she couldn’t help feeling the Avonside Manse was dogged with an eerie collection of mysteries. Perhaps seeing auguries written in the sunlight was a natural part of this odd netherworld into which she had plunged.
A passage from Udolpho ran through her mind again and again:
‘It will not be your fault if the enchantment should vanish.'
'Well, ma'amselle, that is saying more than I expected of you: but I am not so much afraid of fairies, as of ghosts, and they say there are a plentiful many of them about the castle: now I should be frightened to death, if I should chance to see any of them. But hush! ma'amselle, walk softly! I have thought, several times, something passed by me.'
'Ridiculous!' said Emily, 'you must not indulge such fancies.'
'O ma'am! they are not fancies, for aught I know; Benedetto says these dismal galleries and halls are fit for nothing but ghosts to live in; and I verily believe, if I LIVE long in them I shall turn to one myself!'
She felt very much like she might turn to a ghost that night herself.
Eventually, she rose and as usual she rebound her breasts in clean strips of linen, shrugged herself into the shirt, tied the cravat with confident hands and laced up her britches and boots. It was all second nature now; Fidel’s movements had become her own completely.
Her jacket was thick wool, despite the heat, because the thickness and durability of the cloth felt safer, despite the fact that she knew a pistol ball would take no more notice of her cloth coverings than she would the wings of a fly she swatted.
How odd, she thought. If I were to die today, shot down in the garden, what would the mortician make of me?
She imagined the doctor cutting away her clothes to reveal the body of a young woman where they had expected a man. She shook her head and tried to clear her mind of the morbid image.
You will not die today. She repeated the mantra in her head again and again in the hopes that she might believe it. But this did not help her swallow her breakfast which she left largely untouched apart from the ale of which she had seconds to steel her against the day.
Caruthers came in as the clock struck nine and announced to her in an oddly formal voice that the Fitzwilliam party had arrived. Vera wanted to be sick.
Killed or killer, either way I’m damned.
The image of the morgue came to her mind again, only this time with Fitzwilliam on the table.
Could I live with that?
She would find out soon enough. In the entrance way, William Fitzwilliam stood with his second and Lord Stanley. Vera turned around and hid her face.
Could her luck be any worse?
Fitzwilliam’s second was the lieutenant. The man who’d first taught her to shoot, so forgettable that she only now remembered that he was Johann Fitzwilliam, son of Lord Fitzwilliam and nephew to Bathcombe’s head thief-taker.
She heard Lord Stanley approach her from behind, and for a moment, fear was replaced by the joy of being close to him. Then the net closed once more. If anyone could recognise Vera Ladislaw, wanted murderess it would be the man who had wooed her just days before her supposed crimes.
‘Come now, Fidel. Worry not. I have a plan to make this all right.’
His own expression did not convince her. He was neither the nerve-wracked Lord Stanley of before the party, nor his old self, nor the flamboyant partygoer. This was a new Lord Stanley, determined and steely eyed. He knew something had to be done, and Vera could see that whatever it was, he was not happy about it.
***
In the gardens, the seconds – Lord Stanley and the lieutenant – measured off ten paces in the middle of a clear flat patch area of grass. They marked the distance by cutting back the turf with a long sword.
‘That marks the shortest distance, Fidel,’ said Caruthers. ‘You will both march up to that point one pace at a time from the starting point which they are measuring out now.’
Lord Stanley and the lieutenant walked ten more paces away from each other and marked that point similarly.
‘You may fire at any point. But you must measure the risk. Fire too early and you must hit your opponent at a great distance. If you miss, he can wait until you are both at the closest point and shoot at you at his leisure. Fire too late, and he may cut you down before you have a chance to pull the trigger.’
‘How far can I be sure of hitting him from?’ asked Vera.
‘Wait till you are as close as possible. If he raises his pistol, raise yours. You might get him to rush and miss. You cannot afford to shoot first and miss; he has killed two others in duels at least. That is what caused his break with his family.’
With great ceremony, Lord Stanley produced the pistols, and they were duly inspected by the lieutenant. Vera kept back with Caruthers and tried to keep her face turned away from the man who could identify her.
Eventually, she could wait no longer. She was called over to the weapons, and after Fitzwilliam had chosen one of the pair, she took the other and loaded it carefully.
Lord Stanley repeated the rules for both parties adding a great deal of ceremonial flourish. Ending with the ominous words: ‘Either party may shoot when they choose, but the advance to the line can only be terminated if one party is dead or both pistols have been fired.’
Vera kept her head down the whole while that he spoke and tried her best to avoid looking directly at the lieutenant.
With the formalities complete, Vera walked out to the strip of bared dirt that marked the thirty pace distance the duellists were to start at.
Thirty paces to Fitzwilliam. Ten to the line.
When do I pull the trigger?
At this range, Fitzwilliam’s barrel chest was a little smaller than the knot in the elm tree. She would have to wait; there was no way she could make that shot.