CHAPTER 3
Stumbling through the semidarkness on the way to his duel with Stephen Linnington, Tom Mowbrey was having second thoughts. He chafed at thick-lipped Cowles’s steady flow of conversation beside him, and frowned when his wine-clad friend pointed out how hot it was already and how wise he’d been to insist that the meeting be at dawn, when there was still some coolness in the salt air. But he spoke up when Cowles insisted that Tom would surely win because he was the younger and therefore the better man.
“We know nothing of this Linnington fellow,” he told Cowles sulkily.
“That’s true, but then we’ve never heard of him as a swordsman.” Cowles paused complacently to brush a blowing leaf from his wine satin trousers.
Tom Mowbrey swung on him in a fury. “We’ve never heard of half the blades in England but that’s not to say they aren’t good men!”
“Ah, I didn’t mean to downgrade Linnington.” Cowles saw his mistake and hastily tried to make amends. “I but said ye’ll triumph over him this day with no trouble.”
Mowbrey stumbled over a rock and cursed as a gull rose nearby with a scream and took off, circling overhead. How could Cowles, who had not a nerve in his stupid body, know what he was thinking? “Best not to crow until the match is over,” he said sourly and begged his friend to leave off talking to him.
Cowles nodded sagely. A man needed time to plan his strategy; that was perfectly right and proper.
But in truth Tom Mowbrey, as he stormed along the uneven path, was flaying himself for his ill-advised words last night and wishing himself anywhere in England but the Scillies at this moment.
His nervousness, as they neared their destination, increased.
“Ah, I see they’re here already, waiting for us,” said Cowles, looking down into the dry moat with satisfaction, and Mowbrey could have cried with rage.
Below them in the dawn’s pale light they could see Stephen Linnington in the clothes he had worn the night before, and Ambrose Duveen, who hailed them with a wave of his hand, sprucely dressed in shades of olive and lime.
“There’s the detestable creature,” muttered Cowles, and Mowbrey’s dark head and scowling visage swung around to see what he had not noticed before—Imogene Wells, looking disheveled and unusually gorgeous in her sleeveless blue linen doublet and wide skirt, with her full, elbow-length white chemise sleeves spilling, lace-pointed, around her slim forearms. She was seated on a big rock, watching them approach. She looked cool, Cowles thought, and almost dreamy.
“I hate her,” choked Mowbrey almost with a sob, and felt a pulse pound in his temple.
“All in good time,” soothed Cowles, seeing that the sight of the woman in the case had upset his friend. “After ye’ve bested her champion, ye can go over and have a word or two with Mistress Imogene if ye like.”
After ... a chill went through Mowbrey. Down below them Stephen had tossed aside his plumed hat and had removed his doublet in the heat. At the moment he was standing there in the flowing full-sleeved shirt he had borrowed from Hal Duveen. He saw Cowles and Mowbrey coming down the path and with a casual gesture unsheathed his blade and tested the tip meaningfully. Mowbrey noted with alarm how his big shoulder muscles rippled as the light breeze blew his thin shirt against them. He tugged unsteadily at his lacy cravat. “This damned heat,” he complained, his voice uneven. “A man could suffocate.”
Cowles was instantly solicitous. He must keep his man cool-headed—and if possible, cool-bodied—until this contest was over. “Here, Tom, give me your doublet and cravat,” he urged. “And your hat as well.”
“Perhaps ye’d like my boots too!” Testily.
“It would be better if ye took them off.”
“What?” Mowbrey was indignant. “There may be thorns hidden in this stuff.” He kicked violently at the bluebells.
“As ye wish,” agreed Cowles, willing to agree to anything. “But the wide tops of your boots could trip you or throw you off balance.”
“Linnington is wearing his boots—I will wear mine!” cried Mowbrey. “Think you I want to land on a thorn just as I’m parrying a thrust?”
Bickering thus, they joined the waiting company to find Stephen—who had already tested the dueling ground—seating himself and peeling off his wide boots.
“Now will ye take yours off?” hissed Cowles, who had just come to the unpleasant realization that this contest might not be the vision of chivalry he’d pictured it to be.
‘‘I will not!” rejoined Mowbrey. “I told ye there are thorns—”
“Then die with them on!” snapped Cowles, impatience at last overcoming friendship.
It was the wrong thing to have said. The dark-haired youth paled perceptibly and sat down suddenly on a rock. “Perhaps ye are right,” he muttered. “Here, help me get them off, Cowles.”
The seconds were getting ready, testing the blades, bustling about, when Imogene’s clear voice rang out.
“Your quarrel is with me, Tom Mowbrey. I’m the one who scratched your face. Why fight a stranger?”
Tom Mowbrey, standing now in his stockings and testing his toes gingerly upon the grass and wild flowers, turned a vengeful gaze toward the calm blue and gold vision who sat perched on a rock, with bluebells caught in her hair, carelessly swinging one leg, and chewing on a grass blade.
“I’ll have a word with you later, Mistress Imogene!” he retorted.
“Not,” said Stephen silkily, interposing himself between them, “if I have anything to say about it. And I advise you to keep your mouth closed during this engagement or I may shorten your tongue for you!”
A bloody film seemed to go over Mowbrey’s eyes and he would have leaped at the speaker had not Cowles restrained him.
“If ye cannot keep quiet. Mistress Imogene, we must ask ye to leave,” Cowles told the girl impatiently. “Ye can see the effect your remarks are having on Tom!”
Imogene gave a careless nod and tossed away the grass stem she had been testing with her white teeth. “I but thought to save that fine brocade suit Tom is wearing from a slash that will have to be mended by his mother’s tirewoman,” she said lazily.
Stephen chuckled at this irrepressible remark by his lady and flexed his arms and shoulders. His body felt wonderful—relaxed, happy. As well it should, after last night, he told himself. Out of the pink dawn another hot day was peeping. Soon the sun would be beating down, pouring its molten gold down upon the beach—and here before him was a brash lad, ripe for a lesson at arms. Stephen had never felt better. He stepped forward to confront the dandy in fawn brocade who stood glowering before him.
Imogene tensed as the two men saluted. At the signal, Mowbrey, too eager to make his mark—sprang forward. His first wild thrust—from which Stephen stepped back in some amusement—managed to nick a blowing edge of Stephen’s shirt and Tom leaped back, panting and jubilant.
“I’ve pinked him!” he crowed, flinging down his blade.
Stephen cast a sardonic glance down at the slight tear in the white linen. Hal’s shirt ... a pity. He leaned upon his blade and studied his foe. “Shall I strip to prove ye have not?” he demanded.
“Of course not,” cried Cowles. “There’s a lady present. We’ll take your word!” He reached joyfully for the sword Tom had flung down, proffered it with a flourish, for he felt that at last Tom was catching on, taking command of the match. “Here’s your blade, Tom. Have at it, man!”
Choked with rage, Tom Mowbrey took the blade—in a hand that trembled—and with a snarl that Cowles mistook for a killer instinct, charged again. His charge was easily checked as Stephen, experienced swordsman that he was, pushed him back almost contemptuously.
Imogene was leaning forward, holding her breath. She watched Stephen seem to lead his opponent around in a semicircle upon the grass, testing his defenses, learning his weaknesses. Like Ambrose and Cowles, who were also watching intently, she was puzzled by Stephen’s seeming consideration for Tom Mowbrey, who leaped and panted and strove most man
fully to inflict some wound upon his foe that would end the match—for this was not a duel to the death, and the first to draw blood would emerge the victor.
Suddenly Stephen leaped in, his blade twinkling so rapidly that a sweating Mowbrey was hard put to follow its passage. As Mowbrey parried desperately, their clashing blades slid up their full length until the two men were hilt and hilt, staring into each other’s eyes. Mowbrey thought he saw leaping death in Stephen’s and jumped back, appalled.
Ah, what a fool he’d been to tear that shirt! This man meant to kill him!
Imogene for a mad moment had had the same thought and caught her breath as she leaned forward.
Terrified and cornered now, Mowbrey sprang to the attack once more and this time Stephen gave ground, gracefully, allowing Mowbrey to wear himself out with his wild lunges.
“Ye have him, Tom, ye have him now!” exulted Cowles from the sidelines, and Tom Mowbrey, had circumstances permitted, which in this wild melee they did not, would gladly have flung his sword at his friend’s empty head. He was panting and badly winded as he came out of the last exchange of thrusts—and, even worse, badly scared.
Now Stephen was smiling—a steely smile that made his white teeth flash like a wolfs, Tom thought—and stalking his young foe about the trampled grass and wild flowers. He had, with seeming leisure, assumed command of the match.
Unwillingly, Tom gave ground. His opponent seemed to be probing him, seeking to pink him at some particular spot—and at that moment, catching sight of Imogene’s frightened face, Tom Mowbrey was certain that spot was the breastbone. The thought terrified him further and made him reckless. Winded, he staggered back, and then, born of desperation, he made a sudden wild thrust, skidded on the grass and went down on one knee. As Imogene screamed, he jumped up—hardly noticing in his excitement that Stephen had graciously stepped back to let his opponent rise to his feet. With the last of his strength, Tom lunged forward, his whole body extended.
In an instant, his strong experienced opponent had crashed his blade against his, the sword flew from Mowbrey’s half-numbed hand and the point of Stephen’s blade was menacing his throat.
White to the lips, Mowbrey staggered back. “No, don’t kill me,” he whimpered. “I take back what I said about Imogene!”
Instantly the deadly point of that blade flicked upward and as he flinched, believing it aimed at his eyes, he felt a sharp pain in his cheek.
Stephen stepped back, eyeing the small cut with satisfaction. It was exactly where he had meant to place it.
“ ’Twill make but a small scar,” he told a shaking Tom Mowbrey critically. “But ’twill replace the scratch Mistress Imogene once gave you—and serve as a reminder whenever you look in the mirror, which I take it is often, to guard your tongue when you speak of her.”
Imogene, delighted that the duel had ended with so slight a wound, proffered the other white whisk Stephen had found.
“To bind up your wound,” she said negligently.
Looking as if he might any minute be sick, Tom Mowbrey struck the whisk away and charged off, forgetting his boots.
“Wait!” cried Cowles in an anguished voice. He seized Tom’s boots and doublet and cravat and hurried after him.
But Tom had gone no more than a dozen paces before he gave a howl and began hopping around on one foot, cursing Cowles, the terrain and all present with incoherent rage—the sole of his stockinged foot had managed to connect with a thorn and it had pierced both his flesh and the remnants of his self-control. In the distance he could hear Imogene’s taunting laughter.
His pride rubbed raw, sobbing with rage, Tom Mowbrey stumbled home beside a mortified Cowles. When his friend tried to comfort him by saying he could meet Stephen again on some other occasion when he “felt better” and thus rescue his honor, Tom struck him in the face and hobbled away on his thorn-pierced foot.
He would lay the whole matter before his father, he vowed angrily—how he had been laughed at, made a fool of—and all over a careless word about wild Imogene Wells. He would enlist his father’s aid in checking up on this brash Linnington fellow who had sprung forward to champion her. And if there was anything, anything in this fellow Linnington’s past that could be held against him, he would pounce on it and bring him down!
But back at the dry moat, over which the sun was now spilling its gold, the lovers gave him not a thought. For them the day was already wonderful and their spirits soared like the seabirds.
Ambrose, flushed and smiling that his man had won the day so handily, said he was away to breakfast and wouldn’t Stephen like to come with him?
Stephen’s smiling eyes never left Imogene, who was looking glorious. “Go on without me,” he told Ambrose. “I’d have a word with Mistress Imogene.”
“Aye, I guess ye’ve earned it,” agreed Ambrose gloomily, and strode back to Ennor Castle and his breakfast, where he found Bess white and pinch-faced, waiting for him.
“Well?” she cried, running toward him. “What happened? Tell me!”
“Nothing happened.” Ambrose yawned and pushed past her toward the dining room. “I told ye what a fool ye were to think ye should go and watch. Stephen pinked his man—on the cheek; the Lord Constable won’t like having his son marked, I’ll wager—and the duel was over. Like that!” He snapped his fingers.
Bess sank against the nearest wall as if her legs would not support her. “And Imogene?”
“She was there with him when I arrived,” he called back over his shoulder.
Then she could . . . have been there with him all night. Bess brushed the thought aside as too awful. She followed her brother into the dining room, watched him sit down and seize a roll. “Did she try to stop it?” she asked weakly.
“No—yes, I suppose she did.” Like his sister, Ambrose was always scrupulously honest. “She asked Tom Mowbrey why he would fight with a stranger when his quarrel was with her?”
“I am glad to hear it. What was his answer?”
“That he would have words with her later—at which point Stephen leaped into the breach. D’ye know, Bess?” Ambrose had grown thoughtful as he munched. “I do think he’s in love with her.”
Bess felt each word strike her separately. “Oh, he couldn’t be,” she protested in a faint voice. “He only met her last night—and saw her but once before when he was barely conscious.”
“Still, I think he may be. Their heads were very close together when I left them.”
Had Ambrose but known it, hardly had he left the lovers before their heads were quickly jerked apart at a loud “So there you are! I’ve been searching the castle for ye!”
Imogene whirled to face her maid, Elise, who, hands on her brown homespun hips, was staring at her with disapproval.
“I came down early, Elise. To watch the duel being fought over me.”
Duel? Elise gasped. “Is anybody dead?”
“No, but Tom Mowbrey has been well humbled for the night when he tried to—” Imogene broke off, her eyes sparkling. “Go back and say you could not find me, Elise.”
“But I can’t do that! They will report ye as missing to Mistress Peale when ye don’t show up for breakfast, and she’ll wail for search parties!”
“Then tell everyone I’m having the vapors over the duel that was fought—and won—by Stephen Linnington when he vanquished Tom Mowbrey in my behalf. Tell them I was so exercised that I’ve taken to my bed and you’ll bring my tray to my room, for I’ve no mind to be scolded today—by Mistress Peale or anybody else!”
Elise knew Imogene’s impulsiveness and stubbornness all too well. “Ye’ll be back for supper, then?”
Imogene cast a shadowed look at Stephen. “I doubt it,” she said softly.
“But I was to visit my sister Clara today on Saint Agnes. What if Mistress Peale should ask for you after I’m gone?”
“Go tomorrow, Elise, and I’ll go with you. Stephen will borrow Hal’s boat and take us there. And tell Mistress Peale that I’ve promised Bess Duv
een we’ll go to visit them tomorrow and she must rest in bed and conserve her strength, for she knows how the stairs at the Duveens’ always exhaust her—that will keep her from getting up and trailing to my room to pester me with questions!”
“Giles Avery will be asking for you.”
Imogene shrugged. “Put him off.”
Elise hesitated. She had always helped Imogene before in hoodwinking Mistress Peale and her elderly guardian but today Imogene looked different. She was glowing. As if she had some great important secret that she could use to triumph over everyone.
Elise was afraid for her.
“I’ll do my best,” she said in an altered voice.
“Thank you, Elise.” Imogene blew her a kiss and took Stephen’s hand.
With a sober face, Elise watched them saunter away among the rocks until they were hidden from her view. Then, shaking her head, she went back to the castle, mentally girding herself to ward off Mistress Peale’s querulous wonder as to where was Imogene?
But the strolling lovers had already forgotten her. Hand in hand they walked among the bluebells—laughing, because Imogene had just said mockingly that it was too bad Tom had not pinked Stephen as he had claimed, for then she could have taken him to the fabled spring in Hell Bay at nearby Bryher Island, a spring where the sun never shone and the waters healed all wounds. Her eyes met his as she said that, and there was a mystical glory in them and a contentment, as if for him she would heal all the wounds of life.
And seeing that look, Stephen winced—and saw himself for a fleeting moment as others must see him. In a flash of honesty, he faced, momentarily, the truth: He had wanted to believe the worst of Imogene, to believe her wild and wanton, for he had burned to hold her in his arms. He had wanted her to be wild, and when he had overheard that careless talk about her—all lies, as he now well knew—he had half convinced himself of the truth of it.
He had seduced a virgin.
What was worse, a virgin of breeding and sensitivity, who’d undoubtedly expect him to marry her.
Bold Breathless Love Page 7