It Takes Two to Tangle (20 page)

“I have to go in. I'm sorry. Caroline has asked for me; she will need me.” Her eyes met Henry's, wide and panicky.

Not what one expected to see when a woman agreed to marriage.

So. She
was
ashamed of him. And this was what happened when one showed a woman one's every weakness: it became magnified. Now it was seen by two, not just one.

Henry had seen a hot air balloon launched in France. It had been punctured by a vandal after its thrilling flight. The hollow bag writhed and twisted as the heated air escaped, and it was left a sad ruin of fabric on the ground, unwieldy and useless.

It just came to mind, all of a sudden.

“If you think it best,” he said over a roaring in his ears as loud as a balloon turning itself inside out. “We won't make an announcement until you're ready.”

“It will be soon, I hope.” Her hands knotted together. A foolish use for fingers when one had ten at one's command.

“You don't know, though?” Henry's near-sleepless night suddenly weighed on him. “Frances. Do you regret it?”
Me?

“No!” Her eyes flew wide open, and she reached a hand toward him. “Oh, he is coming.”

She pushed past Henry and fled down the stairs toward the drawing room. Heavy footsteps pounded within the room, and the door slammed open just before Frances reached for its handle.

Wadsworth flung himself through the doorway and almost walked into Frances. He caught himself in midstride just outside of the drawing room and stared at her, dumbfounded.

She froze, blinking back at him.

Henry must have made a noise, for the viscount's eyes flicked up toward the stairway. Henry realized at once that he had blundered; he should either have drawn back out of sight or followed immediately behind Frances as if he'd just come to call. Instead, it was abundantly clear that he'd been admitted into the personal apartments.

Damn
it.
This was exactly the type of “announcement” Frances wanted to avoid.

Wadsworth's face was red over the high starched points of his cravat. His eyes narrowed, flicking from Henry back to Frances, and Henry recognized the signs of a baited animal ready to lash out.

He was more than willing to lash back right now. Spoiling for it, actually. Too little rest and too much uncertainty would roughen any man's edges, and it hadn't been long since Henry had stopped fighting for his life.

He knew just how to get the fight he wanted from Wadsworth.

He imagined that he was strolling down Piccadilly, a malacca cane in his hand, as his feet found the stairs and carried him to the doorway of the drawing room to stand at Frances's side. He assumed an expression of delight, as of one old friend encountering another in an unexpected place. Such nonchalance would infuriate Wadsworth.

“Wadsworth,” he said as smoothly as if they were meeting at the counter of a tobacconist's. “Good afternoon to you. And how go your affairs today?”

Henry was not wrong in comparing Wadsworth to a wounded animal. The man's nostrils were flaring. He looked like a beast that had lost a very hard race—and a bit of blood too.

“Eavesdropping, Middlebrook? Perhaps all those years in the army stripped you of your good breeding.”

Henry ignored this clumsy sally and replied with maddening cheer. “Oh, you
do
recognize good breeding when you see it? Judging by your own actions, I didn't realize that about you.”

“I suspect there's much you don't realize about good society.” Wadsworth's eyes narrowed. “For example, you must not know that a gentleman doesn't accompany a lady upstairs into her private apartments.” His breathing still came a bit fast, but save for the dishevelment of his carefully pomaded hair, he was shrugging back into his sharp, ambiguous urbanity. “Unless you
do
know that, and you are not a gentleman. Or this
person
is not a lady. Which is it?”

Frances lifted her chin and glared at Wadsworth, looking as though she was preparing to stomp on a rodent.

What a tableau they must make, the three of them standing in the doorway of the drawing room. If Wadsworth would but put a shawl over his head, they could perform an amateur theatrical for the other… Henry counted… seven men, plus Caro, who were watching them, transfixed.

They were all getting a dramatic performance today, though they had probably expected nothing but the usual pleasantries and flowers and dainty sandwiches. Already they had seen a vase thrown. Shards of majolica and scattered daisies lay before the drawing room's marble fireplace, and the carpet was dark with water.

Henry was very aware of the stillness of his right arm—the arm that ought to draw Frances within its cradle, the arm that made Wadsworth think him weak. But he could fight with society's tiny, barbed sentences as well as he had once handled a bayonet. “I'm unsure who you would call a lady or gentleman, Wadsworth. For your own sake, I hope you define a gentleman by blood rather than behavior. Otherwise, by all rights, you ought to relinquish your title to someone more deserving.”

He raised an eyebrow, calculating just the right insouciant lift as a spring within him began to coil up tight and tense. Eager energy began to flood him—the desire to fight and wound, to vanquish, to prove himself. Frances was unsure of him for some unknown reason. She need not be. He'd prove it.

“And how do
you
define a gentleman, Middlebrook?” Wadsworth's face had turned a dark violet. “I should say it was one who knew his betters.”

Whispers broke out in the drawing room, nothing but a distant buzz in Henry's ears. He peered closely at Wadsworth's face, then tilted his head and stepped back. With a nod, he held his thumb up to the side of the viscount's face.

“What?” Wadsworth's livid color had begun to drain, and his lips looked oddly bloodless. “You have no reply?”

“Oh, don't.” Henry let his posture sag, his face transform into a portrait of misery. “Don't let yourself calm down, please. Why, you had turned the exact shade of Tyrian purple; it was a marvelous effect. That's the color that used to be worn by all the Caesars of Rome. Ah, there you go—you've taken on that rare shade again. Hambleton? Crisp? Have you seen Wadsworth's face? You ought to have waistcoats made in this color.”

Wadsworth's brows yanked into an angry vee. When he opened his mouth to speak, Henry smiled pleasantly. “Since Tyrian purple used to be saved for royalty, Wadsworth, I suppose you'd consider it an appropriate shade for yourself. Did you know the dye comes from the mucous of snails?” He turned from the sputtering Wadsworth to Frances. “Did
you
know that? You do know the oddest things about people.”

Her eyes caught his, and she managed a faint smile. “I did not know that, Mr. Middlebrook. But I admit that nothing you tell me about Lord Wadsworth would surprise me.”

“The kitten has claws,” Wadsworth murmured.

“Heaven save us from such manners.” A woman's voice. Through the drawing room doorway, Henry saw Caro stand from her flower-caged seat and thread through the room toward them. “You three are excellent at attempting courtesy without succeeding at it. But I suggest you either come in to the drawing room and be genuinely polite or take a little time to drown your prickly tempers in a brandy bottle.”

To Henry's surprise, Wadsworth shot Caroline a cool look. “And who are you, madam, to dictate my behavior? Naught but the daughter of a vicar, aren't you?”

Clearly some wall of courtesy had been broken along with the majolica, but Wadsworth was no tactician. This was fratricide: hurting one's own allies.

Caroline straightened her shoulders. “I am the widow of an earl and the owner of this house. You can't possibly require any further authority. But if you are so presumptuous as to request more, I will remind you that I am the woman who has refused your suit, and I can't see what further we have to say to one another.”

“Look, Frances,” Henry said ruthlessly. “Wadsworth has turned the color of snail mucous again.”

He probably shouldn't have said that. It was not the act of a gentleman to heap further humiliation on a man who'd just been publicly chastised.

But since he
had
said it, he probably should have expected the punch.

Thud.
A perfect, whole, five-fingered fist hit Henry just below the ridge of his left cheekbone. The shock snapped his head back, echoed through the bones of his skull. The dull sound of it seemed still to be ringing in his ears when the pain hit his face in a sudden, hot wash.

His first emotion was surprise; the viscount had more spine than Henry had credited him with.

His second was a desperate calm, the calm of a man scrabbling to hold together his fortune during a deep gamble. Frances was ashamed of him, and now she'd seen Wadsworth strike him. A
roomful
of people had seen that. The pain in his face was nothing compared to that agony of humiliation.

He lifted his hand to his aching cheek and pivoted toward Frances as deliberately as he could, as though he had all the time and self-control in the world. The coiled spring within him wound ever tighter. “I believe I've just been batted by an insect,” he said in what he hoped was a tone of calculated wonder. “I didn't realize they flew in the better households. Did you see it? Was it hideous?”

“Don't.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, her eyes fixed on his. The ring of green around the edge of her irises looked particularly bright. “Don't make it worse.”

For an instant, Henry was back in her bed, sliding skin over sweat-slick skin, making her cry out.
We
saw
each
other
naked; we shared each other's bodies.
How had they left that intimacy behind so quickly? It was not a mere flight of stairs away, but the unbridgeable distance of her unspoken regret.

“There's no way to make it better,” he said.

He could see now, no woman would protect him against men such as Wadsworth. Not even Caroline, with all her money and influence, could keep the golden muzzles of London society tied on tightly enough. If Henry was to emerge victorious, he would have to fight his own battles.

He turned to Wadsworth, standing almost nose-to-nose with the viscount, close enough to smell the starch of his clothes and the sharp, oily bergamot with which he scented himself.

He was the cleanest foe Henry had faced in several years, that was certain.

“You've struck me,” Henry said as though reading a mildly interesting article out of a newspaper. “I wonder what you think will happen next. Do you think I can possibly let that pass?”

Wadsworth swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think you'll take it.” Again, he launched a fist at Henry.

With a quick snap, Henry caught the viscount's forearm and warded off this second blow. He held the arm tight, pushing it back from his face, letting it struggle and flex inside its carefully tailored sleeve.

He stared into Wadsworth's eyes and saw his own face reflected in their gray gloss.

There was his greatest foe; there. And he
was
strong enough.

“Name your second, Wadsworth,” he said. “And choose your weapon.”

At these words, the drawing room exploded with the din and chaos of canister shot.

Henry smiled. Yes, London was full of its own little wars. And he was determined to win.

“You have to be playing a joke on me,” Jem said. His light eyes were open so wide, they appeared to be trying to escape his head. “That's what this is. A joke? You're very funny, Hal. Very funny.”

The earl sat heavily in the chair at his study's desk, breathing hard. His cravat was starched and tied high and tight as fashion dictated, and he tugged at it fruitlessly with a forefinger. “God, Hal. An excellent joke. But you must not say it in that serious way. I almost believed you for a second.”

Once again, Henry faced his brother across the massive desk in Jem's study, but this time he needed no advice. He had made his decision; now he needed only the blessed, unthinking relief of action.

“It's true,” Henry said. “I challenged Wadsworth to a duel. We'll meet tomorrow at dawn.”

Which was just the way Henry wanted it. He was spoiling for a fight, for the chance to prove something, anything. He must win. His letters had not been enough, a minuet had not been enough, his body had not been enough. He was not sure how much of his heart had been ventured. Too much for comfort's sake.

He smiled, knowing the expression must look gruesome.

Jem unsnarled the end of his cravat from its elaborate folds and coaxed the long starched rectangle away from his throat. “Good God, Hal. I can't credit it, even from your own lips.
You
issued the challenge. For a
duel
.”

“He struck me, Jem. I couldn't let that pass.”

“He struck you?” Jem blinked, then shook his head, loosening the cravat further. “No, no. That can't be overlooked. But how did it ever come to that, Hal? Wadsworth outranks you. He should never have struck you in public.”

“Apparently he disagrees.” Henry shrugged. “I suppose I baited him. I meant to.”

Jem rubbed a hand over his eyes and pressed at his temples with long fingers. “You baited him in Caro's house, before an audience? He could hardly ignore the humiliation you caused him.”

“Just as I could hardly ignore his own insults.”

“But a
duel
. Damn it, Hal.” Jem fixed him with bright blue eyes. “Maybe the situation can yet be smoothed over if you both send apologies. Who is your second?”

Henry had expected this part to be difficult. “Well.” He crossed his left arm over his chest, gathering his thin right arm into his grasp. “Well, I hoped you would do it.”

Jem sat up straight in his chair. “Did you, now? Me, your second to a duel.”

Henry nodded. “I couldn't ask Bart to do it. He'd never have the stomach for it. Also, he's leaving London any day for the country. I don't want to ask him to postpone his journey for—”

“An illegal and quite possibly fatal duel,” Jem interrupted. “No, of course not. No one should regard that with any degree of seriousness. It's only a
duel
.
Hal
.”

This last word was groaned, as Jem rose from his chair again and grabbed a brandy decanter from a sideboard. He splashed brandy into two generously sized snifters and shoved one across the desk to Henry.

“No, thank you,” Henry said. He felt remarkably calm now. The die had been cast, and he had only to do what came next, and next, and next. No more choices until the duel was over. By then, everything else might work out.

Many more impossible dreams than this had come true. For others.

Jem shrugged and drained one snifter, then the other. With a cough, he sat back down and began fussing with the items on his desk. A ledger, an inkwell, a fistful of quills. A quizzing glass. A watercolor miniature of Emily that Henry had painted long ago.

Jem had never wanted to snap the tiny portrait away inside a watchcase as Henry had intended. He said he wanted to look at the miniature always because it would remind him of his wife and his brother, two of the people he loved best in the world.

Henry sighed. “I should have brought you an ice from Gunter's,” he muttered. He should have done a lot of things. He should have tried harder to make his brother happy, time and again. Happiness was all Jem had ever wanted for him, and this was how Henry repaid him.

No wonder Jem had had to loosen his cravat. It was a wonder his head hadn't blown apart, like a kettle with no outlet for steam. But it was too late to go back now, and Henry would not change the path he was walking even if it were possible.

Jem lined all the quills up into a neat row, and Henry remembered Frances teaching him how to hold a quill in his left hand. A quiet day in this very house. He'd had such hope then, but already the two women—Caro and Frances—had begun to mix and muddle in his mind, and he did not know exactly for what he ought to be hoping.

“Those are taken from the left wing of the goose,” Henry said stupidly.

Jem looked up. “These are from a swan.” He stretched his mouth into a tight shape that approximated a smile.

He looked calmer now, as if the ritual of shuffling the objects on his desk—not to mention gulping two snifters of brandy—had soothed him.

“So you want me to be your second,” Jem said again. He leaned back in his chair again and spun one of his long swan quills between his fingers. The feathery barb tapped against his thumb, over and over, and Henry began to wonder what his brother was thinking. It was rare that he ever had to speculate. Usually the expression on Jem's face was as easy to read as a printed page.

“That's a hell of a thing for you to ask of your brother, you know,” Jem said mildly, still spinning the quill.

“I don't have anyone else to ask.”

“That's a hell of a way to be.” Jem set the quill down on his desk and nudged it into a neat row with its fellows. “But I suppose it makes sense. A man with many friends doesn't find himself getting snared in a duel in the first place.”

“Anyone could get into a duel with Wadsworth,” Henry said. “You'd have challenged him too if he'd insulted you in front of Emily the way he insulted me before—” He cut himself off just in time. Frances did not want anyone to know about their relationship. He wanted to give her all that was honorable: his name and everything he owned on earth. But in her shame for him, all she wanted was secrecy, so he could at least give her that.

“Your lady,” Jem finished, and Henry nodded his gratitude. Jem's mouth curved again, and this time it seemed a real smile. It was only a shadow of his brother's usual buoyant grin, but it would do for a start. “Yes, I suppose I can understand that. I'd have wanted to kill him with my bare hands.”

“You wouldn't have,” Henry protested.

“I'm not saying I would have
succeeded
. But I would have
wanted
to. Why are you belittling my skill, though? You want me as your second, don't you?”

“You'll do it?” Henry didn't know why he was holding his breath, as if everything rode on this. He didn't
have
to have a second.

“Ah, Hal.” Jem raked his hands through his hair. It was still the rich dark of lamp-black, but Henry noticed that it was beginning to gray at the temples. He had a sinking, shuddering feeling of having been gone for an unutterably long time, of having missed an unfathomable amount.

Jem, it seemed, agreed with him. “Hal, the war is over. Our society rests on peace now, and we must keep peace amongst each other. You can't threaten people and challenge them to duels. You especially can't challenge a peer. We don't kill here. The whole world knows that.”

“Bollocks,” said Henry. He disliked the idea of
the
whole
world
facing him down, telling him where he'd gone wrong.

“What does it do to your lady's reputation if it becomes known that you are going to fight a duel on her behalf? Are you going to offer for Lady Stratton?”

Henry stared at him. “No, indeed. And I'm sure she wouldn't have me if I did. I'm fighting for myself, not for her.”

Jem drew in his chin until it was hidden amidst the loosened points of his cravat. He peered at Henry with what was apparently intended to be a terrifying stare. “Not Lady Stratton after all. So who is your lady, then?”

Henry suddenly felt ashamed. His left hand grasped his wasted right arm more tightly, reminding him. “Mrs. Whittier. Or…I thought she was.”

“Mrs. Whittier.” Jem tilted his head. “Is she, now? That's an interesting choice, Hal. I like the woman myself. But what do you know of her family? You'll be opening yourself up to a lot of talk if you court a lady's companion.”

Henry's fingers gripped his right arm so hard that it would have gone numb if it was not already. “She's the daughter of a baronet. And she's cousin to a countess, so that ought to be a lofty enough connection for any of the gossips.”

Jem drummed his fingers on his desk, once, twice, then nodded his agreement.

“Such questions don't matter,” Henry said. “As I told you, I'm fighting this duel for my own reasons.”

Jem leaned forward, propping his elbows on his desk, then gave up on trying to look terrifying. He folded his arms on the desktop and sunk his chin onto them. He looked tired, as tired as Henry felt inside.

“All right, then. I'll be your second,” Jem said quietly. “Oh, Hal. I'll do what I can for you. I'll help you go through with it and hide the scandal however I can, or if you want to call it off, I can try to negotiate with Wadsworth's second.” He lifted his head up, hope sparking in his blue eyes. “What d'you say? There's no shame at all in that. Calling it off. I'm sure I can get some sort of apology from Wadsworth if you'll offer one of your own.”

Henry appeared to consider this. He gave it his best, dropping his right arm and stroking his chin in an expression of thought, though he knew it was impossible. An apology would not protect Henry. He needed the certainty of having defended himself. Of having fought and won at last.

Before he could demur, the door flew open. “Jemmy!”

Emily bustled into the room in a whirl of poppy-red muslin and a cloud of rose perfume, waving a note. “Jemmy, you will not believe what Caro told me. Only listen! Oh, Hal, hullo. Er…” She looked uncertain, and her hand with the note in it dropped to her side.

Jem sat up straighter. “Em, this isn't a good time. We're discussing… well, men's business.” He tried to compose his face into a stern expression.

“Fiddle,” Emily said. She sat on the edge of Jem's desk, twisting her torso so she could glare at both brothers at once. “If you're discussing what I think you're discussing, then you both ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

“What do you think we're discussing?” Jem was tugging at his cravat again.

“One of you has done something very stupid.” Emily waved the note again. “Maybe both of you have. Hal, you young idiot, Caro has told me everything, and I simply can't believe you would let yourself be—”

Henry could not be seeing right. He snatched at the paper. “This is from Caro?”

“Yes, and as I was saying, she told me all about the challenge you issued. Jem, you must make this tangle go away. You can't permit—”

Henry cut her off again. “This note. This one in my hand. This is from Caro.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “
Yes
.”

She kept talking; Henry heard the smooth flow of her words, lifting every once in a while for emphasis. Sometimes Jem's low voice would answer. But Henry had no idea what they said. He just stared and stared at the paper in his hand.

It was wrong. Something was very wrong.

He knew this paper well, the heavy, cloth-like feel of it. He knew the seal pressed into the thick splotch of red wax. But he had never seen this handwriting before in his life. It was a careless thread of nearly illegible loops, not the angular, confident script he knew as Caro's.

Yes, Henry had done something very stupid, though he did not know what. And someone else had done something stupid too. He felt as if he were stumbling through the Bossu Wood again, seeing nothing that was important.

“This note was written by Lady Stratton?” he demanded through the clutter of voices. One last time, to be absolutely sure.

Emily and Jem fell silent, and Emily looked more worried than Henry had ever seen her. “Yes,” she confirmed. “But if you don't tell me what's going on, I'm going to clout you with a poker.”

“I don't know what's going on,” Henry said. “Excuse me, I have to go. Emily, if you need to clout someone, Jem will have to stay behind and serve the purpose.”

He took the note with him, and he left.