Unmasked by her Lover, page 23
Fortunately, although Harry and Garrow and Aline’s voices drifted faintly on the breeze, they did not distract Barden from his stories illustrating the closeness which existed between himself and the prince regent who, he seemed to imply, was as much behind the scandal of Connaught Place as Barden.
“You clearly have much influence,” Martha allowed, “but how are we to convince Harry and my father?”
“I am sure,” Barden said, smiling like the snake he was, “that will not pose a great problem to ladies of such persuasive characters as yourselves.”
A couple of guests stepped out onto the terrace, and Meg decided it was time to go. “Come, let us discuss matters in greater privacy.” Steeling herself, she took Barden’s arm, urging him to the steps farthest from Harry and Garrow.
He came without a murmur of protest until it became clear that Martha was accompanying them.
“You will be missed as hostess,” he observed. “And you may trust me with your sister.”
Meg’s stomach twisted with distaste. She suspected he meant to be alone with her, to compromise her either in reality or in the eyes of his fellow guests, just to make sure she married him rather than Harry. It made her feel grubby and unclean, and it was all she could do not to fling his arm from her, grab Martha’s hand, and run to Harry.
But Harry needed these moments with Garrow. She would not be afraid, for she and Martha together were more than a match for even the regent’s snake. She never doubted that her sister would stay with her.
And indeed, Martha said severely, “My other guests are quite capable of enjoying themselves without me for a quarter of an hour longer. As for trusting you, my lord, even if I did, there are many here who would not. As you know, my sister’s reputation has suffered enough.”
It silenced him, and in fact, forced him to offer his other arm to Martha. That felt better, as though he was their prisoner, doing their bidding. As, indeed, he was.
Away from the lights on the terrace and the path into the rose garden, it was rather too dark to see the other paths clearly. But Meg’s foot found the lantern and the flint exactly where they were supposed to be. She released Barden’s arm at the entrance to the wood and bent to strike the light.
As she rose, and the light played over Barden’s amused face, he said, “You appear to be quite the intriguer, my lady.”
“Oh, we like to be prepared for all eventualities,” Meg said vaguely. “Tell me, my lord, if I married you, where would we live? Are your estates not mortgaged and given over to tenants?”
“I believe your dowry would take care of such minor inconveniences,” Barden said grandly.
“Tell me about your country house. And do you have one in Town, too?”
In this way, he was kept busy boasting and persuading, and the reasons for being led deeper into the woods did not appear to trouble him.
Until, by the slow, circuitous route they had taken him, they reached the clearing, where a lantern stood at either end, and Harry, bearing another, walked out of the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Meg’s heart leapt with relief. After all, there had always been the possibility that Garrow, when cornered, would react as he had with Captain Dewar, and try to kill Harry. But he walked with only the faintest limp, and as he removed his mask and domino, her anxious gaze could find no hurt. In fact, in his uniform, he looked handsome and splendid and unusually serious.
Barden stopped in his tracks, his body going rigid with surprise. Meg and Martha dropped his arms and fell back. Harry’s gaze flickered to Meg, intense and questioning. She gave him a quick smile, and his attention returned at once to Barden.
“My Lord Barden,” Harry greeted him. “Do I catch you trying to steal my betrothed?”
“Come, Martha,” Meg said, setting down her lantern. “It’s between them, now.”
“Wait,” Barden said in alarm. “Where are you going?”
But Meg and Martha flitted back into the trees, leaving him to Harry, who said amiably. “I believe that warrants a duel. Unless we come to some arrangement.”
As one, Meg and Martha came to a halt away from the lanterns’ beams and peered through the foliage.
“I knew it,” Meg whispered in despair. “Did he not say days ago there would be no duels?” But that was before they knew the worst about Deborah and about his treachery to his country.
Martha put her finger to her lips, and Meg, terrified, could only watch. Unless she meant to run into the clearing and spoil Harry’s plan.
Barden, finding himself alone with Harry, seemed to have recovered his courage. “You had better pray we do come to that arrangement,” he uttered contemptuously, “for you must know I am accounted a fair shot.”
“Is that what Mrs. Halland tells you?”
Barden ignored that. “At Manton’s, I have shot the pips out of a playing card. I can find your heart easily enough. If I choose.”
“You are certainly a slippery, wily creature,” Harry allowed. “Before we fight, or before we decide whether or not to fight, you must tell me if I am correct.”
“About what?” Barden asked, mystified.
“Your fall and—er… rise to this moment when you aspire to the hand of a duke’s daughter. I am something of a strategist myself—a professional interest, you might say—so your plan intrigues me.”
“It should, but I have nothing to say to you on that score.”
“Then let me say it, and you may tell me if I am right.”
A smile played over Barden’s lips. Harry had read him well. And caught him.
“Go on,” Barden said.
A footstep sounded behind Meg, a swish of fabric against foliage that made her jerk around just as three figures loomed out of the darkness. Three cloaked females, who could only be Hazel, Juliet, and Deb. As one, Meg and Martha reached for them and yanked them down beside them, fingers on lips.
They were silent, but Meg was sure the men must hear them breathing.
However, they gave no sign of it. Harry leaned his head thoughtfully to one side. “I think it all began when, as a young man, you gambled away the best part of a fortune and lost the largest part to an older nobleman who came to wield some considerable political influence. It was not, perhaps, this nobleman’s finest hour, fleecing a younger, more foolish man, but there it stood, a debt of honor you had to pay.”
This sounded just sympathetic enough to elicit a complacent nod from Barden. Beside Meg, Juliet shifted uncomfortably. Everyone knew Harry meant her father, the Earl of Cosland.
“And so you were forced,” Harry continued, “to accept an ill-paid place with a demanding prince, that only just kept you from destitution. I imagine you tried many little schemes over the years to supplement your income, but I shall come back to those. I’m sure they earned you little enough in any case. And then, this greater enterprise came to you. I imagine that began with the realization that there was a way to force this nobleman who won your fortune to return it. For this nobleman’s daughter was placed with the Princess of Wales, and with Her Highness’s plans to travel, you saw your way to ruin this young lady, and then to rehabilitate her through marriage to you.”
“I had no grudge against her,” Barden said with dignity. “But her father had to pay back what he took.”
Harry nodded as though he understood that. “But your plan expanded, for you realized it could pay other debts, clear other worries. You found out all you could and set everything in motion for the day Her Highness left the country. You intercepted one letter canceling a lady’s duty with the princess and wrote others summoning ladies who were not needed either. Taking rather clever advantage, I have to say, of the young ladies’ well-known desire to travel abroad with the princess.”
Barden smiled at that point. He might have been preening.
Harry continued, “You brought all four young ladies to the house before they could discover Her Highness was already gone and had all the scaff and raff and rakes of London there waiting. The newspaper story was already printed before they arrived and thrust in front of their family’s and friends’ eyes even before they reached home the following morning. You were, I think, meticulous?”
“I was,” Barden agreed, taking a mocking bow.
“But your newspaper report neglected to mention the young ladies had shut themselves away together all night, well away from the scandalous events taking place below.”
Barden shrugged. “Such information did not suit my purpose and was, in any case, quite trivial compared to the fact that they were under the same roof.”
“And so you began with the supposedly friendless young lady who had once rejected your—ah… dishonorable advances.”
“She was a nobody,” Barden said with a contemptuous wave of the hand.
Meg clutched someone’s hand. She hoped it was Hazel’s.
Harry walked around Barden, talking continuously. “A nobody, I suspect, you wished to take with you when you visited this nobleman to demand his daughter’s hand and his fortune in return for recanting the newspaper story of the scandal.”
“It seemed a fitting detail,” Barden smirked. “And it is nothing to you.”
Harry came to a halt and smiled faintly. “You think not? At any rate, I believe your plan was to secure this nobody as your mistress, since she was already ruined and friendless, and flaunt her in the face of your noble enemy as you secured his cooperation. A further humiliation of the enemy you blamed most for your misfortune. Unfortunately, both young ladies thwarted your plans.”
“You then meant to move to the third of Her Highness’s ladies and clear up the small problem that she had seen you cheat at cards. To explain that if she could just forget the incident, she, too, would be rehabilitated in the newspaper. However, by the time you had found her, she was a wealthy woman, married to a member of Parliament, and you took the opportunity for a little more extortion.”
For the first time, Barden began to look uncomfortable, for Harry’s tone had changed from half-admiring to contemptuous. After all, what he had done to Deb—before witnesses—was unforgivable by anyone, including the law.
“It was I who suffered from that encounter,” Barden claimed in a rather high voice.
“And yet it was she who took a bullet,” Harry retorted. “So you came here to Calvert Court for your last throw of the dice which somehow had always turned against you, even in your grand plan. I’m sure your original aim was only to persuade His Grace to forgive his loan to you. Just so you could begin your new wealthy life unencumbered. But the lady originally destined to be your wife had eluded you and married another. Lady Meg was to be promoted to Lady Barden to save her reputation from the scandal of your making.”
Harry laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Do you know, I almost admire your courage in approaching His Grace with such a proposition? If it wasn’t for the fact that Lady Meg is betrothed to me. And I take her honor very, very seriously.”
And Barden inevitably saw the way out. “Then you will not wish to drag her name through the mud by fighting a duel over her!”
“There is that,” Harry agreed.
“And there is the fact,” said another voice entirely, sending Barden spinning to face it, “that Captain de Vere is still recovering from his wounds. And that I believe I have the right to challenge you first.”
Hazel’s breath hitched audibly at his first word, but she did not move.
Sir Joseph Sayle was always an imposing figure, but in that moment, walking into the light, he was terrifying, for his amiable smile was completely absent. He looked dangerously angry. “I expelled you from Brightoaks because it suited me at the time, not because the matter was closed.”
And he was not alone. Daniel Stewart stood beside him with the huge dog, the sight of which propelled Barden backward. It barked loudly and suddenly. And Juliet let out a hiss that was half laughter, half terror. What if the dog smelled her and gave away their presence?
“How did he make it stay silent all that while?” Martha whispered.
“I have no idea,” Juliet whispered shakily.
“Speaking personally,” Daniel said with contempt. “I am more than happy to let my dog kill him.”
“You can’t!” Barden screamed. “Don’t let that beast near me. You cannot allow such barbarity!”
“Exactly what barbarity,” Christopher Halland wondered from Daniel’s other side, “do you imagine I would not allow against the man who shot my wife?”
In horror, Barden looked from one to the other of the men whose wives he had wronged and swung desperately back to Harry.
“You had better choose,” Harry said carelessly.
And Barden did what Harry had expected. He chose the wounded man to fight, leaping forward and saying clearly. “I challenge you, Captain de Vere! We fight at dawn!”
Fear pierced Meg’s heart. She almost ran out to stop it, except the others, sensing the impulse, caught her arms and shoulders and held her down.
“This is the part we are really not meant to see,” Martha hissed. “Have faith in him and come back to the house.”
“I can’t,” Meg whispered, settling back on her haunches, unable to leave. None of the other women moved either.
We fight at dawn! Barden was about to stalk off, even reaching for the lantern Meg had brought, when Harry’s amused voice stayed him.
“But you challenged me,” he said, and Meg understood they had deliberately engineered it that way. “I, therefore, have the right to choose time, place, and weapons. And I can’t have you slipping away in the night as you have done so often before. So, I choose now, here, and swords.”
“Swords?” Barden repeated wildly, for it was no longer remotely fashionable to fight duels with swords. “Here and now? I do not agree!”
“Can he disagree?” Harry asked of the world in general.
A chorus of “No,” came from Sir Joseph, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Halland. But more than that, a succession of lights winked into being on the other side of the clearing, lighting it up like a theater and revealing a surrounding collection of gentlemen all shaking their heads and echoing the same “No.”
Barden’s mouth dropped. He even rubbed his eyes as though afraid he was seeing things. Or afraid he was not. And no wonder. Johnny, Robert Staunton, and Calvert were among the revealed watchers, who also included Mr. Sanhurst, the vicar, Mr. Wrexham, and several of the younger men from London. They all had glasses and bottles and had made themselves comfortable against trees and on top of broad branches and a large, cut trunk.
Meg, speechless, exchanged glances with the other women. Oh yes, there was much they had not been told.
“Who has the book?” Johnny asked cheerfully. “A pony on de Vere!”
“Money where your mouth is, Fish,” said another young man, holding out his hand.
“You’ve set me up!” Barden exclaimed in a kind of stunned fury.
“As you did to four entirely innocent young ladies,” Harry said. “It seemed fitting. And since the truth is out, you have nothing more to lose. Stand and fight. The swords, Calvert, if you please.”
“Cheer up, Barden,” Calvert said, opening a long, rectangular box containing two old-fashioned dueling swords with ornate hilts. “With swords, he might not kill you.”
“This is illegal!” Barden declared in panic. “We have no seconds, no physician—”
“I’ll act for you, Harry,” Johnny said. “Pick someone, Barden.”
“I’ll do it if it will speed things up,” said Mr. Wrexham unexpectedly. He and Johnny took up the swords, solemnly tested them, measured them against each other, and checked their points before presenting the weapons to their principals.
“First blood?” asked Mr. Wrexham.
“Oh, I’m not sure that will fit the crime,” Johnny said savagely. “Until surrender. Or death.”
“Stand back,” Harry said impatiently. He had removed his coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, testing the weight and swing of his sword.
Barden removed his coat and waistcoat more slowly. He must have known that win or lose this fight, he was ruined now. He had admitted his guilt before witnesses. His only hope was to survive the fight and flee the country.
But he did not handle his sword like a novice. It was more than likely he had trained in fencing in his youth and had probably kept practicing his skill since then.
“What if he hurts Harry?” Meg whispered in horror. “His wounds are not yet completely healed. What if he kills him?”
“You know he won’t.”
She suspected it was an argument all the men concerned had joined in, out of earshot of their womenfolk. Sir Joseph, Dan, and Christopher Halland must all have vied with Harry for the privilege of the duel. But Harry had won.
“They all have the right,” he snapped to Barden, indicating the three men. “And I’m sure they all have skill. But I am a soldier. I’m used to killing. And I’m used to fighting for my living, and for my life. Are you?”
Her heart in her mouth, Meg could only hope it was enough, for as the swords clashed together with enough force to send sparks flying into the darkness, she realized Barden, too, was fighting for his life. And he had fury to lend him strength.
The fight was vicious from the beginning as the men drove each other from one side of the clearing to another, carefully watched by Johnny and Mr. Wrexham, who frequently had to bolt out of the way. It seemed there were no holds barred, for Barden kicked Harry’s feet from under him, and he fell heavily on his injured hip.
Meg winced in horror, but Harry didn’t appear to notice. He rolled speedily from the path of Barden’s hacking sword and jumped to his feet, driving Barden back once more. From then on, Harry fought as he must have in war, with elbows and feet and fists, as well as weapons. Barden made the best use he could of Harry’s weaknesses, attacking his hip and cutting him over his mangled ear, which bled profusely.
But after the opening sorties, when Meg recognized in Harry a certain grim delight in fighting, she sensed he only wanted to finish it. Accordingly, he drove Barden back and back, dodging increasingly wild swings and lunges until he slashed Barden’s blade from his hand and thrust his own deep into Barden’s shoulder.
