Bath Scandal (22 page)

Tannie looked at the letter again and left. He drove to Southam’s hotel and found him just about to leave. “I have come from Lord Horatio,” Tannie said apologetically. “About that note you wrote him, Lord Southam.”

“Let us go to my room,” Southam suggested. “This is not a matter to be discussed in public.”

Tannie followed Southam to his room. “The thing is,” the duke said, “it don’t sound much like an apology, Lord Southam, if you don’t mind my saying so. I mean to say, it’s like saying if you did anything to cause offense, you’re willing to be forgiven, which ain’t— And you did—cause offense, I mean. Twice.”

“I said that I never intended to shoot to kill.”

“That is all well and good, but Uncle is this minute in his meadow shooting the wicks off of candles. You ought to make it a little clearer that you are apologizing, if you know what I mean, Lord Southam.”

“Oh, dear,” Southam said mildly. “The not-shooting-to-kill bit didn’t do the trick. I was suggesting, not very clearly apparently, that we should both delope.”

“Then why bother having the duel at all? Why not just say you’re sorry and have done with it?”

Southam tossed up his hands helplessly.

“It is Miss Swann, ain’t it?” the duke said. “That note sounds like her notion of an apology. Mrs. Searle would not have let you write such fustian. How did Miss Swann find out about the duel?”

“This has nothing to do with Miss Swann. It is between your uncle and myself. I have apologized twice. He has not seen fit to accept my apologies.”

The duke frowned. “So you will go through with it. You don’t want to send a little clearer apology?” he asked hopefully.

“I do not grovel. You might tell your uncle, however, that I shall not shoot to kill.”

“Yes, well, when Uncle’s dander is up, there is no saying he will be so obliging. You ought not to have called him an old man.”

“He is an old man.”

Tannie shook his head. “The thing to do is for me to replace Duncan as your second. I am recovered sufficiently now.” His hope was to heal the breach before the duel, or failing that—and really Southam was being a perfect mule—he thought he might disable the dueling pistols in some manner. Pity old Runciman was mixed up in it, but Uncle must have a second. “Six-thirty tomorrow, then, on the banks of the Avon.”

“Just north of Walcot Cemetery. You’ll let me know what your uncle has to say?”

“Oh, certainly you will be hearing from me. I am your second now, Lord Southam.”

“You can find me at Mrs. Searle’s house this evening. And about my message to your uncle, Duke, I would prefer a written reply, just to insure that the message is perfectly clear.”

“Sure I can’t deliver an apology for you?” Tannie asked once more, ever hopeful.

“Tell him that I shall not shoot to kill.”

“Hardly seems worth the trip, but I’ll nip back out to Horatio’s place and have a word with him.”

Miss Swann remarked twice that evening that Southam seemed fidgety. After her second complaint, he said, “I am expecting a call from the duke this evening.”

Deborah’s thin lips parted in a smile. “Excellent! You will give our permission, of course.”

“I did not say he was coming to ask for Gillie’s hand!”

“Why else would he be calling to see you? You said you were expecting a call. We must ask Lady Sappington to dinner tomorrow.”

“You forget, Deborah, you are only a guest in Beatrice’s house.”

“She will be thrilled to have such a tonish caller.”

They both looked across the room to where Beatrice sat playing jackstraws with Gillie. Deborah had noticed that her hostess was also on the fidgets this evening. Bea had ruled against a game of whist, when they had a perfect table, with Miss Pittfield to make up the fourth. Deborah had thought Beatrice was waiting for one of her rackety beaux to call, but if that was the case, she was disappointed. No one came.

Deborah had also noticed some unsettling glances exchanged between her hostess and her fiancé. It was hard to pin down the mood in the room. Expectant, waiting, was the closest she could come to it. When the duke was announced, the Argus-eyed Miss Swann observed that Southam leapt an inch from his chair. He hardly allowed the duke to bow to Gillie, before he hustled him off to Bea’s study for their private coze.

As Gillie was now practically a duchess, Deborah went to her and began complimenting her on her skill with the jackstraws. “I can only marvel at your steady hand, when the duke is this very minute speaking to your brother,” she said. Deborah noticed that Beatrice’s hand was far from steady. One would think she were the one awaiting a proposal.

“I shouldn’t think the meeting has anything to do with me,” Gillie said offhandedly. Yet, despite her denials, she wore a triumphant smile.

“We shall soon know,” Deborah said. “Any minute now, Southam will join us and ask you to go to the duke. Let us go upstairs and tidy your hair for the great moment, Gillie.” Gillie spurned this idea.

The absence of Southam and the duke lasted for five minutes, which seemed the right interval for Southam to have made a few perfunctory inquiries about the duke’s financial state and to outline Gillie’s dowry. After that time the two gentlemen joined the ladies.

Gillie braced herself for the request to join the duke. Tannie sauntered casually to the games table and sat down to join the ladies. “By jingo, you made a botch of that straw, Gillie,” he said. “I could have done better myself, and I have my arm in a sling.”

Gillie looked surprised at this unromantic speech. “Hullo, Tannie,” she said.

“Will you not take my place, Tannie?” Beatrice offered at once.

She withdrew in Southam’s direction, with Deborah hard on her heels. It was Deborah who demanded the reason for the duke’s call. “Was it not an offer after all?” she demanded.

“No, he was merely delivering me a letter,” Southam replied.

“What letter?” she asked.

His eyes went to Beatrice. “A note from his uncle,” he said vaguely. Beatrice had to bite her lips to refrain from demanding an explanation.

Deborah noticed that look they exchanged. She felt in her bones that some impropriety was adrift in the room and meant to get to the bottom of it. “Excuse us, Beatrice,” she said, putting a hand on Southam’s elbow. “I must have a private word with my fiancé.”

They went to the study. “You must explain this mystery to me, Southam,” she said.

His eyes flew guiltily to the desk, where his open note lay, face up. Deborah followed his glance, and pounced on the note. She read it silently, and as she read, the blood drained from her face.

Lord Southam: I do not consider your note an apology but an aggravation of the original offense. If you are a gentleman, you will be at the dueling grounds at six-thirty tomorrow morning. Horatio Evendon.

“A duel?”
she asked on a high, incredulous note. “You cannot mean you are engaged in a duel with the duke’s uncle! The duke will never offer for Gillie if you wound his uncle. Southam, I forbid it!”

“That is your main concern, Deborah? Lord Horatio is a dead shot.”

“All the more reason to call it off.”

“I am flattered at your concern for my safety. I have already apologized. As you see, Evendon has not accepted. I must meet him.”

“What is this duel all about? Good God!” She stood silent a moment, staring. “This is the duel the whole town is prating about! Lord Horatio—Bournemouth.” She clenched her lips, and her breathing became rapid. “I need not inquire for the identity of the alleged lady in the case. It is Mrs. Searle, of course.”

“Beatrice is innocently involved—a misunderstanding.”

“Innocent ladies do not cause duels, Southam. I cannot allow this foolish duel to occur. You forget my position. What will the princesses say? And Papa! You know he is working on a bill to forbid dueling.”

“It is not illegal yet.”

“But it is immoral. You will destroy Gillie’s chances for winning the duke, after all my hard work.”

“Your work?” he asked ironically. “It seems to me, your major involvement in it was to send Gillie off to Mrs. Searle.”

“I have visited Lady Sappington a dozen times! You must listen to reason, Southam.”

“I did not issue the challenge. I apologized. My apology was not accepted. I must meet Lord Horatio.”

Deborah quickly scanned her options. She could see only one avenue open to her, and she knew it was a treacherous one. “If you persist in this folly, Southam, our engagement is terminated,” she announced with awful solemnity.

He was happy to see her eyes were dry. He inclined his head in a bow. “I am sorry to hear it, ma’am.”

She turned and swept from the room. The last he saw of her was her skirt whisking angrily upstairs.

Southam went to the doorway of the saloon and beckoned Beatrice into the study. “What happened?” she demanded.

“Deborah found out about the duel.”

“You surely did not tell her!”

“No, she read Horatio’s note, which I, er, accidentally left open on the table.”

“But you are not fighting! Horatio accepted your apology. What have you done to change his mind?”

He handed her Evendon’s note. “The man’s a rock. Nothing pleases him.”

She quickly scanned the note. “What does he mean by this? Your note is an aggravation of the original offenses. What on earth did you write?”

“I cannot recall the exact wording. It sounded unexceptionable to me.”

“I should have known better than to leave you to your own devices. I’ll go to Horatio this very minute.”

She turned to flee from the room. Southam grasped her wrist and turned her around. “You will do nothing of the sort, madam. I have been at considerable pains to arrange matters just as I wish.”

Angry sparks flashed from her emerald eyes. “And what is it you wish, Southam, to get yourself killed, or to kill Horatio?”

“Duels do not always end in a death. Sometimes they denote a beginning.”

“Horatio is a dead shot.”

“Tannie mentioned his shooting the wicks off candles in his meadow this afternoon,” he said musingly.

A gasp of fear issued from her throat, and her white hands went out to him. “Southam, if you have any regard for me at all, please,
please
don’t do this foolish thing.”

His hands covered over hers and squeezed as he gazed into her eyes, darkened now with fear. “If?” he asked, his voice rough.
“If?
You say
if
to me? You shatter-brained, idiotic, adorable hoyden! I would not be risking my life if I were not insanely in love with you.”

A smile trembled on her lips, and a soft sigh escaped her. “Thank you for that, Southam. I am glad you said it, before—while you are still able to.”

“Then I am not imagining that you feel the same way?”

“I thought I was concealing it rather well,” she admitted ruefully.

“Ah, but love and a cough, you know, cannot be hidden for long. Now that we have both confessed our sins...” He drew her into his arms and crushed her lips with a searing kiss. Beatrice opened herself to the luxury of that one stolen embrace, made more poignant by the sense of wrongdoing. It was a bittersweet experience. She had finally found the perfect husband, only to know she might lose him on the morrow.

When Southam finally lifted his head, his eyes looked wild and dazed. He moved his hand behind him and closed the study door, which had been left slightly ajar. “That was an excellent appetizer,” he said, smiling in anticipation.

She moved from his arms and opened the door wide. “I know what you are thinking, Rawl, and I would like it, too, but with Gillie and Miss Pittfield in the house—to say nothing of your fiancée—it would really be too farouche.”

“Oh, did I not mention it? Deborah has given me my conge.”

She read that flash of mischief in his eyes and knew she did not have the whole of the story. Southam had some scheme to avoid death. She gave a
tsk
of annoyance. “She only did it to lumber me with the job of burying your corpse.”

Southam followed her to the door. “Very likely, but I do not wish you to go to any undue trouble. A simple winding cloth will do well enough.”

She put her hand over his. “You will be careful, Rawl?”

“How can I let him kill me, when I suddenly have so much to live for?”

“Horatio won’t care a fig for your happiness. He would delope if he knew it would make me happy.”

He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “I hope you know what you are talking about, my darling. A third apology from me would surely break some rule of a gentleman’s code of honor. I cannot permit you to beg for my life. And now I must retire. I have an early date in the morning and require a long night of tossing and turning to prepare myself for it. Say good-night to the others for me.”

She took a long look at him, fearful that it would be her last. “If you let him kill you, I’ll never speak to you again, Southam,” she said, and smiled sadly.

“Of course you will. I’ll come back and haunt you. That’s a promise.”

He gave her a last quick kiss and left.

Chapter Nineteen

He didn’t say good-bye to Gillie, Beatrice thought, as she lay in bed, worrying over the duel. Surely Southam would have said good-bye to his sister if he thought he would never see her again. She felt in her bones he had some scheme to save himself, yet he had spoken of risking death. Horatio was shooting the wicks off candles in the meadow. Why practice his shooting if he meant to delope? Sleep was, of course, totally impossible. She listened to the long-case clock in the hallway downstairs chime the slow hours. One, two, three.

Southam had said an early meeting. How early would it be? Probably long before most folks were up, to avoid interruption. She wondered if the seconds had remembered to have a doctor standing by. There was plenty of time—a whole sleepless night— to visualize the scene. The gentlemen with their dark jacket collars turned up to hide their white shirtfronts, which made excellent targets. They would probably meet above Walcot Cemetery, where the last duel, three years before, had occurred. Duels were not a common event in staid, respectable Bath.