The men circled, trading insults. The terms ‘knock-in-the-cradle,’ ‘cabbage-head,” and ‘fatwit’ were employed. St. Clair was a proper man with his fists, Nigel informed the ewe, as he took another swig of whiskey; while Melchers had a handy set of fives. In height and build and science they were excellently well-matched, although their footwork was likely to be complicated by the presence of copious amounts of sheep dung.
“Stifle it, Nigel!” snapped the duke, mid-jab. “I’m sorry I ever saved you from drowning. I should have let you fall through the ice.”
“You did let me fall out of that tree!” Nigel pointed out. “I still have the scar.”
Mr. Melchers ducked, and circled. “And I still have the scar from when you hit me with that stick.”
“I was searching for the Holy Grail. Saint was King Arthur, and you were Lancelot, and I was Sir Galahad.” Nigel waved the flask, and explained to the sheep: “Conor got the girl. Conor always got the girl. I never had a girl, which is probably a good thing, because Conor would have taken her away from me also. As it was, he locked me in the feed shed. I might have died there and been a mouldering skeleton by now if one of the grooms hadn’t set out to swive the kitchen maid.”
St. Clair swung a good roundhouse right and missed. Conor protested, “You had Gus.” Nigel shuddered, and made application to his flask. “Fighting hurts,” Conor added, as he got in a good body blow. “You don’t really want to hurt me, Saint.”
“Who says I don’t?” inquired St. Clair, as he cuffed Mr. Melchers smartly on the ear. “You’ve been taking things away from me since we were nine years old. I’m sick to death of it.”
“You always had the best of everything.” Mr. Melchers feinted with his left. “And you were never inclined to share. I find it interesting that you never made any effort to stop me taking things away from you until now. One might conclude you have a fondness for your bride.”
“Fondness or not, I intend to keep her!” snapped the duke, just as Mr. Melchers’ fist connected with his face. “Dammit, I think you broke my nose!”
“I knew I should have bet on Melchers,” said Nigel to the ewe. “Saint is bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Conor lifted his hands. “I didn’t mean to do that. It was an accident, Saint.”
“This isn’t!” said the duke, and popped Mr. Melchers in the eye. Further fisticuffs ensued. By the end of the round, St. Clair’s cork may have been drawn, but Mr. Melchers sported two black eyes and a split lip. “If I ever see you with my wife again,” Justin panted, “I won’t be satisfied with putting out your daylights. I trust I make myself clear.”
“Clear as pudding,” agreed Mr. Melchers. “You’ll carve out my gizzard and serve it up to me on a plate. Here, take this handkerchief and wipe your nose. You are horn-mad, Saint.”
The duke had been reaching for the handkerchief. Upon receiving this provocation, he smote Mr. Melchers in the jaw instead. Mr. Melchers retaliated with a body blow. “Not below the belt, remember!” called out Mr. Slyte, who had by this time imbibed a great deal of whiskey and had one arm draped around the ewe. “No, Saint, you must not kick him. The two of you resemble rustics. Yes, and smell like them!” He began to laugh.
St. Clair and Melchers paused to look at each other. As a man, they moved toward Nigel, grasped him by his arms, and tossed him into an especially large pile of dung. Nigel howled and came up swinging. The sheep paused in their chewing and moved closer to observe the three gentlemen rolling around the hilltop in a tangle of arms and legs.
Hoofbeats thudded, wooden wheels clattered. Combatants and sheep alike paused as a third carriage rattled into view. A magistrate perhaps, sent to break up the affair?
The carriage door swung open. The duchess tumbled out. “Imbeciles! Jingle-brains!” she cried. “Magda said you were going to blow each other’s brains out. Yet here you are, brangling like schoolchildren. Someone will explain before I blow out your brains myself. Get up off the ground!”
With alacrity, the gentlemen sprang to their feet, due less to the fire that shot from the duchess’s fine eyes, or the acid that dripped from her tongue, than the dueling pistol she clutched awkwardly in her right hand. Nigel cleared his throat. “Duchess? The, er, gun?”
Elizabeth pointed the pistol at him. “Stay right there, Mr. Slyte. I made Thornaby give me this gun. Yes, it is loaded and no, I don’t know how to use it, and if you do not stop this stupidity immediately I will blow all your brains out. Mr. Melchers did not take me to that gaming hell, St. Clair. Augusta and I followed Magda there. Gus was worried that Magda was in trouble. I was worried that Gus might gamble, and I knew you would not like her to. Mr. Melchers was trying to persuade me to leave before I saw you with your ladybird.”
If this was true, Justin might have cause to be grateful to Conor Melchers. He glanced at his old foe. Conor was gazing at Elizabeth with overt admiration. “Magnificent! If you don’t want her, I’ll take her myself, Saint.”
All thought of gratitude flew out of Justin’s head. “Who said I didn’t want her, you sapskull?”
Conor regarded him ironically. “She did.”
“Stop it!” Elizabeth was finding herself a tiny bit distracted by the sight of two gentlemen stripped naked to the waist. Mr. Melchers made a fine figure, even with two black eyes, while St. Clair— Well. The duke was all that was desirable, even with dirt and bits of grass stuck about his person, and blood crusted on his face. “We were talking about your ladybird, St. Clair. Don’t bother to tell me that I shouldn’t know about ladybirds. Or that I am behaving badly, or I have sunk myself below reproach. Or that you will cast me off!”
“As I said, I’ll take her,” murmured Conor. “And my intentions are entirely dishonorable. Just look at her! If your intentions are not dishonorable, you are a beef-wit, Saint.”
“Bugger off!” muttered the duke, for Conor’s ears only. He raised his voice. “Elizabeth, why do you think I would cast you off?”
Nigel had been too long silent. Furthermore, he had imbibed a great deal of whiskey and was consequently in a loquacious state of mind. “It might have something to do with the way you yanked her dress up to her chin. Oh yes, I know about it. The whole world knows about how your wife caught you in Catterick’s with your mistress, after which you sent her home and challenged Melchers to a duel, which makes no sense to me, but then I wasn’t there. Maybe if he’d yanked up her dress— But no, he’d be more likely to yank it down!”
“One more word,” snapped Justin, “and I will strangle you with your cravat. I admit I may have been a little highhanded.” Nigel tittered. “Very well, a lot! I still fail to see why Elizabeth thinks I would cast her off.”
“You cast off Magda,” Conor pointed out. “Although it was after she had run off with me.”
Elizabeth waved her pistol in his direction. “You told me you were never in love with Magda, Mr. Melchers. But you ran off with her, all the same. I don’t understand.”
Conor managed to look irresistibly wicked, even with two black eyes. “I wasn’t in love, nor was she. It was something else. Saint will explain it all to you. And if he doesn’t, I will.” Justin growled. Conor raised his hands, palms out, and stepped back a pace. “You mustn’t conclude that he had his heart broken. Saint was never more glad of anything than to have Magda taken off his hands. He refuses to admit it because he is so full of starch.”
The duke snarled. Before hostilities could resume, Nigel intervened. “I’ll tell you one thing, Duchess: Saint never tried to fight a duel over Magda,” he pointed out.
The duke did not appreciate these efforts in his behalf. “I will thank you both to be less busy about my business! Elizabeth, put down that gun.”
The duchess, who had been about to do exactly that, raised the pistol again and aimed it at her husband’s chest. “I am tired of people telling me what I must do,” she said. “I am not feeling amiable, or sensible, and I do not want to be a model of good breeding, and to the devil with propriety!
You gentlemen expect that you may have your mistresses and your gaming hells and go about pounding each other and rolling about in sheep droppings and in general acting like lunatics, while I am expected to be as meek as a mushroom and ask permission even about the lowness of my neckline. It is utter idiocy, and I will not have it.” Upon so saying, she yanked open her pelisse, and ripped the bodice of her gown right open. “So there!”
The gentlemen gaped. Their expressions were unanimously bemused. Conor was the first to recover, perhaps because his experience with bared bosoms had been the most varied. “I beg you, Saint, cast her off!” he said.
St. Clair glowered, first at Mr. Melchers, and then at Nigel, and at last his wife. He’d been told she had a level head on her. Instead, she was acting like a Bedlamite. A Bedlamite with a wonderfully exposed bosom. “Cover yourself, woman. I dislike having my dirty linen washed in public. You will stop at once.”
Elizabeth’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I didn’t have dirty linen before I met you, Your Grace. I don’t have dirty linen now, you do. Everything I have done was with the best intentions. You will tell me about your mistress, please.”
He would do no such thing. “I do not have a mistress,” Justin retorted, his temper further tested by the censure in his wife’s voice.
“Yes, you do!” protested Nigel. “Tell you what it is, those blows you took to the head must have rattled your brain. Meloney, remember? Red-haired. Greedy sort of female, I always thought, but you must know what you like.”
“What I would like is to place my fingers around your neck, Nigel, and squeeze until your face turns blue. Yes, Elizabeth, I know you have a gun. If you are going to pull the trigger, I wish you would do so, so that one of us might die, and the rest of us go home. Conor, you appear about to say something. I wish you would not, but I don’t suppose that signifies.”
Conor shrugged. “I’ve seen the lady. Pretty little piece.”
“You may have her! I warn you, she’s expensive.”
Conor smiled. “So am I.”
The duke turned back to his duchess. “There. No mistress. Are we done now? Nigel will be drunk as an owl if he swallows any more whiskey. Conor and I are about to catch our death of cold. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish here today, but I trust you’re satisfied.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what she had hoped to accomplish, either, other than preventing St. Clair and Mr. Melchers from blowing each other’s brains out, which they had apparently decided not to do themselves.
Her anger faded, leaving her standing on the plateau with sheep and half-naked men standing all around her, a pistol in her hand and her gown torn open to the waist. Elizabeth dropped the pistol. It discharged as it hit the ground, startling both gentlemen and sheep.
The duke peered over the boulder behind which he had taken refuge, and was pleased to see that his bride all her parts intact. She turned her back on him and walked toward the waiting horses. “Elizabeth, where are you going? I demand to know!”
“Demand and be damned, Your Grace.” The duchess climbed into her carriage. “But I’ll tell you anyway: I am going home.”
The door slammed. The carriage rattled down the hill. Mr. Melchers appropriated Nigel’s flask, that gentleman being occupied with fending off the advances of a randy ram that had been attracted by his pungent scent.
Conor passed the flask to Justin. “I don’t know as I’ve ever seen so nice a bit of cross-and-jostle work, with a muzzler to finish it!” he said.
Chapter 25
“Once a person has succumbed to the passions, there is no cure, and no redemption, except through death.”—Lady Ratchett
These interesting events, and their aftermath, took up no little time. Mr. Slyte had to be wrestled away from the enamored ram, and bundled into the carriage, and helped into his home in Queen’s Square, under the disapproving eye of Lady Ysabella, who rose from her sickbed to demand to know why her nephew was drunk as a lord at this abominable hour and moreover stank of dung. She also demanded to be told why St. Clair was in a similarly odiferous condition, and who had bloodied his nose. Upon hearing the explanation—from Justin; Nigel was in no condition to do other than hiccough and giggle—she informed the duke that he was cockle-brained, and bade him go on home.
The sun was well up in the sky when Justin arrived finally in the Royal Crescent. Chislett opened the door, and moaned, “Your Grace! Oh, your poor nose. Sir Charles is in the library. He wants to speak with you. If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, mayhap you might care to change clothes first.”
“Smell bad, do I? Good!” Justin mounted the stairs.
Sir Charles was not alone in the library. With him were Lady Augusta and Magda, Birdie and Minou. Sir Charles was seated behind the writing desk, Birdie perched on his shoulder. Gus sat primly on an upholstered chair. Magda leaned on one corner of the desk, playing with Minou.
She straightened as Justin entered the room. “Hello, Saint. I am pleased to see your brains were not blown out. You are in time to bid me adieu. My business here is done, and I find myself eager to be off, tu comprends.”
St. Clair comprehended that Madame de Chavannes was dressed for traveling, in an extravagant wine-colored carriage dress, with a fanciful bonnet on her head. “What business might that have been? Determining how you might interfere with me?”
Magda dimpled. “Strange as it is in me, I have a certain fondness for you, Saint. Pour faire simple, I needed a reason to be in Bath. When I heard about your nuptials, I decided I must meet your bride.”
Sir Charles winced as Birdie nibbled on his ear. “If it’s you who has been encouraging Elizabeth to Take a Notion, Madame de Chavannes, you are in the wrong.”
Magda laughed. “Mais non. That will have been Saint. You must scold him for it. Come, Gus, we will say our good-byes privately, and leave the gentlemen to talk.”
Was Magda an enemy agent, or not? Gus still could not decide. She paused in the doorway. “I wanted to accompany Elizabeth this morning. Magda refused. I am glad that no one shot you, Justin.” The ladies left the room.
The duke walked toward the fireplace. “There was never any chance of anyone shooting anyone. Save for Elizabeth. You don’t wish to scold me, Sir Charles.”
Sir Charles picked up the quill and set about tantalizing Minou. “I don’t even wish to scold Elizabeth. Was it you as tore her dress?”
“No. She did that herself. In an attempt to make a point.” Justin plucked grass bits off his breeches. “It was highly effective.”
Sir Charles tsk’d. “Her mama would not approve.”
The duke detached himself from the mantle. “I believe that I do not approve of her mama. If anyone is to give Elizabeth a rare trimming, it will be myself. Where is she, Sir Charles?”
“She said she was going home. I locked her in her room.” Sir Charles tossed St. Clair the key.
Justin was frowning as he made his way to his bedchamber. By ‘home’ he had assumed Elizabeth meant this home, here. Instead, she had meant to return to her wretched mama. His duchess must be very unhappy indeed.
He unlocked the door, entered the room. Elizabeth, who had been sitting in a chair drawn up near the fire, stood up and watched him warily. She had changed into a simple muslin dress. She had also put back on her corset. Her hair was drawn back severely. Her face was pale.
Justin put the key down on the writing table. “You may leave if you still want to, after we have talked.”
He fell silent, staring at the key. Elizabeth sat twisting her wedding ring. The silence dragged on interminably until at last she cleared her throat. “I suppose it will accomplish nothing to tell you that I am sorry, St. Clair. I perfectly understand why you have taken me in disgust. I should have not done a great many of the things I did, especially as concerns Mr. Melchers, but he seemed to like me, and you were being so unreasonable. I might have acted differently had anyone told me about that old business. I don’t know why Magda did not.”
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p; Justin moved closer. “Because she was meddling. I suppose I should be grateful to her for it, in a way.”
Grateful to Magda, after all this bother? Elizabeth hoped the duke might be tolerant of her also, when she was a former wife. “You may send me home now. Had not Sir Charles locked me in, I would already have had Daphne pack.”
“You will go nowhere.” Justin grasped her wrists and pulled her to her feet. “I am not accustomed to apologizing, Elizabeth. Kindly give me a chance.”
Did her ears deceive her? Apologize? St. Clair? Elizabeth studied his dirty chin. “You don’t want Sir Charles to take me back?”
“Sir Charles shall take you nowhere,” Justin said irritably. “You are mine, and I mean to keep you. Unless, that is, you truly wish to go. No, let me finish! I know they say of me that I’m starched-up, and I daresay it’s true, but I know no other way to be. And it’s also true that one of the things I liked in you was that you were so well-brought-up that you would never lead me the sort of maddening dance that Magda did. But I did not mean that you should try to be something that you’re not, because I like what you are exceedingly.”
Elizabeth regarded him skeptically. “You do?”
“I do now that I know you.” Justin gazed down on her. “And for that I must be grateful to Magda, because with me so starched up, and you being alternately awesomely proper and provokingly prickly—I might never have seen you, had not Magda persuaded Conor to take a hand. She meant me to be jealous, and I was. It must have amused her immensely.”
This grew more and more amazing. Elizabeth moistened her dry lips. “You said you didn’t want me to associate with Mr. Melchers because he is a rakehell.”
Justin’s rare smile flashed. “Ah, but you have assured me that he was ever the gentleman where you are concerned. Which is not something I can understand in him, because I have been anxious to behave most improperly toward you for quite some time.”
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