Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 45

It was a chilly, slightly misty morning. Lily huddled her black cloak around herself and sat back in the corner of the carriage. Doctor Ord was obviously grievously put out by her having pressured him into taking her up; he regarded her with unveiled disapproval.

‘I hardly dare to ask how you left this morning without raising questions amongst your household Miss France.’

‘I simply told the footman I was going out.’ She shrugged, ‘It is not his place to question me.’

‘At this time in the morning? He will not think fit to mention the matter to Mrs Herrick?’

‘Not if he values his position,’ Lily said grimly. The doctor lapsed into frowning silence and stared out of the window. Lily let her eyes flicker over the sinister black case by his side and hastily looked out of the other side.

The traffic out of London was light at that time in the morning and their progress was steady, despite the steep climb up Haverstock Hill. Lily’s mouth was uncomfortably dry and she wished she had thought to bring something to drink. What was Jack thinking? Had he been in this position before, or was this new?

How could men do it—go out to kill or be killed in cold blood? She shuddered as the carriage lurched off the road on to a track. They must have reached the Heath. The doctor leaned across and pulled down the blinds. ‘You will please stay here with the blinds shut, Miss France.’

She nodded, telling herself she was acknowledging his comment, not agreeing to it. The carriage stopped and she pulled up her hood, curling herself back into her corner as the groom opened the door for Doctor Ord and lifted down the black instrument case.

Silence, then the sound of voices at a distance. Lily eased back the corner of the blind and saw two carriages some way off, standing apart from each other. Jack was by one, looking out over the view towards London. He seemed relaxed, yet watchful. Adrian was by the other, staring at the huddle of men—presumably the seconds—halfway between the two vehicles.

The coachman had stopped the doctor’s carriage by a small stand of trees. Lily looked out of the opposite door—under their cover she could circle round and get much closer, especially as the whole group were now making their way down into some sort of depression in the ground below the copse.

Lily slipped out of the door and into the trees.

Jack stood patiently, watching two of the seconds examining the box of duelling pistols that Lord Gledhill had produced. There seemed to be a cold lump where his stomach should be, and his heartbeat was unusually rapid, but he felt he could sustain the appearance of calm. Anything, rather than betray himself as Randall was doing, with his white face and constant fidgeting.

‘They appear perfectly satisfactory,’ said Randall’s second. What was his name? Dunsford? ‘No rifling, both well balanced, no difference in the triggers that I can find. I am happy to accept these on behalf of my principal. Shall we load, Webster? It does not look as though either party is offering or accepting an apology.’

Jack’s man nodded, with a glance towards Lord Gledhill and Fellthorpe, his opposite number. Both were shaking their heads, their faces grave, while the doctor stood discreetly to one side.

Doctor Ord! Jack bowed slightly and received a frosty bow in return. It seemed the good doctor did not approve of such affairs, or perhaps he simply did not wish to see a man he had recently patched up putting himself at hazard again. Difficult to blame him—if anyone was killed, Ord would have to convince a jury he had not connived in the duel from the start.

Jack was not at all sure he approved of the duel either, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was an affair of honour and he was damned if he was going to leave that sneering lordling unchastised. Lily apart—he was trying very hard not to think about Lily just now—he had a long score to settle with Randall, going right back to his schooldays as the undersized victim of Randall’s bullying.

I am not so undersized now, Jack smiled grimly to himself, then was struck by a thought. As Webster and Dunsford took the pistols over to Randall for him to make his choice, Jack shrugged out of his coat and began to untie his neckcloth.

‘What are you about?’ Lord Gledhill asked, finding coat, neckcloth and finally, shirt, thrust into his hands.

‘I’ve seen bullet wounds with cloth carried into them before now. They fester. I am sure our good doctor would agree with me that this is a sensible precaution.’

‘What’s the matter, Allerton?’ Lord Randall’s sneering voice carried across the short distance between them as the remaining pistol was handed to Jack. ‘Afraid I am going to hit you?’

‘Of course,’ Jack replied calmly. ‘With unrifled barrels goodness knows where the shot might go—even you might hit something.’

Randall turned an angry shoulder and his seconds began to whisper at him urgently as he began to button his coat right up to the neck, hiding the target of white shirtfront and neckcloth.

Lord Gledhill grinned at Jack. ‘You are a sight to scare anyone with those scars on you. You strip well,’ he added with the assessing stare of a sporting aficionado. ‘Box, do you?’

‘Occasionally. Mostly I wield a pick.’ Jack glanced up at the scrub on the edge of the depression. ‘Thought I saw something up there.’

‘Fox, probably.’ Lord Gledhill looked across. ‘We are ready.’ The sudden, fleeting, pressure of his hand was warm on Jack’s bare shoulder as Jack moved the pistol from hand to hand, relaxing the muscles and tendons so that his grip, when he finally took it, was steady.

He spared a final thought for his family and the letter he had handed to Gledhill, then steadied his mind as he walked towards Randall. The man’s blue eyes flickered as he met them. The duellists turned and stood back to back, the heat radiating from the other man’s body just reaching Jack’s chilled skin. Then Gledhill began to count and he paced forward, stopped, turned and waited.

‘Take aim.’

Li—

Before Gledhill could continue, Randall’s pistol arm came up, there was a bang, the sudden lash like a red hot wire across his left bicep, a puff of smoke, and his opponent was staring at him, white faced, across the damp grass.

‘Damn it, Randall, you fired too soon!’ The baron’s own second was shouting at him, aghast.

The pain was acute, shocking. Jack did not look down. Slowly he raised his own pistol, feeling the sweat break out on his brow with the effort to stand still, to exercise control while his body hurt so. Randall’s face swam into focus and he took aim, squarely in the middle of his chest. Now I have you!

Time seemed to stand still, sound vanished, the only reality was his opponent’s white, terrified face and the weight of the pistol in his hand, the ache of his wrist as he held it steady, the heat of blood on his left arm, the pain. Lily. Jack turned the muzzle of the pistol away, out over the deserted heath, insultingly wide of Randall, and pulled the trigger.

Then noise flooded back, and movement. Doctor Ord was at his side, Gledhill was steadying him. ‘I am all right.’ He glanced down at his arm. The bullet had cut a red raw furrow through the flesh. ‘It is merely a flesh wound.’

‘Sit on this tree stump and let me bandage it.’ The doctor produced an unpleasant black bottle and poured it over the wound.

‘Hell and damnation!’ Almost deprived of breath by the fiery wash of the spirit, Jack sat down and submitted his arm to be bandaged. ‘Where’s Randall?’ Gledhill’s lanky frame was blocking his view. It was beginning to dawn on him that he was alive, relatively unscathed and was neither a murderer nor a fugitive. On balance, even with a wound that stung like hell, that was a better outcome than he had expected at three in the morning when he was lying flat on his back, giving up on sleep as the noise of night coaches reached his high room.

‘Slunk off back to his carriage.’ His second stood aside, revealing the black coach swaying off across the rough ground. ‘That was a bad business, firing early like that. And you deloping simply highlighted how badly he has behaved. And he knows there are six witnesses to his behaviour. Randall will not show his face in town for a while, I’d bet.’

‘You will do, Lord Allerton.’ The doctor straightened up. ‘Get your clothes on before you catch the chill—I would not be surprised if you take a fever, even so.’

That was it: score settled. Nothing to stop him taking the next coach north. Home.

As Jack got to his feet and began to shrug on his shirt with Lord Gledhill’s assistance, Lily sank back against the bush under which she had been hiding. I am not going to faint. I am not!

To have crouched there, silent, through that interminable, formalised ritual had been a nightmare. It had all seemed impossibly unreal at first as the men stood and talked in their little groups, as though they were striking a bargain over the price of something, or solemnly conferring on a matter of law. Then the shock of seeing Jack stripping off, the shame of feeling a thrill run through her at the physical power of him and then the terror of seeing Adrian raise his pistol and fire.

To have seen the bullet strike Jack, tear through skin and muscle, watch him stand there as the blood coursed down his arm—and shake with reaction when she realised he was not killed—then be struck with terror that he would drop Adrian where he stood and become a fugitive … It was worse than she could ever have believed possible.

Swallowing, Lily backed out from her cover and hurried away through the spinney. Before she could reach the doctor’s carriage, nausea overtook her and she clung to a sapling, retching miserably until the fit passed.

She climbed into the carriage with legs that trembled and sank into her corner again. Doctor Ord joined her after an interminable wait that had her believing that Jack had collapsed through loss of blood, or that the bullet had pierced some vital organ after all. Twice she had got up and reached for the door handle, twice she had made herself sit down again to try and wait calmly.

‘What did you see?’ the doctor demanded without ceremony as the coachman cracked his whip. One look at her face must have told him the truth.

‘Everything,’ Lily admitted. ‘Is he all right? Was he badly hurt?’

‘He will live. He is young and tough.’ The doctor regarded her from under dark brows, sighed, and let the window blinds up. ‘Another scar to add to an impressive collection. Don’t you go rushing round there disturbing him and weeping all over him—I have told him to get as much sleep as he can: not that that is an easy task at an inn as busy as the Bull and Mouth.’

Lily dropped her gaze to her hands, demurely folded in her lap. So that was where Jack was. Yes, let him rest for a day and a night, then she would go to him and apologise. For everything. Not that she expected much from that, but at least they might part as friends. I love you … but you do not want me.

‘Thank Heavens Lord Allerton did not kill Lord Randall,’ she said, recalling her other great fear.

‘Indeed. Although Lord Randall may yet come to wish Allerton had, when word gets out of how he behaved.’ Lily looked her surprise. ‘Did you not realise? Randall should have waited for the second to call Fire. Effectively he cheated and did himself more damage than Allerton could ever hope to.’

‘Did Ja … did Lord Allerton deliberately miss? I can see that might be an added insult.’ Men were so peculiar, with their mysterious honour and their rituals. What was the point of all this lethal business if, in the end, you did not try and hit your opponent?

‘Delope.’ The doctor nodded. ‘Yes, it is quite common where one duellist wishes to show that he has no wish to harm the other, merely to make a point. Or sometimes two hot-headed friends find themselves in that position and both delope.’

No, it seemed she would never understand this male pride, and somehow that made it all worse, that she could not comprehend such an essential part of the man she loved, and that she had misjudged her dealings with him so totally. Well, she might not understand honour, but she did know how to apologise when she had been wrong, and she was going to end this with dignity.

Attempting to find a single gentleman in the organised chaos that was the Bull and Mouth at nine o’clock on a Thursday morning proved anything but dignified.

Lily had dressed with care in the most sober and restrained of her walking dresses, studied herself in the mirror and removed half of the items of jewellery she had put on, thought again and removed several more, then had Janet take the plumes out of her new hat. She was still wrestling with the concept that consciously failing to demonstrate your wealth was somehow more of a sign of class than flaunting it, but that approach had certainly seemed to win her approval from the society matrons and, to some extent, from Jack. And she wanted him to remember her with approval.

She had deliberately left her footman and her maid with the carriage. It might be highly improper to visit a man in his rooms alone, but she had no intention of having any witnesses to her carefully composed, dignified speech of regret, thanks and farewell.

As a result she had to use her elbows to make her way through the throng, was narrowly missed by a valise thrown from the top of a stage and knew herself to be both flushed and flustered by the time she reached the inside of the hostellery.

‘Allerton? No one of that name here, miss.’ The harassed man behind the flap-up counter ran a cursory eye down a bulky register, shook his head and began to turn away.

‘Lovell, then,’ Lily persisted, her voice rising to compete with the racket from the coffee room. ‘He was here yesterday.’

‘He’s not here either.’

Exasperated, Lily took hold of the book and swung it round, running a gloved forefinger down the pot-hooked and blotted writing. ‘There! Lovell.’

‘That was Tuesday night. He left yesterday afternoon.’

‘But—’ But he is wounded! Doctor Ord said he should rest all day and all night. ‘Where? Where did he go?’

‘Now how would I know that, miss?’ The man removed the ledger from her grip and shut it firmly. ‘He paid, he left.’

‘You mean you have no record of who catches which coach here?’ Lily demanded. She was not used to being treated in such an offhand manner and was inclined to put it down to the plainness of her dress.

‘Of course we have.’ The man’s expression made her hackles rise still further. ‘But that’s in the stage booking office, not in here.’ He pointed outside. ‘Across the yard.’

Lily stalked back outside, was adjured to ‘Mind yourself—got a death wish, have yer?’ by an ostler leading a pair of horses, and joined the long and noisy queue outside the ticket office.

He has gone. He cannot have gone, he should not be travelling, he is hurt. Where has he gone? Her head was spinning.

Eventually, after a spirited exchange of personalities with a woman with a goose in a rush basket who attempted to push in front of her, Lily reached the desk.

‘Where to?’

‘I do not know. I don’t want a ticket—I want to know where someone went to yesterday.’

‘What time?’ With a definite air of being put upon, the clerk reached for a bundle of waybills.

‘Afternoon.’

‘Have you any idea how many coaches leave here of an afternoon, miss?’

‘No, and I have not the slightest interest either,’ Lily snapped. ‘How many go to Newcastle?’

‘Under Lyme? Only that’s the Manchester coach from the Belle Sauvage.’

‘Upon Tyne.’ Lily swung round to glare at the woman with the goose, which was pecking at her pelisse now. ‘Will you kindly keep that creature under control?’

‘Name?’

‘Lovell or Allerton.’

The man sucked an inky finger and ran it down the list. ‘Yes. Cove name of Lovell. Ticket through to Newcastle upon Tyne on the three thirty. Inside seat.’

‘What time does it get there?’

‘Half past ten tonight. Fast coach—thirty-one hours,’ the man added with pride.

‘Thank you.’ Lily stepped away from the window and made her way back to her carriage. He was gone. She nodded absent thanks to the footman who helped her in, and tried to work it out. Jack had left at three-thirty in the afternoon, having been up at dawn. He had fought a duel, been wounded, had come back here to this noisy bedlam where he could hardly have hoped to rest and then had set out, jammed into the stage with probably five other persons, to be jolted north for a night and a day.

And it was her fault that he was wounded and probably her fault he had left London without finding an investor. And they had parted in anger and with him thinking her forward, vulgar, interfering and overbearing. Someone who thought they could buy anything, including a man. A husband.

Lily bit her lip. She had thought just that. She realised the footman was still standing patiently holding the door, waiting for her orders.

‘Oh! Home, please. At once.’

Well, now she knew better. She could buy herself a husband, but she did not want one who would allow her to do so. Which meant that she had better become used to being single, unless she could contrive to fall out of love with Jack and into love with a man at least as wealthy as she was.

But there was something she had to do first, and Aunt Herrick was not going to like it.