Authors: Danelle Harmon
And then he heard it. Hoofbeats, coming
toward him from off in the darkness. Unhurried, steady, like the
grim reaper coming from Hades knowing it had all the time in the
world.
Gareth let his cheek drop against the
statue's cold neck and swore, knowing who it was even before the
rider, astride a savage beast whose hide was as black as the sky
above, materialized from out of the night.
The horseman halted just below the statue
and did not even bother to look up.
"Party's over. You may come down now,
Gareth."
It was his brother. The Duke of
Blackheath.
~~~~
Morning. Or rather, early afternoon.
Gareth awoke to the sound of a cuckoo
outside his window.
He dragged open his eyes and saw his bed
curtains revolving in a slow circle around him. Comfortably
enmeshed in the stuporous daze that always followed a night of
heavy drinking, he watched their heavy folds, their crimson
tassels, until the slow, lazy spinning began to overwhelm him and
his stomach churned with sudden nausea. He groaned, his head
pounding with each beat of his pulse, his mouth dry, stale, and
sour. All to be expected after a night out with the Den of
Debauchery, of course. But this morning, more than just his head
hurt. In fact, every muscle in his body ached. He cursed and pulled
the coverlet up over his eyes, trying to shut out the daylight,
trying to remember what he had done last night.
Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo.
He put his fingers to his temples, straining
his mind to remember.
Purple bollocks.
Ah yes, he remembered now. Or partly, at
least. Something about a statue, and painting its balls purple.
And Lucien, spoiling everything.
Gareth pulled the counterpane from his eyes
and gingerly sat up in bed. Faint light glowed through a crack in
the bed hangings and he squinted against it, unwilling — unable —
to face even this meager taste of morning. The devil, he felt
awful. Groaning, he brushed from the pillow a small twig that had
fallen out of his hair sometime during the night. Ah, yes. Now he
remembered why his muscles ached. When Lucien had arrived, Gareth
had tumbled off the statue, a victim of that damned Irish whiskey
Chilcot had brought. Priceless stuff, that. He didn't even remember
hitting the ground. And he certainly didn't remember the ride back
to the Castle, though Lucien must have slung him across
Armageddon's back and carted him all the way home.
He knuckled his eyes and ran a hand over his
hair. Part of it was still caught in its queue, part of it was
pasted to his neck by mud, and the rest hung in limp, heavy
swatches over his eyes. As he loosened a patch of dried mud just
behind his ear, a sprinkling of chalky white dirt sifted down onto
the bed linens. Even the gentle tug of his fingers against his
scalp hurt, magnifying his hangover.
"Oh ...
hell
," he said, giving the
bell pull a single yank. Then he held his head in his hands and
groaned, in very real pain, as the bath was brought in and filled.
Ellison, his valet, stood waiting to assist him.
"If I may help, my lord?"
Gareth stared down at himself. He was still
dressed in last night's finery — or what was left of it. His fine
lawn shirt was stiff with dried mud and missing several buttons.
His breeches were minus one knee buckle, and a large rip showed the
skin beneath. His coat, which his tailor had delivered only last
week, was hopelessly crushed, probably ruined. 'Sdeath, he was even
still wearing his shoes.
Good old Lucien. Tossing him into bed
without even removing his shoes, let alone his clothes.
Anger beat behind his eyes. He swung his
feet from the bed and was promptly sick, managing to grab the
chamber pot just in time.
The damned bird was still going at it
outside.
Cuck koo
.
Cuck koo
.
Cuck-koo
, with only a second's pause between each call.
"Ohh h h h ... shut up!"
Gareth stumbled to his feet, digging his fists into his eye sockets
as Ellison helped him out of his ruined clothes. "Just shut
up!"
But it was not the cuckoo, a quarter mile
away and singing from some tree on the downs, that was setting his
teeth on edge. It was Lucien. Lucien, who always interfered.
Lucien, who didn't know how to have fun, didn't want to have fun,
and forbade others to have fun. Lucien — the all-powerful,
all-controlling, Duke of Blackheath. Gareth stepped into the tub
and sank into the hot water. How much better it would have been if
Charles had been the firstborn, he thought sullenly. He would have
made a far more pleasant duke, just as Lucien, with his autocratic
ways, would've made the better soldier.
Charles, at least, had been capable of
having fun.
And Lucien would never have got himself
killed.
Sadness knifed through Gareth's normally
light heart as he bent his head and let Ellison soap and rinse his
hair. His brother had been only a year older than himself, his
friend, his confidante, his ally — and the standard by which Gareth
had always been judged. He'd been the one with whom to climb trees
and race horses, to follow to Eton, to Oxford, and back again to
Blackheath Castle. Like himself, Charles had grown restless. He'd
been home from University for only two months before buying himself
a commission in the army and leaving the castle forever.
Best not to think about Charles. All the
missing him in the world wouldn't bring him back.
And then Gareth remembered Juliet Paige.
The beautiful woman who had won Charles's
heart. Who had won Charles's request for her hand. Who, as Gareth
sat here stewing in the after-effects of his own debauchery,
mothered Charles's own child.
Put one foot wrong, Gareth, and I warn you:
The girl goes.
Cold dread washed over him.
Lucien.
He swore and lunged from the bath.
Chapter 9
Pausing just long enough to grab some money,
Gareth charged down the stairs, his hair wet, his fresh shirt
clinging to his still-damp body, his unbuttoned waistcoat flapping
open beneath his frock of pale blue superfine.
He met Andrew on the way up.
"Gareth! Thank
God
you're up and
about. I was just coming to get you —"
"What is it?"
"Lucien, the bastard! He's sent her
away!"
"'Dammit, Andrew, why the hell didn't you
come get me earlier?!"
Andrew vaulted down the stairs after him. "I
just learned of it this second! Nerissa went to Miss Paige's room
and found her gone, and one of the servants told her Lucien sent
her packing back to Boston on the morning stage! You've got to find
her, Gareth, before it's too late!"
I'll kill him
, Gareth vowed, striding
angrily through the Gold Parlour, the Red Drawing Room, the
Tapestry Room and toward the Great Hall. "Where is he?"
"Outside, on the west lawn."
The report of a pistol cracked the
mid-morning quiet. Then another. Andrew didn't need to say anything
more, for there was only one thing that Lucien ever used the west
lawn for.
Dueling practice.
Another pistol shot banged out in the
distance.
Gareth saw a footman standing rigidly near
the door, pretending not to notice the drama unfolding beneath his
nose. "Gallagher? Send word to the stables. I need Crusader saddled
immediately."
"Yes, my lord."
"And get a message to Lord Brookhampton,
telling him to summon the Den and have them waiting for me on the
green in twenty minutes.
Move
, man!"
Another footman came running with Gareth's
tricorn and surtout. Ellison was there with his sword. Gareth
buckled it on and, his top boots ringing against the stone flooring
of the Great Hall, strode out the door. Down the drive. Over the
bridge that spanned the moat, through the gatehouse, and across the
west lawn. There, a solitary figure in black stood with his back
toward him, a pistol in his hand. A whipcord was hooked to the
duke's breeches at one end and attached to a pistol wired into the
hand of a wooden dummy at the other; as Lucien stepped back, the
whipcord triggered the dummy's pistol to fire at him. It was the
supreme test of one's ability to stand firm and unmoving while a
pistol was fired at you, and it was an exercise that the Duke of
Blackheath, one of the deadliest duelists in the land, practiced at
least once a week.
One of these days you're going to kill
yourself
, Gareth thought furiously,
and it won't be soon
enough for me.
He marched across the velvety smooth carpet
of lawn. Lucien had reloaded the dummy's pistol. He took aim at the
dummy and stepped back at the same time he fired, and a ball
whizzed past his shoulder, past Gareth's neck and tore a chunk of
bark from one of the copper beeches that lined the moat.
Gareth strode straight up to Lucien, seized
his shoulder and spun him roughly around on his heel. The pistol
went flying from the dummy's wooden hand.
"I
beg
your pardon," Lucien said,
raising his brows at Gareth's open display of hostility.
"Where is she?"
The duke turned back to his target and
calmly reloaded his pistol. "Probably halfway to Newbury by now, I
should think," he said, mildly. "Do go away, dear boy. This is no
sport for children like yourself, and I wouldn't want you to get
hurt."
The condescending remark cut deep. Gareth
marched around to face his brother. They were of equal height,
equal build, and almost of equal weight, and his blue eyes blazed
into Lucien's black ones as he seized the duke's perfect white
cravat and yanked him close.
Lucien's eyes went cold, and he reached up
and caught Gareth's wrist in an iron grip of his own. All civility
vanished. "Don't push me," the duke warned, menacingly. "I've had
all I can take of your childish pranks and degenerate friends."
"You dare call me a child?"
"Yes, and I will continue to do so as long
as you continue to act like one. You are lazy, feckless, dissolute,
useless. You are an embarrassment to this family — especially to
me. When you grow up and learn the meaning of responsibility,
Gareth, perhaps I shall treat you with the respect I did your
brother."
"How dare you talk to me of
responsibility
when you banish an innocent young woman to
fend for herself, and she with a six-month-old baby who happens to
be your niece! You're a cold-hearted, callous, unfeeling
bastard!"
The duke pushed him away, lifting his chin
as he repaired the damage to his cravat. "She was handsomely paid.
She has more than enough money to get back to those godforsaken
colonies from which she came, more than enough to see herself and
her bastard babe in comfort for the rest of her life. She is no
concern of yours."
Bastard babe.
Gareth pulled back and
sent his fist crashing into Lucien's jaw with a force that nearly
took his brother's head off. The duke staggered backward, his hand
going to his bloodied mouth, but he did not fall. Lucien never
fell. And in that moment Gareth had never hated him more.
"I'm going to find her," Gareth vowed, as
Lucien, coldly watching him, took out a handkerchief and dabbed at
his mouth. "And when I do, I'm going to marry her, take care of her
and that baby as Charles should have done — as it's our duty to do.
Then
I dare you to call me a child and her little baby a
bastard!"
He spun on his heel and marched back across
the lawn.
"Gareth!"
He kept walking.
"Gareth!"
He swung up on Crusader and thundered
away.
~~~~
Fred Crawley, landlord of the Speckled Hen
Inn, was just lugging a cask of ale up from his cellar when the
Wild One and his Den of Debauchery came charging up on their fancy
horses.
"Aye, I saw 'er," he grunted, in reply to
their frantic queries. "Bought a ticket for London, she did. Ye
missed 'er by no more'n two, maybe three hours." He looked up at
the group of rakehells, letting his disgust for them show on his
face. Crawley was not inclined to exhibit his usual good humor to
the scapegraces. He could see the statue's glaring purple bollocks
from where he stood, and he wasn't altogether thrilled with the
view his paying guests had from the dining room window — though
admittedly, were he two or three decades younger, he might've found
the incident as hilarious as did most of his neighbors.
"Come on, Gareth, we're wasting time!" cried
Neil Chilcot, already turning his horse. "The more we delay, the
harder it'll be to find her!"
"Wait, Chilcot." The Wild One put out a hand
in restraint. "Was she upset?" he asked, his face shadowed by his
tricorn and his blue eyes troubled.
"The devil if I know. But yer friend's
roight. If ye want to catch 'er, ye'd best be off. I ain't got time
to sit 'ere 'avin' a chin wag with ye, I got work to do."
"Such insolence!" exclaimed Lord
Brookhampton, raising his pale brows. "Really, Crawley, have you no
respect for your betters?"
Crawley put the cask down. "Respect?
Harrumph! Maybe when me
betters
start doin' good deeds
around this 'ere village, instead of treatin' life like a lark,
raisin' 'ell, and goin' around vandalizin' our statues, then, aye,
maybe I'll respect 'em."
"Gareth's
done
a good deed! He saved
that coach from the highwaymen!" Chilcot cried, defensively.
"An accident o' fate. Probably so far in 'is
cups 'e didn't even know what 'e was doin'."
"I'm not listening to this." Muttering an
obscenity, Chilcot turned his horse and galloped away. Perry, Lord
Brookhampton, shot Crawley a quelling look and sent his horse
charging after him. Tom Audlett, Jon Cokeham, and Sir Hugh
Rochester all followed, guffawing and mimicking Crawley's humble,
country accent. Only the Wild One remained behind, his horse
blowing and foaming and fretting to be off with the others.