How the Marquess Was Won (43 page)

“Well, I think he’ll kill you, Waterburn,” Colonel Kefauver said admiringly, sounding surprisingly lucid. “Have you seen that boy shoot?”

J
ulian arrived in Sussex in the early evening, after spending the afternoon cleaning and oiling his dueling pistols. He’d purchased them from Purdey shortly after he’d left Manton’s for his own establishment, and he’d practiced with them at least once a month for five years.

Not on men, of course.

Mr. Gideon Cole had promised to join him in Sussex for dinner at the inn and for a celebratory drink after, upon which he would return to London, as the business of arguing in court never ended.

Such was the bravado that preceded duels.

And in Sussex the marquess took a room at an inn. Through his second, Mr. Cole, all parties were informed where he could be found should an apology be forthcoming. He wasn’t sure he wanted one.

He rather felt like shooting Waterburn.

He knew the land he wanted, his mother’s dowry, everything he’d maneuvered toward to date, was never going to be his. At least while Isaiah Redmond lived. He supposed the novelty of falling on his own sword, which still surprised him, would sustain him through the disappointment.

He had no doubts that he would live, of course.

He had doubts about the quality of his life thereafter, given that it had become fairly clear that Phoebe Vale would not be in it. But he decided to focus on the mundane things that stitched together a day, one moment at a time. Which was also very unlike him, as he was forever planning several moves into the future. He savored each bite of his early supper of a tasty but mysterious stew at the comfortable inn just outside Pennyroyal Green, with Mr. Cole. He savored the sight of a kind autumn sun, lowering on the green, benign Sussex hills unfurling out the window, undulating off toward the sea. The faces of travelers, the simple country clothing they wore.

And he had nearly finished his stew when the door to the inn opened, allowing in a gust of air. He stopped chewing.

Sir d’Andre and Lord Waterburn stood in the doorway.

He swallowed his bite. “Have your pistol loaded, Cole?”

“Of course,” Gideon murmured just as casually.

But the two men, Waterburn and d’Andre, looked unusually subdued. The spectre of death would subdue anyone, Jules thought.

“May we have a word, Dryden?” d’Andre, as the second, lifted his voice from the doorway. As if seeking permission to approach.

He hesitated.

“Join us,” Jules offered ironically.

The men moved in tandem, weaving through the tables, past the smiling faces of the other diners who were unaware that two of the men had made a gentleman’s agreement to attempt to murder each other this evening over a woman.

“I shall say this quickly. I apologize for the offense I gave, Dryden. I was wrong.”

Jules looked up into the man’s ice blue eyes. “Because you don’t want to die this evening?” he asked pleasantly. “The first sensible thing you’ve done in quite an age, Waterburn.”

“It got away from us, please understand. The wagering. I’m not as soulless as you might think.”

“Soulless” was an interesting word for a man like Waterburn to produce. And yet he was not entirely prepared to relinquish cynicism when it came to Waterburn.

“Did d’Andre pay you one thousand pounds?”

“A wager is a wager, Lord Dryden, and I honor mine,” d’Andre, he of the curls and forelock and tight trousers, said.

“And besides . . .” Waterburn added. “I should like very much to live to see what the ton does with the news that you’re in love with a teacher.”

A hint of humor. More than a hint of the old antipathy.

But Jules was not a fool. An apology was an apology.

He stared at Waterburn a moment longer, speculatively, thoughtfully. Enough to make both him and d’Andre shift their feet, even as they maintained admirably stoic expressions. He supposed he’d made his point in White’s; shooting the man might be superfluous in light of that.

He nodded curtly. “Apology accepted.”

Waterburn’s shoulders rose and sank in a sigh. “And now we’re off to the Pig & Thistle, Dryden. We’re wagering on darts this evening, though no one has yet defeated Jonathan Redmond. Join us if you’re interested.”

Jules watched incredulously as they departed.

He shrugged. And thusly the most dramatic gesture of his life concluded.

They finished their stew, toasted the apology, and Gideon Cole decided to return to London that evening.

P
hoebe wasn’t new to broken hearts. When her parents had disappeared, one at a time, she’d sobbed herself to sleep for countless nights, only to wake again, heart hammering with terror, feeling the wind of the abyss howling behind her. She could not recall when she’d stopped. Somehow the crying had ceased to be a comfort.

She’d survived. Against all odds, she had in fact thrived.

She would survive this. She could not in truth say her heart was broken, since she’d kept it firmly from the marquess.

And yet the howling wrongness of not being near him consumed her. She moved through her room in a dull haze, a ringing in her ears. She knew the farther away from him she went, the easier it would eventually be, and she, like Jules, took each moment at a time, marking them off the way a prisoner etches marks on the wall of a cell.

She’d indulged in the extravagance of hiring a hack to take her back to Sussex, but she could just afford it, thanks to her winnings from five-card loo. In her rooms at the academy, she settled in at her writing desk, Charybdis sitting atop it staring down at her like a gargoyle, and she finally responded to the letter she’d received the very first day she’d seen Jules in Postlethwaite’s.

Dear Mr. Lunden,

I should be pleased to join your party of missionaries as a teacher, and am grateful to accept the position. I understand we sail within a fortnight. Until then, you may address particulars to me here at Miss Endicott’s academy.

There. It was done. The note that ended one episode of her life and began another.

Charybdis reached down and put a paw on her head.

A
fter Jules bade goodbye to Mr. Cole, he rode out to have one last look at the Sussex property that would never be his. He expected to feel more than he did. As it was, he looked for only a minute. It might have been any piece of land.

And then he turned his horse to stare at Miss Marietta Endicott’s academy on the hill. He wheeled his horse about, as if the academy were a pillar of salt, and galloped, headlong, back toward Pennyroyal Green. The chill of the autumn evening stung his skin, and he welcomed it. Filmy clouds obscured a premature half moon. It wasn’t quite dark; the sky was a deepening indigo.

He ran his horse mercilessly hard, unlike him, until the two of them were lathered, breathing hard.

And though night hadn’t yet officially fallen, the town proper of Pennyroyal Green seemed to have closed for the evening. The storefronts were shuttered; no lamps were hung out on hooks.

He paused on the rise and looked down.

No lights apart from the pub, of course. Cheerful light blazed through every window of the Pig & Thistle, and he could see townspeople milling about inside. He wondered how often Phoebe visited it while she was here.

And that’s when something slammed into his body.

The force of it threw him sideways; the reins slipped from his grasp. He fumbled futilely for them, but his limbs seemed peculiarly disobedient. His equilibrium lost, he toppled, slid from the saddle.

Pain.

It was delayed and savage and shocking.

The realization sank in only after he’d landed hard on the ground, one arm over his face, as the hooves of his frightened horse danced over, dodged him:

I’ve been shot.

He didn’t know yet just where he’d been hit. The pain seemed everywhere. Surprising in its consuming totality, raying through him with every beat of his heart. He couldn’t remember hearing the sound of the pistol. Perhaps he had. Time seemed to have warped.

And for what felt like minutes, or an eternity he lay on his back in the empty town square, struggling for breath. Listening to the sound of crickets. The way he had the night he’d waltzed with Phoebe.

This thought was surprisingly motivating. He moaned. He heard the sound only distantly, as if it were coming from someone else, or it was the sound of the wind lowing through trees. When the warmth soaked through his shirt, it was a moment before his hand found its way to touch the wound.

And still not a soul appeared; no one stirred in the square. Whoever had tried to kill him must be satisfied they’d done the job.

I might just die alone.

This thought made him roll, gasping for breath. He struggled to kneel, then rose to his feet. Stumbled and dropped to one knee again.

And in this way, staggering like a drunk, half suspecting he’d never reach it, an eternity later, he arrived at the door of the Pig & Thistle, and swung it open.

Chapter 30

The present . . .

P
hoebe heard the footfall only distantly through her concentration. Two pairs of footsteps in the hall, once belonging to Mary Frances, the maid, the other set clearly belonging to a man.

Her door was open, and so the maid knocked on the frame. Her voice was quick and anxious and irritated.

“Miss Vale, you’ve a visitor. He says it’s very urgent and he wouldn’t wait downstairs and fol—”

Phoebe shot to her feet so quickly her chair tipped.

But she went still, astonished, when she saw her visitor.

Jonathan Redmond.

“Thank you, Mary Frances,” she said faintly. “You may leave us.”

Jonathan hadn’t removed his gloves or coat or even his hat. He spoke very clearly, very quickly. “I apologize for calling unannounced, Miss Vale, but this is a matter of some urgency. Lord Dryden has been shot. He’s been carried into the back room of the Pig & Thistle. And apparently he muttered something about a woman who didn’t love him.”

Shot.

She felt the blood leave her head. Black began to creep in from the edges of her vision, and her knees buckled.

Jonathan’s hand darted out, gripped her arm, and he eased her down to sit on the edge of her bed.

No. No.
Please no.
“Is he . . .” She wheezed it. She couldn’t breathe to speak, very like waking from a nightmare.

“He’s alive now. That’s all I know.”

She looked up, dazed with horror, and in truth, uncertain she should trust him, recalling he was, in fact, a Redmond. “But why are
you
. . . how . . .”

Jonathan was briskly impatient, clearly struggling to remain polite. “He challenged Waterburn to a duel—over you, I might add, Miss Vale. In front of everyone at White’s. Waterburn, if you can countenance it, apologized today. He seems innocent of the crime. But no one knows who might have shot the marquess on the common this evening. I came for you straightaway when I heard. I was in the pub.”

“But why should
you
be here?”

He hesitated. And then he sighed. “Because . . . Phoebe . . . I know about the gloves.”

Shock, a fresh dose of, slapped at her. She glanced guiltily at the trunk in which she’d packed them, then back at Jonathan.

“I . . . I don’t understand.”

He smiled faintly, but there was little humor in it. “I was there when Lyon bought them in Titweiler & Sons. A one-of-a-kind pair. He was so bloody careful about choosing them. They meant so much to him. But Olivia refused the gift.” The word
Olivia
was etched all around in disdain. “And now I can see that he gave them to you. And no, you don’t need to explain the circumstances under which he gave them to you. He said you were a good egg.” Another smile haunted Jonathan’s mouth at the very unromantic way to put it. “No one really knew Lyon, you see. But I do. And there were so few people he confided in. He confided in me, at least some of the time. And there were so few people he held in any esteem. You were one of them. His judge of character is unassailable. And so for the sake of my brother . . . who knows a little something about impossible love . . . I thought you should know about Dryden.”

She couldn’t take this in.

“But . . . what about Lisbeth . . . that is, surely your family
hates
me . . .”

“My father has sent Lisbeth away to a very stern relative in France, by the way, where she will spend some time in a convent. He’s not enchanted with either you or the marquess, but he’s appalled by Lisbeth, since she’s a member of this family. And we’ve character, you know. Believe it or not.” A glimpse of the impish Jon here, with a new irony. “The Redmonds. He’s a complicated man, my father.”