by Isobel Carr
And he should be.
Gabriel hadn’t fought a duel in years, but he’d never lost one, and that comment was far beyond the pale of what he could allow to pass.
Begin as you mean to go on. That was the only rule worth living by. If he let Perrin get by with insulting Imogen in such a way now, their lives truly would be miserable. He’d hound them incessantly. Drive them from the ton if he could. But if Gabriel stood up to him now, the matter would be settled.
Gabriel sensed more than saw his friends moving to stand behind him. Behind them. It was as though they stood in a boat, in a lock quickly filling, raising them to the next stage of their journey. George glittered in all her finery. Morpeth’s shadow fell across them. Alençon stood at his shoulder, dangerous, radiating anger so strongly he could feel it wash over him.
Perrin’s eyes got wider and wider as the ranks behind them swelled, becoming more and more formidable with each addition. The crowd stepped back, creating a clear path between them; perfectly aware that they didn’t want to get caught between Brimstone and whatever fool had offended him.
A few men moved to stand behind Perrin, proving that he had some friends willing to make a stand for him. Which was all Gabriel needed.
He couldn’t challenge a man who couldn’t so much as produce a second, but a man with friends at his side? That man was vulnerable to the form of counterattack Gabriel had in mind. To the kind he was a master of.
A few people tittered into the uncomfortable silence, but no one made a move to leave and go into dinner. A man coughed somewhere in the crowd. The crystals of the chandeliers tinkled overhead. Wax dripped onto the sleeve of his coat, marring the silk forever.
Gabriel dropped Imogen’s arm, catching Alençon’s smouldering eye as he did so. He nodded as the duke stepped up to take his place, then he advanced slowly towards Perrin, his heels ringing smartly on the floor, every step a death knell…
But he wasn’t going to kill the man. At least not here. Not now. He actually got halfway to his goal before Lord Jersey appeared in front of him, looking slightly panicked, his eyes searching out the crowd at Gabriel’s back, silently begging for assistance.
‘Mr Angelstone?’ He sounded as if he was going to be sick.
A hand gripped his shoulder, halting his progress. Gabriel glanced back at his cousin’s husband.
‘Not here,’ the earl said flatly, eyes boring not into him but into Perrin.
A shudder ran though Gabriel. He jerked out of Morpeth’s grasp. ‘Perrin made his insult publicly enough, and he’ll damn well make his apology the same way.’
Perrin puffed out his chest and glared back at him. A toad puffing up; its only defence. Was he really foolish enough to think he could brazen it out? Probably. He’d been fool enough to divorce Imogen, and that was a sign of lunacy.
‘I’ll say anything I want about that slut. I think I’m entitled to that after what she put me through.’
Gabriel flicked his gaze up and down Perrin, his expression as insulting as he could make it. He wanted a fight. He wanted to kill him.
‘I believe I am more than capable of making you regret uttering even the mildest slight against my future wife.’ He pitched his threat to carry to the farthest reaches of the titillated crowd. ‘So you’ll apologize to her, and then to me for putting me to the bother, and you’ll do so now.’
‘Or what?’
Perrin clearly still did not understand the danger he stood in, or was simply unwilling to believe that he could be in any real danger. Gabriel smiled, letting his intention to kill the man leak from every pore.
‘Or you’ll name your seconds, and you’ll make your apology in a much more public and humiliating fashion.’
Perrin’s nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed, but he made no response. His hands shook visibly as he glanced behind him to see which of his friends were present.
He’d put himself between a rock and a hard place. Unable to back down, but clearly terrified of the situation he’d catapulted himself into. Gabriel took one deliberate step towards him, exalting as the bastard gave way.
‘In fact,’ Gabriel added, baring his teeth in a wicked smile. ‘I think I prefer the option of exacting your apology, so much more satisfying; for me anyway. Morpeth?’
He glanced over and the earl nodded. A sea of grim faces surrounded them, frowns marring finely powdered skin. George looked as if she’d like to remove Perrin’s head with her fan. Even Torrie wore an expression that he could only describe as bloodthirsty.
‘Your second may make the arrangements with Lord Morpeth.’ Done, he turned his attention away from Perrin and strode back to where he’d left Imogen with the duke, relieved to see that his nymph was still there, Alençon beside her, all their friends behind her.
Such a grand show of force. If there’d been any doubt as to where she stood it was over. When he reached them he paused and turned back to face Perrin. ‘Unless you come to your senses, in which case you may seek us out during supper and grovel at her feet.’
Without another word, or so much as a backward glance, he claimed a white faced Imogen and led her out of the room, their friends falling in behind them. An impenetrable wall of silk and velvet.
Imogen collapsed into the chair Gabriel placed her in, her gown crumpling around her. The seats around them overflowed with their friends. She simply wanted to leave, but when she’d tried to do so, George had shaken her head, and forced her to stand her ground.
The odd, hushed whispering conversations taking place set Imogen’s teeth on edge. This was exactly what she’d been dreading all along. People were sneaking glances at her as they passed, and the occasional high pitched titter could only have been at her expense.
She fought back the urge to vomit, breathing slowly, deliberately. Gabriel reappeared with a selection of delicacies. A footman reached past her to fill their glasses with champagne.
‘Drink up,’ Gabriel urged, eating a lobster patty as though nothing were out of the ordinary. ‘You’ve earned it.’
He was perfectly at his ease. Laughing beside her in grey striped silk, the curls of his wig negligently dangling over one shoulder. He was giving a masterful performance. He picked at a bit of wax that had fallen on his sleeve, as if that minute task were all the worry he had in the world.
Imogen tossed back the entire glass. Gabriel handed her his glass before waving the footman back over, and commandeering a bottle for the table. She drank the second glass in three gulps, and George filled it again.
Her stomach lurched in protest then settled. She had to make it clear to Gabriel that he was not to fight Perrin. Anger churned, burning its way through her. ‘You’re not—’
‘Not going to discuss it here,’ the countess interrupted, cutting off whatever retort had sprung to Gabriel’s lips. ‘We’re all going to go on as if nothing happened. Eat. Drink. Dance, and then we can leave, and the two of you can fight about it all the way home, all night long, and into tomorrow if you care to, but not now.’
Imogen swallowed her anger down, nearly choking. She took another gulp of champagne. Everyone was behaving as if this were a perfectly normal evening. It was tragedy masquerading as a farce. Couldn’t they see that?
And they continued to pretend for the next several hours. She was paraded around the dance floor until the final notes of the evening wavered and dissipated. The crowd had hardly thinned. Everyone was watching them, curious, eager for another disaster. Another show. Breathless with anticipation.
Imogen shook her skirts out, smoothing them over her hoops. ‘Do they expect us to cap the evening by making love here and now?’
Gabriel chuckled and held out her evening cloak. ‘It would certainly put the finishing touch on a rather unusual evening.’
She hooked the clasp with shaking fingers. George grabbed him by the arm, hauling him back from her. ‘Not so much as a kiss on the steps, you awful man.’
Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, amused despite himself, despite h
is nymph’s obvious temper and the warning note in George’s voice. Denied the prey he wanted, he was itching for a confrontation. Any confrontation.
He’d have loved to put on a show the ton would never forget, but Imogen had been tried almost past her limits. Better to get her home and into bed. She’d feel better in the morning, and so would he.
By morning he would know exactly where and when he’d get to extract Perrin’s apology. Something which he was looking forward to with almost unholy glee.
Please let Perrin choose swords. Pistols would be too quick, too easy, too impersonal. Not nearly bloody enough…
When they arrived at Dauntry House, George deserted them in the hall. ‘You don’t need me in the middle of this.’
Imogen stared dumbly about the hall, all emotion gone from her face. Poor thing. She looked numb. Done for. Gabriel tugged her into the saloon and over to the chairs before the cold hearth. He gently pushed her down into one, then sank into the one opposite it, crossing one leg over the other and settling back into the embrace of the high-backed chair. He swept his wig from his head and tossed it onto the small table beside him.
‘Well, love,’ he prompted.
‘Don’t even think about taking that tone with me.’ Her eyes flashed, the whites glowing in the dark room. Gabriel didn’t allow his lips to curl up into a smile. It took all the strength he had.
‘Did you happen to notice that Perrin had made himself scarce by the time we returned from supper?’ he asked offhandedly.
Imogen blinked. Clearly she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t had the smallest idea that they’d already won the first battle.
When she didn’t respond, Gabriel stretched out his leg and jiggled her knee with his foot. ‘Out with it. You were near bursting during supper.’
Prodded out of her thoughts Imogen glared at him again. ‘You’re not to fight him, Gabriel.’
‘Oddly enough, I’m going to.’
‘I won’t have it,’ Imogen insisted, sitting up and leaning forward, her expression suddenly earnest. ‘Tonight was bad enough, but if you kill Perrin—you’ll—I’ll—’
‘You’re right, love, tonight was awful, and if I don’t meet your ex-husband it will be open season on us both.’ He held up a hand when she started to reply, and she fell silent, staring at him, her brows drawn together in a worried little frown. ‘And who said anything about killing him? There’s no humiliation in that, or at least none he’d be around to suffer from, and that’s what I’m after. That damn little popinjay isn’t ever going to insult you again. When I’m done with him, no one will. And for that, I need him alive.’
‘But what if he kills you? I couldn’t—’
Gabriel’s laughter cut her off. He laughed until it turned into a fit of coughing and he had to stop to catch his breath.
‘If you’re not going to take this seriously…’
‘Oh, Imogen love,’ Gabriel replied, still smiling. It really was so funny it hurt. ‘Perrin’s never been in a duel, and from what I’ve heard, he’s a terrible shot and an even worse fencer. By the time he has to stand across from me in some fog enshrouded field with the dew soaking through his boots, he’s going to be shaking too badly to be any threat at all. My only worry is that his seconds will inform upon us in an effort to prevent the meeting.’
‘But you are going to shoot him? Or stab him or whatever it is you do with a sword.’
‘Like the cur he is, love. Like the cur he is.’
‘And if I asked you not to?’
‘I’d advise you not to.’ Gabriel captured her gaze and held it. He had to make her understand. This wasn’t something he could back down from. Not if they were to survive.
‘But I am asking.’
A dog barked in the distance. The watch called the hour from just outside the window. Gabriel watched her. Willing her to understand.
‘Much as I hate to disappoint you, darling, that’s not a request I can honour.’
‘Then neither is our engagement.’ Imogen tugged the betrothal ring he’d given her only a few days previously off her finger.
It was Gabriel’s turn to glare. His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. If she thought he was going to succumb to ploys such as this, she was mad.
He held out his hand and she dropped the ring into his palm. Without another word she fled the room in a flurry of silk and sobs.
Gabriel stared at the ring in his hand, clenched his fist around it. Blowing his breath out angrily, he stood and thrust the ring into his pocket. His nymph had a knack for making things far more complicated than they needed to be. Perrin needed to learn a lesson. And unless the lesson was delivered, he’d feel free to torture them both for the rest of their lives. If left unchecked, he’d quickly turn them into exactly the social pariahs that Imogen feared to be.
Perhaps George could explain it in a way Imogen would understand? Clearly his nymph wasn’t going to take his word for it, but he was learning, slowly, not to take her fits and starts to heart.
Chapter Thirty-One
Nothing could have prepared us for the delicious sight of a certain Tory MP slinking from Lord and Lady J——’s soirée with his tail between his legs and his new wife railing like a fish wife.
Tête-à-Tête, 16 December 1789
At eleven the next morning, Imogen climbed into the small traveling coach usually reserved for the servants and threw herself back against the squabs. George handed in a basket of food.
‘Are you sure, Imogen?’ the countess asked, her brow puckered with concern.
Imogen nodded, unable to speak. She just wanted to get underway. If Gabriel caught her now, she wouldn’t be able to go. With one last uneasy look, George stepped back and the footman threw up the steps and swung the coach door shut.
Imogen crumpled into the seat. She’d lain awake all night, trying to find a solution she could live with, and this was what she kept coming back to: escape. She wouldn’t call it running away, though the phrase was apt. She pulled the carriage rug up over her lap and settled into the corner as the coach got underway with a lurch, metal banded wheels clattering loudly across the cobbles in the stillness of the morning.
Gabriel couldn’t—wouldn’t—see that fighting Perrin would make everything worse. It would cause such an upsurge of gossip that she’d never be able to show her face again. The door to the ton had cracked open, but it was about to slam shut, right in her face. She’d either be the wanton who’d caused the death of a rising young politician or the slut who’d gotten her foreign lover killed.
Why couldn’t Gabriel see that? Why do men so often seemed to think that violence would solve anything? Violence might be necessary to counter violence, but didn’t seem all that effective for anything else.
A marriage between them would never work.
This was one case in which she was sad to have been proven right. All that was left was for her to get as far away from him as possible. And at the moment, that meant Scotland; to one of the estates belonging to the countess’s brother. George had promised to send along her things, and not to tell Gabriel where she’d gone, though ringing that pledge out of her had been hard.
But once given George’s word was sacrosanct. She wouldn’t go back on her promise.
Imogen touched the countess’s letter of introduction, flipped her book open so she could read the signature scrawled on the outside…Scotland.
Locks, heather, misty crags. It was not exile.
A tear slipped down her cheek, tracing a cold track down to her jaw. It wasn’t. It was an adventure.
As her second best carriage disappeared round the corner, George blew her breath out with irritation and went back inside. If Imogen wanted to escape, there was nothing she could do about it, except provide a place to go, and a safe means of getting there.
Gabriel would have her head if she allowed Imogen to slip off to parts unknown. And much as she thought Imogen was making a mistake, it was her mistake to make. But just because George was going to let
her make it, didn’t mean she wasn’t also going to do everything in her power to counter such a gaff.
Imogen was mad if she thought she was going to find a hiding place where Gabriel wouldn’t be able to find her. Even if George didn’t inform upon her—which she was going to very carefully skirt doing—it wouldn’t take him that long to run her to ground. If he was quick about it, she wouldn’t even get to Scotland. She had days and days on the road, and George had explicitly told her coachman to go as slowly as possible without letting on that he was doing so.
Far too pent up to stay home alone, the countess grabbed her coat and set off for The Top Heavy. The boys were doubtless already there, and she wanted to know what was going on. The duel couldn’t have been fought this morning, but she was certain it would take place in the next day or two.
When she arrived, it was to find Morpeth and Bennett striding up the street deep in conversation. She waited for them on the steps, and then entered with them. Her former butler directed them to the second floor, to George’s old private sitting room. Gabriel was already there, as were his cousin Julian and St Audley. George smiled at the viscount, but he didn’t return it, looking as grim as she’d ever seen him.
Gabriel gave her a quick, appraising glance, before turning his attention to the earl. ‘Are we set?’
‘We are,’ Morpeth replied, taking a seat. The earl’s sitting down signalled everyone else to draw near and do the same. ‘It’s for tomorrow.’
‘Weapons?’
‘Time?’
‘Where,’ everyone jumped in, their questions tumbling out in a rush.
‘Breakfast plans?’ George threw in, earning herself a glare from the earl.
‘It’s hardly your first duel,’ St Audley said, shaking his head reprovingly. ‘Do try to contain yourself, you bloodthirsty wench.’
‘If I may?’ Morpeth said, shooting them both a quelling glance. ‘Pistols. Seven…dawn being too early for Perrin. The green outside The Drunken Pelican, up in Hampstead. Breakfast reserved at The Pelican directly after, if that’s acceptable to you, my queen?’ he added with a smirk.