The Defiant One (10 page)

"Besides," Lucien added, before he could fashion a suitable retort, "I did not tell you to give the girl your potion.  I did not tell her to ravish you.  And I certainly did not tell her foolish brother to challenge you to a duel.  Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, Andrew, but this trouble is of your own making, not mine.  The fact that I find it all rather . . . amusing, is neither here nor there."

"I wonder," muttered Andrew, pouring more brandy.

"Well, do wonder over something other than a bottle of spirits.  A little is good to steady one's nerves before a duel, but moderation is prudent."

"There is nothing wrong with my nerves.  Merely my temper."

"Ah.  One hopes your temper will improve by morning, then."

"It will improve the moment you and every one else in the world stops interfering in my life.  I just want to be left alone to do the things I want to do.  That is all I've ever wanted.  To be left alone."

"It is not good to be alone."

"
You
should talk."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me," Andrew gritted, his intent russet-green eyes blazing into Lucien's black stare.  "You couldn't wait to get Gareth and Charles married off, and I'd bet my last breath you're trying to do the same to me, but what about you?  You're the duke.  You're the one with an obligation to this family, to your title, to your holdings, to our ancestors.  Yet you stubbornly refuse to take a wife and produce an heir.  At the rate you're going, the sixth duke of Blackheath will have to come down through Charles."

"Hmm."  Lucien was idly stroking his chin.  "Perhaps the sixth duke of Blackheath
will
be Charles."

Andrew narrowed his eyes.  "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Why, absolutely nothing."  Lucien's tone was far too dismissive, far too blithe, but before Andrew could question such enigmatic words, the duke suppressed a yawn and got to his feet.  "I will leave you now, since that is your wish.  Only sporting of me to grant it to you."  He gave a devilish little smile.  "After all, it might be your last."

"I thought it was a second's duty to bolster the courage of his principal, not undermine it."

"No need.  As you said yourself, there is nothing wrong with your nerves, merely your temper.  Even so, I am off to bed.  You ought to be too, I think.  Morning comes early."

"Yes.  Tomorrow's earlier than usual.  Good night."

"Good night."

Lucien, looking down at Andrew's bent, sullen figure, paused to briefly clap a hand to his brother's shoulder as he passed behind his chair.  His displays of affection were rare, and it was the closest that he was prepared to come to an apology, but Andrew only flinched irritably, shaking off his hand and never taking his attention off the glass of brandy into which he was brooding.

Silently, Lucien walked from the dining room and out into the hall.  Taking a sconce from a wall bracket, he made his way down the long, shadowy corridors.  They were deserted, his footsteps echoing eerily against the walls of stone as he made his way toward the tower that housed the ducal apartments.

Past the lonely rooms that had once been Charles's.

Past the empty rooms that had once belonged to Gareth.

Past the rooms — lonely, empty, soon enough if he had any say about it — where Nerissa, even now, slept so innocently.

He paused outside her bedroom for a moment, his palm flat on the door, a poignant little smile softening his severe and unforgiving features.  And then he continued on, toward the tower, steeling himself for the climb up the stairs where he had discovered his father lying all those years ago, his neck broken, his eyes glazed and staring, the tears wet upon his still warm cheeks.

It was a memory that still had the power to unnerve him.  Even now, twenty years later, it was as vivid as it had been that night he'd flung himself upon his dead father, overcome with fear and anguish at finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly saddled with the weight of adulthood, the responsibility of an ancient dukedom, and, when his grieving mother had succumbed to childbed fever three days later, the care of three brothers and an infant sister.

He had been ten years old.  It had been the end of his childhood, and as he had silently watched his parents' coffins interred side by side in the ancient de Montforte vault, his little weeping brothers huddled around him, his baby sister in his arms, he had vowed to his parents that he would take care of his siblings till the day he died.  That he would never, never fail in his responsibilities to them.

They came before the dukedom and his obligations to it.

They always would.

He reached the top of the tower that housed the immense ducal apartments, the huge rounded bedroom walled on all sides by tall, leaded windows that commanded a superior view of the downs and valleys for miles around.  The November wind whistled mournfully outside.  He sent his sleepy valet off to bed and, wrapped in a robe of black silk, went to one of the windows to look out over the night.  In the distance, the lights of Ravenscombe twinkled.

It was a long time before he finally retired, sliding wearily beneath the sheets of the great, medieval bed of carved English oak.  He blew out the candle and stared up into the darkness above his head, listening to rain beginning to slash against the windows.  In this same bed had slept every lord of Ravenscombe and, after the family had been elevated to the next echelon of the aristocracy, every duke of Blackheath.  In this bed had also slept every duchess, but Lucien knew, deep in his soul, that this bed would never see
his
duchess.

He held no fear of death, of course.  He never had.  But he was very concerned that he might not live long enough to see his vow to his dead parents carried out — and each of his beloved siblings happily and safely married off — before dreams became reality.

You will marry her, Andrew.

Upon my life, I will see it done.

Far off in the darkness, a nightingale called.  Moonlight parted the clouds and sparkled upon the ancient moat.

And high in his lofty tower, all alone in his vast, cold bed, the mighty duke of Blackheath finally closed his eyes and slept.

Chapter 9

Dawn broke along the eastern horizon in fiery bands of red, orange, and gold.  The timeless, high downs glowed with it.  Morning mist sparkled upon their grasses like thousands of scattered diamonds, the bare face of chalk rubble here and there marking a road or farmer's path over the majestic hills.

Andrew had not bothered going to bed.  He had passed the night in the dining room where Lucien had left him, immersed in books, trying to find something, anything, that might help him understand the potion he had unwittingly created.  The ruthless pursuit of answers was the only way he could focus his thoughts.  Lady Celsiana Blake had been much on his mind.  The impending duel had not been on it at all, and now, at daybreak, surfaced only as a minor irritation that needed to be dealt with.

Despite his toils and a total absence of sleep, Andrew looked none the worse for wear.  As he emerged from his apartments dressed in a loose white shirt beneath a sleeveless waistcoat, snug leather breeches that all but matched his carelessly waving auburn hair, and tight-fitting riding boots, his entire manner was one of brooding impatience and boredom.  Nevertheless, he was a sight that made every maid in Blackheath's employ who was up and about her duties sigh with admiration as he strode briskly past.

Andrew, oblivious as always to the excited commotion he caused amongst members of the fairer sex, found Lucien waiting for him in the Grand Hall.  He was not in the least bit surprised to see that the duke, freshly shaved and elegantly turned out in black, looked as unruffled and unperturbed as ever.  The sight of faint shadows, however, beneath those all-knowing, all-seeing, dark eyes took him slightly aback.

"Sleep poorly?" Andrew couldn't resist taunting, accepting his cocked hat from his valet and tucking it under his arm as the two of them headed toward the door.

"Really, Andrew.  And here I was under the hopeful impression that morning would have improved your temper . . ."

"My temper will not improve until I have ousted all annoyances, interruptions, and interferences from my life, of which this infernal woman is one."

"Hmm, yes.  And what happens if you are not the victor in this morning's affair?  Provided you survive, you are still honor-bound to marry her."

"In which case I hope to God I lose.  Anything is preferable over marriage.  Even death."

Lucien only gave him a falsely pitying look as they made their way down the steps and climbed into the carriage waiting just outside.  There the duke picked up the morning newspaper that lay neatly folded on the seat, opened it, and began to read as the coachman, with two liveried footmen riding behind, cracked his whip over the horses' heads.

Across from him, Andrew gazed mutinously out at the neatly clipped lawns as the coach began to move.  The moat into which he and Charles had fallen from the sky in his failed flying machine sparkled in the first weak shafts of sunlight.  Then they were through the gatehouse and the coach was picking up speed as it left the crenellated walls of Blackheath Castle behind.

Lucien remained buried in his newspaper.

The duke's nonchalance only irritated Andrew all the more.  Leave it to his brother to calmly lose himself in a paper whilst he, Andrew, might soon be lying disemboweled in the field behind Ravenscombe's only public house.

"You have nothing to worry about," Lucien remarked from behind his newspaper.  He turned a page.  "It is my understanding that Somerfield can handle a sword no better than he can handle a coach and four, so do cheer up, my dear boy."

"Somerfield is the furthest thing from my mind," Andrew bit out.

"Then shall I presume that Lady Celsiana Blake is the closest thing to it?"

Andrew flushed and looked away.  There was no way in hell he was going to be drawn into a conversation about
her
.  Nor was he about to give his far-too-omniscient brother the satisfaction of knowing his remark was a damn sight too close to the bone.  He stared sulkily out the window, not meeting Lucien's eyes, letting his body rock and sway against the velvet squabs with the movements of the coach.  "My annoyance has nothing to do with Lady Celsiana Blake," he snapped.

"Oh?"

Andrew's angry gaze flashed to Lucien's and met only the back of the newspaper.  "It's because I cannot remember what the devil I put into that damned potion," he muttered, which was, at least in part, the truth.  "I spent the entire night trying to find answers, trying to discern why the solution behaved as it did.  And what did I learn?  Nothing.  Nil.  I should have just given you the whole deuced lot of it for safekeeping instead of holding some out for further testing.  Had I done so, I wouldn't be in this damned predicament."  He gazed moodily out the window.  "Between the fire and now this, I swear, accidental mixes of chemicals are going to be the ruination of my life."

"Perhaps, then, you should stop messing about with them."

"Like hell.  I'm a man of science.  I can no sooner stop messing about with chemical solutions than I can stop breathing."

Lucien said nothing, but Andrew sensed he was smiling behind his newspaper.

Down through the blunt, noble chalk hills, the coach traveled.  Looking out the window as they entered the tiny village of Ravenscombe, Andrew was relieved to see that no one was about.  Good.  The last thing he needed this morning was a damned audience.

But his relief was short-lived.

As the coach slowed through Ravenscombe's muddy High Street, he saw people moving from behind cottage windows, running out the doors, waving . . . and all hurrying in the same direction in which they themselves were headed.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, sitting up.

Lucien lowered his paper.  "Is there something amiss?"

"Yes, there's something wrong.  Look outside.  This was supposed to be a private affair, not a deuced sporting event."

Lucien followed his gaze.  "Hmmm, yes."  He went back to his paper and turned a page.  "I daresay you'll have to give them a good show, then.  You are a de Montforte.  They would hate to be disappointed."

"How the
hell
did they find out about any of this?"

"My dear boy.  Servants talk.  How do you
think
they found out about it?"

Angry amber-green eyes glared into coolly unruffled black ones.  Then, with a curse, Andrew sat back in the seat, quietly seething, quietly sulking.  All too soon, the coach pulled up at the place of rendezvous.  Sighing, Lucien lowered and folded his paper, consulted his watch, and waited while the footmen opened the door and lowered the steps.

As the two brothers descended from the coach, a rousing cheer went up from the villagers, most of whom were dressed in their finest clothes, children on their shoulders, dogs barking around their heels.  An air of festivity prevailed, and there were even a few vendors selling pastries and pies.  The villagers surrounded the rapidly angering Andrew, bowing and scraping and wishing him God's own luck, and it was all the Defiant One could do not to turn on his heel, climb back into the coach, and return to the Castle, where he longed to lock himself away in his laboratory until the Second Coming of Christ.

He would, too.  Just as soon as this infernal nonsense was over.

Glaring straight ahead, he walked beside Lucien to the field, glistening with dew, just behind the Speckled Hen Inn.  The crowds followed, yelling encouragement and good wishes.  There were more people gathered in the field.  Too many.  They milled about, several rows deep, all of them shouting, cheering, toasting Andrew's impending success.

"This is bloody preposterous!" Andrew snarled, over the noise.  He glared at his brother.  "Were you behind this as well?"

"My, my, you have been so full of accusations, my dear Andrew, that if Somerfield had not challenged you, I might feel compelled to do so myself.  Ah.  There is the earl's carriage.  And I see that Dr. Highworth's gig is here as well.  Shall we get on with things, then?"