The Handmaiden's Necklace. Kat Martin

was a time he’d been sure this day would come. He had bought a set of dueling pistols and practiced with them daily, until he had become a very skillful marksman.

      For the past few years, he had begun to think he wouldn’t need the weapons. Now it appeared that he would.

      Oliver almost smiled. Rafael wanted vengeance. Oliver knew the feeling well. In a way, he was glad Rafe knew what had happened that night. It would make his victory all the sweeter. Tomorrow, if he got lucky, he would see his nemesis dead.

      A thin fog hung over the knoll. The grass was deep and wet, forming beads of dew on the men’s leather boots. The first thin rays of dawn spread over the horizon, enough to outline the two black carriages parked at the edge of the grassy field below.

      Ethan stood next to Cord beneath a tall sycamore tree, next to the two men who had accompanied Lord Oliver Randall. In the open space at the top of the knoll, his best friend, Rafael Saunders, Duke of Sheffield, stood back to back with the man who had ruined his life, Oliver Randall, third son of the Marquess of Caverly.

      Randall was perhaps two inches shorter than Rafe, with a slightly leaner build, auburn hair and brown eyes. He had nothing of the power and command that Rafe always seemed to have, and yet Ethan hoped his friend hadn’t underestimated his enemy.

      Word was, Oliver Randall was a very skillful marksman, one of the best in London.

      Then again, so was Rafe.

      The countdown began, Cord calling out the numbers, the men taking long strides away from each other as the steps were counted off. “Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”

      Both men turned at exactly the same instant, casting their bodies into profile. They lifted their long-barreled, silver-etched dueling pistols and fired.

      Two distinct shots rang out, echoing over the knoll. For several seconds neither man moved, then Oliver Randall swayed on his feet and went down, crumpling into the wet grass on the knoll.

      His seconds ran forward, two faint shadows in the purple rays of dawn, along with the surgeon, Neil McCauley, a friend who had agreed to come along. Both Cord and Ethan started toward the men, Ethan’s blood still pumping, though some of his worry began to fade as he saw Rafe standing there, apparently unharmed.

      Then he spotted the bright patch of blood that appeared on Rafael’s sleeve, though Rafe didn’t seem to notice. Instead he strode toward Oliver Randall.

      Bent over the injured man, Dr. McCauley looked up at the duke. “It’s bad. I’m not sure he’ll make it.”

      “Do the best you can,” Rafe said. Turning, he strode toward Ethan, who caught up with him at the edge of the knoll.

      “How badly are you injured?” Ethan asked, shoving back a strand of wavy black hair that fell across his forehead.

      For the first time, Rafe seemed to realize he had been shot. “Nothing too serious, I don’t think. Hurts a bit, not too badly.”

      Cord walked up just then. “My house is closest, and the women are there. Let’s get you home and get that arm taken care of.” Cord glanced toward the knoll. “Looks like McCauley has his hands full with Randall, but my wife is a fairly good nurse.”

      Rafe just nodded. His jaw clenched with pain several times as they moved over the grass toward the carriage, but his mind seemed miles away.

      Oliver Randall had been dealt with. Still, there were other matters of honor that would need to be mended. Danielle’s name would have to be cleared, Ethan knew, her innocence made known to society.

      Ethan wondered what steps Rafe next intended to take.

      Five

      Rafe leaned back in the chair behind his desk. A mild June sun streamed through the mullioned windows, warming the room, but it didn’t improve his mood. His arm was throbbing, yet the wound, thankfully, had proved to be minor. The lead ball had gone through the fleshy part of his arm without hitting bone and passed out the opposite side.

      Oliver Randall had not been so lucky. The ball had hit a rib beneath his heart, glanced off and lodged in an area near his spine. Neil McCauley had successfully removed the ball but the damage had already been done. Assuming the wound escaped putrefaction, Oliver Randall would live, but the man would never walk again.

      Rafe felt no remorse. Oliver Randall had cruelly and deliberately destroyed two people’s lives for no other reason than jealousy. He had plotted and planned, lied and duped the entire town of London and especially Rafael. Now, in return, Oliver’s own life had been destroyed.

      “You reap what you sow,” Rafe’s father had said when Rafe was a boy. The late duke had been fair and just. He would have seen justice in the outcome of the duel.

      Still, Oliver wasn’t the only man at fault. In the days since the duel, Rafe had set out to mend some of the damage he, himself, had caused. He meant to clear Danielle’s name of any wrongdoing in the scandal that had ended their betrothal, but he wanted to speak to Dani first.

      In that regard, his efforts had failed.

      Rafe swore softly. Frustrated and out of sorts, he was thinking of Danielle when a knock at the door drew his attention. His butler, Jonathan Wooster, silver-haired with a narrow face and watery blue eyes, stood in the doorway.

      “I’m sorry to bother you, Your Grace, but Lord and Lady Belford are here to see you.”

      He had wondered when his friends would arrive. “Show them in.” They were worried about him, he knew. He’d been holed up since the duel and hadn’t left the house. Though justice had been served, he felt defeated. He hadn’t left the house because he couldn’t find the will.

      Ethan ushered Grace into the room, a lovely young woman with heavy auburn hair and jewel-green eyes and dressed in a fashionable, high-waisted gown a paler shade of green. Grace and Rafe had long been friends, but never anything more. Rafe believed that Grace had been destined from the start to become Ethan’s bride, the one person who could dispel the darkness his friend had carried inside him.

      “How are you feeling?” Ethan asked, a worried look on his face. He was as tall as Rafe, leaner, darker, his features more sculpted, the sort of man women were drawn to. Even more so now that his demons were gone.

      “The wound was never that serious.” Rafe strode toward them across the room. “And the arm seems to be healing very well.”

      “That’s very good news.” Grace’s pretty face lit with a smile. “Perhaps you feel well enough to accompany us to luncheon. It’s such a lovely day.”

      Rafe glanced away. His body was mending, but his mind lingered in the past. The day after the duel, he had summoned Jonas McPhee to discover the whereabouts of Lady Wycombe and her niece, Danielle Duval. Since Rafe hadn’t seen her since the afternoon tea and neither had his mother, he thought that perhaps she and her aunt had returned to Wycombe Park.

      Instead, according to McPhee, Danielle and her aunt had left the country.

      “I can tell by the grim look on your face that you have discovered Danielle is gone,” Ethan said.

      Rafe frowned. “How did you know?”

      “Victoria told us,” Grace said. “She seems to have an invisible connection to every servant in the city. She was looking for information about Danielle. I suppose she thought you would probably wish to see her.”

      Rafe bit back a sigh of frustration. “Unfortunately, Jonas McPhee informed me three days ago that Danielle and her aunt have sailed for America, gone off to the city of Philadelphia. I had hoped to speak to her, to apologize and somehow try to make amends. I don’t suppose that is going to happen now.”

      “Certainly not right away,” Ethan agreed.

      Rafe looked at his friend. “Did Victoria also tell you that Danielle has accepted a proposal of marriage from an American name Richard Clemens?”

      “No.