Vintage Love (77 page)
Enid smiled grimly. “You have fenced with me. Do you think that is likely?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then please go to him and present my offer.”
Her friend returned to her within the hour. “It is all arranged to your satisfaction,” he reported with delight.
“Andrew will fence the masked stranger?”
“Yes. He walked straight into the trap. I could tell he thinks Armand’s stand-in will be Gustav.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “Gustav has been a fencing instructor, and he is one of my close friends.”
“Obviously Andrew considers himself a more expert swordsman.”
“That is quite possible.”
“So he agreed to the match at once.” Kemble chuckled. “I can’t wait to see his face when he realizes that Gustav is one of your seconds. It will be a picture to enjoy!”
“The moment of his defeat will be even better,” Enid vowed.
She spent the rest of the night at Armand’s bedside, watching the nurse minister to him and doing whatever she could to assist her. Seeing his feverish twisting and tossing, and hearing his repeated moans, she voiced aloud her anxiety that the doctor might have been too optimistic in his pronouncement of Armand’s condition.
The nurse comforted her by saying, “It is always the same in these cases. The fever must run its course. The first few days and nights are the difficult ones, but I assure you he will improve afterward.”
Enid went to bed very late and slept fitfully. As a consequence, she felt little like fencing when she rose before dawn the next morning. As she kissed a sleeping Armand farewell, she could not help but wonder whether chance might not be on Andrew’s side this morning. If so, he could kill her—after all, people did die on the field of honor—and she would never see Armand again.
Susie and Jenny arrived to see to her disguise as a young man.
“Much will depend on your cloak,” Susie said. “Do not remove it until the last moment.”
“That’s right,” Jenny agreed. “You are far too shapely, and he would see through the ruse at once.”
Enid donned the mask they had brought. “I promise to be silent and to move in a mannish fashion. I also promise to cling to the cloak until the moment before the duel is to begin.”
Susie kissed her and said, “I wish we could be there, but Kemble will not allow us to go.”
“It is not proper for females to attend such events,” Enid told them. “Besides, the sight of the two of you might make Andrew overly suspicious. We dare not chance it.”
Kemble and Gustav came to pick her up and expressed their admiration at her outfit. Then they left by carriage for St. James’s Wood. This site was a favorite meeting place for duelists, since it was within the city limits but was remote enough to ensure against any outside interference.
A thin mist hung in the air, making the clearing amid the tall trees appear even more desolate. Andrew and his second were already present. When he saw that Gustav was one of her seconds and not the swordsman, he went into a frantic huddle with his man.
Sir Drake, host of the party where the incident had taken place, had been chosen to preside over the match. He discussed the details with the seconds, who then reported back to Andrew and Enid, respectively. Then a hush fell over those assembled as the moment arrived for the duel to begin. Enid discarded her cloak and sprang forward at the ready.
She could never be sure whether it was belated panic or sheer courage that made her wicked husband respond so well. He was more than a worthy adversary. And so she and the man who hated her and whom she hated with equal fury darted back and forth in the gray mist, parrying rapidly in interplay, their swords ringing out harshly in the eerie silence.
Andrew was fencing in a most aggressive manner, and Enid soon realized that if the match lasted much longer, he might very well defeat her. He had the advantage of being able to pit his masculine strength against her weaker female frame. But her advantage lay in being in better condition than he, and she had more skill as well.
She began to wonder grimly if skill was enough. He backed her up a distance, while she frantically wielded her blade to try to protect herself. He used every trick he knew to succeed in disarming her, and she feared that in the end he might just do that. Would he then be satisfied, or would he run his weapon through her slender body and drain the life out of her?
These thoughts haunted her as she battled on in silence, breathing heavily and growing more weary with every passing moment. Then, unaccountably, Andrew lost his footing on the wet grass. Just as unaccountably, she was unable to give way, and as a result she plunged forward and drove her sword through his left side.
She had not intended to strike him. She had meant only to disarm him, or perhaps to nick his arm. But Andrew lay motionless on the ground, blood spurting from the wound and turning the grass a dark red. Sir James hurried forward to attend to him. Enid stood frozen to the spot.
Gustav and Kemble ran to her side.
“It was a freak moment. You could not avoid what happened,” the actor murmured.
“I cannot look at him,” she gasped, turning her back. “Tell me, is he badly hurt?”
Kemble nodded and went to kneel by Sir James. He remained there for several minutes before he approached her again. She knew at once that the situation was grave.
“He is dying,” Kemble told her frankly. “The blade pierced his heart. He asks that he be allowed to congratulate you on your victory.”
“No!” she cried, her eyes blurred with tears.
“It is his dying wish,” Kemble pointed out.
Enid hesitated for a moment. Gustav and the actor put an arm through hers and guided her to where Andrew lay. Sir Drake was still trying to offer assistance. She knelt close to Andrew. His face was deathly pale; blood was flowing freely from the wound. The blood that could not be staunched.
Weeping, she removed her mask and sobbed, “I did not mean to harm you!”
Andrew smiled faintly. “I knew it was you … the moment you discarded the cloak. I meant to kill you … I tried to!”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she whispered.
“I have been … less than fair …” Andrew’s voice grew weaker. “Less than fair …” Then he choked on the blood rising up in his throat and closed his eyes forever.
The carriage ride back to the flat was endured in silence by Enid and her friends. She felt numb, lifeless, as if she were moving among gray shadows that were part of a nether world.
When they reached her building, Kemble eased her out of the coach and saw her to the door.
“It will be all right,” he said tenderly, kissing her on the cheek.
She was too filled with grief to reply. She merely nodded and went inside. Upstairs in the apartment she found the nurse bathing Armand’s head with cool water. His eyes were open and focused, and as she approached his bedside, they lit up from within with a black fire.
“So very beautiful!” he whispered, grasping her hand.
“You must rest, my love. Go back to sleep now.”
His grip tightened and his eyes burned into hers. “Tomorrow morning will settle it! We shall have a new life for ourselves!”
“Yes,” Enid said softly. “A new life for ourselves.”
As she bent down to brush her lips against his, the sun broke clearly through the mist and lighted the chamber. She glanced up and smiled to herself. Yes, we shall have a new life for ourselves, she thought, and it has begun this very day.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 1980 by Daniel Ross
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7287-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7287-6
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7288-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7288-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © iStock/mammuth
Clarissa Ross
Avon, Massachusetts
Chapter One
A wave of cold air brushed Della Standish’s lovely face like the breath of some phantom come to block her way. The twenty-two-year-old English beauty came to a halt in the dank, dark passage. The wavering flame of the candle she held reflected on her pale oval face and long, auburn tresses. Fear distorted her features as she peered into the shadows with her exquisite green eyes.
“Raphael!” she called out. Her frantic cry echoed in the dark depths of the catacombs. But there was no reply.
A moment ago the handsome Prince Raphael had been at her side. Now he had mysteriously vanished. She was completely alone.
She swung around and plaintively called out again, “Raphael! Please answer me!”
There was only the grim echoing of her anguished plea for help followed by the silence of the tomb. The shadows of the narrow stone-carved passage mocked her.
The charming Prince Raphael had brought her here to view the famed catacombs of Rome. They had descended from gardens filled with blood-red gladioli to the blackness of the underground passages. The Prince had warned her to keep close by him because of the danger of being lost underground. Unfortunate visitors to this eerie place had been known to slowly go mad while trying to find their way out of the maze of the dead.
Tens of thousands of bodies were buried in the narrow passageways and recesses. It was a place of eternal chill.
Though it was an August afternoon in the hot summer of 1890, no hint of the sun’s warmth touched this black cave.
It was always night in the subterranean place. It was the dark world of the dead. Used by Christians for centuries as a burial vault, the maze of passages stretched almost endlessly; to be lost here without a guide was to be doomed.
She was trembling and her eyes widened with the terror of her plight. She ran a few feet back and the candle almost went out. This brought her to a frightened halt.
“Please!” she prayed. “Please let this end!”
As if in a miraculous answer to her tautly whispered prayer, she heard, from a distance, Raphael’s slightly accented voice cry out, “Della! Where are you?”
“Here!” she cried out at once. “Here! Do come to me!” And she waited in the weird darkness with her heart pounding with fear.
She thought she heard footsteps approaching and then all at once there was the welcome sight of a candle’s glow: Prince Raphael was walking toward her with a lighted taper in his hand.
Delia ran to greet him breathlessly. “Raphael, what happened? I almost died of terror!”
He placed an arm around her and consoled her. “You managed to get too far ahead of me. I lost my way at the turn. Don’t worry! We’ll get out of here somehow!”
• • •
Della felt this bizarre adventure had begun on a bleak afternoon in late May of 1890. Sir Roger Drexel, the family solicitor, had contacted her at the great mansion in Doane Square to tell her he would make a late-afternoon call on a matter of urgency. She had thought little of it at the time, supposing that it had to do with some business document that required her signature.
She was the heir to the Standish fortune and legally the head of the family firm’s many enterprises, though in fact she had nothing to do with the day-to-day workings of them. Sir Roger looked after legal matters and a group of competent managers took care of the various businesses. Still, from time to time, her approval was required.