The Second Shot (The Dueling Pistols) (14 page)

Tony was always so forceful, commanding, domineering, that she melted at a hint of his occasional vulnerability. Though she wasn't sure she heard him correctly when he turned around and spoke.

"What?" she whispered.

"I said that when your year of mourning concludes, we will announce our engagement."

* * *

William's claim that he was near death from starvation had been all that was needed for Randleton to invite him home for a second supper. William had never needed an excuse to take someone up on a free meal, although it was starting to seem that the cost might have been too dear.

Before they sat down to eat, Randleton requested that his batman attend them. Then he sent the scarred fellow off on a quest for information.

His hunger finally appeased, William had almost forgotten the errand the servant had been sent on. While he was tipping back Randleton's excellent port, the batman slipped into the room.

If he had thought the major's disdainful gaze frightening, Randleton's servant was not a man to cross. The scar slashing across his eyebrow and cheek could only have been made by a knife, but the grizzled, almost arrogant set to his chin, so out of place on a servant, would suggest the batman had won that fight and many others.

"I've found Mrs. Lungren, sir," the batman had said simply. "You could see her tonight."

Randleton had leaned forward. "Where?"

"Bedlam."

William dropped his glass and then scrambled to flee from the path of the dark purplish-red liquid. He tossed a napkin in the direction of the spill, while the batman moved silently and effectively to right the glass and blot the wine from the table.

"Bedlam?" whispered William.

"Yes, sir." The batman didn't lift his eyes from the task of cleaning William's mess. "Fellow I spoke with said for a bull's eye he'd let you two gentlemen inside tonight."

William had been there once and never wanted to go back again. He'd been unpleasantly reminded of seeing animals in a menagerie, except in Bedlam these tortured creatures weren't animals. They were human, or something close to it.

Randleton pushed back from the table. "Shall we go, then?"

Apparently he hadn't heard the horror in William's voice. William looked between the batman and the nonchalant Randleton. Either Randleton didn't know what he was getting into, or he expected his servant to guard them well.

While the rough-looking fellow could probably protect his master, William had no doubt that if a choice had to made, he would be the one left to be torn apart by the mad inmates of the asylum. "Have you ever been there?"

"No."

"Perhaps we shouldn't."

Randleton looked at him and blinked. "Are you troubled by the idea of visiting Mrs. Lungren?"

The last thing William wanted to admit was fear, especially not to Randleton who would likely report it to Sheridan, and the two of them would have a good laugh about it. "Not Mrs. Lungren specifically, but...the people there are truly insane."

Randleton gave him an odd look. "I should rather hope so."

William swallowed hard. He wasn't going to get out of this with his pride intact. That was the trouble with soldiers—they didn't have the common sense to be frightened. He'd run into the same reckless attitude with Lungren, and where had that got him? "Very well, let us get on with it then."

* * *

Felicity stared at Tony as if he had been suddenly transformed into a four-headed jackal.

When she spoke, each syllable was stressed with a slow cadence born of anger. "Ab-so-lute-ly not."

Tony winced. He'd never meant to allow her the opportunity to wound him again. Yet he might as well have slit open his chest and exposed his beating heart to her. He turned and kicked his Hessian boot against the grate. "It is the right thing to do, Felicity."

"It would have been the right thing to do once, but that time is long past."

He heard the rustle of her dress as she stood. Nothing could mimic the sound of expensive Chinese silk. He never would have been able to afford to clothe her so well. Yet, the idea that she probably wore silk all the way down to her skin tormented him.

"I think you should leave now."

"We need to settle this." He turned around to see her hand on the door. His gut twisted. At times she seemed to hate him, and God forgive him, now he understood why. Just as he had wasted years feeling she had betrayed him.

"There is nothing more to settle. I don't intend to marry you, and if that is the price you thought you could extract for a pretend proposal, then I should have preferred you continued with your original demand for an affair."

He stepped toward her. "Not too late for that."

"In either case I should have said no." She pulled open the door and frowned as she stared out at the empty passageway.

He reached her side. "Felicity, just give me ten minutes. I will make no demands on you tonight."

She swiveled, and her skirts fluttered around his legs for an instant before they were still. It was as if she had touched him herself. He trembled like the green boy he'd been the first time. Wanting her was something he thought he'd left behind, buried, burned out of his soul, but something about her made him yearn for her touch.

"No, but you will tomorrow and the next day and the next, until you get what you want."

He rubbed his fingers against his temples. "I want what is best for you and...for Charles."
And for me.

Her dark eyes flashed as she wagged her finger in his face and stepped toward him angrily. "You have never given one thought to what is best for Charles. You've never asked after him, never thought about him, never—"

"How could I, when I didn't know he existed?"

She stopped advancing, but she was so close...so close he could simply wrap his arms around her and close the gap. He clenched his fists. She couldn't stand this near, so near he breathed in the scent of her, so near he could almost taste the silk of her skin, and expect him to pass on holding her.

Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him.

He thrust his arms behind his back and clenched one hand around the wrist of the other. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She swayed. "I did tell you." Turning swiftly, she shut the open door. "I did."

Facing the shut door, she leaned her head against the wood.

Tony raked a hand through his hair. "In the letter where you told me you wanted to join me in Spain?"

"You told me to stay in England," she said in a small voice.

It made sense.

He couldn't resist the lure of touching her anymore. He caressed her shoulder. "Come away from the door, and let me explain."

"Don't," she said tersely. "How can you explain? Don't make a mockery of my situation. I did what I had to do."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you were with child."

She spun away and leaned against the door. Her palms pressed back against the panels, as if she needed to feel something solid. "How could you mistake the first line of the letter:
I am with child, your child?"

Her brown eyes glistened with unshed tears, and Tony's throat tightened as if he were being throttled.

He pulled her forward into his embrace and buried his face in her hair. She resisted at first, but he could feel her slowly going limp as he spoke in a low voice. "I bled all over the letter. Parts of it were obliterated. It came the day I was shot."

"Oh, Tony," she said on a skeptical sigh.

He pressed his lips against her nape. Desire threaded through him and bid for dominance over his intention to offer just comfort. Partly it was because he wanted comfort for himself. Partly it was because he wanted the mistrust to disappear from her eyes. He wanted to heal.

"Would that I should not have been such a fool. I should have realized why you were asking to come to Spain. But I did not want you to arrive and find me less than a whole man...or dead."

He thought his wound might be grave enough he'd be sent home, but his letter to her had been terse because of the pain, because if he lost his leg, she'd know soon enough.

She wound her arms around his neck with a loose hold that drove him to distraction. He wanted her clutching him as if she wouldn't ever let him go.

He trailed kisses along her jaw, seeking her surrender, her seduction, and
his
soul. His mouth found hers, and he tasted her, drowning in the swirling softness of her kiss...until she turned her head away.

"Felicity?" he whispered, his heart stopping in his chest. Didn't she understand he had never abandoned her?

She shoved his shoulders, and Tony stumbled away, his bad leg faltering. Shamed by his inadequacy, he reached for a chair back to lean against.

"All that changes nothing. I do not want to marry you."

The words burned through him like a criminal's brand. Sorrow overwhelmed him, yet he tried to make light of it, "An affair, then?"

If he tried to walk before the spasm in his leg calmed, it would give out on him.

"No. I will not be forced into marriage again." She stalked past him. "I won't take that chance."

"There are precautions I could take to ensure I do not get you with child. Measures I was too green to know about before." He frowned. "I should have protected you better."

He wasn't saying what he meant to say, but the words were jumbled in his head, and his leg was cramping ferociously.

"I can't trust a man who cannot keep his word for ten minutes." She crossed to the fireplace and turned her back to him.

"Then you should not extract an impossible promise." Wasn't all supposed to be fair in love and war? "I'm more a soldier than a gentleman."

"Please leave."

Tony bent and massaged his thigh. Why wasn't he getting through to her? Years ago these lines would have worked. She was stronger now, tougher. He changed his tactics. "We should be a family now. You, me, and Charles."

"Charles and I are a family, and you are bound for India. I see no reason to deviate from that."

Tony's head squeezed as if he were caught in a vice, and he couldn't think to get out the words he wanted to say. "I may never go to India. My leg is not improving. I can't continue in the army like this."

"So you thought you should marry me instead?"

"Yes." As he said the word, he knew it was wrong. "No."

She pointed toward the door. "Go on, leave."

He hobbled away from the chair. "We aren't done yet."

"No, I suppose not," she said wearily.

He paused at the door. He'd gone about this all wrong. He could see that. He didn't know if he knew how to do it right.

What he knew was how to wage war. He knew how to direct a battle, how to command men, how to march them around and keep their spirits up while they waited for the mud to be just right to wage war. He knew how to kill.

He didn't know if he could remember how to be tender, how to protect a woman, how to love. He might not have it in him to be a father. He was a cold and brutal commander. His son would be better off with him in India. Felicity was better off without him. But she made him remember he once had been human.

* * *

As they were being led down a dark corridor in the new location of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, south of the Thames, William started to relax. Perhaps the oft-mentioned reforms had taken place. Certainly this new building hadn't developed the stench of the old, and in the dark he only caught the merest glimpse of the sleeping inmates, who might or might not be chained.

An inhuman scream assaulted their ears. William clutched at Randleton's arm.

"Easy there, old fellow," said Randleton. "I'm sure Mrs. Lungren isn't the violent sort."

"Actually, guv, she attacked her daughter. That's why they brought 'er 'ere. But we ain't had a spot of trouble with 'er, though I recommends never turning yer back."

William felt only mildly vindicated but a great deal more goosish. He let go of Randleton's sleeve.

The keeper shoved a key into a lock and turned it. He walked in and set the lantern he'd been carrying on the small table in the center of the cell. "I be back for you in twenty minutes. Mrs. Lungren, yer visitors is 'ere."

The three of them walked into the room: Randleton, his batman, and William, bringing up the tail. The door clicked shut, and William heard the tumble of locks as the guard turned the key.

The space closed in, and William swallowed hard. The last thing he wanted was to be held over in here. A single cot stood against one wall, and a rickety wood chair held the room's occupant. She didn't exactly have her back to them, but the chair was sideways to the room, as if she spent a lot of time staring out the barred window, as she was doing now.

"Mrs. Lungren?" said Randleton softly.

"I suppose you've come to tell me another one of my sons is dead."

Randleton started. "We didn't know if you knew, ma'am."

She swiveled in her chair to face them. Her face was lined, and a tuft of gray hair peeked out below her cap. With a birdlike hand she reached up and tucked it in.

William noticed that the mended elbow in her loose green gown had been patched with a bit of material not quite the right shade.

"I didn't, not really." She plucked at the threadbare fabric of her gown. "But it is the only time I receive calls anymore. I'd offer you gentlemen seats, but they only give me the one."

William mumbled a protest that he didn't mind standing.

"I suppose my Jonathon was poisoned too," she said.

He and Randleton exchanged glances.

"No, madam," said Randleton. "Jonathon was shot."

She looked puzzled a moment and then brightened. "Oh that's right, Jonathon was in the army. Did he fall in battle? I was always worried he would turn out no better than he ought, but he was doing well in the army, wasn't he?"

"Yes, " said Randleton. "I served with him."

Mrs. Lungren's face took on a distant look, and the silence stretched out. William could sense Randleton's reluctance to say anything that might upset the woman.

"How are my gardens? The girls kept planting vegetables and they were choking off the flowers. They planted peas next to my asters. Quite overtook the bed. They planted greens, and turnips, and castor beans. I can't imagine why we needed so many castor beans."