The Honourable Earl. Mary Nichols

monster, a spoiler of women, a pervert,’ he yelled.

      Instead of continuing to try to placate him, Ralph had lost his own temper and advanced on his friend with fists raised. ‘You will take that back, Freddie Fostyn, and apologise.’

      ‘I will not. Never.’

      ‘Then I will have to fight you and you know I can best you.’

      ‘Call me out, then.’

      Such a thing had never crossed his mind. All he wanted was to teach Freddie a lesson, show him that he could not be insulted with impunity, and fisticuffs was what he had meant. ‘Don’t be a fool.’

      It was almost the worst thing he could have said. It put Freddie in his place, poured scorn on him, laughed at him. And Freddie could not take it. With a roar of rage, he took a step towards Ralph and, for want of a glove, slapped his face, first with the palm and then the back of his hand. ‘My representatives with call upon you,’ he said and strode away.

      Ralph had watched him go, rubbing his stinging cheek and laughing. He was still chuckling to himself when he picked up the rods and fishing tackle and went home. His laughter stopped abruptly when Robert Dent arrived that evening with another of their friends and told him Mr Frederick Fostyn demanded satisfaction.

      He could not believe it and sent them back with a message that he hoped Freddie would think again before taking a step that was not only illegal but might end in the death of one or the other of them. For the sake of their friendship, he hoped Freddie would come to his senses. They returned half an hour later and told him that their principal had said if his lordship refused the challenge he would let it be known that he was a coward.

      Ralph had had no choice. It was all Freddie’s fault, all of it. Robert had asked him for his choice of weapons and his confused mind had chosen pistols, though later he realised that if he had said rapiers, the subsequent tragedy could not have happened.

      Pistols at dawn! How laughable and how tragic! Neither of them owned pistols and his father’s were locked up where he could not get at them. Knowing that the Reverend Fostyn had a matched pair bequeathed to him by his father, Ralph had suggested they use those. It might give Freddie a tiny advantage, though why he should consider his erstwhile friend and now sworn enemy, he did not know.

      The mist had been so heavy that dreadful morning, they could hardly see more than a few yards and he had begun to hope they might both miss their target and that would be an end of the affair. It was like some macabre play as they paced out the ground in a clearing in a copse of trees on the edge of his father’s land. There were few stands of trees in the area and the little wood was the only one for miles, the land being on the edge of the marshes which led to the sea. It was a place that had been used before for such a purpose, far from any habitation, where a body could be heaved into the soggy bog and never be seen again. But whose body? Could he refuse to fire? Could he stand and take whatever was coming to him without trying to defend himself?

      They reached the end of the slow walk being counted out by one of his seconds and turned. Ralph raised his gun at the shadowing figure twenty paces away but he could not bring himself to fire. And then he heard a click and an oath and realised that Freddie’s pistol had misfired. ‘Go on,’ his second said quietly. ‘You’ve got him now.’

      Instead, he had deliberately fired away. He had been so absorbed in his dilemma, he had not heard the horse cantering over the fallen leaves beneath the trees, nor did he see the shadowy figure fling himself from the saddle and run towards them. He only knew he had hit something when he heard a harsh cry and felt, rather than saw, the body hit the ground, almost at his feet. After that there was pandemonium. In a dumb daze he watched Freddie fly to his father, saw everyone looking at each other in horror, heard someone mount a horse and gallop off to fetch a doctor. He simply stood there, the gun still in his almost lifeless fingers.

      Robert took it from him, while Freddie sobbed, yelling at him, accusing him, as if he had meant to do it. He felt sick. And then his father had come. His father, a notable Justice of the Peace, should have had them both taken up and sent to gaol for duelling, let alone killing an innocent man, but instead had sent him into exile. He had never seen him or his mother again.

      Ten long years he had been gone, ten years in which he had matured in body and mind, had learned to control his anger and subdue his softness, to deal straight with all men, and take his pleasures where he found them, never letting anyone see his vulnerability. In truth, he thought he had been so clever at concealing it, there was now nothing left to hide; he had become a hard man inside and out. Oh, he could be charming when he chose and there was many a young lady in that over-hot subcontinent who could vouch for that, but it was never more than skin deep.

      Now he had to pick up the pieces, decide if he should stay in England, stay at Colston Hall and face those who decried him as a murderer. But why should he not stay? He was the Earl of Blackwater, an honourable man, and he would treat every man fairly; if he should come upon Freddie Fostyn, he would ignore him, ignore the whole Fostyn family for they had brought him nothing but grief. They had probably gone from the village because his father had had to appoint a new rector and the house went with the living.

      As the coach rattled towards Colston Hall, his thoughts drifted to the young lady he had met in Chelmsford, a much more pleasant subject than the past which still had the power to torment him. She was a beauty with those classic features, that lustrous hair and those oh-so-expressive hazel eyes. She had been composed and ready to answer him without simpering or fluttering her eyelashes at him as some young ladies had been known to do under his scrutiny. She was a cool one, but under that he sensed a fire waiting to be kindled into life. He would have liked the opportunity to be the one to set the blaze going.

      He wished now he had been more insistent on learning her name or the name of that village she mentioned. He could have amused himself with a little dalliance between the bouts of serious exchanges with his lawyer. According to that gentleman, there was much to be done, so many things which had been neglected in and around the Hall: tenants’ homes needing repair, walls broken, ditches and drains overgrown, estate roads full of potholes.

      ‘How did it come to this?’ he had asked.

      ‘My lord, his lordship was not himself, worried, you know, about…’

      ‘About what? Out with it, man.’

      ‘The Countess’s health, my lord. She never got over it, you know.’

      He did not need to ask what ‘it’ was. It was one more thing to lay at the door of Freddie Fostyn. He hoped he would never meet him again.

      He discovered he had been wrong about the Fostyn family leaving the village the very next afternoon, when his lawyer called to go over the tenancies of the estate and he discovered they were living in the dower house, not a quarter of a mile away.

      ‘How did this come about?’ he demanded, angrily.

      ‘His lordship, your father, allowed it, my lord. I think he felt sorry for them when they had to leave the rectory.’

      ‘Sorry for them!’ he repeated bitterly. ‘And how much rent do they pay?’

      ‘Why, none, my lord. The dower house has never brought in rent. After your grandmother died, it stood empty and—’

      ‘Well, things are about to change,’ he said. ‘Write to Mrs Fostyn and tell her to remove herself from the house. Give her a week—’

      ‘My lord, she can hardly make other arrangements in a week and his lordship said Mrs Fostyn might stay there as long as she wished to.’

      ‘My father is dead, Falconer,’ he said. ‘And I am master here now. But I will not be unfair. Give them a month.’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      He might not have been so harsh, he realised later, if he had not spent the journey from Chelmsford going over the past, and in doing so resurrected all his bitterness and resentment. Let Mr Frederick Fostyn look to his mother; after all, he was the one who had got off scot free. His years in exile, far from mellowing