Chapter 24

 

“No circumstance, however trifling, which strengthens the bonds of an honorable and mutual attraction should be ignored.”—Lady Ratchett

 

The plateau atop Kingdown Hill commanded a lovely peaceful view of noble trees and rolling green hills dotted about with farmhouses and sheep. Some five miles in the distance in one direction lay the city of Bath, while the opposite side of the hill faced eastward toward Box. Along the hillside stretched a village, several of the homes quarried from the local limestone rock. The local pub perched so precariously on the slope that it was secured by chains.

The pub was not open at this early hour, as the first fingers of light inched their way across the sky, and two carriages rattled along the road to the heights, where a herd of grazing sheep were enjoying the emerging view. The carriages drew to a halt. Mr. Melchers emerged from one vehicle. Unenthusiastically, he observed the brightening sky. “This is curst uncivilized,” he said, for the second time in as many days.

From the second carriage descended the Duke of Charnwood, followed by Nigel Slyte. The duke looked murderous. This expression was due less to the earliness of the hour than to the circumstance that Mr. Slyte was engaged in reciting the twenty-seven rigid rules which governed a dueling event. It had been Mr. Melchers’ prerogative, as the challenged party, to make the choice of weapons. Since Mr. Melchers had opted for fisticuffs, the duke was consequently unable to utilize either his excellent dueling pistols or a sword. If it was not at all the thing to settle an affair of honor in such a manner, neither was Mr. Melchers the thing. The gentlemen had dispensed with the nuisance of seconds. St. Clair stripped off his coat.

Nigel drew out a flask. “Whiskey anyone? It’s damned cold out here. No? Excellent. That means more left for me. I can see that you are anxious to bludgeon one another. You will please remember Broughton’s rules. No hitting below the belt. Wrestling holds not allowed below the waist. No hitting or kicking an opponent who is down. I don’t suppose I can persuade either of you to call off the business?” Hopefully, he paused.

St. Clair and Mr. Melchers glared at one another. Nigel shrugged. Flask in hand, he chose a well-situated boulder, and sat back to watch the mill. Though Nigel was not addicted to sport himself, he had in honor of the occasion scanned Mendoza’s Art of Boxing, not that said art had stood the champion in particularly good stead when Gentleman Jackson grabbed him with one hand and beat him senseless with the other and took away his crown. Also in honor of the occasion, Mr. Slyte was dressed in funereal black.

“You’re set on this?” inquired Mr. Melchers, as he took off his own coat. “You might recall that this won’t be the first time I’ve given you your bastings, Saint.”

“Tongue-valiant, aren’t you?” inquired the duke, as he unbuttoned his shirt. “I haven’t spent the last twenty years drowning myself in dissipation. No, I will give you your bastings, and you will take a fancy to someone else’s wife and leave mine alone.”

“You are rapidly becoming a bore on that subject.” Mr. Melchers pulled off his cravat. “Your wife has a level head on her shoulders. You, however, are a chowderbrain.”

Justin yanked off his cravat and dropped it on the grass. “Gobblecock!” he snapped, and raised his fists. Mr. Slyte explained to an inquisitive ewe that this would be no rough and tumble turn-up, but a scientific application of the manly art of self-defense. Short, choppy blows delivered with the swiftness of lightning. A crushing blow to the jugular delivered with the full force of the arm shot horizontally from the shoulder. The gentlemen would stand up for a round or two until one cracked the other’s napper, after which they would all shake hands and go home.

The men circled, trading insults. The terms ‘knock-in-the-cradle,’ ‘cabbage-head,” and ‘fatwit’ were employed. St. Clair was a proper man with his fists, Nigel informed the ewe, as he took another swig of whiskey; while Melchers had a handy set of fives. In height and build and science they were excellently well-matched, although their footwork was likely to be complicated by the presence of copious amounts of sheep dung.

“Stifle it, Nigel!” snapped the duke, mid-jab. “I’m sorry I ever saved you from drowning. I should have let you fall through the ice.”

“You did let me fall out of that tree!” Nigel pointed out. “I still have the scar.”

Mr. Melchers ducked, and circled. “And I still have the scar from when you hit me with that stick.”

“I was searching for the Holy Grail. Saint was King Arthur, and you were Lancelot, and I was Sir Galahad.” Nigel waved the flask, and explained to the sheep: “Conor got the girl. Conor always got the girl. I never had a girl, which is probably a good thing, because Conor would have taken her away from me also. As it was, he locked me in the feed shed. I might have died there and been a mouldering skeleton by now if one of the grooms hadn’t set out to swive the kitchen maid.”

St. Clair swung a good roundhouse right and missed. Conor protested, “You had Gus.” Nigel shuddered, and made application to his flask. “Fighting hurts,” Conor added, as he got in a good body blow. “You don’t really want to hurt me, Saint.”

“Who says I don’t?” inquired St. Clair, as he cuffed Mr. Melchers smartly on the ear. “You’ve been taking things away from me since we were nine years old. I’m sick to death of it.”

“You always had the best of everything.” Mr. Melchers feinted with his left. “And you were never inclined to share. I find it interesting that you never made any effort to stop me taking things away from you until now. One might conclude you have a fondness for your bride.”

“Fondness or not, I intend to keep her!” snapped the duke, just as Mr. Melchers’ fist connected with his face. “Dammit, I think you broke my nose!”

“I knew I should have bet on Melchers,” said Nigel to the ewe. “Saint is bleeding like a stuck pig.”

Conor lifted his hands. “I didn’t mean to do that. It was an accident, Saint.”

“This isn’t!” said the duke, and popped Mr. Melchers in the eye. Further fisticuffs ensued. By the end of the round, St. Clair’s cork may have been drawn, but Mr. Melchers sported two black eyes and a split lip. “If I ever see you with my wife again,” Justin panted, “I won’t be satisfied with putting out your daylights. I trust I make myself clear.”

“Clear as pudding,” agreed Mr. Melchers. “You’ll carve out my gizzard and serve it up to me on a plate. Here, take this handkerchief and wipe your nose. You are horn-mad, Saint.”

The duke had been reaching for the handkerchief. Upon receiving this provocation, he smote Mr. Melchers in the jaw instead. Mr. Melchers retaliated with a body blow. “Not below the belt, remember!” called out Mr. Slyte, who had by this time imbibed a great deal of whiskey and had one arm draped around the ewe. “No, Saint, you must not kick him. The two of you resemble rustics. Yes, and smell like them!” He began to laugh.

St. Clair and Melchers paused to look at each other. As a man, they moved toward Nigel, grasped him by his arms, and tossed him into an especially large pile of dung. Nigel howled and came up swinging. The sheep paused in their chewing and moved closer to observe the three gentlemen rolling around the hilltop in a tangle of arms and legs.

Hoofbeats thudded, wooden wheels clattered. Combatants and sheep alike paused as a third carriage rattled into view. A magistrate perhaps, sent to break up the affair?

The carriage door swung open. The duchess tumbled out. “Imbeciles! Jingle-brains!” she cried. “Magda said you were going to blow each other’s brains out. Yet here you are, brangling like schoolchildren. Someone will explain before I blow out your brains myself. Get up off the ground!”

With alacrity, the gentlemen sprang to their feet, due less to the fire that shot from the duchess’s fine eyes, or the acid that dripped from her tongue, than the dueling pistol she clutched awkwardly in her right hand. Nigel cleared his throat. “Duchess? The, er, gun?”

Elizabeth pointed the pistol at him. “Stay right there, Mr. Slyte. I made Thornaby give me this gun. Yes, it is loaded and no, I don’t know how to use it, and if you do not stop this stupidity immediately I will blow all your brains out. Mr. Melchers did not take me to that gaming hell, St. Clair. Augusta and I followed Magda there. Gus was worried that Magda was in trouble. I was worried that Gus might gamble, and I knew you would not like her to. Mr. Melchers was trying to persuade me to leave before I saw you with your ladybird.”

If this was true, Justin might have cause to be grateful to Conor Melchers. He glanced at his old foe. Conor was gazing at Elizabeth with overt admiration. “Magnificent! If you don’t want her, I’ll take her myself, Saint.”

All thought of gratitude flew out of Justin’s head. “Who said I didn’t want her, you sapskull?”

Conor regarded him ironically. “She did.”

“Stop it!” Elizabeth was finding herself a tiny bit distracted by the sight of two gentlemen stripped naked to the waist. Mr. Melchers made a fine figure, even with two black eyes, while St. Clair— Well. The duke was all that was desirable, even with dirt and bits of grass stuck about his person, and blood crusted on his face. “We were talking about your ladybird, St. Clair. Don’t bother to tell me that I shouldn’t know about ladybirds. Or that I am behaving badly, or I have sunk myself below reproach. Or that you will cast me off!”

“As I said, I’ll take her,” murmured Conor. “And my intentions are entirely dishonorable. Just look at her! If your intentions are not dishonorable, you are a beef-wit, Saint.”

“Bugger off!” muttered the duke, for Conor’s ears only. He raised his voice. “Elizabeth, why do you think I would cast you off?”

Nigel had been too long silent. Furthermore, he had imbibed a great deal of whiskey and was consequently in a loquacious state of mind. “It might have something to do with the way you yanked her dress up to her chin. Oh yes, I know about it. The whole world knows about how your wife caught you in Catterick’s with your mistress, after which you sent her home and challenged Melchers to a duel, which makes no sense to me, but then I wasn’t there. Maybe if he’d yanked up her dress— But no, he’d be more likely to yank it down!”

“One more word,” snapped Justin, “and I will strangle you with your cravat. I admit I may have been a little highhanded.” Nigel tittered. “Very well, a lot! I still fail to see why Elizabeth thinks I would cast her off.”

“You cast off Magda,” Conor pointed out. “Although it was after she had run off with me.”

Elizabeth waved her pistol in his direction. “You told me you were never in love with Magda, Mr. Melchers. But you ran off with her, all the same. I don’t understand.”

Conor managed to look irresistibly wicked, even with two black eyes. “I wasn’t in love, nor was she. It was something else. Saint will explain it all to you. And if he doesn’t, I will.” Justin growled. Conor raised his hands, palms out, and stepped back a pace. “You mustn’t conclude that he had his heart broken. Saint was never more glad of anything than to have Magda taken off his hands. He refuses to admit it because he is so full of starch.”

The duke snarled. Before hostilities could resume, Nigel intervened. “I’ll tell you one thing, Duchess: Saint never tried to fight a duel over Magda,” he pointed out.

The duke did not appreciate these efforts in his behalf. “I will thank you both to be less busy about my business! Elizabeth, put down that gun.”

The duchess, who had been about to do exactly that, raised the pistol again and aimed it at her husband’s chest. “I am tired of people telling me what I must do,” she said. “I am not feeling amiable, or sensible, and I do not want to be a model of good breeding, and to the devil with propriety! You gentlemen expect that you may have your mistresses and your gaming hells and go about pounding each other and rolling about in sheep droppings and in general acting like lunatics, while I am expected to be as meek as a mushroom and ask permission even about the lowness of my neckline. It is utter idiocy, and I will not have it.” Upon so saying, she yanked open her pelisse, and ripped the bodice of her gown right open. “So there!”

The gentlemen gaped. Their expressions were unanimously bemused. Conor was the first to recover, perhaps because his experience with bared bosoms had been the most varied. “I beg you, Saint, cast her off!” he said.

St. Clair glowered, first at Mr. Melchers, and then at Nigel, and at last his wife. He’d been told she had a level head on her. Instead, she was acting like a Bedlamite. A Bedlamite with a wonderfully exposed bosom. “Cover yourself, woman. I dislike having my dirty linen washed in public. You will stop at once.”

Elizabeth’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I didn’t have dirty linen before I met you, Your Grace. I don’t have dirty linen now, you do. Everything I have done was with the best intentions. You will tell me about your mistress, please.”

He would do no such thing. “I do not have a mistress,” Justin retorted, his temper further tested by the censure in his wife’s voice.

“Yes, you do!” protested Nigel. “Tell you what it is, those blows you took to the head must have rattled your brain. Meloney, remember? Red-haired. Greedy sort of female, I always thought, but you must know what you like.”

“What I would like is to place my fingers around your neck, Nigel, and squeeze until your face turns blue. Yes, Elizabeth, I know you have a gun. If you are going to pull the trigger, I wish you would do so, so that one of us might die, and the rest of us go home. Conor, you appear about to say something. I wish you would not, but I don’t suppose that signifies.”

Conor shrugged. “I’ve seen the lady. Pretty little piece.”

“You may have her! I warn you, she’s expensive.”

Conor smiled. “So am I.”

The duke turned back to his duchess. “There. No mistress. Are we done now? Nigel will be drunk as an owl if he swallows any more whiskey. Conor and I are about to catch our death of cold. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish here today, but I trust you’re satisfied.”

Elizabeth didn’t know what she had hoped to accomplish, either, other than preventing St. Clair and Mr. Melchers from blowing each other’s brains out, which they had apparently decided not to do themselves.

Her anger faded, leaving her standing on the plateau with sheep and half-naked men standing all around her, a pistol in her hand and her gown torn open to the waist. Elizabeth dropped the pistol. It discharged as it hit the ground, startling both gentlemen and sheep.

The duke peered over the boulder behind which he had taken refuge, and was pleased to see that his bride all her parts intact. She turned her back on him and walked toward the waiting horses. “Elizabeth, where are you going? I demand to know!”

“Demand and be damned, Your Grace.” The duchess climbed into her carriage. “But I’ll tell you anyway: I am going home.”

The door slammed. The carriage rattled down the hill. Mr. Melchers appropriated Nigel’s flask, that gentleman being occupied with fending off the advances of a randy ram that had been attracted by his pungent scent.

Conor passed the flask to Justin. “I don’t know as I’ve ever seen so nice a bit of cross-and-jostle work, with a muzzler to finish it!” he said.