The Second Shot (The Dueling Pistols) (23 page)

Felicity felt her cheeks burn with mortification. "Nevertheless, you should not have listened. What were you doing out of bed at that hour, anyway?"

"I had to visit the garden," Charles whispered with his own affronted dignity.

"You were spying, Charles. You mustn't. Do you know what the government does to spies?"

Charles shook his head.

"In the army we just hang them. Don't usually bother with a trial," said Tony from behind her. "I've had to string up a few myself."

Instead of being deterred, her inquisitive son was enthralled. "Really? How many?"

Tony made a sound close to a choking noise.

Felicity couldn't tell if he was muffling a laugh or had got caught by surprise. She gave her wide-eyed son a swat on the rear. "Go get your breakfast."

"He's hanged spies, Mama," Charles said eagerly. "I want—"

"I don't want to know about it, and
you don't need
to know about it."

Charles stuffed his hands in his pockets and slunk into the breakfast room, his expression mulish.

"He's going to ask you about it. I don't want you making war into something glorious to him."

"Trust me, it wasn't glorious." Tony held out his hand to help her rise to her feet. "Are you ready for us?"

"Is Mr. Bedford here, too?"

Tony didn't let go of her hand. "He's outside. Randy is holding Phys for me. Bedford wouldn't take the leash. I thought I'd go ahead and see Phys settled in the stables after his morning walk. Then we are off to survey the damage at Bedford's place."

He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand and sent shivers down her spine.

"What do you expect to find there?"

"The bullet, and he'll need to pack his clothes, fetch his valet. If you are ready, we'll bring our things back with us." Tony looked over her head at the empty passageway. Then he turned around and scanned behind him. Reaching out, he twisted the knob to her study and pulled her inside.

Felicity started to protest when her words were cut off by his kiss as the door clicked shut behind her. God help her she wanted his kiss, but damn it she had to regain control at some point.

* * *

"He's taking an eternity."

Randleton pulled out his watch. "It's only been six minutes."

"I should check on him, then."

"Only if you intend to remind him to lie down."

"He can't be doing
that,
this early in the morning." With his handkerchief William dusted off a stair and sank down onto it. Phys, of course, regarded that as an invitation to stick his big, wet nose in William's face.

"Perhaps we should go on to your place," suggested Randleton.

"Without the monstrosity. My landlady would have a fit." William shoved the wolfhound's head away before the dog decided to lick his face.

"Oh, right." Randleton stared up the street.

William thought he might as well mention the events of last night. "I thought you were trying to kill him, giving him that laudanum."

Randleton jerked his gaze to William. "He never complains. Knew he must have been in a lot of pain."

"So you decided to overdose him."

"I thought he had a better tolerance for laudanum. The physicians poured it down his throat with a funnel at first. Must have weaned himself off of it before coming home."

"Why do you carry around a flask with whiskey and laudanum?"

Randleton bent over—although he didn't actually have to bend down—and scratched Phys behind the ears.

William gave up on receiving an answer.

"You are not the only one who gets nightmares."

* * *

Felicity pushed him away.

His bad leg made Tony falter, and he had to let her go. Mindful of his thigh's overuse and cramping of the night before, he backed up to lean against her desk.

"You cannot continue dragging me around and kissing me everywhere."

Tony folded his arms across his chest. "I don't believe I've kissed you everywhere yet."

She gave him a scowl and moved to the far side of the smallish room. She picked up a cut-glass decanter from a tray on a sideboard.

"Early for that, don't you think?"

Her hand wrapped around the neck of the container, she set it back on the tray without removing the stopper. "I wonder why it is necessary for both you and Mr. Bedford to move in. Are you in danger of being murdered? I mean, if he is in danger for owning the deed to the Lungren estate, then what danger are you in?"

"The danger that Bedford might usurp my position as your 'pretend' fiancé."

She grimaced, let loose of the decanter, and walked over to a window. "I hardly think that makes it necessary for you to move in with me."

"I will not let that bounder reside here unless I am here, too. I don't have room to house him. Randy can't in good conscience extend his brother's hospitality, and I doubt Bedford has the funds to move into a hotel."

"It's only a pretense. I think you've forgotten I don't want to marry you." Felicity fingered the curtains and seemed entirely too pensive. Clearly, not only did she not want to marry him, she didn't want him here, didn't want him in her home. She might succumb to his seduction, but not willingly, not with enthusiasm, not the way she had before.

But they'd changed. He'd changed. He was much less of a man than he'd been when he left to serve in the military. What if she wanted Bedford to usurp his place? What if she would be happier with the fashionable little toad? He reached down and rubbed his thigh.

She seemed to notice the motion of his hand.

He stopped.

"By all means, sit if you need to. Do not stand on ceremony with me."

Instead, he moved to the sideboard and poured himself a drink from the decanter she'd just held. A stiff drink might cure the dull ache in his head resulting from the artificially deep sleep of the previous night. It also would give a reason to feel this burn under his breastbone.

He waited for her to tell him she'd reconsidered, that it wouldn't do for him to move in—waited with a patience born of spending months in hospital knowing that any day the surgeons could determine that the infection had turned putrid, and no matter his protestation, the leg would have to come off.

"I would have voiced these concerns last night, except it seemed a small matter in light of the attempt on Mr. Bedford's life. But you have ignored my wishes any time they run counter to yours. I will never give up control of my life, my person, or my finances. Certainly a man who does not discuss my concerns with me before deciding how I shall act has no right to ask it of me."

Tony didn't respond. What could he say? Last night he might have attempted to talk her out of her concerns, but now, if her mind was made up, there was little he could do. He told himself it was time to accept that whatever they had possessed before was gone. Gone like the strength in his leg, and to try to make it what it was before was pointless. The best he could do was salvage some goodwill, some friendship, so that he didn't lose his newfound son.

"I've put you on the second floor in my room."

Hope, that stubborn emotion—more than hope, anticipation—resurged in his heart, and lower. Tony nearly dropped his glass as he took a half-step toward her.

Felicity turned around to face him. "Mr. Bedford shall be in the adjoining room. I shall move up a flight and take the room between Diana's and the nursery."

His thoughts, hopes, and desires curled into dark-gray, wispy ashes.

Felicity's forehead crinkled, and she tilted her head sideways in inquiry. "I trust you will not linger once this matter is concluded."

"I will take it you would rather not share your room?" Tony raised the glass to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of brandy.

She ignored his sarcasm and said, "I'm sure there will never be a reason for you or Mr. Bedford to be on the third floor. If you would convey that to him, I should appreciate it."

"Your servant." He bowed. "I should get back to them. We have much to do today."

Felicity looked dignified and oh so distant as he reached for the doorknob. Well, she needn't worry. He understood all too well. He was only sorry it had taken him so long.

* * *

Felicity stared at the door after Tony closed it, wondering what had just happened. For a minute there had been a flicker of warmth, and then his expression turned frigid, unfathomable. She didn't know him anymore. He wasn't the young man who'd left her to fight in the war. She didn't know who he was anymore.

Was he so unwilling to compromise? She had expected an argument, an apology, something, but now he'd just given her the same cold look he'd given her when they first met—when he thought she had betrayed him by marring Layton for no reason. Well so be it. She was not going to allow him to take over. He was a fool to think that would happen. Still she wished it didn't hurt so very much.

She shook her head and gathered her list of dinner party guests and the acceptances that had come in response to her invitations. At least Felicity had newfound friends she could enjoy and not think about Tony's bullheadedness. If she had learned one thing from Tony's rejection of her plan to travel to Spain all those years ago, was that she could go on and make the best of things for Charles's sake.

Diana could help her with writing out placement cards. She went to the breakfast room, where they could both use the table to write on.

Her niece was bent over the newspaper, chewing her thumb, and her forehead crinkled with concentration.

"Still in here, I see." Felicity closed the door. "Very good. I want you to help me with these place cards."

Diana jerked and hastily folded the newspaper backward and shoved it onto a chair at her side. Her furtiveness suggested guilt. Felicity looked at her niece. It wasn't as if she had caught her with a Minerva Press book, not that Felicity would have been bothered if Diana was reading one of the melodramatic romances. Did Diana believe she shouldn't be reading the newspaper?

"First, we'll have to see who has accepted to determine the order of precedence."

"Precedence?" Diana blinked her dark eyes at Felicity.

Lord, obviously the girl didn't know anything about ton parties. "Yes, everyone is seated by rank. We cannot slight anyone or give unintentional offense."

"Oh."

Felicity set the list of people she'd sent invitations to between them and divided the replies into two stacks. "Here, go through these and cross out anyone who sent their regrets."

By the time Felicity was through her stack, Diana had only done about a fourth of hers. Felicity sighed, took another stack, and started through them. At this rate Mr. Bedford and Tony would be moved in and—"Fiddlesticks!"

Diana looked at her.

Felicity rubbed her forehead. "I shall have to include Mr. Bedford, Lieutenant Randleton, and Major Sheridan."

"Is that a problem?"

"I shall have too many men."

"Oh." Diana stared at her, waiting until Felicity came up with a solution to this new dilemma.

Felicity supposed she was glad her niece had such great faith in her. She didn't know where she would find three women on such short notice. Especially three women who wouldn't expect their male family members to be invited also. She didn't have that much room available at the dining room table. She need three widows or a widow with two daughters. "How many sisters did Captain Lungren have?"

Diana stared at her blankly a moment, then went back to her invitations with a shrug. "This woman says her husband is not yet in town, and asks if it would be all right if another gentleman came with her in his stead."

"Who?"

"A Mrs. Keeting. Oh!" Diana dropped the invitation and put her both her hands over her mouth.

Actually, Felicity had invited the Keetings because they were fast friends with the Davies. She reached over and plucked the response off the table. "The Earl of Wedmont," she read.

Diana's dark eyes were swimming in unshed tears. She pushed back from the table. "I'm sorry. I feel ill."

Really, this niece of hers could be awfully missish. "Do you know the earl?" asked Felicity. How could Diana know the earl? Even she didn't know the earl as he had left with his upset wife shortly after Mr. Davies had spoken with her, before she could be introduced.

Diana shook her head.

The previous Earl of Wedmont was a notorious rakehell. Perhaps Diana knew something of the father's reputation, even though he'd been dead for many years. "I assure you the present earl is nothing like his father."

"Oh," said Diana, which seemed to be her word of the day.

Perhaps Diana didn't want to deal with these social niceties. In which case she would make an awkward hostess when she was on her own, or she would need a social secretary to take care of such matters. But Felicity's duty was to see her niece married, not worry about her social graces afterward. "I'll finish this. Why don't you go lie down for a bit. Have Molly fetch you a cold compress."

Diana nodded and fled the room as if the hounds of hell were after her. Felicity worked on the guest list for a while and then reached over and retrieved the newspaper. She refolded it correctly and looked at the illustrated likeness on the front page. Was this the story that Diana had been absorbed in when Felicity entered the room?

Curious, and with no great enthusiasm for the social niceties herself, Felicity read the article about the young girl's body that had been pulled from the river the day Diana arrived. A shame no one knew who she was. Probably a soiled dove fallen on hard times. Felicity started to set the paper aside, but words from the accompanying article leaped off the page.

The writer declared otherwise.

The girl was an innocent, probably of good family. She'd been wearing an expensive lawn nightrail, no doubt like the one Diana had been wearing the other night, and had been dead of natural causes before her body was tossed in the water. How odd. Why would anyone choose to dispose of an innocent young girl's body in such a manner?

* * *

"Got it!" exclaimed Bedford as he backed out from under his bed, holding a ball of lead in between his thumb and index finger.