The Second Shot (The Dueling Pistols) (31 page)

There weren't words strong enough to express her disgust at that idea. Hell freeze before she would even think of such a thing with Lord Algany.

"My dear Felicity..." He took her hands in his.

"I think you had best continue to call me Mrs. Merriwether."

He scowled at her interruption. "I remember you from your first season, and I have thought of you often in the intervening years."

She would have to suffer through this. It was the only thing a polite hostess could do under the circumstances. He was her guest. "Have you?"

"Oh, yes—well, to be honest..."

Something she suspected he rarely was.

"...I was quite enamored of you then, but alas, you had already become engaged to Sheridan, and so I took it upon myself not to interfere. You were so young and seemed so in love with your dashing captain—he was a captain back then, was he not?"

"Yes."

Lord Algany dramatically placed his hand on his breast. "You see, I didn't want to dismay you with the violence of my affections when you were already fixed upon another man, but I swear to you, my heart has remained constant."

"It has?" said Felicity skeptically.

"I fear I am doing this badly. You see, I have never before—"

"Oh, excuse us."

Felicity looked up to see Sophie Davies and Amelia Keeting. Never had she been more relieved to see anyone, but she feared they would exit, seeing Lord Algany on bended knee and all.

"Lud, we need to sit a moment," said Sophie, crossing the room and pulling out a chair. "When one is in the condition that Amelia and I are in, one can become overheated so easily."

Amelia snapped open her fan and began wagging it as if on queue. She tapped Sophie's arm, and Sophie waved her hand in front of her distinctly unflushed face.

"Lord Algany, whatever are you doing on your knee?" Sophie asked.

He swiftly stood and released Felicity's hand.

Amelia tugged at Sophie's arm. "Perhaps we should go."

"Nonsense," said Sophie. "If Lord Algany was doing the pretty and tossing his handkerchief in Mrs. Merriwether's direction, I'm sure he could have picked a more opportune time than during her dinner party." She shot him a look full of daggers. "Not that he ever has proposed before. What are you thinking, Amelia?"

"Can I get something for you?" asked Felicity. "Some water or lemonade?"

"We shall be fine in a trice. These feelings of weakness come and go, but you would know that. You have a son, don't you?"

"So I am to gather that congratulations are in order," said Lord Algany. "I shall offer my heartfelt best wishes to your husband, Keene, Mrs. Davies, and who should I offer congratulations to in your case, Mrs. Keeting?"

Amelia turned white, but Sophie didn't miss a step, "Why, her husband, George, of course. He's coming up soon, bringing Reggie with him. You should see how he dotes on his daughter. Now, I do think you should fetch our escorts since you have upset Amelia and your comments have become boorish."

"Haven't you done enough to interfere in my life?" he demanded of Sophie.

"Probably not yet," she answered. "I am curious, though, was it the blackness in your soul that made that mark permanent? It shouldn't have been, you know."

"Felicity, is there a problem?" asked Tony from the doorway.

Lord Algany backed into the table where the food was and spun around. He growled, lifted a covered plate, and sent it flying. Felicity stared as a pork roast sailed through the air.

A flying pig? Was this an omen she could not ignore?

Felicity stared at Tony. Her dinner party was going from disastrous to dreadful.

"Why, that was unhandsome of you, sir," said Tony with a steel menace that sent chills down Felicity's spine.

"An accident." Lord Algany looked dismayed.

Amelia rose from the chair where she was sitting. "Of course it was an accident. We all could see it was an accident. You just turned very quickly and..." How to explain it as a mischance must have escaped Amelia because she finished lamely, "An accident, I'm sure."

"Or an excess of emotion," said Sophie.

Amelia turned to her and said, "I told you we should leave. I daresay Lord Algany has every reason to hate you, Sophie."

"As do I," said Sophie. "Have reason to hate him, that is."

"Lord Algany, I find I have an excessive desire to blow a cloud. Please accompany me. I find it most calming," said Tony.

"Mrs. Merriwether, I am so sorry. You can't imagine how sorry I am." Lord Algany looked sick at his tantrum. "I hope these were not dishes for us."

"No, just the musicians. I shall hold you accountable for their play if it is inferior."

Algany stared at her as if, caught in a situation outside the bounds of his expectations, he had no idea whether he should cry or shout, stand or fall, stay or go.

"Don't give it a thought, Lord Algany. I'm sure that this was an accident, and you can be sure my chef has prepared too much food. In fact, Tony, wouldn't Phys love this as a treat?"

"He would consider himself in hound heaven."

Sophie had already pulled the bell for a servant, and her butler came in. Felicity gestured to the mess of the roast on the floor. "Would you have someone clean this and take the roast to the stables for Major Sheridan's dog, if you please?"

"We shall be back in a few moments," said Tony.

"I shall have them hold dinner until you both rejoin us." She mouthed a thank-you to Tony and gave a short nod to the question in his face.

She knew she had all but said that Major Sheridan was living with her, and she hoped he understood that he had license to claim that fact or the pretend engagement with her. Anything to steer Algany away from the proposal he had been about to deliver.

"Lord, I'm sorry," said Sophie when the men left the room. "I'm afraid my emotions are running a little high. I didn't mean to spoil your dinner party."

"I don't think that most of the guests have any idea that anything happened," Felicity said. Else they probably would have all run into the green drawing room by now.

Amelia had a hand pressed against her throat. "Oh, my God, was he actually proposing? We thought...we thought..." She looked to Sophie for help.

Sophie looked flushed and upset, in truth now in need of the cooling-down she had claimed to need earlier.

Amelia swallowed down her reservations. "We thought he might be drugging you so he could..."

"Have his way with you," said Sophie finally.

"We should have left when we realized he was proposing," Amelia said.

"He must be after your money," said Sophie. She looked at Felicity. "Don't take that wrong. We thought, you know, he seduces beautiful women every year."

"Last year he was trying to ruin Sophie."

Felicity didn't know that she wasn't somewhat flattered that the woman thought she was attractive enough to warrant the attentions of a known philanderer, but... "Well, I shouldn't have said yes if he had proposed." Something stopped her from saying she had no intention of marrying anyone.

"Oh, that is a relief," said Amelia.

"I know he has a title and all, but he stops at nothing. Last year when I kept telling him no, he resorted to trying to drug me." Sophie smiled one of her impish smiles. "You could do much better than that."

"Of course you could," agreed Amelia.

"Like the major," said Sophie as she sailed to the doorway. "We really should rejoin the company before Keene and Victor start tearing the house apart looking for us."

"We should all rejoin the company before anyone realizes anything is amiss," said Felicity, liking the two women but avoiding comment on Sophie's suggestion that Tony would be a better husband than Lord Algany.

She just had to get through the evening, and then she would have a chance to think whether a pork roast lofted through the air was the same thing as a pig flying, and whether that meant she was
supposed
to have an affair with Tony.

Which might not be so bad, but if he was insisting on marriage first, Felicity might need more than a sign from above to convince her.

In any case, she needed to concentrate on making sure the rest of the evening went off without a hitch.

Besides, what more could go wrong tonight?

* * *

"Miss Fielding, do you know where I might locate your aunt?" William asked Diana.

He was growing concerned about Miss Lungren's pallor. She insisted she was feeling much better, but he was worried nonetheless. He wanted to let Mrs. Merriwether know so she could take action if it became necessary. His allies—well, Major Sheridan was nowhere to be seen, and Lieutenant Randleton was knee-deep in conversation with Miss Carolyn. If he was right and it was one of the sisters, could it be her? He wanted someone else to keep an eye on Miss Lungren, in case she fainted again.

Diana turned around and shook her head, but her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears.

"Whatever is wrong?" he asked, pulling her elbow and guiding her to a corner of the drawing room, his concern suddenly all for her.

"Nothing."

"Not nothing. You may confide in me, Miss Fielding."

"It's just that I am doing so poorly, and this isn't what I thought it would be. I just wanted to get respectably married, but I keep doing the wrong thing, and I don't think I shall ever get a husband, and Aunt Felicity told me I must stay away from
you."

"Miss Fielding, you are doing very well indeed."

"Am I? All the gentlemen are over there." She pointed to the cluster around the beautiful Lady Penelope.

Even William swallowed hard at the sight of such loveliness. But she was not for him. She would have the stingiest of dowries, her breeding and beauty being such that her father wouldn't need to waste any money on seeing her settled.

"Well, that is neither here nor there. They can't all have her."

"They all want her."

"I, as you must have noticed, am not joining the circle of her admirers."

"No, you're over there with that lady in black, and I am not to encourage you."

That was the second time she had mentioned that she wasn't supposed to be with him, and it rather seemed to be causing her distress. "You should take your time before fixing your affections. Your aunt is only looking to your best interests. She wants you to take your time and enjoy your season."

"Yes, but to be put on display and herded about makes me feel like I am a slave on the auction block. I just... You must think me the biggest ninny."

"I think you are just having a fit of nerves—quite understandable. You needn't worry about scooping up a husband at this event or any other."

"I cannot go through much more of this," Miss Fielding said on a low wail. "I shall go mad."

"Miss Fielding, your aunt only wants to protect you from a bounder like me who must marry a woman with a fortune."

"She thinks you are after my money?"

William didn't know if Felicity thought that. But he suspected she knew he was after
her
money. "Well, I am not after your money. I don't know that you have any, but she knows I don't have the means to support a wife."

"But I do have a fortune."

"A fortune?"

"Well, a lot. I'm sure I'm not as rich as Felicity, but it is enough to live on it for the rest of my life."

William studied her dark eyes, and they shown with sincerity. "I should be the basest cad if I offered for you under these circumstances. Your aunt would not approve."

"I don't care."

"Very well, Miss Fielding, would you do me the honor of—"

"Yes," she shrieked and would have thrown her arms around his neck but for his catching her elbows and saying, "Not here, not now," in a low voice. "We shall have to keep it secret because I am most vilely abusing your aunt's hospitality."

"When? Can we elope tonight?"

"No!" He had a murder to help solve. He couldn't run off for the two or three weeks it would take to get to Gretna Green and back. He forced himself to think. "We shall have to wait until you are twenty-one."

"But I am."

"Then I shall approach the archbishop for a special license, and then in a few days we shall find a minister to perform the service. You must keep it a secret until then."

She nodded, her eyes bright, as if shining with glorious emotion.

William wished his feelings were clearer. He liked Miss Fielding, very much. He wanted to bed her in the worst way. In fact, standing so close to her, he could feel the heat of her body, and he wondered if his head wasn't a little too muddled by her musky scent.

And she had circumvented his reservations by claiming she had a fortune, enough to live on the rest of her life, but he did wish he knew an actual figure. Then again, could he afford to be choosy when he had moneylenders looking for him and leaving angry letters and legal summonses at his former apartments?

* * *

"Sorry, old chum. I never smoke, but I thought we could take a short walk up the street and back," Tony said to Lord Algany.

"You don't mind I blow a cloud, do you," asked Algany, pulling a case from his pocket. "It's cold as Hades out here."

"All the better to cool heads with."

"That woman...that woman..." Algany's hands shook as he rolled a cheroot.

Tony hoped he wasn't talking about Felicity, because then he would have to plant him a facer.

Lord Algany got his tobacco lit and drew a deep breath. "Just look what she did to me."

He lifted the hair off his forehead, and a black mark was there. It looked rather...permanent.

In any case, Felicity hadn't done that to him. "How did that happen?" asked Tony mildly, walking beside Algany.

"It...she...oh, never mind."

"Looks like a tattoo," said Tony.

"Well, I suspect it is. Hang it. She wrote on my forehead with ink, and I tried to wash it off. Washed until my forehead bled, and this is what it looks like now." Algany's voice shook with rage.

"I shan't ask how or why she came to write on your forehead," said Tony. "But then, it never works to conceal one's scars."

Good God, was that what he himself had been doing? Was that why Felicity didn't trust him? Had he held onto the wounds and scars she had inflicted on him? And was he, worse yet, angry with her for letting her wounds show?