Authors: The Choice
“R
eally
,” Damon said. But it wasn’t a question. And he didn’t wait for an answer.
Gilly walked at Drum’s side, the place she’d longed to be. But now she kept her head bent to watch where she put her feet. There had been a time when she could look at him when she spoke to him. Now she was fine so long as she didn’t. He saw too much. There was too much for him to see. But it felt so good, so right, so grand to be beside him again. To have him to talk with
again. Even though he was talking about her, another thing that didn’t used to be. In the past, it was only when he meant to criticize her. Now, she felt her breath catch at his praise.
“Amazing,” Drum was musing. “I can’t get used to the sight of you. Look at you in that walking dress! The latest shade of green, with a matching wisp of a bonnet, in the height of fashion. And walking demure as a little mandarin—no, wrong gender. Taking little steps, neat as a pin, charming as a geisha. Yes, that’s it. But that’s not the half of it. Your hair done up, your eyes cast down, the slightest blush on that silken cheek…. My girl, you look like a milk-and-water miss. And while we’re on the subject of dairy, you look like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. We’re the cynosure of all eyes, and not just of the fashionable. You always had the face and figure, but now you’ve the
attitude
. You’re a beauty now.
“And yet,” he said, tilting his own head, “I keep seeing you as if in motion—one minute I get a glimpse of our Gilly of old, and then in the next, by a word or a gesture, I see this entirely new Gilly before me. Astonishing. One expression reminds me of the belligerent boy I met. Another, and you are become the toast of London.”
She laughed. “Hardly that! Everyone stares at everyone else in London on a fine morning. And I am dressed well, thank you. But fashionable? Huh. I may be admired by park saunterers, but they know I’m beneath their touch. Because I’m not marriage material for anyone in the
ton
. And they all know Ewen would slay them if they tried anything else.”
“Or you would,” Drum commented dryly. “But wouldn’t your Catch have something to say about that, too?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” she said with a frown. “It’s demeaning, somehow. He’s a very nice man, Drum, you’d like him if you knew him.”
“Now there’s the new Gilly, all demure and polite. But that’s faint praise for a prospective husband, even for the new Gilly. ‘V
ery nice
’? You’re all fire, my girl, or at least you were a fire-eater then. I can’t believe you’ve doused it entirely. And yet you’re ready to take a ‘very nice’ husband? Come, are you sure?”
“Ho,” she said on a brittle laugh. “Just what Damon complains about. I keep asking him if he’s sure. But I am,” she lied. “Drum.” She turned her face up to his, then looked down to her toes when the intent look in those knowing azure eyes made her feel shivers along her spine. Because it was a new kind of attention. Or her overheated imagination took it for such. But in either case, it troubled her, wondering if it might be something new, worrying that if it were not, he might know she thought it was. “Damon met me while I was trying to kill some miserable wretch who tried to take advantage of me at a party. And yet he found that admirable, or so he said.”
“So Ewen wrote—obliquely. Did you use fists, fingers, feet, or steel?” Drum asked with interest.
“All,” she said grumpily, “except for the knife. He was done for in a trice. I didn’t need to draw steel on him.”
“Who was this hen heart?”
“Well, he had
some
fight in him, but I soon took care
of that. I had the advantage of surprise. He was weak in the gut, too,” she said moodily, “and I also got him with a knee, which few men can withstand, you know. But once I drew his cork it was all over. He was one of them what gets faint at the sight of his own blood.”
“‘One of those who,’” Drummond corrected automatically, as they slipped into their familiar roles. “A paltry fellow, in fact. But who was he? Ewen told me something of it, but not all.”
“Dearborne,” she said with a shrug. “Lord Dearborne. A pretty fellow who thought he was more clever than he is.”
Drum whistled. “A bad fellow, from bad stock. They have old money and an evil history, the whole family. Can’t see why you’d follow one of them out into a garden on your own, day or night. That certainly must have been the new Gilly.”
“Too right,” she said. “But the old Gilly fixed him proper, I can tell you. But the point is that Damon was going to rescue me and wound up rescuing Dearborne from me, and even so, he liked me. He did, Drum, right off.” She dared a glance at him.
His face was inscrutable. “I can readily believe that.”
“When we got back to the party, Dearborne was trying to spread filthy rumors to ruin my name, about me cuddling in the darkness with Damon. Me! He said he got mashed for trying to save me from Damon. But then up stepped Damon, and said we were going to be married, and that he was the one planted Dearborne a facer, since he thought he was an attacker. Ho! That made Dearborne look a fool!”
“And so you decided to actually marry him in grati
tude? A considerable reward for him, I’d think. A generous, if foolhardy, gesture on your part, too, I’d say.”
She stopped walking and looked at him directly. “I have to marry someday, Drum. I want a family and children. Damon’s kind and good. And very smart. I don’t think I can do better. In fact, I think I did more than better. I didn’t want to marry someone whose family would be horrified at my lack of family, not to mention my past. I’ve not much to offer any man but myself and Ewen’s generosity. I was willing to settle for much less. But I’ve got even more than I bargained for.”
He stood very still. A scowl twisted his usually bland expression. “You have nothing to offer? You think that?”
Now she laughed. She threw back her head and guffawed. “Oh Drum,” she chortled, “where have your wits gone? Everyone knows that! That’s why…” She stopped whatever she was about to say, and looked away. “That’s why I’m not married yet. It’s hard to find a nice man of breeding and intelligence who don’t mind marrying a wench out of nowhere. No, worse. Out of somewhere and something that polite young women don’t even know about.”
“A man who loved you wouldn’t care about such nonsense.”
“Y
ou
can say that?” she asked, caught between shock and anger. “You know the value of a name, my dear Lord Drummond. Who better? Ewen’s father might have been my champion from the start, but your own papa always looked at me like—like a
bug
. You apologized for it. But so it was, and so in a way, my dear sir, you are, too. You’re from one of the oldest
families in the land. My family might be, too, for all I know. But that’s the point, I don’t know. And don’t I know how important such things are. E
specially
to you! Don’t look at me like that, either, it’s been ages since one of those icy looks frightened
me
.
“You’ve not married yet,” she said, as he stood frowning, “and you could have anyone you wanted. You’re seeking perfection…and as to that,” she asked, diverted, “what happened to your dark-eyed beauty? I thought she’d appear on your arm with your ring on her finger, and hers in your nose, like any good husband. Yes! I’d forgotten. Where is she? It sounded very April and May to me in your letters.”
“I haven’t hid her in my trunks, you little baggage,” he said lightly, though his eyes were still troubled, and still intent upon her. “It’s only that I found the more there was to know of her, the less there was to care. Nothing wrong with the lady, mind. But nothing that was right for me.”
“She was that bad at bedwork?” Gilly hooted.
He gripped her shoulder, hard, and gave her a little shake. “Hush! By God, Gilly, have you no discretion?”
She sobered. “Little, as I said,” she replied with a show of bravado, her fair skin going from pale to ruddy, shrugging the shoulder he still held. “There was a time we used to jest, just so.”
“Then I was a fool. You can’t say such things. It’s not true, for one. It’s not proper, for two. And certainly not in public,” he added, beginning to grin, in spite of himself.
“She truly broke your heart, then?” Gilly asked seriously.
“No fear of that, because I never gave it in her keeping.” He stared down at her, his hand now gentle on her shoulder, his eyes veiled, intent. “My intentions were honorable this time, because she was an honorable woman. But I seem to have lost interest at the last minute. I found that what I looked for wasn’t there. As it so often happens with me, whatever my interest in a woman, whether holy or unholy.” He gazed at her as though trying to see her thoughts. “Perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong places, do you think?”
Gilly hesitated, cursing her active imagination. She wondered if Damon’s attentions hadn’t changed her, if all his kisses and caresses hadn’t primed her, sensitized her, making her see all men differently. Making her aware of men’s eyes and mouths for more than the words they spoke. Because it seemed to her that Drum was looking at her differently now, asking her something altogether new, and watching her lips for more than her answer. She didn’t know what to say. She was spared the effort.
“Well,” Damon’s voice caught them by surprise. “I see you weren’t that tired after all, my lord.”
Damon winced inwardly as they both startled and looked up to see him standing on the path right behind them. He hated the sound of the words the moment they left his mouth. Pompous. Foolish. A cuckold’s entrance line. They both stared at him. But if he hadn’t spoken, he didn’t think they would have noticed he was there. Or if anyone else was, either.
He’d driven to Hyde Park, headed for the Serpentine. It wasn’t hard to find them strolling on the path
there. They looked too well together. She wore green, and he’d have known that lovely figure anywhere, that graceful gait, the proud tilt of her shapely little head. The tiny bonnet perched on that bright hair could never disguise its rare, white gold splendor. Nothing on earth could hide that pale and beautiful face from him; he saw its loveliness reflected in every passing man’s appraising eyes. And the image of her tall, lean, broad-shouldered companion strolling close by her side, altogether attentive, was already etched into his future nightmares. Even now, confronted, the lanky earl still had his hand on her shoulder.
W
hat in
G
od’s name does a man say at a moment like this
? Damon wondered. How did he not make a fool of himself? How did he keep his pride, his countenance, and his heart from cracking, and all at the same time? Whatever he said would make him sound like the buffoon in a bad farce. He wasn’t used to anything like this, it was entirely outside his experience. He wanted to turn on his heel and leave. But he couldn’t with them watching. Certainly not with himself watching, appalled, from somewhere outside of his body. So he took in a breath and waited for one of them to say something, anything. They did worse.
The earl removed his hand from Gilly’s shoulder. She blinked and bit her lip, looking upset.
There was a moment when no one spoke.
Gilly looked at the two men. They were staring at each other. She noted how different they were, the one tall, elegant, watchful, contained, powerful in his silence. The other, his usually laconic airs vanished, his handsome face showing silent fury, his immaculate
clothes showing tensed muscles and readiness for action.
There was peril of so many kinds here that Gilly gasped. She could only confront it head-on, the way she faced all danger.
“Lud!” she said. “It looks like Drum and me are lovers met on the sly, don’t it? But that’s a laugh. He was about to drown me for defaming the name of his latest amour, is all. Good thing you came along when you did, Damon.”
Drum broke from his silence. He shook his head, and smiled. “How do you do it, Gilly? One moment a guttersnipe, the next a lady, and now both at once? Amazing.”
It was not a lover-like comment. Damon relaxed, but still felt sickly foolish. “That’s Gilly, all right. But if you two aren’t here for a bit of this and that, may one ask where her lady’s maid is? You didn’t come here alone, did you?”
“Of course not!” Drum said haughtily. “I’m delighted to see Gilly again, but hardly lost to civility. There she is.” He gestured to a smiling little maidservant standing a few feet away. Damon, recognizing her, felt even more foolish. He’d had eyes for nothing but the pair of them.
“She’s at a respectful distance,” Drum went on, “but close enough to preserve Gilly’s reputation. Gilly’s like a sister to me, but believe me, I know—too well—that she is not.”
But now again, no one could speak. Or would.
Gilly was wondering at Drum’s choice of words. They were, like so much he’d said this morning, wry
and ambiguous, and open to so much interpretation that a person could get dizzy trying to pin it down. He always liked to speak that way, sly and amusing. But he’d never looked at her that way before. Never. And what he’d said broadly hinted at something altogether new.
Drum looked amused now, and yet there was nothing remotely merry deep in his eyes.
And Damon was still angry, suspicious, and feeling sick, and furious at himself for it.
T
hey sat in a sunny window alcove of the tea shop, their tea long gone, their conversation still absorbing them. Or at least three of them, Damon thought resignedly, watching them. There was little else for him to do. It was enlightening. Rafe’s harsh face looked better with his frequent smiles, and those smiles, like the earl’s, were bent on Gilly. They both were also bent on entertaining her, as she in turn was amusing them with her reactions. She blossomed under their attention, showing them a kaleidoscope of emotions, being charming and brash, adorable and impudent, boyish and womanly by turns.
Was she doing it to keep their attention? Damon wondered. Or was she really this confused about who she was now? She was changeable, but never so viva
cious with him. Or so dramatic with it. It was almost as if she was on stage. They all looked like that to him; he had never been such an spectator as he was today. But what did he have to say that the others could remember and laugh with, the way they were doing with each other’s memories?
Now they seemed to be done with her past, and were starting on the earl’s. Damon sat back and watched, trying to keep his own emotions out of it. He had taken himself out of the equation. These were friends newly met after a long absence. She adored them. If he was going to make a life with her, he had to come to terms with that, and them.
But he hated sitting dumb as a stone while they chattered. He felt useless and foolish. And now, frustrated and angry by the earl’s comments, his implication that all true Englishman had been soldiers in the late war. Probably Drummond didn’t even remember he was there. He hadn’t so much as looked at him, after all.
“One does what one can for one’s country,” Drum was saying, shrugging off Gilly’s praise. “Rafe was a soldier, I did what I could to support him in my own way. I couldn’t fight, not when I was the only heir. Wellington wouldn’t have it. Nor would my father. But I could contribute my bit. What Englishman wouldn’t?”
T
his
E
nglishman didn’t
, Damon thought, as he held his tongue, gritting his teeth so hard a small muscle bunched in his jaw,
as you probably bloody well know, damn your so cool eyes
. But surely the earl hadn’t meant to slight his patriotism? The comment was too carefully put to dispute, but Damon would have defended himself if he had to. And he could.
Damon hadn’t gone to war as a soldier or a spy. Not because he wasn’t patriotic, or because of fear, but because he’d had no desire for a career in the military. Gentlemen didn’t buy commissions in the army or navy unless they, or their family, had a career in mind. Or unless they were second sons. His brother Alfred had that distinction and had been in the navy until he decided life with his Harriet was preferable to life at sea—no matter how he jested now that there was little to choose between living with a captain and trying to live with a wife.
When the little emperor went to Elba, Damon had gone to America, to make his fortune. But if he’d been called upon to act for his country, he would have done so. In fact, he thought, brightening, he
had
done. He’d often carried messages into the wilderness for his government in his years in the New World, but hadn’t thought much about it then. Even now, he thought, his spirits falling, it didn’t sound like much compared to what the Earl of Drummond had done. Or said he’d done. Those things that made Gilly sit enthralled now, listening to them again. Because from the way she reacted to each story it was clear they were as familiar to her as beloved fairy tales that had been told to a child each night.
“But now we’re at peace. I suppose that’s why I keep traveling so much,” Drum went on. “It just might be that I’m looking for a fight!”
That made even Damon laugh.
“I never realized I was so warlike,” Drum went on. “But most gentleman are, I suppose. Do you fence?” he asked suddenly.
It took the others swinging around to look at him to make Damon understand he was the one being asked. “Me? Yes,” Damon said, “on occasion.”
“Where? At Monsieur Marchand’s? I understand he’s the rage in London now. Myself, I’m currently looking for someone better, I studied under Antonio, in Italy. Do you have a academy here that you visit?”
“No, not in years,” Damon said. “I came to London, met Gilly, and since that night seem to have devoted myself entirely to her.”
“Where do the men in your clubs go then?” Drum asked curiously.
“They don’t. I don’t belong to any right now.”
“No
clubs
either?” Drum asked, sitting back in surprise, just as he might have exclaimed, “Y
ou can’t read
?”
“Hadn’t the time to join any when I got back to London,” Damon said abruptly. “Haven’t the interest now.”
“You box, then? At Gentleman Jackson’s? You look like you could strip to advantage and go a round or two.”
“I suppose I could. I don’t.”
“Oh, how can you say that?” Gilly interrupted, “You should have seen him, Drum! It would have done your heart good. Did mine a treat. See, I took him down to my old haunts to see…” She paused when she saw how Drum grew still. She’d never taken him there, she remembered, and certainly would never take him to the street where…
“Well, I wanted him to see where I grew up,” she said quickly, “if he actually meant to marry me, it was only fair. And we no sooner set foot in an alley when we
were set upon by some scurvy coves! They had knives and cudgels, four of them to our two. But I didn’t have to lift a finger! Damon knocked them flat! Oh, you should have seen! He fought like a fury! He gave one a perfect cross with his right hand, put an elbow in another’s gut, and came up swinging to lay him out cold before you could spit. He bent noses and split lips and had them pretending to be dead where they lay at his feet, afraid to squeak! You’ve never seen the like!”
“Never saw the like,” Drum said absently. “He had good science, did he?” he asked Gilly, not looking at Damon.
“No,” Damon answered for her. “I brawled. I had no time for fancy footwork or to think of any sweet science. I had to get them before they could get me down and then get Gilly. That’s all I cared about. Lucky for me I know street fighting. But I’m not sure I could come up to your standards of boxing by the Marquis’s rules.”
“You’ve never sparred here in London?” Drum asked.
“Not for a long time. I only got here at the start of the summer. Since then I’ve been too busy arranging my future to take care of the present.”
“No sparring? Well then, do you go to Manton’s gallery to shoot?”
“Not at present,” Damon said tersely.
“What about horses? Cards? You must have some vices!” Rafe said on a snort. “Or maybe we should ask you that after we take Gilly home?”
“I ride, I drive, I play cards, and dice, too, if it comes to that,” Damon said, sitting back and drawling his words, because he was getting angry and it was his way
to slow down when his emotions sped up. “But not in any formal way, and not in London, lately.”
“I see,” Drum said slowly. “So then you weren’t joking when you said you were pleased to devote yourself entirely to Gilly.”
It was an innocuous statement, but said in a way that made Damon think he was being thought of as some kind of man-milliner, a foppish fellow who had nothing on his mind but women’s skirts—and not even particularly in what was under them.
“I don’t care for cockfights and bear baitings, true,” Damon said through a tight smile. “Dog fights and ratting are not for me, either. Nor do I take snuff. But I fence—saber and foil. I drive, spar, shoot, fish and hunt, wager, play cards and dice, smoke cheroots, and drink, too. I have been known to pinch barmaids, but not since I met Gilly. I spit on the floor when the mood takes me, and can swagger and come up with an impressive belch if I try hard enough. Is that manly enough for you?”
Drum smiled with as much sincerity as Damon did. “My dear fellow! I was merely curious as to the sort of chap Gilly was marrying. I have a care for her, it sometimes gets out of hand. My apologies if I offended.”
“No, please accept mine,” Damon said curtly. “I mistook your intent.”
“Well,” Gilly said breathlessly, “good. Now we can all be comfortable again.”
The two men didn’t look it; they glared at each other, ignoring her comment. Even Rafe looked edgy.
“You might want to come along with me after we leave here, then,” Drum told Damon sweetly. “That is, if
you want to review your science. I’m off to Gentleman Jackson’s and would love to oblige a new sparring partner. I’m up to all of Rafe’s tricks by now.”
But Rafe was up to Drum’s tricks, too. “Let the fellow be,” he said quickly. “He probably has promised himself to Gilly for some errand or other.”
“No, matter of fact, I haven’t,” Damon said, ruthlessly ignoring his promise to stay to chat with his mother when he took Gilly home. “Delighted to oblige. I’m entirely at your disposal, my lord.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gilly said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
“It’s a fine idea,” Damon said gently. “I have to get to know your friends, Gilly, and I can’t do that hanging on to your skirts.”
She knew it. That’s why she thought it wasn’t a good idea.
The two men were exhausted. They’d been at it a long time, and they were gentlemen, not really bruisers, in it for the cash. But they didn’t want to stop until there was some kind of decision, and there wasn’t one. As time went on, a crowd had collected around them, but the only one who looked worried was Rafe. The others were busily wagering. The two men were stripped to the waist and covered with sweat, blood, and rapidly darkening bruises. The Earl of Drummond was the taller and had a longer reach. He had no flab on that lean frame. He did have long, smooth muscles, and exquisite timing and grace. But he was beginning to stagger.
Damon Ryder could have posed for a Greek statue,
but that muscular golden body of his wasn’t all just for show. He had power and agility, and cunning in that handsome head of his. Even if he kept shaking that head to clear his eyes and wits. The onlookers at Gentleman Jackson’s exclusive sparring salon had even money on the pair of them as they danced and weaved and tried to remove each other’s teeth. It had obviously gone beyond sparring.
Damon ducked a blow and swung ’round to land one flush on Drum’s chest. Drum grunted and swung back, catching Damon’s mouth, causing more blood to spurt. Then he crouched and started to move in. Damon shook his head and showed a bloody grin, swung hard, landing a clip flush on Drum’s ear before he danced back out of the taller man’s long reach.
Drum made a sound like a growl. “Gilly—said—you finished four men by yourself,” he puffed. “She always did—have a gift—for exaggeration.”
“No,” Damon panted. “She told truth.”
“Then I must be—extraordinary.”
“No, I’ve been fighting by rules.”
“Indeed? Then do your worst!”
“Not here! Enough, gentlemen!” Gentleman Jackson himself shouted, as he stepped between them and flung a towel on the floor. He held up his hands. “I call it a draw! And as it’s my place, it’s my call. If you’ve still got a grievance you’ll have to take it outside to the street.”
“No grievance,” Damon puffed, bending to scoop up the towel and blotting his face. “I’m willing to call it a day—for today.”
“Of course,” Drum gasped, as he caught the towel
Rafe threw to him. “As you will—Mr. Jackson. Your will is—our command. Another day then, Mr. Ryder?”
“I’m at your disposal,” Damon said, with a bow that caused him to grit his teeth at the pain in it before he turned his back and limped away.
“Lad’s got science, and heart. Let him be,” Rafe said, as he walked Drum back to the changing room. “Don’t know what maggot you’ve got in your head anyway. He’s a good sort.”
“Is he?” Drum asked.
“Got money and breeding and courage. And Gilly likes him. How much better can she do, anyway?”
Drum stopped short. “You know,” he said with ice in his words and his eyes, or rather, in one eye, because the other one was rapidly swelling closed, “I am
very
tired of hearing that.”
“Good God!” Damon’s father said, as his mother blanched.
“Good heavens!” Cousin Felicity said with eager delight, looking avidly from Damon’s battered visage to the Earl of Drummond’s painful-looking one. The look they both turned on her at her excited outcry silenced her immediately, and she took a prudent step backward, to stand with Damon’s astonished sisters and bemused brothers as they gaped at the two men.
“Good grief!” Gilly said in disgust, her hands on her hips. She took off her shawl and threw it onto a chair. “Look at you! And
that
most likely is the best you can look after you’ve applied ice and leeches, isn’t it? Huh! Well, I hope you two had a good afternoon, because you’ve ruined my night! How can I go to the theater
now? Much less the Andersons’ soiree afterward, eh? You might as well go home, gents, because I’d sooner be escorted by mad dogs as the pair of you! I don’t know what you were trying to prove.”
“We had a bet as to which of us could get you angrier,” Damon said with a crooked smile. His mouth was too swollen to smile any other way. His lips were split, his mouth was bruised, his left cheek darkened, and he winced when he moved his right arm.
“Precisely,” Drum said calmly, tilting his head to see Gilly’s expression with his good eye. He held himself more stiffly than usual, had a black eye, a red ear, and kept one hand in his waistcoat, in the manner of the last Emperor of France. “And we are going to keep our appointment this evening. We’ll say we were battling for your hand, it will do your reputation no end of good.”
“That isn’t funny,” Gilly said, and it wasn’t. Because for the tenth time since the two men had met that afternoon, she wondered if there was any truth in it. And was elated and terrified by turn at the thought and all its ramifications.
“We’ll say the truth,” Damon said. “That we met at Gentleman Jackson’s, sparred for the fun of it, and got carried way. Enough people saw it to know it’s true. It would look worse if we stayed home.”