Lisbon (57 page)

And saw across the barrel of his gun . . . Cassandra.

His jaw dropped and so did the barrel of his pistol. But the shock, combined with his agitated nerves, caused his finger to tighten imperceptibly on the trigger. Dueling pistols being “hair-trigger” devices, the gun went off.

And struck Cassandra.

She was not aware of any pain. She heard the report and she felt as if some great wind was carrying her away. Soundlessly she crumpled to the grass and lay there in a white velvet heap.

One of the seconds, who recounted it later, said that Lance had given a heartbroken cry and run forward to bend over Cassandra’s fallen body. He described graphically how still she had lain with her gleaming fair hair spread out like a mermaid’s on the lawn and a red stain slowly spreading over the white velvet of her bodice just below her left breast. He said that Lance had crouched 
there like a hunted thing, moaning as the other three men converged upon him running.

He said that Tony had dashed forward with hell in his eyes and fired point-blank at Lance, shooting him in the head, and that Lance had fallen backward dead.

At that point, in the confusion, one of the seconds, even more horrified at this infraction of the rules than at Cassandra’s being struck, for a duelist must fire from where he stands, not march forward to blow out his opponent s brains, raised his gun and shot Tony in the chest.

Tony fell forward across Cassandra’s body, and the seconds were left with their own guns leveled at each other, standing tensely over the bodies of all three. The driver of the hackney coach, who had watched this little scene of the gentry in astonishment, reported
that.

Up to that moment no one had thought to discover whether Cassandra’s wound was mortal.

Both combatants died that day, but Cassandra did not. The bullet had only grazed her, although the wound bled copiously. Her wild dash across the grass, her heart-stopping excitement, the sudden shock of the bullet striking her had all conspired together: she had fainted.

The hackney driver, who had run forward too, had the sense to stanch the blood of her wound. All four young men had arrived on horseback, and the seconds now loaded Lance’s and Tony’s bodies across their respective mounts, and with the hackney coach carrying Cassandra following behind, they made their mournful way back to London.

It was morning now and the third and greatest of the six earthquakes that were to strike London between February and June was about to begin.

Cassandra, sitting in the coach with her head bent and her hands clenched, trying to absorb the shock of this dawn’s encounter, felt it first as a violent jerk that seemed to turn the coach sideways and tossed her painfully to the side. Along with it came a deep angry rumble from the earth, a menacing deep growl from the interior. But that rising grumble was promptly eclipsed by the crashing collapse of a nearby shop, the front of which fell into the street, raining bricks on traffic and pedestrians alike. The 
cascade of bricks caused the horse to rear up, bricks rolled under the wheels, and the coach toppled over on its side. As the coach went over, she could hear people screaming above the rumbling roar.

“Are you all right, young mistress?” The worried driver had wrested the door open and was silhouetted against the sky above her as she lay in a heap below him. He leaned down, extended a hand. “Here, let me help you out. We'll have the coach righted in a minute.” He flinched and choked on the dust the fallen storefront had raised. “Give me some help here!” he bellowed.

Cassandra was dragged out into a scene of terror. Up ahead, another building had collapsed and in the melee two carts and a large dray had collided. The horses’ lines were snarled, they were neighing and kicking, trying to free themselves, their drivers were howling at each other. People were running about frantically.

And directly in front of her were, now nervous and dancing as the seconds tried to quiet them, the mounts that carried the two young men who had fought and died for her this day. She saw again their bodies.

Cassandra felt a great shudder go through her. Her hand sought the front of her bodice and came away wet. The hackney’s overturn had caused her wound to start bleeding again.

“Here!” cried someone. “This poor young girl’s been hurt by the earthquake!”

“No,” gasped Cassandra. “No.”

But it was useless to protest. She was promptly seized by well-meaning hands and taken to lean against the door of a chandler’s shop. Through the doorway she could see that the candles were rolling all over the floor, and at her feet an elderly flower vendor was scrabbling about the cobbles trying to retrieve her blooms and wailing as they were stepped on by flying feet.

They got the hackney coach righted and Cassandra back inside and drove on. But chimneys all over town had come tumbling down with the sharp violent shake that had visited London, and here and there houses had collapsed, showering bricks and falling timbers into the street. The 
driver had to choose his path carefully, and sometimes turn back when he saw the way was blocked.

They were a long time getting home to Grosvenor Square.

From the window where he had been watching for her, Robbie saw Cassandra being helped from the hackney by the solicitous driver. He saw the blood on her dress.

He had never moved so fast. He was downstairs and out into the street, receiving Cassandra from the beleaguered hackney driver, who said in a tired voice, “The young mistress had not enough coins to pay me."

Robbie had enough coins to pay him. He scooped Cassandra up in his arms and carried her, half-fainting, into the house.

“We were wondering what had happened to you," he said. “You were hurt in the earthquake?"

“No," she said. “Oh, Robbie, no!" And as he, without asking whether he might, ripped open the front of her white velvet bodice to see to her wound, Cassandra, having left her modesty somewhere else, choked out the whole terrible story.

“ Tis not so deep a wound," he said with satisfaction. “And twill teach you," he added on a sterner note, “not to step between men who are shooting at each other."

“Oh, Robbie." The woeful face that looked up at him had eyes abrim with tears. “I only wish I could have taken all three shots. And then they'd all be alive."

All but you
, thought Robbie, and felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed. “Now to dress that wound," he growled, and bellowed for Cook. She had been hiding beneath the kitchen table in case the house was shaken again, but she came promptly and gaped at the sight of Cassandra leaning back on a velvet sofa in broad daylight wearing a ball gown and with her midriff bare where Robbie had cut away the fabric with his knife—and that midriff displaying a bleeding gash.

“ 'Tis not so bad as it looks," Robbie admonished her, for he did not want Cook fainting on his hands. “Bring water and clean linen. I'm an expert at binding wounds," he told Cassandra. “Learned it in battle. Never expected 
to be binding up a bullet wound for a sixteen-year-old girl, though.’’

“Seventeen,” corrected Cassandra. “Oh, Robbie, what am I going to do? I’m responsible for their deaths!”

“You’ll go on as before,” he said crisply. “ ’Twas the lads who chose to fight. You but attempted to stop them.” His gaze on her was pitying. Life had crowded in on her—too fast, too young. She wasn’t able to adjust to it yet, all the excitement and triumphs and trouble her extraordinary beauty was going to bring her. She hadn’t adjusted yet to the fact that for beauty like hers men would always spatter their blood upon the grass.

He wondered if he should tell her that this morning Rowan Keynes had come to him and said he had need of gold for a dowry and accepted his offer to buy Aldershot Grange. He had given Rowan a draft on his bank and the deed was signed and in his pocket.

He did tell her that Rowan had left the house just before the earthquake to take her sister to the church “to get her married.”

“Yes, I knew,” she told him. “Phoebe told me last night.” Rut she could not concentrate on Phoebe’s problems —not today. “I can’t stay here, Robbie, not the way things will be. I am sure to be turned away from both Tony’s funeral and Lance’s—and yet how in good conscience can I not go? I would wear black for them both, but I have no black clothes and I am sure my father would refuse to let me buy black weeds for a man to whom I was never officially betrothed and another to whom I was nothing at all.”

“He would be right. You should not go about in mourning,” said Robbie sharply.

Cassandra was not even listening. “And that spiteful Lady Whatever-her-name-is—the one who was Katherine Talybont—asked me if I did not bring the earthquake that struck as I arrived in London. I heard her say my father’s arrival brought on the one that struck a month later. She is sure to tell all who will listen that it was my wickedness in bringing on this duel that caused the earth to shake and the houses in London to fall!” Her voice rose to a wail. “And my father shut me up for over a year because he 
believed I was running away. When he learns of this scandal, he will shut me up in some dark hole forever!” Robbie had been about to pooh-pooh anything Lady What’s-her-name might have to say, but her last remark gave him pause. Rowan was a stern father. Who knew what he might do when he learned of this escapade?

A wonderful new thought occurred to Robbie. He turned and bellowed for Cook, who came running.

“This wound is worse than I thought,” he said. “The wench needs a doctor. And she cannot go to him half-dressed. Indeed, she may wish to change her clothes before she returns, firing me a box, woman, a large one! And then scurry out and find me a hackney coach and bring it here to the front door.”

Cook blanched but hurried back with a large box.

“I thought you said—” began Cassandra.

“Hush. Pay no mind to what I say,” said Robbie. “Stay where you are and be quiet. I’ll be right back.” He raced upstairs and began stuffing Cassandra’s things into the box. She had a bag, and he swept the contents of her dressing table into it. With her cloak over his arm and lugging the box, the bag and a hat he had found, he reached the downstairs.

By now Cook was back with the hackney coach, and expostulating with Robbie. “But Mistress Cassandra won’t need all those things! You aren’t taking her to hospital, are you? For her father—”

“Quiet, woman!” roared Robbie. “How do I know what a young wench will want? ’Tis important she not be upset! Now, put these things into the hack. ” While she did so, he quickly penned a note and left it for Rowan in a conspicuous place on his desk.

Cassandra herself he lifted in, depositing his cherished bundle on the seat beside him, where he could steady her.

As the hackney coach took off, to the accompaniment of a small aftershock of the quake that made the driver up topside curse, Robbie said, “ ’Tis not your wound that worries me, lass. ’Tis your future.”

“I have no future,” sighed Cassandra. “Lance would have done me a favor if he’d aimed a little higher and 
struck my heart." There were tears in her voice. “Oh, if only I could leave London, Robbie. If only I could go home—back to Aldershot Grange, where I belong. ”

She had unwittingly given him the perfect opening. He took a deep breath.

“And so you can, lass, and ’tis I who will take you there. You need never see any of them again. I will take you home to Aldershot Grange, for I bought it this morning—it now belongs to me.”

Cassandra gave him a dazed look. “You
bought Aldershot Grange
?”

“Aye, lass. Your father needed a fat sum of gold for a dowry.”

So scheming little Phoebe had got her way. Last night she had said ruthlessly she would have both their dowries, and now it had come to pass. Oh, but what did it matter? Her own life was over. Two good men lay dead on her account.

“But so that your father will not pursue me with powder and shot and lay me out dead on my own hearth, you must marry me, lass. We’ll fly away to Scotland and be wed at Gretna Green!”

Cassandra gave him a hopeless look. “Oh, Robbie, dear Robbie, I do love you, but not . . . not in
that
way.”

“Nor need you.” His voice was husky. “I do not ask you to be a true wife to me, little Cassandra. I only ask that I may take care of you and shelter you from harm. ”

Aldershot Grange, the home of her childhood. ... A vision of the silvery Derwent Water with the trees garlanded in mist and the birds singing softly came to Cassandra—a brighter, happier life. The appeal was irresistible.

“Then on those terms I’ll marry you, Robbie,” she choked. The Scot s chest expanded and his voice deepened. “I promise you, lass, that you’ll never be sorry.”

So another man had promised Cassandra’s mother in much the same words when he spirited
her
away to Gretna.

But this was different. Robbie Dunlawton, honest Scot that he was, meant every word he said. He wondered for a grim moment what Rowan Keynes would think when he 
opened Robbie s letter, written a little prematurely, to be sure, but now to come true:

I am off with your daughter to Scotland, there to be wed. And on that day I will settle on her Aldershot Grange. I know I have not your blessing, nor do I expect it. If you choose to come after me, I will meet you with swords or pistols at the place of your choice. In any event, Cassandra will have the home that she loves.