“I no longer know what to believe,” Andrew replied with as much confusion as wrath.
He glanced at St. James half in challenge, half searching for reassurance, but St. James only regarded him with a steady reflective look.
Before anything else could be said, the Squire's snoring stopped with a snort. The three of them turned to him as he opened his eyes, and his gaze fell first on Lizzie, who was standing closest to him. His eyes widened and he sat ponderously up and held a hand to her, which she took, and he drew her down to sit next to him on the sofa. He was dirty and sweaty and smelled of too much drinking and not enough bathing, but she did not care, only hugged him and hid her face in his shoulder, very near tears.
“Oh, father. I have been so worried for you. And now I find that you have been pestered nearly to death with all of St. James' servants.”
“'Deed, I have been,” the Squire pronounced. “And I should have hunted him down for only that even if he had not abused you terribly as I am convinced he has.”
But Lizzie drew back at his words and wiped at her eyes. “Oh, that is all so much rot, you know, father, for the banns are in the paper and he does in fact mean to marry me, however much I may beg him not to.”
“What is this?” the Squire asked, and he raised his eyes to St. James. “I have checked the papers daily and have seen no sign of banns, miduke, so you have best not assured my Lizzie that they are in when I am afraid you are but misleading her to gain your own purposes.”
And St. James, with a weary gesture, pulled his watch once again from his pocket and muttered as he did so from between clenched teeth, “I did not think that a simple gesture on my part would prove to be so necessary.” He opened the back of the watch and tossed the folded paper to the Squire. “Here, damn it! For it was in yesterday's paper and I would wager it has not made it to this area until this morning.”
The Squire unfolded the paper, scanned it and handed it back. “It had best not be a trick, miduke, for I had already made up my mind to demand satisfaction and damn you and your attempts at buying me off!”
“Jesus, God in Heaven,” St. James said, losing patience. “I swear I shall marry her if I have to ride through hell to accomplish it, however much everyone seems to doubt and disbelieve it. I had no other intention from the beginning, and I have no other intention now! So you may all be hanged, for all I care. I have not the time to stand here and argue with you any further. Make of it what you will and be damned.” He turned and strode from the room and they heard the front door slam behind him.
“Damn right you will!” the Squire cried in belated triumph. Then he turned to Lizzie at his side with a pleased smile on his face as though he had accomplished a great deal. “There!” he told her. “I told you I should get you married.”
She disappointed him with her lack of gratitude. “Oh, do shut up, father, for I have not forgiven you for getting me into this mess to begin with!” and she rose from the settee.
“And where are you going, lass?” her father asked. “For you look like hell and you can not blame me for thinking the worst when he brings you home in that condition! And I'll not have you traipsing off with him again until we have had a discussion and have set a proper date. Even then, I think he should leave you here until the wedding day, for I still do not trust the bugger!”
“I am only going to make coffee,” she returned from the door. “For my head is fairly splitting with all this shouting.”
But her father only cried after her, “There's a cook for that now, ye know, ya damned, bloody, daft girl, and a maid to bring it in!”
“I do not—” she began, but Ryan came bounding down the stairs toward her, hastily dressed and a pistol in either hand.
“Where is he?” he demanded.
And Miss Murdock only said in an aggravated voice, “If you mean St. James, and I expect you mean no other, I believe he has gone to the stables.”
Ryan pushed past her and slammed out the door. She leaned over the banister and shouted up the stairs, “Lord Tempton! Bertie! You had better come down for your brother is about to be killed!”
“On my way!” Bertie called, and he came to the head of the stairs, puffing as he tucked in his shirt. “No fear, Miss Murdock, I shall handle it!” and then he too shoved out the door. But he was not alone, for the Squire, still in his soiled robe and with only a pair of boots shoved upon his swollen feet, and Andrew, rather better turned out, jounced against each other in their haste to catch the front door before it slammed and were outside upon Bertie's heels.
Miss Murdock watched all this activity with weary detachment, was about to turn again to the kitchens when the banging of a cane above her forestalled her once again, and she looked up to see the Dowager, with Soren to one side of her, and Mrs. Herriot to the other, following as quickly as she was able.
Miss Murdock watched their descent with exasperation, and when they reached the bottom and the Duchess glanced at her with some surprise to see her standing waiting for her, Miss Murdock merely said, “You take cream in your coffee, do you not, ma'am?”
“Why, yes, child. Yes, I do,” that old lady answered.
“Then if you will make yourself comfortable in the parlor, I shall return momentarily with a tray,” and Miss Murdock turned to go toward the kitchens as had been her initial intent upon first getting up that morning.
“Oh, Bloody Hell, What Now!” St. James said as he turned from conferring with one of several grooms in the rapidly improving stables. “Yes, young Ryan? Can I be of service to you?”
Ryan stumbled to a stop in front of him, panting, secured his pistols and removed his riding gloves from his pocket, and with as much force as he could muster, slapped St. James across the face.
Bertie appeared in the door behind Ryan, saw the red glow of St. James' cheek and the lethal coldness in his eyes and exclaimed to no one in particular, “Now he's done it! St. James—”
But St. James snapped, “Name your second! I should have known I would not get out of here before something like this occurred.”
“Bertie,” Ryan pronounced.
“Not at all, lad,” that man interrupted with indignation, “for I have always been St. James' second!”
Ryan turned on him, incredulous. “You are my brother, I need not remind you!”
“Yes. But he is right, and you, my boy, are wrong.”
For the briefest of seconds it looked as though the whole sorry affair would end there, with Ryan looking helpless to find his way around this sudden roadblock and St. James only fuming at this further waste of time. But then Andrew, who had arrived in the midst of this with the Squire not far behind, spoke up. “I will be your second, Ryan, for if your brother can side with him, I can certainly side with you, for I believe you to be right, and he wrong.”
St. James clicked his teeth once in furious regret. “Let's get on with it then. Squire, you may as well ride out in a cart to pick up the remains of who falls.”
At this off-hand summation of the consequences, Ryan's face blanched, but he was well and truly offended over what he believed the ruination of Miss Murdock and he would not back down.
“The training track, do you think, St. James?” Bertie asked. “For then the shots will not be heard at the house. Or at least, not loudly.”
“No. I haven't the time. We'll have our go in the lane.” He drew one of his dueling pistols from his coat, handed it to Bertie, and then with-drew the unmatched third gun also so that he was left with but one pistol.
Ryan, observing this, relieved himself of his extra pistol, perceiving that the proper etiquette was one shot to you and be damned if you missed. Andrew took it a little nervously. St. James proceeded to check the load in his chosen weapon, and Ryan followed his lead, but he was so worked up at this point that he would have hardly noticed if his pistol had been empty instead of previously loaded.
The Squire hurried away and was heard bawling for a cart to be hitched to a horse, and St. James, with a single as
sessing look at his challenger, only said, “If you are ready, young Ryan?”
Ryan nodded, his face tight as he held himself together. He followed the smaller man from the stables as St. James strode from the entrance and the four of them headed to the lane.
“Count them off, Bertie,” St. James bade.
“Ten or twenty?” that man asked.
“Ryan? Your choice. Ten paces or twenty?”
“Uh, twenty. If that's all right with you?”
“It's your show, Ryan, by all means, you choose,” St. James told him with impatience. “And don't be overlong about it.”
“Twenty then,” Ryan said with renewed fury. “And damn you.”
But St. James only said to Bertie, “You heard him, Bertie. That straight section there beyond that tree should be adequate.”
And they strode in unison, the two older men, the two younger men, to beyond the curve in the drive. “You have handkerchiefs?” Bertie asked St. James.
St. James pulled two out, handed one to Lord Tempton, who dropped it without fuss on to the road. “You will stand there, Ryan,” Bertie explained. Then he strode up the lane, keeping his paces even as he counted off twenty. St. James followed behind and supplied him the other handkerchief, which Bertie dropped in the road at the end of his count.
St. James took his mark without looking back and stood facing away from Ryan.
Ryan, perceiving that they were to wait with their backs turned, and somehow unnerved that St. James had not even bothered to look back and appraise the distance between them, turned hastily around. “What do I do now?” he asked Andrew to his side.
Andrew, as nervous as Ryan, said, “Devil if I know! Haven't you done this before?”
“No! He's your cousin. Haven't you ever been with him when he's done this?” Ryan asked with anxiety.
“No! And why ever did you call him out? Damned if I would not have had my first go with someone else!”
But Bertie yelled to Andrew and Ryan did not have a chance to answer but jumped a little at the unexpected bellow of his brother's voice. “Earl Larrimer! On the count of three. Which you will start the count, I will continue it, and you will end it, at which point they will turn and fire. And you had better step back a bit, by the by, for that is a damned bad place to be standing!”
And Andrew, flushing, stepped back several yards from young Ryan Tempton, leaving that man to feel very much alone. “Luck to you!” he exclaimed.
Twenty paces away, St. James was studying the field to one side of them and the woods to the other. “Damned bad timing, this,” he told Bertie.
“I know it, St. James. I had no idea what he was up to until, as you saw, it was too late. Guess he took your previous lesson a little too to heart!”
From behind him, St. James heard Andrew shout out, “One!”
“Ready?” Bertie asked in an undertone.
“Yes. And try not to look so concerned, I shall try mightily not to kill him outright.”
“I'd appreciate it,” Bertie said and then shouted, “Two!” and stepped back from the line of fire.
Upon the heels of this second count, Andrew shouted again, but damningly, he did not say 'three' but instead exclaimed in sudden outrage, “Those are my bloody pants, damn it!”
Ryan whirled at Andrew's words and he saw that St. James turned also, although St. James' demeanor was of one pushed well beyond endurance with someone else's folly. But before Ryan could fully appreciate the lack of intent upon his opponent's face, or the fact that he had not raised his pistol, Ryan had already fired.
The gunpowder from his pistol stung his nostrils, and that combined with the recoil of the gun nearly made him drop his weapon. Andrew screamed beside him, “Bloody Hell, Ryan! I did not say three, damn it!”
“Oh,” Ryan said foolishly. “I say, is he all right?”
Andrew peered through the dissipating smoke, said through clenched teeth, “No, by God, he isn't for he is doubled over and clutching his stomach!”
“Oh, God! Gut shot!” Ryan said with horror. They both broke from their frozen, shocked stances and ran down the lane, expecting St. James to drop to his knees as they neared him and to lie dying in horrible pain upon the lane.
But as they drew closer, their running slowed, and they were both more angered than relieved to find that although he was doubled over and clutching his stomach, he had not been shot, but was laughing until the tears streamed down his face, and that Bertie was laughing as hard, and had picked up the handkerchief that had been at St. James' feet and was wiping his face with the dusty folds of it.
“I had wondered,” St. James gasped as he tried to recover himself, “where Steven had gotten those breeches!”
And Andrew, recalling what had distracted him to the degree that he had miscounted, looked to where he had caught sight of that lad, who had moved closer at this turn of events, and exclaimed hotly, “Yes, by God! The little heathen has stolen my pants, and they were quite the best pair I owned! And look at what he has done to them, for not only are they dirty beyond cleaning, they are sheared off and will never fit again.”
Steven, with wide gray eyes, said, “Aye, I'm sorry, m'lord, but I awoke without me own, and never have I been able t'ken what happened to 'em.”
Ryan turned with fury on Andrew. “You nearly made me kill him, damn you, for you could not even keep your mind upon the count. And I would have been a murderer, thanks to you!”
“I say!” Andrew defended himself. “T'is up to you to wait until the count of three! Don't blame me if you were so nervous that you jumped the count!”
St. James, still laughing, but at last able to stand erect, asked, “Care for another go, Ryan?”
“No, by God, I don't!” Ryan said with ill-grace. “For I have had quite enough, with you and my own brother laughing your fool heads off at me!”
“Very well, Ryan,” St. James agreed, trying to curb his amusement. “Let us just chalk it up as another lesson learned, shall we, and no hard feelings? For if you had only asked, you would have learned that Miss Murdock is quite unharmed and that the banns of our engagement were posted in yesterday's newspaper.”
“Oh,” Ryan said. “But I was only following your advice!”
“I generally recommend that you apprise yourself of all the facts before you go off in a dudgeon, but I must have missed that point,” St. James explained.
But Steven interrupted. “Pardon, m'lord, but I've come to fetch you, for Tyler lies an hour back on t'road, an' I don't know how long he will last without help.”
“Damn it!” St. James said, his amusement gone and all his attention now on the boy. “How bad, Steven?”
“Don't think too bad, m'lord, but he's in pain, and bleedin' an' unable to ride further.”
St. James closed his eyes for one second. Then they snapped open and he said, “Is your horse blown, lad?”
“Aye. I rode 'im 'til he was on his knees an' left 'im a mile back.”
“To the stables, then,” St. James said and turned in that direction. Bertie followed and, after a second's hesitation, Andrew and Ryan hurried to catch up. They met the Squire a dozen yards up the lane with the cart and horse. “Very good,” St. James nodded. “Steven, can you drive it?”
“Aye. Think I can.”
“Then up you go, lad, and Squire, you'd best get down.”
“We're going with you,” Ryan told him.
“No. You're not,” and he turned long enough to pierce them both with his gold eyes. “You're to remain here and make sure that no harm comes to Miss Murdock. You, also, Bertie, for after this display out here, I think they are as likely to shoot each other as they are any attacker and will need someone to show them the ropes.”
“You're going alone then?” Bertie asked.
“Yes. Steven will get Tyler with the cart, and I will take care of these two remaining threats before they cause more trouble, damn them!” They reached the stables and St. James continued, “Ryan, which is your horse, for
mine is in no condition after being ridden hard all night.”
Ryan sped down the aisle until he located his horse, St. James upon his heels. When they reached the proper stall, St. James threw open the door. “Fetch the tack, Ryan,” and if he were cursing the fact that he had not Tyler with him who knew his every move, nearly, before he made it, he made no indication of it, only went about his business with a tired and singular purpose.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Whereas Milord Duke of St. James found a great deal of amusement in the shot fired from Ryan's pistol, Miss Murdock, sitting in the parlor with the duke's staid grandmother, found it rather less so.
She had not fetched the coffee, as had been her intention, being shooed from that task by a scandalized Mrs. Herriot. Miss Murdock, disgusted, returned to the parlor, and although she had a good deal of faith in Bertie to not allow a tragedy, without the looked for preoccupation of preparing the morning beverage, she was very concerned, indeed.
She went to the settee, across from the Dowager in her chair, who looked a good deal strained also, and they made no conversation, as it was useless to think of entertaining each other until they were assured that all had been handled without anyone befalling harm.
Presently, Mrs. Herriot came in with the coffee tray, loaded with a tall silver urn surrounded by several silver cups, which Miss Murdock had never before seen in her life. It was not her father's, by any means, and she had to wonder what ever in heaven else St. James' energetic and purposeful housekeeper had changed in her absence. It was no wonder Miss Murdock's father had looked fagged to death.
She poured and although she was preoccupied with worry and doubt, it was not evident as she completed this task with her normal somber grace and handed a cup over to the duchess, who took it with a shaking hand, which could have been from old age, or could have been from agitation.
In the Brief Eternal Silence Page 53