Читать книгу The Historical Collection - Stephanie Laurens - Страница 39

Him.

Penny clung to Gabriel’s arm. She thought she might be sick. A cold sweat covered the back of her neck, trickling down between her shoulder blades.

This was the possibility she’d been dreading ever since she’d learned that Bradford was coming to Town. Perhaps, she’d told herself, he was traveling alone. Maybe Mr. Lambert wasn’t coming to Town for the Season this year.

Yet here he was. Smiling at her as though none of it had ever happened. Because, as far as her family knew, none of it ever had. Lambert knew that Penny would never tell.

When she’d gone away to finishing school, she thought she’d finally be free of him. And then she’d learned the news in a letter from her mother. Bradford was betrothed to Alice Lambert.

Once Bradford’s engagement was announced, she ought to have found the courage to speak. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth. She’d have been driving a wedge into Bradford’s happiness with Alice. Ruining one of her father’s oldest friendships. Perhaps her mother would gently accuse her of seeking attention again.

In short, telling the truth would be asking her family to choose between her and Mr. Lambert. They couldn’t be loyal to both. And Penny knew which of the two stories they would prefer to believe.

So she said nothing.

On the day of her brother’s wedding, Penny had vowed that if Bradford and Alice ever had a baby girl, she would break her silence. No matter how painful. But they’d had only sons, thank heavens, and by now speaking the truth seemed pointless.

What good could it do? Penny would be tied to him forever. Lambert would always be, much as it repulsed her to think it, family.

“Come, poppet. Is this any way to greet me?” Lambert kissed her on the cheek. She would be scrubbing it for days. “How lovely to see you dancing. I do hope you’ll favor me with the next set?”

No. Everything in her screamed the word. Yet for some reason she couldn’t speak.

“Actually,” Gabriel said smoothly, “I have a request of my own. I had planned to ask for a private conversation with His Lordship. However, now that you’re here, Mr. Lambert, perhaps you’d care to join us? Since you are family, this matter concerns you, as well.” He looked to Penny. “You will excuse us, I hope?”

She managed to nod.

“Excellent.” He turned to Bradford and Lambert, making a welcoming gesture in the direction of the corridor. “Shall we? I have brandy in my study.”

She watched the men as they left the ballroom, paralyzed with indecision. The little girl inside her still trembled with fear. But she wasn’t a little girl any longer. The woman she’d become refused to stand by, silent and ashamed.

She ran after them, pushing open the door of the study—

Just in time to see Gabriel’s fist connect with Lambert’s jaw.

Penny shrieked.

Bradford launched himself at Gabriel, dragging him backward before he could land another blow.

“You miserable blackguard.” Gabriel struggled against Bradford’s restraint. “I can’t believe you would show your face in this house.”

“What the devil is this about?” Bradford asked.

“Ask him,” Gabriel spat. “Your father-in-law.”

“I’ve not the slightest notion, Bradford,” Lambert said. “No idea what he’s on about.”

“You know precisely what I’m on about.” Gabriel pushed away from Bradford, grabbed Lambert by the lapels, and slammed him against the wall. “You’ve avoided the reckoning for years, but now it’s arrived. You’re going to pay for what you did to her.”

“Stop, please,” Penny cried. “Bradford, we need to talk.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk,” her brother said. “A whole week’s journey to Cumberland. You’re leaving with me.”

“Get away from her,” Gabriel threatened. “Or I swear I’ll take you down, too.”

“Gabriel, he doesn’t know.”

“Then he deserves to pay for that.” He let Lambert drop to the floor, then turned on Bradford. “How could you? How could you not know? Didn’t you see her changing before your eyes? A bright, lively little girl turning shy and withdrawn. Hiding from you, from everyone. Surely you knew something was wrong. You never bothered to ask.”

After a moment passed in silence, Bradford turned to her. His eyes were full of questions. “Penny?”

Lambert pressed a handkerchief to his lip. “She’s confused, Bradford. Not difficult to see why, if she’s fallen under the influence of this brigand.” He glared at Gabriel. “See here, Duke. I demand an apology.”

“Go to Hell,” Gabriel snarled.

“Then I demand satisfaction.”

“I’d be glad to give it.”

Penny’s lungs seized. A duel? She couldn’t let this happen.

“Name your second, then. Bradford will serve as mine. They can set the time and place.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I do my own negotiations, and I’m not giving you any time to escape. Tomorrow. Pistols at dawn in St. James Park.”

Lambert tugged on the lapels of his coat. “I look forward to it. I’m an excellent sportsman and a keen shot.” He glanced at Penny. “Isn’t that right, poppet?”

Gabriel cocked a fist. “Get out of my house before I grind you into pulp beneath my boots.”

Before they could go, Penny ran to plead with her brother. “Bradford, you can’t allow this to happen.”

He regarded her with disappointment in his eyes. “It seems as though you’ve allowed this to happen. What were you thinking, associating with such a man?”

“He’s a good person. You don’t know him.” You don’t truly know Lambert, either.

“I know enough,” he said. “I know he’s gone unchecked for too long, destroying our peers and neighbors. For God’s sake, we are standing in a house he shamelessly stole from the Wendlebys.”

“He didn’t steal it.”

“I’ll brook no more argument. I’m only too happy to help bring him to account.”

Penny knew her brother well enough to recognize the expression on his face. His mind was made up. No amount of dissent would sway him now.

She stepped back and gave him the space to leave.

Once Bradford and Lambert had departed the room, Penny rushed to Gabriel. Perhaps he could be made to see sense. “A duel? Surely you don’t mean to do this.”

“I do mean to do this. I wish I could find a way to go back in time and hunt him down there, but I can’t. This is the next best alternative.”

“If going back in time were possible, we’d miss one another entirely—because I’d go back in time and rescue you from everything you endured. We’ve known pain, the both of us. No one came to our rescue. We are survivors, and we didn’t come through all that only to lose our lives now.” Her voice broke. “Gabriel, he stole years from me already. Don’t let him take our future from us, too.”

“He already has your future. Part of it, at least. I saw the way you reacted when he entered that ballroom. I felt it. As long as he’s alive and connected to your family, you’ll never be free of him.”

“Can’t there be some other way? Why must it be a duel?”

He gave her a wry smile. “I swore you’d marry nothing less than a gentleman. Dueling is the gentleman’s way.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want a dead gentleman. I’d prefer a living bastard, thank you. And what about George? You have a goat now, and he’s depending on you. If nothing else, think of your kid.”

“Penny.” He touched her cheek. His eyes brimmed with tenderness. “I’m only thinking of you. If I don’t defend you, I’m not worthy of you. Not in the world’s eyes, nor in my own.”

“We have to do something,” Penny said firmly. “Ideas?”

She looked around at her friends. After Gabriel left, she’d sent for Ash and Chase, and they’d all adjourned to her house for an urgent strategy session. In the most direct and matter-of-fact of summaries, she’d relayed the facts of the situation and the imminent danger. Considering the formidable amount of wits and determination represented in her drawing room, surely they could come up with a brilliant way to avert disaster.

Unfortunately, no one was quick with a suggestion.

She turned to Chase and Ash. “Can’t you go after him? Punch him in the jaw, or tie him to a chair, or hold him at knifepoint until well after dawn?”

After conferring with Chase by eye contact, Ash rubbed the back of his neck. “As delightful as that all sounds, I don’t think we can.”

“Surely the two of you put together can overpower him.”

“It’s not that.” Chase sat across from her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Perhaps we could restrain him. But I’m not convinced we should.”

“Why not?”

“Because we agree with Gabe, that’s why.” Ash crossed his arms. “In his position, I’d do the same. In fact, I’d be tempted to call Lambert out myself if he hadn’t already. The man deserves to die.”

Chase reached forward and took her hand. “Penny, what he did to you … I can’t imagine what you suffered. But I believe I can come uncomfortably close to imagining it, when I think of Rosamund and Daisy. I can certainly understand why Gabe feels the need to defend you.”

“I don’t need defending,” she protested. “It’s in the past. And while I’m sure you do have strong emotions, aren’t my feelings and wishes more important right now? Perhaps Lambert deserves to die. But we all know it’s far more likely that Gabriel will be the one wounded or worse.”

Nicola joined her argument. “Dueling is an archaic, barbarous, stupid practice in which men pretend to defend a woman’s honor by robbing her of any self-determination.”

“Is that so?” Ash looked at his wife. “Emma didn’t mind it when I snuck through her despicable father’s window at night and made him piss the bed with fear.”

“That was different!” Emma said. “There were no bullets involved.”

Alexandra spoke up. “I was highly put out with Chase when he punched a man on my behalf.”

“At the time,” Chase argued. “Looking back, would you rather I hadn’t?”

Alexandra went silent.

“See?” Chase said.

Penny jumped to her feet. “Listen, all of you. This isn’t a matter of punching or climbing through windows. A duel means life and death, and considering that Lambert spent every autumn shooting partridges with my father, I have reason to believe he’s the superior marksman of the two. I love Gabriel. I mean to marry him, have a family with him. In order for that to happen, he needs to not die tomorrow morning. And if you care about me at all, you’ll do everything you can to prevent it.”

After a moment of quiet, her friends mumbled and nodded in agreement.

Chase rose from the chair. “Ash and I will go after him. We may not be able to stop the duel, but there are ways of settling these things without bloodshed.”

Penny exhaled with relief. “Thank you.”

“Besides, he’s going to need a second,” Chase said.

Ash nodded. “I’ll do my best to negotiate a resolution that doesn’t involve black powder.”

“Hold a moment,” Chase objected, pulling on his coat. “Who said you were the second? I’m the second.”

“You can be the third.”

“The third? There’s no such thing as a third.”

Ash groaned. “We’ll sort it out on the way.”

After the men had left, Penny paced the floor. “There has to be something more we can do,” she told Alex, Emma, and Nicola. “I can’t simply sit here and sip tea all night.”

“If I could move,” Alexandra said, “I’d be a great deal more help. Perhaps you could set me rolling like a giant pumpkin, and I could mow them down?”

“Tempting.” Penny was grateful for the smile that image brought.

“To be truthful, I’m not certain we can stop them,” Emma added. “Nicola’s right when she calls it archaic and stupid, but these are men we’re talking about. Wounded male pride has caused the world more destruction than the Black Death and the Great Flood put together.”

Nicola’s eyebrows lifted. “Are we entirely certain men’s bruised feelings weren’t to blame for the plague and the deluge, too?”

“A fair point,” Emma conceded.

“If men are bent on destroying the world, we women must be the ones holding it together,” a newcomer to their gathering said. “The earth hasn’t crumbled yet.”

Penny turned toward the familiar voice. “Aunt Caroline.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she rushed to her aunt and clasped her in a hug.

“Oh, Penelope.” Her aunt patted her on the shoulder. “That’s enough.”

Penny drew back.

“Now”—Aunt Caroline sat in the nearest chair without even inspecting it for cat hair first—“tell me everything.”