Lord Harry's Folly, Catherine Coulter [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Yes, she’d made him pale with rage. Soon now, at last. She stood proudly, stiff and erect, waiting for him to strike her. With his palm? With a glove? She didn’t care. She waited.

She felt as though someone suddenly whipped her feet from beneath her when the earl of March threw back his head and laughed loudly.

Jason Cavander unclenched his fisted hand. He blinked rapidly several times and turned to the earl. “Damn you, St. Clair, what the hell are you laughing at?”

The earl, amusement still lingering in his deep voice, said more to Lord Harry rather than to the marquess, “You pick the wrong barb, my boy. Cavander here has been so plagued by women that he must needs flee from them. As for his mistresses, it has been said that their sighs of pleasure can be heard from two rooms away. Now, Monteith, may I suggest that you either tell Lord Oberlon why you find him so abhorrent or simply apologize for your many unprovoked insults and be done with this nonsense. Like his grace, I, too, grow annoyed with your inconsequential chatter.”

“Yes, do, lad,” the marquess said, his temper restored. He stared a moment at the young man. “Come, Monteith, I hesitate to kick a bothersome puppy. What is it about me that sticks in your craw?”

“Lord, Harry, please, leave go,” Sir Harry pleaded in her ear.

Hetty felt helpless. More, she felt impotent. It wasn’t until she tasted her own blood that she realized she’d bitten her lower lip. She could think of no more insults, no more sarcastic taunts. She had vowed so long ago not to tell the marquess the reason for her hatred until he lay bleeding away his miserable life at her feet. She could see all the months of her careful charade as a gentleman crumbling into failure in front of him. It was her lack of years that made her look ridiculous. For an instant, she pictured herself as the marquess must see her an arrogant, foolish young boy. They could afford to be amused, these proud gentlemen. She was naught to them but a bothersome puppy, just as Lord Oberlon had drawled to her. Had Lord Oberlon thought Damien just as insignificant? So unimportant, in fact, as to send him out of the country with no self-recrimination? Only dimly did she hear Lord Oberlon give a crack of rude laughter, and say to the earl, “Come, Julien, the farce is ended. I need no apology from a young whelp who is scarce breeched, and who now appears to have lost his tongue. Bravado in the young should be discouraged, don’t you agree? There’s nothing behind it, nothing at all. It’s very trying.”

She felt a surge of hatred so strong that she shook with it. A footman passed by, bearing a tray of glasses filled with chilled champagne. She grasped the slender stem of a glass and held it in front of her, as if readying for a toast. She heard her own voice spilling out words with surprising calmness.

“That I have afforded you such entertainment, your grace, leaves me most gratified. You find my insults nonsensical. Perhaps it’s true, for I haven’t your years of studied brutality. Where my words have failed, perhaps this will not.” She dashed the champagne into Lord Oberlon’s face.

She heard a moan from Sir Harry. She heard the whispers from shocked gentlemen who were even now drawing closer. But her attention didn’t waver from the marquess.

She watched him pull a white pocket handkerchief with a deft, graceful movement, and slowly mop the champagne from his face. In a voice so quiet that she had to lean forward to hear, Lord Oberlon said, “You give me now no choice, Monteith. Do you wish to fight in the middle of White’s, or can your mad rush to dispatch yourself to hell wait until the morrow?”

“A night to anticipate your demise will give me great pleasure.”

“Very well,” he said, his voice flat. “Julien, will you act for me?”

“Yes, if it must be, Jason.”

Sir Harry felt his brother-in-law’s gray eyes. Even as Lord Harry turned, he knew that he had no choice but to second his friend. His yes was a croak.

The earl of March stepped forward and laid his hand on his brother-in-law’s sleeve. He said formally, “It is my duty as a second to seek reconciliation.”

At the silent set faces of Lord Monteith and Lord Oberlon, he continued slowly, “As you will. Tomorrow morning at seven o’clock at the north end of Hounslow Heath. Harry, come with me now, we must make arrangements.”

“Such a fool you are, Monteith,” Lord Oberlon said in a pensive, almost sad voice. “Will you tell me anything before you die?” He turned finally and strode from the gaming salon.

Hetty was left standing alone, the empty champagne glass still held tightly in her hand. Whispering gentlemen began to disperse back to the gaming tables. She thought she saw a footman speaking behind a white-gloved hand to one of his peers. Slowly and with great deliberation, she strode to the footman and placed the champagne glass down upon his tray. She wondered fleetingly if her own face was as pale as the footman’s. She drew a deep breath and walked from the gaming salon, not looking back.

Chapter Twenty-three

Strangely, Pottson said not a word when Hetty, an hour later, tried with as much calm as she could muster to relate to him what had happened.

“We both knew this night had to come, Pottson, for there was, after all, no other reason for Lord Harry’s existence. On the morrow, Damien will be avenged.”

Pottson raised weary troubled eyes to Miss Hetty’s young, innocent face. “Aye,” he said quietly, “Master Damien will be avenged, or you, Miss Hetty, will follow him to the grave and it will all have been for naught.”

She felt a sudden chill touch her heart and shivered despite the warmth of the small parlor. “Pray don’t seal my fate so quickly. A