Page 19 of The Poet’s Stern Critic (One Night in Blackhaven #5)

S ince the tide was far enough out, Cornelius and Aubrey rode along the beach from Black Hill to Braithwaite Cove, which was the traditional meeting place for duelists.

Neither of them spoke. Up until now, Aubrey had not appeared to take the matter remotely seriously, as though it were a huge joke that his staid brother should indulge in such a dashing pastime as dueling. But now he was frowning and casting Cornelius worried glances.

At last, as the cove was in sight, lanterns swinging in the distance, Aubrey said abruptly, “You’re really going to do this, then?”

“If I have to. I don’t particularly want to make an idiot of myself dancing around the sand waving a sword at a man I respect, but needs must.”

“Who are you?” Aubrey demanded. “And what have you done with my brother Cornelius? I suppose you are, secretly, an expert swordsman, just pretending to be a steward of the land?”

“No, I’m an expert steward of the land pretending to be a swordsman. Watch Atherstone. If he’s involved, he is up to something. I just don’t see what he achieves by this.”

“Being rid of a rival for Lady Alice’s affections?” Aubrey said innocently.

“Then why did he agree so easily to swords and first blood? This is unlikely to kill either of us except by accident.”

Morgan and Atherstone stood on the beach, stony-faced. Above them, on the road, stood a carriage. The castle glowered down at them in the slowly lightening sky. Inside, Alice would be asleep. Cornelius wondered how she would look, her hair strewn across the pillow, tumbled about her beautiful face, untroubled in slumber… God, he longed to make love to her.

He blinked himself back to reality and dismounted. Aubrey untied the long case from his saddle and, with a last scowl at Cornelius, went forward to meet the duke. As they opened the case, Dr. Lampton slid down the path from the road and stalked angrily toward them.

“I have deserving patients to see. How long is this idiocy going to hold me up?”

Atherstone gazed down his haughty nose at the doctor, who didn’t look remotely impressed.

“I see you plan to stab each other rather than blow each other’s brains out. If you had any. I suppose I should be grateful.”

Cornelius, who had been ignoring Morgan as he should, cast him an involuntary glance at the doctor’s words. Just for an instant, there was a shared amusement between them, then Morgan looked away.

Atherstone was making a great fuss about inspecting the rapiers, comparing their lengths and whooshing them audibly through the air.

“Where the devil did you find them?” he asked Aubrey.

“In the attic. They were my grandfather’s. He was a most dashing blade, by all accounts.”

“You’ll forgive me if I say they give your principal something of an advantage over mine?”

“I doubt it. If we ever played with them, it was as children. But if you have another pair with you, we will happily consider them.”

Atherstone returned to examining the weapons, testing their points.

He’s wasting time, Cornelius thought uneasily. Why is he wasting time?

The silence stretched, broken only by the rush of the sea and the plaintive cries of seagulls. Cornelius breathed in, observing the sand and the rocks as though he had never seen them before, breathing in the salty tang of the sea. In the distance, he could hear the clip-clop of horses. Then that stopped too.

Atherstone swiped the swords through the air once more. Morgan was scowling at him, clearly as impatient as everyone else. It was about to rain.

Above, the rumbling of wheels and horses’ hooves was borne on the wind.

Atherstone set the swords back in their box. “Let us begin.”

*

“My lady,” whispered a voice, rousing Alice from her troubled sleep. “My lady!”

“What?” Alice blinked into the light of a candle, grasped in the hands of her maid. The pale light of dawn penetrated the window, for in summer she preferred to sleep with the shutters and the curtains open. “What’s the time?”

“Early.” Her maid Fenton’s eyes were shining with pleasure. “A note was delivered for you, my lady. Urgently. A gentleman bade Letty the kitchen maid see that you got it at once. A matter of life and death, so he said.”

Alice sat up, taking the folded letter from her maid. Fenton lit the lamp, waiting with great excitement.

A gentleman is injured and needs your help urgently. Speed and silence are of the essence. He awaits you beyond the gates. Please hurry before it is too late.

So this was it. The summons beyond the castle walls that Mr. Jones had warned her about. She was expecting it and didn’t believe a word of it. And yet her heart leapt with fear, just in case it was true.

To Fenton’s clear disappointment, she re-folded the letter, keeping it in her hold as she thrust back the covers and jumped out of bed. She didn’t know what she expected to see from her window, which looked out onto the sea, nor toward either of the roads that led to the castle gates.

And yet she was rewarded by the sight of a long, thin figure clambering over the rocks just beneath the castle in the direction of the path down to the beach. Serena had held a waltzing party down there once and danced most romantically with Tamar—until Mama and Gervaise had come home unexpectedly.

Alice smiled at the memory. Gervaise had eventually come around to Serena marrying the feckless, penniless marquis. She wondered how long it would take him to appreciate a hardworking steward.

Mr. Jones, if it was indeed him, paused just beside the path, crouching down and peering toward the beach. Poor Mr. Jones, forced into obeying the letter of Atherstone’s instructions and fighting his rear-guard action against the spirit. What was he waiting for now?

Alice lifted the window sash and leaned out to see the beach properly. In the dull almost-daylight, figures were moving on the sand while others stood to the side. Something gleamed between the shifting, almost dancing men below. Swords?

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

“ Remember I love you, ” he had said yesterday outside the church. “ Only you. ”

Even at the time it had sounded oddly like a farewell, like something she should remember if ever…

Dear God, was he fighting a duel over her? Over someone else?

She spun around. “Clothes, Fenton!” she cried. “Now!”

*

The carriage that arrived at the castle gates did not appear to be in a hurry. The horses merely walked. The coachman, his hat pulled down over his eyes, halted them silently with a tug of the reins. He did not turn them. Obviously he did not mean to drive back to the town but to carry on along the road across country beyond the Solway Firth, where he could more easily cross into Scotland.

Oh yes, Lady Alice would have been in deep trouble.

From her hiding place behind the tree, Cecily saw the curtain at the coach window twitch. She looked toward the castle, but although a fellow had come out of the lodge five minutes ago to unlock the gates, no one was now in sight. No sign of Lady Alice, either.

Cecily sighed. She would have quite liked Alice to know who it was that saved her, but the important thing was to do so, and that little rat Daubin deserved to be scolded to within an inch of his life. Cecily, living on her nerves for the last several days, was just the lady to do it.

Straightening her hat and her veil, she stepped delicately around the tree and onto the road, marching fearlessly up to the carriage, quite ready to verbally blister its occupant.

The door opened, and Darcy Daubin stepped down, resplendent in pale blue coat and a yellow striped waistcoat. His cravat was of a paler yellow, and there was lace at his cuffs. He was dazzling in a laughable kind of way, but Cecily was not deterred.

“Quick,” he said urgently. “He needs you.”

Cecily gasped and froze, blood ringing in her ears. Somehow, it was Jack in the carriage! Injured in the silly duel! How could Cornelius have done such a thing?

She almost charged the carriage, snatching Daubin’s hand and leaping inside.

She had barely registered that the inside was empty before Daubin jumped up behind her and slammed the door. As the carriage lurched into motion, she fell onto the bench, and Daubin landed beside her.

“Lady Alice,” he purred. “What an extraordinary pleasure.”

*

On the beach, Cornelius and Morgan saluted each other with their swords and sprang into defensive posture, swords crossing but not touching. Neither were expert fencers. No doubt Morgan had learned the basics at school, as had Cornelius.

“Since we can finally speak to each other,” Cornelius said, “I did not insult her, nor touch her except with innocent friendship.”

Morgan’s blade lashed out, but Cornelius held firm.

“Then why are you here?” Morgan demanded between his teeth. He lunged.

Cornelius parried. “Because you made it impossible not to be.”

Morgan drove forward, and their blades clashed together several times. “Even now you are proclaiming innocence? Why? So that I don’t banish her? So that you can get at her again another day?”

“I don’t want at her at all,” Cornelius snapped, breaking away and circling. “And more to the point, she doesn’t want me. That was clear enough two years ago, when, yes, if I’d had a choice, I might just have fought you for her hand. I would have done anything for her, even hurt you, whom I regarded as my friend as well as my employer.”

Morgan lunged low, and Cornelius crashed his blade downward into the other blade, twisting in an unskilled effort to disarm his opponent. He leapt backward when it didn’t work, but at least he wasn’t punctured.

“I know you wanted her then,” Morgan panted. “I even felt sorry for you.”

“To be honest, I felt pretty sorry for myself.”

“So you thought you would try again? With less honorable intentions?” Furiously, Morgan drove him back further.

“I have no intentions whatsoever toward your wife. My heart is with someone else entirely.”

“Liar!” yelled Morgan, lunging once more. Cornelius only just managed to shove up his sword in time. “I saw you at the ball, teasing and laughing, gazing at her like a great, lovesick puppy!”

“Well, that should have told you something,” Cornelius retorted. “Have I ever worn my heart on my sleeve? Be honest with yourself, Morgan. Were you not taking her for granted, leaving her with your—forgive me—dragon of a mother while you pursued your own interests? Cecily needs devotion, attention, and she wasn’t getting it from you. She thought you had a mistress, and so she asked me to flirt with her to make you jealous. Apparently it succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.”

For the first time, it was Cornelius driving Morgan back, though only because of a rock behind him that he had almost stumbled on, and the surging approach of the tide at his back. Cornelius could have pinked him several times over, but he contented himself with the schoolboy clash of blade on blade without much real purpose.

“You’re lying,” Morgan snarled.

“Why would I? Lady Alice was in on the plot, too, as were my youngest brother and sister. Cecily loves you, you dolt. Though you don’t deserve it. See?”

Dropping his sword to point downward, Cornelius brought up his left arm at the same time. Morgan, lunging furiously, could not draw back in time, and drove the point of his sword into Cornelius’s arm.

Blood ran out immediately, and Aubrey shouted, “Blood! Put down your swords! Honor is satisfied.”

For a moment, Morgan looked furious enough to run Cornelius straight through. But his face was white and the sword dropped from his nerveless fingers. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

“Yes, a bit. You drew blood. I let you, but not because I am guilty. Can we stop this now and go and get drunk? Or even just have breakfast?”

Morgan’s breath caught. He stared at Cornelius an instant longer, and then he laughed. “Damn it, Vale!”

Aubrey, relieved, was picking up the dropped swords.

Dr. Lampton stalked toward them. “Sit,” he commanded Cornelius, who eased his hip against the nearest rock and watched the doctor open his case, take out a sponge, and wipe off the blood a little too vigorously before tying on a short bandage. “Don’t do it again. And if you do, don’t call me. Good morning.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Cornelius called after him.

Lampton swung his bag by way of response but didn’t look back.

“Breakfast?” Morgan said.

“Breakfast,” Cornelius agreed.

“Shall we repair to the hotel?” Atherstone suggested. “I, for one, intend to go back to sleep. May I offer you gentlemen a seat in my carriage?”

“Thank you, but we have the horses,” Aubrey replied.

Cornelius could not trust himself to speak. If the sword had still been in his hand, he might well have lashed out at Atherstone, for what he had done to Alice. To preserve her good name, he could not, but he certainly would not eat with the swine.

Morgan thanked the duke civilly for his service, while Cornelius shrugged back into his coat. He and Aubrey collected their horses and led them across the sand toward the town, while the duke sauntered up the path that led to the road and his carriage. It struck Cornelius that His Grace moved like a very fit man and would have been a much more dangerous opponent than Morgan.

*

The carriage rattled along the road from the castle, moving so fast that it lurched from side to side. For the first few minutes of her journey, Cecily was fully occupied in hanging on to the strap beside her so that she wasn’t thrown onto the floor or hurled against either the window or her companion.

Once they were around the bend and, no doubt, far enough away for carriage and horses not to be recognized by any watchers from the castle, the driver slowed his horses enough to allow the passengers some dignity.

Through her veil, Cecily regarded the dazzling Daubin.

“Pray tell,” she said frostily, “where you imagine you are taking me?”

Daubin smiled, his expression fond rather than threatening. “To your wedding, my lady. Rejoice.”

“You really are a fool, are you not?” she said, and his carefully groomed eyebrows flew up.

“There is no need to be offensive,” he said.

“On the contrary, there is every need. Do you imagine you can just abduct a lady without repercussions? I could see you hang for this! At this moment, I might even enjoy it. Either way, you are ruined, Mr. Daubin, and will be received nowhere.” With that, she drew herself up from the seat with the aid of the strap and knocked sharply on the roof.

Daubin laughed and sat back against the squabs as though about to enjoy a stage performance.

“Alas, that will do you no good. Unless I command them, they will not stop before the Scottish border.”

“Then command them,” Cecily snapped, uneasy at last, for she did not want to give Jack more reason to doubt her.

Daubin ignored that. “As for charges of abduction—please, my dear. Before the coachman and any other lurking witnesses, you walked willingly, even eagerly, into my carriage.”

“Because you lied to me!”

“I did,” Daubin said complacently. “Be assured it is the last lie I shall tell you. I will be a most devoted and attentive husband, and I dare to prophesy you will be a delightfully adoring wife.”

“Under no circumstance will you and I ever become husband and wife.”

She spoke with such certainty, such contempt, that the smile still lurking on Daubin’s lips froze, and he stared at her, seeming to notice for the first time that she was veiled. At long last, suspicion sparked in his fast-blinking eyes.

Cecily tilted her chin and, under his horrified gaze, unhurriedly lifted her veil.

“Lady Morgan,” she drawled. “You see your problem, sir? Also, my husband will kill you. He is quite experienced by now in dueling.” She leaned forward. “Now, turn the carriage around and take me back to Blackhaven, you nasty, stupid little toad.”

He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish’s. Cecily felt somewhat triumphant, even powerful—until an ugly look began to spread over his face and his cold, cold eyes, and she realized that she was actually alone with a strong, angry man. She could expect no help from the coachman, either.

Then, from nowhere, a much larger equipage swept past, easily overtaking Daubin’s already-speeding carriage. The passing carriage was splendid, with a crest on the side, and drawn by four beautifully matched horses. Its coachman’s attention was clearly engaged with his team and the road ahead, but the two passengers were staring straight across at Cecily.

She waved wildly, battered her hands on the glass, shouting, “Help, help!” Not that they would hear her, but surely they would read her lips and her desperation…

Daubin began to laugh, a high-pitched, not remotely fearful sound. The larger carriage had already swept by before, with sudden crashing fright, she realized who it was she had seen.

The Duke of Atherstone.

Dear God, there would be no help from him either…

Worse, their own carriage slowed, then halted so abruptly that she was thrown back against the squabs, while the horses screamed in protest. Men’s voices outside the carriage told her that the duke had, against all the odds, caused the halt.

Come to gloat, no doubt…

Quick as a flash, Cecily yanked the veil back down over her face, just in time before the carriage door opened and the duke stood there in all his understated aristocratic hauteur.

“Your Grace,” said Daubin, sounding aggrieved, as though it was someone else’s fault he had abducted the wrong woman. Cecily could not imagine why the duke would care.

“Perhaps I may be of assistance, ma’am?” the duke inquired. “You seem uncomfortable in your present surroundings.”

She nodded mutely, trembling with genuine fear. If she could just persuade him to take her to the next inn… After all, whatever His Grace’s grudge, it was clearly against Lady Alice, not her.

The duke kicked down the carriage steps and held out his hand. “Come,” he said, and lashed Daubin with his mocking gaze. “As for you, you contemptible scoundrel, I shall deal with you later.”

“What?” Daubin said blankly.

Cecily placed her shaking hand in the duke’s and stepped down onto the road. With great courtesy, he conducted her along the few yards of road to his own splendid carriage.

He paused to speak to his coachman. “Stop at the inn while we decide how best to help her ladyship.”

The coachman touched his whip to his hat, and the duke handed Cecily up into the carriage, where another, miserable-looking man awaited, his back to the horses. His eyes were both alarmed and curiously…thwarted.

As she sat down, Daubin ran into the road, spluttering, “My lord duke, I do not understand! What…”

“Jones,” Atherstone said in a bored voice, and obligingly the other gentleman rapped on the roof with the hilt of his cane. The carriage moved forward, causing Daubin to leap out of the way. His beautiful boots and immaculate pantaloons were splashed with mud.

“What a commoner the man is,” His Grace said with distaste. “How fortunate that I was able to rescue you from such a scoundrel.” He touched her hand, very lightly, leaning forward, his expression one of concern. How could this be the man who had encouraged Daubin to elope with Lady Alice? “You have been in a most unfortunate situation, and we must decide between us what it is best to do next.”

“Sir, I am most grateful for your timely intervention,” Cecily said nervously. “May I further count on your help to return to Blackhaven?”

The duke narrowed his eyes at once, gazing into her veil.

There was a certain distraction in his voice as he said, “If you decide that is the best way forward.”

Without warning, he swept the veil back over her hat. She made an involuntary grab for it, but was too late. Defiantly, she dropped her hand into her lap and stared at him.

“Who the devil are you?” he demanded. “And where is Lady Alice?”