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

securely about him, and jerked on the fur gloves that had hung out of his pocket.

It was perhaps the feel of the sticky dried champagne on his face and the still damp touch of his cravat against his neck that finally brought forth the reasonable man. Having a glass of champagne dashed into one’s face was certainly not a pleasant experience, yet it had proved to be as effective an insult in 1816, a year when dueling was considered most unfashionable, actually illegal, as a slap with a glove or a few well-chosen words had been to his father’s contemporaries in the bygone days when dueling was an honored activity that cut many a gentleman’s life short. The marquess remembered his bewigged grandfather, a full-lipped, lecherous old gentleman who, had he not broken his neck cramming his horse over a fence, would very likely have been felled by a ball from a pistol the very next day by a one-time crony whom he’d negligently insulted. As it was, the one-time crony had sniffed copiously at his grandfather’s funeral and the marquess’s father had sarcastically muttered to his small son that he didn’t know if the man’s sniffing was from grief or from being cheated out of putting a bullet through his grandfather’s heart.

Lord Oberlon paused a moment, realizing that his wayward thoughts had carried his feet into Millsom Street, altogether in the opposite direction from Berkeley Square. He turned and began to retrace his steps. How very ridiculous it was, he thought anew, to be forced to fight a duel with a young gentleman whose very existence had been unknown to him but a month before. There was but one man whom Jason Cavander had ever wanted to call out. Even so, his father’s sincere disgust at the waste resulting from duels had stilled his fury, if not his contempt for Sir William Filey. He found himself wondering, even now, what he would have done if he had been able to prove beyond doubt Filey’s loathsome conduct in the affair. Damn Filey anyway, and damn Elizabeth. Filey had cared too much for his own skin to ever openly taunt the marquess. As for Elizabeth, he knew that toward the end she had hated him as much as she had Filey. He shut his mind against further unpleasant memories. Elizabeth was dead and long buried, her hatred and bitter unhappiness locked away with her forever.

The marquess walked up the steps to his town house and raised his hand to the knocker, only to have Rabbell open the door. “Ah, your grace. The earl of March awaits you in the study, your grace.”

“So my faithful second comes to give me encouragement.” Lord Oberlon felt no hesitance in speaking aloud of the duel, for Rabbell’s unnatural mannerisms told him clearly enough that every servant was undoubtedly aware in the most minute detail of the evening’s fiasco. Sometime, he thought, as his butler helped to divest him of his greatcoat and gloves, I must force him to tell me how the servants’ infallible grapevine can be so damnably efficient.

He walked thoughtfully to his study. “Well, Julien,” he said, upon opening the door, “I’d call this a fine night’s work. Have you come to sympathize or tell me what a damned fool I am?”

The earl was lounging next to the large Italian marble fireplace, looking as lost in his thoughts as Jason had earlier. “Come, St. Clair, I should be the one thoughtfully depressed, not you. Yours is a simple task. You have only to take the boy away after I am done with him.”

The earl pushed his shoulders from the mantelpiece and walked to the marquess. “You’ve been long coming back, Jason. Actually, when you came in, I was plotting the possibility of trussing Monteith up in a sack and having my captain sail away with him to the West Indies. Perhaps acting as a bookkeeper on my plantation in Jamaica will give him a healthier respect for the life he leads here in London.”

“I daresay the young gentleman would rule the islands within a month either through persuasion or by dispatching all the current leaders in duels.” Neither man laughed. The marquess said, “It’s hellishly cold, Julien, would you care for a sherry?”

The earl nodded and there was companionable silence until both gentlemen, glasses in hand, seated themselves near to the crackling fire. After a moment, the earl said reluctantly, “As much as I dislike it, Jason, I must of course inquire as to your preference of weapons, as Monteith was the challenger.”

“Need you really ask, Julien? A pistol is far too deadly a weapon, and you must know that despite all the young puppy has said and done, I have no wish to kill him. He can’t be all that experienced with the foil, and I hope to contrive a quick and clean prick through his arm. That ought to cool his murderous instincts, at least for a month.”

“That’s what I hoped you would say, Jason. I might tell you, too, that Harry informed me that Monteith is a crack shot. I would have feared the outcome had you chosen pistols.”

“You believe I could be brought to the ground by a lad who can’t even grow whiskers? No, don’t answer that. Now, how is poor Harry taking all this? Judging from his openmouthed expression, I gather he didn’t know what Monteith intended this evening.”

“Harry is torn in two directions. Of course, his honor forbids him to refuse to second his friend. I left him with Kate. Yes, I’m a coward, but she deals well with him. Good Lord, what could I say?”

The earl rose and placed his empty glass on the sideboard. “I must be off now, Jason. It’s past midnight and you must be clear and steady on the morrow. I shall be here with my carriage before seven o’clock.”

“Your carriage, Julien? You terrify me. I’d hoped to ride from the park all in one piece.”

The earl merely smiled slightly, but