Page 79 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

Rob smiled nervously as Harry jogged down the stairs. It was still dark outside. The servants must be awake, but if so, they were all below stairs.

Rob opened the door. He had asked a groom he trusted to ready his curricle.

At least because Harry was constantly misbehaving, if anyone did see them, they would think it less odd.

‘Are you ready to slay the dragon?’ Harry said with a smile.

‘I am indeed.’

Rob had hardly slept, his thoughts absorbed by Caro and their child. If he was shot, it would leave her in a terrible position. But he could not leave Kilbride’s threats unanswered.

Rob climbed up and took the straps from the groom, who climbed down and made room on the seat for Harry. There was no oil lamp on the curricle but the moon was bright enough to see by.

Rob flicked the straps and set off.

‘Your goal, brother,’ Harry said, ‘is to make yourself as small a target as you can do… ’

‘I know. I shall stand as straight as I can, side on to his aim. But I have faith in myself. What he does not know is that I am the best shot in Manton’s shooting range.’

As they travelled out of London, the sky turned from a very dark blue to a lighter shade, as Harry spoke about a card game.

Rob reached the inn, and turned onto the meadows. Kilbride’s carriage was there, emblazoned with his coat of arms, shouting Rob’s folly to the world. If they were discovered, Kilbride would probably pay his way out of trouble.

Rob hoped, though, that Kilbride would be too proud or too ashamed to evade this challenge.

When Rob drew his horses to a halt, the sky had lightened to a sapphire blue.

Kilbride stood on the far side of his carriage with a groom. It looked as though he had been practising with his pistol, warming up the gun. Of course, he would not have warmed up both pistols, giving himself an advantage.

‘Here are two boys come for a game of pistols!’ Kilbride taunted.

Harry jumped down easily as Rob set the brake. He tied off the straps and climbed down less easily, but forcing his leg to look as normal in movement as he could manage.

All around them the birds broke into song in the trees at the edges of the meadow. It was a raucous sound, as hundreds of high-pitched trills became one.

The truth of the risk he was taking hit Rob as heavily as a bullet might, as Kilbride handled the pistol he had already selected.

If Kilbride had tampered with his gun, or if he was simply a good shot, Rob may die in this field.

Caro would not thank him, if she was left an unmarried mother. This was reckless.

But his pride – Rob smiled at the word – could not leave Kilbride free to make his threats. He needed to be taught a lesson, and if anyone was going to avenge Caro, he was determined it would be him.

The top of the sun peaked across the horizon and spread light across the sky from the east.

‘May I see the pistols?’ The man who had been challenged, according to the old custom, chose the weapons, but Rob had taken a set of duelling pistols from John’s library last night and they were stowed beneath his seat on the curricle in case Kilbride tried to play him false.

Rob picked the gun up from its bed of velvet. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the groom who held the box. Rob looked down the barrel, then opened the mechanism, looking for any sign that the metal had been filed to put the shot off. He handed it to Harry who checked it too.

‘May I see the other?’ He would not lose his life through lack of care.

Kilbride handed it over with a smirk. ‘You do not trust me?’

‘You beat a woman black and blue and had men attack me, so, no, I do not trust you.’

The pistol Kilbride had held was identical to the other, only warm. Rob gave it to Harry to look at too.

‘Give me powder and a bullet,’ Rob ordered the groom as Harry gave Kilbride his weapon back. ‘I wish to test that the pistol fires, and warm the gun so that we are on equal ground.’

Harry charged the pistol for Rob. Rob took it, aimed at a blade of grass and squeezed the trigger. The pistol fired with a flash and a puff of smoke and the shot was true. The bullet sliced through the thin piece of grass, as the birds took flight from trees about the meadow.

He looked at Kilbride. ‘I am happy with the pistols.’ He had only ever gambled with money once in his life, and yet now he was about to gamble with his life. Caro would be screaming at him if she knew. But this was for his sanity, as much as justice, to defend right and wrong.

Harry filled Rob’s pistol with powder, then replaced the shot, while Kilbride’s groom did the same for him.

Rob took off his hat and gloves and threw them on the ground. Kilbride did not.

‘I will kill you, boy.’

Rob said nothing.

‘I will call the steps,’ Harry said.

They walked a few paces further out into the meadow, the long grass swiping at Rob’s boots.

He would not lose. He knew what he was doing.

‘Begin back to back,’ Harry ordered.

Rob felt his greater height as they stood, preparing to begin. Kilbride’s broader frame would make him the easier target.

‘Take ten paces out,’ Harry commanded.

Rob counted out his strides as Kilbride’s groom watched him walk and Harry watched Kilbride. As Rob turned facing sideways, the sun broke fully over the horizon.

The birds’ song escalated.

Rob hoped he would be alive to see the day.

‘Lift your pistols and aim,’ Harry stated, with the confidence of a man who had done this before. He had not, Rob would swear on it, Harry would have told him if he had, but Harry had always been theatrical.

Rob stiffened his body as straight as it was possible to do. A breeze swept his hair from his brow as he raised his arm.

‘Let my man drop a handkerchief to begin the match!’ Kilbride yelled. ‘When it touches the ground, we fire.’

There was no precise way to ensure they fired at the same time; it made little difference how the duel was called. Rob nodded at Harry, who delved into his pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to the groom.

‘Prepare!’ Harry yelled.

Rob’s grip on the trigger firmed, within a hair from firing.

The groom dropped the white square of silk.

It drifted down, then boom . The shot echoed across the meadow.

Kilbride had shot early. Of course the man would cheat.

A burning whip of pain struck across the side of Rob’s head, but the shot had only scraped him.

He took aim. He could shoot the man through the heart – Kilbride had not turned well enough to guard it.

Or he could shoot him through the head and watch him fall like a wooden puppet.

Or he could shoot and let the man live and know that he had been bested by a man he called a child.

Rob lowered his aim and fired, taking a leg for a leg. Kilbride fell.

‘Ah!’ His scream of pain echoed as his shot had done. ‘You bastard, child!’

Rob walked towards Kilbride as the groom ran to help.

‘Take off his neckcloth and tie it about his leg to stem the bleeding!’ Rob called.

Kilbride was writhing on the floor, gripping his left leg, where Rob had shot through his thigh and most likely broken his bone. Certainly, that had been Rob’s intent.

‘I would not shout too much,’ Harry stated, staring down at Kilbride while the groom unravelled his neck cloth. ‘You will have everyone come running to see exactly how you were shot by a child.’

Rob knelt and took the neckcloth from the groom’s hand, before tying it about Kilbride’s thigh to stop the flow of blood.

There would be a lot more pain when the bullet was dug out, and still more as he recovered and tried to walk again.

‘If you think this is in revenge for what you did to me, it is not. It is for the harm you did to Caro. ’

The neckcloth tied, he stood to leave Kilbride and his groom to it. ‘Be damned.’ Rob turned away.

Harry followed.

‘You know you are bleeding,’ Harry stated as they climbed up into the curricle.

‘Yes. Did you pick up your handkerchief?’

Harry passed it over. ‘Give the straps to me. I will drive while you stop that bleeding.’

‘The bullet only skimmed me. It is just a nick.’ He pressed the handkerchief against his ear. Yet, if the shot had been a half an inch further over, Rob would have been dead. Kilbride had aimed to kill.

Rob leaned back, pressing the handkerchief hard against his ear.

At least if Kilbride did decide to admit his shame and call for a magistrate, Rob would have evidence that he had been fired upon too, and the position of the wound was evidence that Kilbride had attempted murder.