Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) (39 page)

“No!” gasped the long-faced lady.
 

Tempted to strike the round eyes off their faces, Alistair dabbed his mouth instead. “It’s a nuisance, but it seems I must remind Morris to be careful of the way he behaves to my wife. But enough of that. Dawlish, you’re late of London. How does my cousin Jasper?”
 

He didn’t plan to wait out the dancing. Tonight’s cross and jostle work was nearly done.
 

“Ask Morris to come speak with me,” he said to Cyril after dinner. “Do it kindly. If he demurs, tell him I would cross the room, but my leg pains me.”
 

Cyril gave a silent whistle, but he went. He returned a moment later, bringing Morris.
 

“And your friends!” Alistair exclaimed as he approached. “Really, this is most convenient.”
 

“Is it?” said Morris, his lip surly.
 

“Indeed. I should like them to hear your apology.” Alistair shifted on his crutches. After leaning on them for hours, his arms hurt. It was important in the next few days to take good care of them.
 

“I won’t apologize to you, Beaumaris,” spat Morris. “Where’s Henry? You’ve no right to him.”
 

“Gently, my friend. You’re making a scene. Dueling isn’t illegal here, but Wellington doesn’t like it.” Which didn’t stop affairs of honor. Over the years Alistair had heard any number of cock and bull stories about ‘shooting accidents.’
 

“Are you challenging me?”
 

“Yes, if you don’t see your way to an apology. I’m not going to stomach insults to my wife.”
 

Morris swore, twisting his head when a flock of ladies moved further away.
 

“Was that necessary?” Alistair asked.
 

“I’ll tell you what’s necessary! Give me back my nephew. And keep an eye on that jade of yours. If she didn’t let half the county into her bed, it wasn’t for lack of try—”
 

Alistair leaned closer, laying a hand on Morris’s shoulder. He squeezed. Hard.
 

“My dear friend,” he whispered. “I advise you to be careful. And to unsay those words. If not for your own sake, you should think of Henry.”
 

Morris tried to shrug off Alistair’s hand.
 

“We are in company,” Alistair warned him. “It is advisable for others to think we both know how to behave. Do you accept my challenge?”
 

“Yes, and I wish you well of it!” Morris said, red-faced.
 

“Then I wish you good evening. Cyril, you will do me the favor of meeting Morris’s friends tomorrow, won’t you?”
 

“I’ll walk you home,” Cyril said.
 

Once they were outside, the headiness of the challenge evaporating into the deep sky, Cyril allowed himself to swear long and fluently. “You can’t mean it. It’s impossible. I’ll fix things with Morris’s seconds tomorrow. Of course you couldn’t ignore such provocation—”
 

“Morris won’t relent,” Alistair interrupted. “He wouldn’t meet me before. Now he thinks he has a chance. He wants me dead because I’m a trouble to him, but with my leg gone he can’t issue a challenge himself.”
 

“I should dashed well think so! How do you propose to meet him? With one leg!”
 

“It only takes one hand to fire a gun. I can sit on a chair—or if Morris is unwilling to agree to that, I can have a crutch under my left shoulder.”
 

“I’m not letting him put a hole in you! Is life so cheap, that you’d fling it away?”
 

Alistair stopped, then swung himself forward again. “I’ve risked my life any number of times the last ten years. Made a career of it. You never got exercised over it before.”
 

“War’s different,” Cyril countered.
 

“However it comes, I expect death is the same.”
 

“You were close enough recently to have some idea,” Cyril said. He kicked a loose stone, sending it skidding across the narrow street. “I’ll be your proxy,” he muttered.
 

This time Alistair halted so abruptly he nearly flew off his crutches. “You can’t shoot,” he said, steadying himself.
 

“I don’t expect Morris is very good either,” Cyril said.
 

“You mean it?” Alistair asked, still stunned.
 

“I do,” Cyril said.
 

“It’s good of you. I never expected—” Alistair shifted on his crutches. “It’s a princely offer, Cyril, but I can’t accept. Promise me this—act as my second. And look after Anna if Morris snuffs me. Don’t let him take Henry.” This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t threatened Frederick in the first place, back in London.
 

They walked up to the house. A chink of light escaping through the shutters fell on Cyril’s pained face. “Let me,” he begged. “I’m expendable.”
 

Alistair pulled his hand away from the latch. “You are not.” He met his brother’s eyes. Temporized. “All right, you can be something of a trial, but you don’t need to be. Besides, I’m a better shot. I’ll win. Just please don’t say anything to Anna.”
 

Waiting was difficult at the best of times. Tonight it was impossible. When she finally heard the scraping latch, Anna flew to the door.
 

“What happened?” she asked, taking Alistair’s hands as if she could pull answers out of them.
 

“I’ve spoken to Morris. I’ve taken care of it.”
 

“Thank God.” Anna sagged into herself, limp and drained.
 

“Are you cold?” Alistair asked.

“No.” Numb perhaps, but not from cold.
 

“Then why the cloak?”
 

Anna followed his gaze to the lantern waiting on the table, the undisturbed bed. “Anna,” he began carefully. “Were you going to walk all the way home from Freineda?”
 

“Not alone. I didn’t know what else to do,” she admitted. “You were such a long time and I was so afraid.” She was dreadful at coping with uncertainty, a victim of relentless imagining that smothered her until she could think of nothing but rushing to her child.
 

Alistair hauled himself across the floor and sank onto the bed, propping his crutches against the wall. He looked tired as a rained out parade. “I don’t like to stand in your way, but I can’t manage a fifteen-mile walk in the dark.”
 

Anna flinched. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry.” She moved to his side, contrite yet still needing reassurance. “You’re sure Henry’s all right?”
 

“He is. And we can leave first thing in the morning.”
 

Anna nodded, ducking her chin, but Alistair wouldn’t let her hide. He nudged up her chin and studied her face with probing eyes. “As long as I live I’ll keep you both safe.”
 

Primed for tears already, she was too worn to hold them back. Alistair pulled her into his shoulder, letting them soak into his coat. “There now,” he said, in the first decent pause. “Let’s get some rest. You’re so ghastly pale you’ll frighten Henry.”
 

Anna laughed shakily as Alistair worked on the fastenings of her cloak. He got her out of her dress, but her fingers were too clumsy to return the favor.
 

“I can manage,” he said, smiling into her bleary eyes. “Go to sleep.”

Despite Alistair’s reassurances, it was a relief to get home and to lay her eyes on Henry, who greeted them with a quick smile and a torrent of questions. Did they get any pudding? See many generals? Was Napoleon there?
 

Griggs murmured that luncheon was waiting.
 

“I want to go outside,” Henry said.
 

“We can go walking after we eat,” Anna replied, momentarily forgetting her resolution to barricade Henry in the house. “Papa and I are hungry.” Cyril was pale and fidgety, which probably meant he needed a drink.
 

He downed three, shifting in his seat and staring at his brother.
 

“What’s the matter?” she asked, glancing between them.
 

“Nothing,” Cyril said.
 

“Griggs makes better soup than this. Out of shoe leather even,” Alistair said, pushing away his bowl.
 

Henry’s head jerked up.
 

“Finish your potatoes,” Anna told him.
 

“I want to know what’s the matter too,” Henry said.
 

Alistair buttered another slice of bread. “I’m afraid we saw your Uncle Frederick last night.”
 

“Is he the matter?” Henry’s voice seemed to fade.
 

“No, darling,” said Anna.
 

“Yes,” Alistair said at the same time. “He has terrible manners. Don’t you grow up like that.”
 

“Yes, sir,” said Henry, his anxious creases gone. Anna was not not so easily appeased.
 

“Will Frederick mention the matter to your commanders?” she asked tentatively. Cyril was jumpy, which didn’t help her worries that Frederick might show up at their door, accompanied by a pair of armed sergeants.
 

“No,” said Alistair.
 

“You seem very sure,” Anna said, turning her water glass around on the table.
 

“Trust me, Anna. I’ve taken care of this.”
 

Yes, but what did you do?
His assurances meant less each time he refused to explain. “How?” she asked finally, staring at him until he had to look up from his plate.
 

He set down his fork. “You don’t think I’m capable of managing a coward like Frederick Morris?” His fierce look ought to have toppled her chair.
 

“Of course I do!” It was a lie, but the only thing she could say when he looked at her like that. “I do,” she insisted, trying to budge the scowl from his face.
 

“Then you should trust me.” He picked up his fork, and though he finished his meal the picture of complete unconcern, Cyril wouldn’t look up from his plate.
 

Uneasy, Anna wanted to defer walking with Henry, but Alistair told her not to be foolish and hurried them out of the house. She and Henry wandered through the empty market and into the cathedral, where Henry liked to sit in the back and make ghoulish whispers. When he growled ‘dead dog’ (they’d seen several since leaving London, but Anna was glad it was merely these frights that stuck with him, because it could have been worse) just a little too loud, she whisked him back outside. His flagging steps said he felt as tired as she did, so they returned to their lodging.
 

Alistair was gone.
 

Anna contained her uneasiness until Henry went down for a nap. By the time he was asleep, rest for her was impossible. She decided to tidy their rooms. She did trust Alistair. When he said he would handle Frederick, she believed him. But he had revealed nothing to her, nothing at all. It wasn’t unreasonable, expecting an explanation.
 

If she were Frederick, she’d be banging down the door by now, or dragging Henry to the nearest port. Why hadn’t he come?

Anna brushed yesterday’s ball dress with unnecessary force and attacked the mending as her mood soured. Alistair had an alarming number of fraying stockings for someone who could only wear one at a time. Anna sighed. It was probably time to get rid of the left boots. It was depressing, shoving them aside every time they had to get anything from his trunk. Jabbing her needle into torn cuff as if the shirt might be coerced into revealing information, Anna stood up and threw back the lid of the trunk.
 

They couldn’t travel with this jumble, that was certain. And it wouldn’t hurt, now that Frederick was on the loose, to be ready. Anna picked up two left boots and tossed them on the bed, setting aside the packet of her letters and discarding a broken pen. Henry’s dit (she’d been looking for that), a knife, a jar of ointment: she kept all those. The ointment was smelly, but Alistair must have it for a reason. Anna tossed the dit on top of her heap of mending, then moved the rest aside so she could sweep out the dirt that had sifted to the bottom of the trunk.
 

She stopped. Something was missing. A case that usually rested at the bottom of the trunk, beneath the superfluous boots. Blood rushed to puddle at her feet and she pressed a hand to her stomach. Dear God. She’d opened that case once, looking for scissors to trim Alistair’s bandages. It held two identical pistols.
 

He couldn’t mean to—surely he wouldn’t—

He wouldn’t dare. Not on crutches. She’d come all this way, bargaining for his soul with death. He’d mended—and married her. In Anna’s book, both these indicated that ownership of his soul had passed, at least in part, to her. She had a life interest in him, a dependence . . . she cleared her head with a shake. Silly legalities were no way to describe the hole she felt widening in her chest. What about his missing leg? Sucking air through her fingers, which were clapped stupidly over her mouth, Anna blinked away the sting in her eyes. It couldn’t be.
 

She glanced again at the chest. Yes, they were gone.
 

Without knowing how, Anna found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching her hands to stop their shaking. Frederick wasn’t coming for Henry. Not yet. He was going to kill her husband first.
 

*****

“Are those—”
 

“They’re mine now,” Alistair said, lifting out one of the pistols and inspecting it in the slanting winter sun. “You can load for me.” He reconsidered. “Better not. I’ll do it.” Alistair had thought about practicing in a tumbledown house down the street—he could chalk a mark on the wall—but had changed his mind. Better to practice like it was the real thing. A walk outside the town walls to tire him and standing on uneven ground. Of course sunlight was better than shooting indoors, but today it came with a wind.