The Duke's Holiday (14 page)

“Don’t know why you should, as it wasn’t,” he muttered.

 
“So do you
accept my wager?”

He sighed and turned his attention back down the lane. “Do
you think that’s what is best, Miss Honeywell? For me to leave here and for
things to continue as they were?”

She was taken aback by his sudden gravity. “We were
managing quite well before you came.”

“Were you indeed?” he murmured in a doubtful tone.

Astrid bristled. “This is hardly the time or place for such
a monumental discussion. However, now that you brought it up, I’d have to say
that yes, Rylestone Green is flourishing. I admit the management is a tad…”

“Irregular?” he suggested drily. “Unlawful?”

She would
not
pick a fight with him. “Irregular. But the system works.”

“For everyone, it seems, but you. And me, but I suppose I,
the property owner, am irrelevant in your utopic vision.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He twisted in his saddle and gestured with his crop back
towards the castle. “The towers, madam. They’re crooked!” he cried, as if that
explained everything. “You haven’t the funds to fix them because you insist on
pouring them back into the estate and giving the tenants outrageous salaries. I
have deciphered the books, madam, and am on to you. The castle is rotting, you
can’t support a proper staff. God knows how you have managed to keep these
mounts. I suspect your field hands live better than you do.”

“We muddle through just fine, thank you,” she said,
sticking her nose in the air.

“Muddle through. Bloody Jacobin nonsense, is what it is.
And look how well that turned out for the French.”

“This is not France, sir.”

He just rolled his eyes and fastened that intense gaze on
her once more.

“What of your family? Do they agree that you were muddling
through just fine?”

If he had a cudgel in his hands and applied it to her gut,
he couldn’t have landed a more direct hit. “My family is none of your
business,” she bit out.

“Maybe not. But it is clear
they
are far from happy.”

“Happy! What right have you to speak of my family’s
happiness?” she exploded. “What would you
know
of happiness, anyway? You wouldn’t know what happiness was if it hit you on the
head and called you by name.”

His expression hardened a little more with every word she spoke.
Then when she was done, he was silent a long time, staring away from her into
the distance, his eyes remote and cold. “You are doubtless right,” he said at
last in a brittle tone that made something dislodge in her heart and stick in
her throat.

Was that guilt she felt? “Oh, for the love of …” she
groaned. “Are we going to race or not?”

He looked at her then, and the stiff set of his jaw eased a
little. “I haven’t changed
my
mind.”

“So you accept my wager?”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I can’t believe I am
agreeing to this nonsense. But yes, I accept your wager, since I am going to
win anyway.”

“Oh, are you now?”

“Of course. And since your stake is quite high, I suppose
mine shall have to match it. What shall it be, I wonder?”

Astrid had not thought this far into her scheme, and her
palms immediately began to sweat. Oh, hell! What deviltry was he going to ask
for? She shouldn’t have made the wager at all.

Stupid, stupid girl!

He could win and make her give up everything.

Which he was doubtless going to do anyway.

But still.

Still
…

Who was she fooling? Not the Duke. Certainly not herself,
not any longer.

Astrid had not felt so hopeless as she did in that moment,
and she had no one to blame for it but herself. She had talked herself into
this untenable position, dug her own grave. Now there was nothing for it but to
lie down in it and watch Montford shovel dirt over her.

She tilted her chin upwards at a defiant angle and clutched
her reins, preparing for the worst.

“I think when I win, I should like to have Cyril as a
prize,” he said.

She gaped at him, totally thrown by his wager. “You want my
horse?”

“I do.”

It could have been a whole lot worse. She told herself
this, but somehow it didn’t make it easier to stomach. She loved Cyril as much
as Princess Buttercup. She’d been present at both of their foalings and had
helped train them. She almost wished he had wanted something to do with the
estate. At least then she’d have a clear idea of what to expect from him.

But her horse! “Why would you want him?”

“It should amuse me to have him. And I think it would make
you very angry to know that I did. And that, madam, should make me
quite happy
.”

She continued to gape. “You are truly awful, Montford.”

He smiled cynically. “You bring out the worst in me, Miss
Honeywell. Shall we get this over with?”

“By all means!”

They brought up their mounts to the line of beech trees. He
allowed her to count down, which she did, with growing anticipation and dread.
Perhaps she would win, she thought when she called out “Five!” At four, she
thought perhaps the best she could hope for was to not break her neck. When she
arrived at three, the troubling image of herself lying in a ditch with a broken
neck put her former theory in doubt. But when she called out two, she imagined
Montford’s form lying broken in a ditch in her stead, which raised her spirits
immensely. Finally, at one, she imagined the look on Montford’s face in the
event of her victory, and she vowed then and there to give the race her all.

She spurred Princess Buttercup forward with all the
enthusiasm she could muster.

She realized after about three seconds that Montford had
not followed. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw him lounging in his
saddle. He lifted his hat brim in acknowledgement of her concern and slowly
whipped Cyril into a gallop.

Astrid turned back to the road and spurred on Buttercup
even harder, a sound that was half scream, half oath, escaping her throat. He’d
held back on purpose, giving her a handicap she hadn’t asked for. Just to prove
a point.

The point being that he was the most odious, contemptible
man she’d ever met.

Well, damn his eyes, she’d take his bloody handicap, and
she’d win the bloody race, and she’d have no qualms about insisting upon her
prize.

Montford out of her life forever.

Though he’d done a fine job of taking the wind out of her
sails. Victory in such a manner was no victory at all, in her opinion, and he
knew this. He’d held back precisely because he knew it would drive her insane.

And just when she thought she couldn’t get any angrier, she
heard Montford coming up on her heels. She tried to press Princess Buttercup
into a longer leg, but the mare was having none of it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Montford and Cyril
drawing abreast, and she heard Montford’s cynical laughter floating to her ears
over the din of horse hooves and autumn wind. The quarter mile was quickly
covered, and already she could see around the bend in the road to the brewery,
where Wesley waited along the edge of the lane with a couple of curious
fieldhands. Montford soon pulled ahead of her, sitting Cyril as if he was
hardly working for it at all, which infuriated her even more.

She was going to lose.

Montford and Cyril sprinted ahead so that not one, not two,
but three lengths separated them. And there was not a chance in hell she could
make up the distance. She would have done anything in that moment to be spared
from the smug look of victory Montford was sure to bestow upon her.

Or at least she
thought
she would have done anything, or wished him a thousand ill turns, until she
actually got her wish.

The noise came from the left, somewhere from the dense
stretch of ancient forest that composed the northern reaches of Rylestone.
Astrid reined in Buttercup immediately, sensing danger, the race forgotten.
Having been raised among hunters, she recognized the sharp tattoo of a rifle
splitting the air. She followed the sound and saw through the foliage the rise
of smoke from the blast about fifty paces deep in the wood. She saw the flash
of a green hunting coat, the gleam of the gun, and a figure retreating into the
shadows.

Then her attention was pulled away to the result of the
gunshot, still echoing around them. She wasn’t sure who was hit: Montford or
Cyril. It was difficult to tell whether Montford jerked on the reins or Cyril
lost his footing, but whatever the cause, both horse and rider went careening
off the lane to the right, down the side of a small embankment. Cyril whinnied
in agony and Montford was ominously silent as they tumbled together down the
slope out of sight.

Then everything went quiet, the sound of the gunshot
fading.

Astrid’s heart stopped.

Then she heard someone screaming in terror. She thought at
first it was Montford or Wesley or one of the field workers who were heading towards
the direction of the Duke. But then she realized she was the one who was
screaming.

She came to her senses long enough to urge Buttercup into a
sprint. She reached the top of the embankment the same time as Wesley and
jumped to the ground, praying that she found some life below them.

She saw Cyril on his side, something black and wet coating
his neck. He was as still as death, and Astrid’s eyes pricked with tears at the
sight.

“No, no!”

She raced down the hill towards the horse, and that was
when she caught sight of Montford, who had been thrown from the roan at least
fifteen feet, lying limply on his back in a stand of elderberry bushes, his
jacket torn open, his shirt and cravat stained blood-red.

Astrid’s legs nearly gave way beneath her as she turned
away from Cyril and rushed to Montford’s side. She knelt beside him and peered
down at his face, afraid to touch him.

He was the color of old ashes, and there was a cut above
his temple from his landing. But she wasn’t worried about that so much as the
blood on his chest.

Oh, God, he’s been
shot!
she thought bleakly.

He looked dead. And when she finally plucked up the courage
to touch him, she lifted his wrist, and it fell down to the ground like a limp
noodle.

Her heart cried out in despair. He couldn’t die. He was a
horrible man, she hated him, but she did not truly want him to die.

“Montford! You idiot, you can’t die,” she hissed, touching
his face, wiping away the blood. He felt very cold. She bent her head towards
his lips and felt a faint, weak breath against her cheek.

Her heart sighed in relief. He wasn’t dead.

Yet.

“Montford! Come on, Montford, wake up.” She patted his
cheek, then shook his shoulders, and when she got no response, she began to
take off his cravat and unbutton his waistcoat, searching for the wound. She
felt his shoulders, his chest, for a point of entry. There was a great deal of
blood on him, but she couldn’t determine where it was coming from.

“Bloody fop. Wearing more clothes than I am,” she mumbled
between sobs.

She folded back his clothes to his thin cotton lawn-shirt,
also soaked in blood, and began unbuttoning it as well. Her fingers trembled
from fear and something else not entirely commendable. She refused to
acknowledge any desire to see his naked flesh in such a time of crisis, but she
would have had to be inhuman not to appreciate the fine, hard swell of male
torso beneath her fingers.

Really, did he have to be attractive even while he was
dying?

Then a hand shot out, imprisoning her wrist in a hard grip.
She shrieked.

“Finishing me off, are you?” drawled a voice.

Montford sat up, pushing her away, scowling. His face had
regained some of its color. He looked disoriented and very, very disgruntled.
He released her wrist and began to climb to his feet. This took some concentration
on his part, but he refused her aid.

She stood up and put her hands on her hips with some
exasperation. “Montford, you’re injured.”

He touched his temple as if it pained him and shook his
head. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not!” she cried. “You’ve been shot!” She
pointed towards his torso.

He looked astounded by this pronouncement and began to pat
his body. Then he glanced down, which was clearly a mistake. His face lost all
of its color again when he saw the blood, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
He fell back to the ground in a dead faint.

MONTFORD
CAME back to his senses to find Miss Honeywell’s head spinning around him. Her
corkscrew hair was sticking out at odd angles from her cap, and her mismatched
eyes were gleaming with tears. At first her head was above him, then below him,
then to the right and then the left. Dust smudged her nose, and streaks of
blood covered one cheek. He nearly fainted again at the sight.

She was injured, he thought with alarm.

Then he remembered everything. The sound of the rifle.
Cyril faltering beneath him. A long, seemingly endless flight through the air.
Then darkness. And blood. Buckets of blood covering him.

He squeezed his eyes shut as other memories came to him.
Painful memories he’d thought long-since buried, of another time and place when
blood had covered him. His blood, his parents’ blood, running around him like a
river. For ages it had been on him, sweetly acrid, metallic, drying so that it
was black and his clothes were stiff with it. He remembered reaching out to a
woman – his mother – trying to wipe the blood from her eyes, which
had stared up at him without seeing him. He’d tried to make her wake up, even
though he wondered how she could sleep with her eyes open like that. But she
hadn’t awakened, even when he had cried for her to do so. He’d cried and cried,
and she’d done nothing but look at him with those strange eyes.