Chapter 9
Pausing just long enough to grab some money, Gareth charged down the stairs, his hair wet, his fresh shirt clinging to his still-damp body, his unbuttoned waistcoat flapping open beneath his frock of pale blue superfine.
He met Andrew on the way up.
"Gareth! Thank God you're up and about. I was just coming to get you —"
"What is it?"
"Lucien, the bastard! He's sent her away!"
"'Dammit, Andrew, why the hell didn't you come get me earlier?!"
Andrew vaulted down the stairs after him. "I just learned of it this second! Nerissa went to Miss Paige's room and found her gone, and one of the servants told her Lucien sent her packing back to Boston on the morning stage! You've got to find her, Gareth, before it's too late!"
I'll kill him, Gareth vowed, striding angrily through the Gold Parlour, the Red Drawing Room, the Tapestry Room and toward the Great Hall. "Where is he?"
"Outside, on the west lawn."
The report of a pistol cracked the mid-morning quiet. Then another. Andrew didn't need to say anything more, for there was only one thing that Lucien ever used the west lawn for.
Dueling practice.
Another pistol shot banged out in the distance.
Gareth saw a footman standing rigidly near the door, pretending not to notice the drama unfolding beneath his nose. "Gallagher? Send word to the stables. I need Crusader saddled immediately."
"Yes, my lord."
"And get a message to Lord Brookhampton, telling him to summon the Den and have them waiting for me on the green in twenty minutes. Move, man!"
Another footman came running with Gareth's tricorn and surtout. Ellison was there with his sword. Gareth buckled it on and, his top boots ringing against the stone flooring of the Great Hall, strode out the door. Down the drive. Over the bridge that spanned the moat, through the gatehouse, and across the west lawn. There, a solitary figure in black stood with his back toward him, a pistol in his hand. A whipcord was hooked to the duke's breeches at one end and attached to a pistol wired into the hand of a wooden dummy at the other; as Lucien stepped back, the whipcord triggered the dummy's pistol to fire at him. It was the supreme test of one's ability to stand firm and unmoving while a pistol was fired at you, and it was an exercise that the Duke of Blackheath, one of the deadliest duelists in the land, practiced at least once a week.
One of these days you're going to kill yourself, Gareth thought furiously, and it won't be soon enough for me.
He marched across the velvety smooth carpet of lawn. Lucien had reloaded the dummy's pistol. He took aim at the dummy and stepped back at the same time he fired, and a ball whizzed past his shoulder, past Gareth's neck and tore a chunk of bark from one of the copper beeches that lined the moat.
Gareth strode straight up to Lucien, seized his shoulder and spun him roughly around on his heel. The pistol went flying from the dummy's wooden hand.
"I beg your pardon," Lucien said, raising his brows at Gareth's open display of hostility.
"Where is she?"
The duke turned back to his target and calmly reloaded his pistol. "Probably halfway to Newbury by now, I should think," he said, mildly. "Do go away, dear boy. This is no sport for children like yourself, and I wouldn't want you to get hurt."
The condescending remark cut deep. Gareth marched around to face his brother. They were of equal height, equal build, and almost of equal weight, and his blue eyes blazed into Lucien's black ones as he seized the duke's perfect white cravat and yanked him close.
Lucien's eyes went cold, and he reached up and caught Gareth's wrist in an iron grip of his own. All civility vanished. "Don't push me," the duke warned, menacingly. "I've had all I can take of your childish pranks and degenerate friends."
"You dare call me a child?"
"Yes, and I will continue to do so as long as you continue to act like one. You are lazy, feckless, dissolute, useless. You are an embarrassment to this family — especially to me. When you grow up and learn the meaning of responsibility, Gareth, perhaps I shall treat you with the respect I did your brother."
"How dare you talk to me of responsibility when you banish an innocent young woman to fend for herself, and she with a six-month-old baby who happens to be your niece! You're a cold-hearted, callous, unfeeling bastard!"
The duke pushed him away, lifting his chin as he repaired the damage to his cravat. "She was handsomely paid. She has more than enough money to get back to those godforsaken colonies from which she came, more than enough to see herself and her bastard babe in comfort for the rest of her life. She is no concern of yours."
Bastard babe. Gareth pulled back and sent his fist crashing into Lucien's jaw with a force that nearly took his brother's head off. The duke staggered backward, his hand going to his bloodied mouth, but he did not fall. Lucien never fell. And in that moment Gareth had never hated him more.
"I'm going to find her," Gareth vowed, as Lucien, coldly watching him, took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth. "And when I do, I'm going to marry her, take care of her and that baby as Charles should have done — as it's our duty to do. Then I dare you to call me a child and her little baby a bastard!"
He spun on his heel and marched back across the lawn.
"Gareth!"
He kept walking.
"Gareth!"
He swung up on Crusader and thundered away.