Authors: Elizabeth Mansfield
She seemed not to hear. “I wouldn’t let myself really believe it,” she murmured abstractedly. “All the evidence, everything that’s happened, and I didn’t … I couldn’t … really believe that you…! But now I see it with my own eyes. You’re a … monster! A murdering
monster!
”
Drew wrapped the neckcloth tightly around his cut palm and held it in place by clenching his fist. A throbbing pain had begun to radiate from the wound and his back ached excruciatingly from its contact with the chair. “I’m in no mood to listen to you enact a Cheltenham tragedy, Gwen. Your dear George is not dead. He’s suffering, I imagine, from no more than a slight concussion, a bloody nose, and some loose teeth. I have no doubt that in a week or two he’ll be quite well enough to go about seducing someone else. Now, please,
go and get your things!
”
Gwen, after peering closely at his face to ascertain that he spoke the truth, ran to George’s side. Kneeling, she lifted his head. George groaned, opened his eyes, muttered something incomprehensible in a pathetic whisper, and closed his eyes again. She pulled aside the bloody neckcloth, looking for the sword wound she was sure was there, but there was none. She looked up at Drew in exquisite relief. “Were you telling me the truth?” she asked.
“You’ve checked it for yourself,” he said angrily, “so why bother to ask? Now, leave him to the mercies of the landlord and get your things. If we don’t hurry, the snow will be so thick there will be no getting back before morning.”
“I have no intention of getting back before morning!” Gwen said. Her feeling of cold terror was subsiding, and her pulse—which had been racing alarmingly—was slowing to normal. She got to her feet and went to the door. When she opened it, she found a number of onlookers still hanging about, and the innkeeper was standing in a position which clearly indicated that he’d been listening at the keyhole. She looked at the eavesdropper in disgust. “Since you’ve heard everything, don’t just stand there gaping like a fish! Get me a basin of water and some clean cloths!” And she closed the door again.
“Gwen, I have travelled at top speed for hours in this blasted weather to restore you to your family before morning. Let the innkeeper take care of him, I beg you.”
Gwen swept him with a look of burning disdain. “It’s just like you to cause this chaos and leave it to someone else to mend! And who
asked
you to restore me to my family? I’ve told you that I want none of your interference in my life.”
“Well,
somebody
must interfere! You’re making a fine mull of it on your own!”
“
I’m
making a mull of it?” she asked furiously. With a sweep of her arm, she waved at the overturned furniture, the blood on the floor, and Pollard lying prostrate. “I suppose this mull is of
my
making!”
“Of course it’s of your making!” he said wrathfully. “If you hadn’t run off with that lying dog, none of this would have been necessary.”
“It is none of your affair whom I choose to marry and under what circumstances I choose to do it! What right had you to—?”
“Right? You talk of
rights?
Did you want me to apply to a solicitor for some sort of legal document declaring that I’m empowered to act on your behalf?” he sneered. “It’s the right—or rather, the duty—of any decent man to do what he can to prevent an unprotected woman from being led into calamity. Did you
want
to become his … doxy?”
“
Doxy?
What do you—? How
dare
you say that to me?”
“He had no intention of marrying you, Gwen,” Drew told her flatly.
She stared at him. “I don’t believe you!”
Drew could stand no more. His back ached and his hand throbbed, and though he didn’t admit it to himself, he was devastated by what seemed to him incontrovertible signs that Gwen felt a real attachment to the dastard on the floor. Furiously, he grasped her shoulders, forcing her to face him squarely. “Of
course
you don’t believe me,” he said, the mocking sneer on his face so pronounced that it frightened her. “Why should you? Your superb judgment of the male character has been unerring in the past, hasn’t it? In your assessment of Rowle, of Pollard, of me, you have not been—
could not be
—mistaken, not
you
! Why should you believe
me
when you have the word of the very
honorable
Sir George Pollard to believe! Very well, Lady Rowle,
take him
! There he lies, waiting for your loving hands to minister to his needs. The heiress in London will never have him now, so he’s yours. All yours. I wish you well of him.” He thrust her from him, snatched his clothes from the chair, and flung open the door.
He froze in his tracks at the sight that met his eyes. There in the corridor stood Wystan Farr, shaking the snow from his beaver hat. Behind him, Hetty was being assisted out of her pelisse by a red-nosed, snow-covered Lord Selby. Drew looked from one to the other in stunned fury. “It wanted only
this!
” he exclaimed wrathfully, and—without waiting for a word of greeting or explanation—he pushed past them and out the door.
“That was
Drew!
” said the stupefied Hetty, turning to Wys. “I thought you said he refused to come!”
“It
was
Drew,” Wys said, a smile dawning on his face. “I should have known he’d come! Drew! Drew!” he shouted, and ran to the door. But out in the courtyard, Drew had jumped into his carriage which was now turning toward the road at a speed unpardonably reckless in the confined and snow-covered space provided by the inn. Before Wys had time to shout again, the maneuver was completed with surprising finesse, and the carriage disappeared into the whirling snow.
“He’s gone,” said Selby, who had come up behind Wys. “And as cross as nine highways. Something’s gone amiss, as I told you it would.”
The two men turned and went back inside. Hetty had already entered the parlor and was surveying the chaos, aghast. “Gwen, you poor child!” she cried. “What has happened here?”
Gwen—who had been standing, transfixed, on the spot where Drew had left her—seemed not to see the three friends who were staring at her in concern. But after a moment, she began to shake, and her eyes filled with tears. “He said … he s-said … George wanted to … s-seduce m-me,” she said in a pathetic little voice.
Hetty ran to her and hugged her soothingly. “There, there, dear,” she crooned, “come and sit down here with me. Everything will be all right now.” She led the trembling girl to the settee, where Gwen sank against Hetty wearily and yielded to her tears.
As she sobbed in Hetty’s arms and Wys watched in helpless ineptitude, Selby, more immune to tears, surveyed the room. “Take a look at Pollard, will you? Drew’s given him his just deserts, I’d say,” he said almost gleefully.
Wys, turning from Gwen to the unmoving form on the floor, nodded his head, untouched by the sight before him. “Seems to have done a complete job. Landed him a facer.”
“A good right, I expect,” Selby surmised.
“Wish he’d left a little work for me,” said Wys, rubbing his knuckles. “I was looking forward to a good mill myself.”
“I know,” Selby agreed. “So was I. Nothing for it now but to clean him up.” Selby went purposefully to the door. There in the corridor stood the innkeeper, basin in hand and towels on his arm, hesitant to come in. Selby laughed. “It isn’t nearly as bad as it looks, my man,” he said. “Come in, come in.”
The innkeeper entered and looked around curiously. Then he knelt at Pollard’s side and lifted him to a sitting position. Selby unceremoniously poured most of the water in the basin over Pollard’s head. George shuddered as his eyes opened, sputtered, and groaned. He recognized Selby at once. “Oh, no,” he said, and shut his eyes again.
“Everyone seems so delighted to see us,” Selby muttered sarcastically. “Get him a drink of brandy, Wystan.”
“Wait a minute,” Wys said in an arrested voice. “What’s this?” And he held up the blood-covered sword he had noticed on the floor.
Gwen, who had lifted her head at the sound of Pollard’s voice, uttered a strangled cry.
“What is it, my dear?” Hetty asked her in concern.
“That … bloody thing … is Drew’s!”
“Can’t be,” said Wys positively. “Drew doesn’t like swordplay above half. Look at this handle, Selby. I’ve seen it somewhere before, I believe.”
Selby frowned. “It’s … it looks like Pollard’s
cane
!
Gwen blinked at it. “Why … I think you’re
right!
” she said, puzzled.
A quick look around the room revealed to Wys the hollow cane lying under the settee not far from Hetty’s foot. Wys stooped, picked it up, and fitted the sword into it. He screwed the handle tightly into place and held up the familiar cane for Gwen’s inspection.
“But what does it mean?” Gwen asked. “Did they duel with swords?”
“Not likely,” Wys said thoughtfully. “There is no
other
sword in the room. And Drew had none with him when he left. I’ve never known Drew to use a sword, have you, Selby?”
“Never. It’s plain as a pack-saddle that this
snake
pulled it out and attacked Drew with it.”
“And Drew was plainly unarmed!” said Wys, appalled. He looked down at George, who was conscious and blinking about dazedly. “You rotter!” Wys muttered, looking down at him, revolted.
Gwen was completely bewildered. “But … but
Drew
was holding the sword when I came in. And it was covered with blood! I thought—”
“You thought
my brother
would attack an unarmed man with a sword?” Hetty asked, recoiling from Gwen in disgust.
“Drew obviously had to protect himself—he must have wrenched it from Pollard. I wonder how he managed it,” Selby said.
Wys looked troubled. “It must have been quite a struggle. I
thought
I saw something white on Drew’s left hand. I wonder if he’s hurt.”
“Worse ’n this ’un,” the innkeeper ventured, looking up from his work on George’s face. “All that blood on the floor didn’t come from this gent ’ere. T’other gentleman wrapped this cove a rum ’un, I’ll admit, but a bloody nose never made all that mess there.”
“Do you mean to say, my good man, that the only thing wrong with that
creature
you are tending is a bloody nose?” Hetty asked in a tone that revealed a disappointment great enough to be called outrage.
“Well, no, my lady, I ain’t sayin’ that. ’Is nose is right swole and might be broke, as far as I can tell. And ’e won’t be a pretty sight for a few days, I expect,” said the innkeeper, scratching his head speculatively. “But I don’t see no signs of real damage.” He got to his feet and addressed the other gentlemen with a smile. “That ain’t to say that your friend what left so sudden-like ain’t real ’andy with ’is fives. They must ’ave ’ad a good mill. Wish I could ’ave seen it.”
Gwen was staring at George incredulously. “Do you mean he has no sword wound? Didn’t Drew use the sword at all?”
“Of course he didn’t,” Selby said, becoming as impatient with her as he was with Gwen. He turned to Wys. “Let’s get Pollard up to his room. Then we can wash our hands of him and decide what to do next.”
“The innkeeper and I can handle him,” Wys replied. “You stay here with the ladies.”
They lifted George to his feet and half led, half carried him out of the room. Gwen sank back on the settee and dropped her head in her hands with a moan.
“Your fine suitor doesn’t look so romantic now, does he, Lady Rowle,” Selby remarked, looking at Gwen with a marked lack of sympathy.
Gwen shook her head, unable to look up. Hetty’s expression softened. “Don’t be hard on her, Selby. She’s been through a great deal. Go to the tap room and get us some wine. And there’s no need to hurry back with it, my dear. Do you understand me? No need to hurry back.”
“Eh?” Selby asked, puzzled. “Oh, I see. Very well, I’ll leave you for a while. Wys and I will be all the better for a chance to down a few brandies.”
“Now, you foolish girl,” Hetty said with compassionate affection, “tell me how this came to pass. What made you take such an ill-considered step as to agree to elope with George Pollard?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said, her voice quivering in despair. “I can’t even explain it to myself.” She looked up unseeing, trying to gather her thoughts and make some sense of what had happened. “I told myself that I could do for George what I failed to do for … Edward.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Foolish was scarcely the word for it. I see now that I scarcely
knew
George. I know you won’t believe me, Hetty, but I decided a while before Drew came in to return home tonight. I realized that I couldn’t marry George … not without love. I would have had to face the same problems all over again—perhaps worse ones. I had come down to tell George of my decision when I heard the fighting.”
“Of course I believe you,” Hetty said earnestly, “but I doubt that he would have permitted you to go back to London.”
Gwen faced her friend with a troubled frown. “Tell me, Hetty, what Drew meant when he said … that George meant to make me his … doxy.”
“Did Drew say that? It was unkind of him. But you see, Wys learned from Lambie Aylmer that George was about to become betrothed to an heiress—a daughter of a nabob from the city. A rather large financial settlement was involved.”
“Are you sure?”
Hetty nodded. “I’m afraid so. You see, the young lady in question is known to Wystan Farr. He went to see her and spoke to the nabob himself.”
Gwen was silent. Finally she asked in a small voice, “I don’t suppose there is any possibility that George had decided to jilt his heiress and marry me instead?”
Hetty lowered her eyes and shrugged. “I cannot pretend to know what was in Sir George’s mind. However, I do know that he has enormous debts. He’s already accepted a considerable sum from Mr. Plumb, I’m told. I don’t think he’d be likely to—”
“I see,” said Gwen bitterly. “Sir George intended to have his cake and eat it too.” She shuddered. “What a fool I’ve been! How ridiculous I must have seemed to … to your brother. He was quite right when he spoke so scornfully of my judgment of men.”
She got up and went to the fire, staring at it moodily for several minutes. Then she turned to Hetty. “I am beginning to realize how very much I owe to you and Selby and Wys … and … Lord Jamison. I do not deserve such consideration at your hands. That you have made this journey—in this weather—in my behalf is an act of generosity I find quite overwhelming. I don’t know how to thank you.”