Authors: The Choice
“Just as I said,” Damon told the others, “and as I said she’d say. What do you think? Shall we face it out? Mama? Father?”
“Well,” his father said bracingly, “if Gilly can, why can’t we?”
“Aye!” one of his brothers said. “Nothing spikes a rumor like staring it down. I’m for it!”
“All for one, then they won’t dare say a word,” another said.
“I suppose if the family is to be scandalized there’s
no help for it either way,” Cousin Felicity put in, “but we’re just country mice, after all. What do you think, my lord?” she asked Drum with a sly smile.
“I think,” he said, looking at her from a long way down his nose, “that no one had better gossip about Miss Giles tonight. Or any other night. At least, not in my hearing. And I have long ears.”
Felicity busied herself with her fan.
Gilly grinned. “To war then!” And she laughed.
But she was apprehensive as she set toe over the threshold of Almack’s. And sure she heard a sudden silence as she did. But it was hard to tell over the buzzing of her blood singing in her ears. By the time she rose from her curtsey to the hostesses present, she was the sinecure of all eyes. She raised her chin.
But there was no one to fight with, and nothing to object to. Either no one had seen the print, or no one dared say. Miss Gillian Giles came in with her army, and they stationed themselves around the room. Not a whisper would have gone unheard. And so Gilly didn’t hear one.
She was introduced to the quality, and they bowed and curtsied to her. Lady Annabelle was there—but so was she. Tonight was extraordinary, because the sun triumphed over the moon in every way. Rafe was the only one of their party to care about Lady Annabelle’s dark beauty. Because it was fair Gilly who was the evening star tonight. She danced every dance with every male who asked her—and they all did, except for Drum and Rafe, who stayed away from her as diligently as she did from them. Though she never stopped looking at Drum to see what he was doing. Nor he, looking
at her to be sure she fared well. And Damon watched them both, silently.
“Well,” she said, as they rode home a few hours later, “what a letdown! If there wasn’t that bit of excitement about that wretched print before we left for me to think about, I think I’d have fallen asleep on my feet! What paltry food. What feeble drink! And the company? Why, if that’s the cream of the cream, I think I’ll take my tea straight from now on. I was never so disappointed!”
For once, Drum and Damon looked at each other straight on, as their gazes locked over her head. They smiled.
“Now get to sleep,” Damon said, as he left her at the door.
“You’re not coming in?” she asked, and he wondered if that was relief he heard in her voice.
“No, it’s late. Sleep well. Good night.” He took her hand, kissed it, and left her standing, staring after him.
Drum and Rafe said good night quickly, too. “Don’t get into any trouble now,” Rafe joked.
“At least, not until morning,” Drum said.
Then they stood on the step and watched Damon’s carriage roll off into the night.
“Didn’t offer us a ride, did he?” Rafe grumbled.
“No,” Drum said, raising a hand to call a hackney cab. “He was in a tearing hurry. And his eyes held enough veiled threats to cover half the females in Arabia. Now where do you think he’s going?”
“Don’t know,” Rafe answered, “But we’re following, aren’t we?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t the lowest tavern in London.
“It looks it, I grant,” Drum said with a sneer, as they stood outside the Bent Bough, the gin shop they’d seen Damon enter, “but it’s too close to main streets and the district isn’t that bad. I’ll wager you’ll find young gentlemen here, getting a thrill because it looks dangerous. But the kind of place they think it is would be one they wouldn’t be able to leave easily—at least with their clothes on their backs, not to mention alive. This den of iniquity is no more or less than a stage set. For pretenders and the naive. So, that’s the sort of fellow Ryder is. I wonder if Gilly has any idea?”
“Don’t judge too fast,” Rafe said.
“My dear boy,” Drum said sweetly, “I am patience on a monument. We’ll wait a bit, then go in and see what we can see. I’ll also bet the place has nicely staged shadows we can lurk in.”
It did. It was hot and dank and flyblown inside, and there were a score of gentlemen there, lounging at tables, or trying to belly up to the tap like so many of the other colorful patrons were doing. There was a sprinkling of rogues, a handful of beggars, some peddlers and street mongers, a merchant or three, sharpers galore, a pack of sots, and prostitutes of all conditions and descriptions. Drum’s sneer was hidden by the shadows he and Rafe stood in. It became more pronounced as he saw Damon detach himself from the darkness and walk to a handsome young gentleman sitting at a table by a darkened dirty window.
The young gentleman looked up, visibly stiffened, and then made a theatrical show of relaxing again, though his hand remained clenched on his mug of gin.
“Good evening, my lord,” Damon drawled. “May I join you?
Lord Dearborne made a negligent gesture toward a chair. “Suit yourself.”
“Oh, that would be difficult to do, since murder’s punishable by death,” Damon said easily, as he sat a bit away from the table. He leaned back and studied the young lord. “I spoke with Mr. Bishop, a caricaturist of some little note, you see. Very little note, actually. Yes, I see you
do
see. You’re a little more pale now than you were when I came in. Would you like to open that window? No? Can’t blame you, it overlooks an alley, and who knows what can crawl in? Or out? And I don’t want you leaving just yet,” Damon said abruptly, as he saw Dearborne tense.
Damon nodded. “See, Mr. Bishop, as he explained it to me, is a man with small talent and a big thirst. And some sense, I think, since he didn’t want any trouble. But that’s all he has, poor fool. So if he’s offered money to draw a cartoon, and is given the idea for it besides, it’s a windfall for him because he seldom sells any on his own merit. No, I said, I wouldn’t leave if I were you,” Damon added as Dearborne started to rise.
“It was merely a jest,” Dearborne said weakly, falling back into his chair.
“Was it? I didn’t think so.” Damon leaned back, too, and studied the ashen gentleman. “I won’t let Gilly have at you again, though you deserve it. Because I don’t want her to dirty her hands. And I won’t challenge you to swords or pistols at dawn, either. I don’t want to have to leave the country just now. Yes, I’m
very
good at both. But I know some gentlemen who might
want to challenge you because they’re noblemen and men of fashion, and such gentlemen do such things. I’m not a nobleman, and don’t care much for fashion. But I wouldn’t want the scandal to touch the lady in question. Nor do I want to break her heart. She values her friends and I have this uneasy feeling that, good as they are at dueling, you’ll find a way to cheat. Cheats do. So, what’s to do, do you think?”
“I promise I—”
“I don’t believe you,” Damon said quietly, and reached inside his jacket.
Dearborne sprang to his feet, overturning his mug. He had a big, silver-handled knife in his hand in the next moment. “Threaten me, will you?” he snarled, brandishing the wicked blade at Damon.
“No,” Damon said gently.
Drum and Rafe sprang from their corner, but had no time to get far. Because in that second Damon kicked out and rose in a blur of speed. The table was overturned and Damon had his hand over Dearborne’s wrist before Rafe and Drum could take a step. A second later, and the knife clattered to the tabletop as Dearborne yelped with pain.
“Interesting,” Damon said, picking up the knife and looking at it. Dearborne shrank back, nursing his wrist in his other hand, his eyes wide with terror. “But too big,” Damon commented, turning it in his hand, “all show and no use. Too cumbersome, no balance to it. Good for making cutlets, not threats.” He flung the knife at the overturned tabletop, and it sunk in deep. When Dearborne looked at Damon again, he gasped. Because in one smooth motion, Damon had reached
down to his boot and came up with another knife in his hand. A thin, glinting one that looked like it could cut through shadows.
Damon smiled. “Now this is a good one. A skinner’s knife, the riverman’s wife, his weapon and friend. They have such a lot of interesting uses for these.” He looked up at the far wall. A grimy poster hung there, another caricature, a memento of some long-dead scandal. Damon stared at it, nodded to himself, and with a lightning movement, sent the long knife spinning through the air to land on the poster with a sound that seemed to shiver through the suddenly spellbound room.
The barkeep bustled over and stared at the print and the knife still vibrating there. He grinned. “There’s a mug of mother’s milk on me, m’lord! Y’got the fellow right on ’is nose, see if y’dint!”
Damon smiled. “Very nice, but that’s not what I was after. Look and tell me, is there perhaps something else at the end of my knife? Something that was bothering me?”
The barkeep bent and stared, then whistled, low. He gingerly plucked the knife from the wall and held it up for all to see. “B’Gawd!” he cried. “Jest look! ’E’s got ’isself a fly! Aye, the point went through it clean as can be, and the wings is still flutterin’!”
The patrons laughed, but then grew still. Dearborne had plucked his knife out of the tabletop, and stood crouched, facing Damon. “Brag, will you? Fool! There’s better uses for a knife than a show, I think! As you’ll soon see!”
“Really?” Damon said in bored tones. He reached
toward his vest pocket, and Dearborne’s eyes followed the move. In another instant Damon surged forward so fast, neither Drum and Rafe had time to blink. Dearborne’s big knife rose—and fell to the floor. Dearborne gave out another high-pitched cry of pain as Damon grabbed his downthrust arm and wrenched it aside with a snap, brought his knee up to the man’s gut, then spun around, using an elbow to slap Dearborne’s head back.
“It was over before you began,” Damon said scornfully, as Dearborne writhed at his feet, gripping his broken arm, trying to bring his knees up to ease his stomach and get his breath back. Damon bent to speak to him. His voice was deadly dark and cold. “Now listen. I’ll say it once, and only that. You are leaving England, for your health. Because you’ll be dead if you don’t. Remember, I’m not a nobleman. I don’t think or fight like one. I always have a knife with me, and a pistol in my pocket. And I’m as good with one as with the other—better with a garrote. So, if you stay you’ll have to remember to keep out of the streets, don’t step into shadows, stay home in the dark—or even on a cloudy day. But if you leave England? You can come home in three years. No less. Not one day less. And then you are never to be in the same room as me, or mine, ever again. Am I understood? Am I?”
Dearborne nodded, and then more frantically. “Good,” Damon said, rising. “No hard feelings, eh?”
He collected his knife from the barkeep and left the tavern to the sound of cheering.
“Nice work,” Drum commented, falling into step with him.
“I thought you’d disapprove,” Damon said, unsur
prised, “seeing as what I did was not remotely noble. I brawled again, my lord.”
“I’m lucky you didn’t when you fought with me,” Drum mused.
“Too right,” Rafe commented, and when Drum glanced at him, wisely fell still.
“Oh, but when I fought with you, I did it by your rules,” Damon said. “You’re as good as I am on that kind of playing field.”
“Thank you,” Drum said, “but I’d like to know some of your tricks, too. I have some myself. I had to in the sort of work Rafe and I did in the past—during the war. But you’ve got some new ones, even for us.”
“New world, new rules,” Damon said with a shrug, never slowing as he walked along the dark, deserted street. “Times are changing, and they’re changing there fastest. They don’t dance around things as much as we do. It’s startling at first, but then refreshing. What do you think of my match with Gilly, by the way?” he asked suddenly. “I feel you don’t approve.”
Rafe was startled; his head came up. Drum merely laughed. “Refreshing, indeed. Well, now you’ve brought it up—I don’t. Approve, that is. It was gallant of you to offer for her. But I’m not convinced it will be best for her. Expedience seldom is.”
Damon nodded, his face expressionless, as they passed under a flickering torchlight in front of a house. “I see. But can you see better for her? In the near future? Or in any future, for that matter?”
Now Drum was quiet as they stalked down the long street. When he spoke, his voice was wondering. “I think I begin to. More, I cannot say—now.”
“I see,” Damon said. Rafe’s silence was one of shock.
“I go this way now,” Damon said, as they came to a wide and lively avenue where he saw waiting hackney coaches. “Good night, my lords. It’s been…edifying.”
“Good night, Ryder,” Drum said. “It has been that, indeed.”
“What did you mean?” Rafe asked furiously, as soon as Damon was out of earshot. “I’ve put up with a lot from you, Drum, for more years than I can remember. But that lad is pluck to the bone. And he can offer her what you cannot. What you’ve never wanted to, by God, if it comes to that!”
“Have I not?” Drum mused. “Do I not? Shall I not?”
“No games! This is
Gilly
we’re talking about, and her future. You have a name to consider. Despite all her charm, she has none.”
“But the lad is right,” Drum said thoughtfully. “Time and the world is changing. And a woman takes her name from her husband. Speaking of time, I need some. Leave off. Ryder and I understand each other very well, even if you don’t. Even if I don’t understand myself, not entirely, not yet….”
“Bedamned to you, then,” Rafe said and stalked away.
Drum was used to his temper, and only shrugged. He called a hackney, and was so busy thinking, he didn’t miss company on his way home.
But when Damon got to his rented rooms a few moments later that night, he sank to a chair and put his head in his hands. And echoed Rafe, all unknowing.
“Damn, damn,
damn
,” he said.