Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

down the black instrument case.

      Silence, then the sound of voices at a distance. Lily eased back the corner of the blind and saw two carriages some way off, standing apart from each other. Jack was by one, looking out over the view towards London. He seemed relaxed, yet watchful. Adrian was by the other, staring at the huddle of men—presumably the seconds—halfway between the two vehicles.

      The coachman had stopped the doctor’s carriage by a small stand of trees. Lily looked out of the opposite door—under their cover she could circle round and get much closer, especially as the whole group were now making their way down into some sort of depression in the ground below the copse.

      Lily slipped out of the door and into the trees.

      Jack stood patiently, watching two of the seconds examining the box of duelling pistols that Lord Gledhill had produced. There seemed to be a cold lump where his stomach should be, and his heartbeat was unusually rapid, but he felt he could sustain the appearance of calm. Anything, rather than betray himself as Randall was doing, with his white face and constant fidgeting.

      ‘They appear perfectly satisfactory,’ said Randall’s second. What was his name? Dunsford? ‘No rifling, both well balanced, no difference in the triggers that I can find. I am happy to accept these on behalf of my principal. Shall we load, Webster? It does not look as though either party is offering or accepting an apology.’

      Jack’s man nodded, with a glance towards Lord Gledhill and Fellthorpe, his opposite number. Both were shaking their heads, their faces grave, while the doctor stood discreetly to one side.

      Doctor Ord! Jack bowed slightly and received a frosty bow in return. It seemed the good doctor did not approve of such affairs, or perhaps he simply did not wish to see a man he had recently patched up putting himself at hazard again. Difficult to blame him—if anyone was killed, Ord would have to convince a jury he had not connived in the duel from the start.

      Jack was not at all sure he approved of the duel either, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was an affair of honour and he was damned if he was going to leave that sneering lordling unchastised. Lily apart—he was trying very hard not to think about Lily just now—he had a long score to settle with Randall, going right back to his schooldays as the undersized victim of Randall’s bullying.

      I am not so undersized now, Jack smiled grimly to himself, then was struck by a thought. As Webster and Dunsford took the pistols over to Randall for him to make his choice, Jack shrugged out of his coat and began to untie his neckcloth.

      ‘What are you about?’ Lord Gledhill asked, finding coat, neckcloth and finally, shirt, thrust into his hands.

      ‘I’ve seen bullet wounds with cloth carried into them before now. They fester. I am sure our good doctor would agree with me that this is a sensible precaution.’

      ‘What’s the matter, Allerton?’ Lord Randall’s sneering voice carried across the short distance between them as the remaining pistol was handed to Jack. ‘Afraid I am going to hit you?’

      ‘Of course,’ Jack replied calmly. ‘With unrifled barrels goodness knows where the shot might go—even you might hit something.’

      Randall turned an angry shoulder and his seconds began to whisper at him urgently as he began to button his coat right up to the neck, hiding the target of white shirtfront and neckcloth.

      Lord Gledhill grinned at Jack. ‘You are a sight to scare anyone with those scars on you. You strip well,’ he added with the assessing stare of a sporting aficionado. ‘Box, do you?’

      ‘Occasionally. Mostly I wield a pick.’ Jack glanced up at the scrub on the edge of the depression. ‘Thought I saw something up there.’

      ‘Fox, probably.’ Lord Gledhill looked across. ‘We are ready.’ The sudden, fleeting, pressure of his hand was warm on Jack’s bare shoulder as Jack moved the pistol from hand to hand, relaxing the muscles and tendons so that his grip, when he finally took it, was steady.

      He spared a final thought for his family and the letter he had handed to Gledhill, then steadied his mind as he walked towards Randall. The man’s blue eyes flickered as he met them. The duellists turned and stood back to back, the heat radiating from the other man’s body just reaching Jack’s chilled skin. Then Gledhill began to count and he paced forward, stopped, turned and waited.

      ‘Take aim.’

       Li—

      Before Gledhill could continue, Randall’s pistol arm came up, there was a bang, the sudden lash like a red hot wire across his left bicep, a puff of smoke, and his opponent was staring at him, white faced, across the damp grass.

      ‘Damn it, Randall, you fired too soon!’ The baron’s own second was shouting at him, aghast.

      The pain was acute, shocking. Jack did not look down. Slowly he raised his own pistol, feeling the sweat break out on his brow with the effort to stand still, to exercise control while his body hurt so. Randall’s face swam into focus and he took aim, squarely in the middle of his chest. Now I have you!

      Time seemed to stand still, sound vanished, the only reality was his opponent’s white, terrified face and the weight of the pistol in his hand, the ache of his wrist as he held it steady, the heat of blood on his left arm, the pain. Lily. Jack turned the muzzle of the pistol away, out over the deserted heath, insultingly wide of Randall, and pulled the trigger.

      Then noise flooded back, and movement. Doctor Ord was at his side, Gledhill was steadying him. ‘I am all right.’ He glanced down at his arm. The bullet had cut a red raw furrow through the flesh. ‘It is merely a flesh wound.’

      ‘Sit on this tree stump and let me bandage it.’ The doctor produced an unpleasant black bottle and poured it over the wound.

      ‘Hell and damnation!’ Almost deprived of breath by the fiery wash of the spirit, Jack sat down and submitted his arm to be bandaged. ‘Where’s Randall?’ Gledhill’s lanky frame was blocking his view. It was beginning to dawn on him that he was alive, relatively unscathed and was neither a murderer nor a fugitive. On balance, even with a wound that stung like hell, that was a better outcome than he had expected at three in the morning when he was lying flat on his back, giving up on sleep as the noise of night coaches reached his high room.

      ‘Slunk off back to his carriage.’ His second stood aside, revealing the black coach swaying off across the rough ground. ‘That was a bad business, firing early like that. And you deloping simply highlighted how badly he has behaved. And he knows there are six witnesses to his behaviour. Randall will not show his face in town for a while, I’d bet.’

      ‘You will do, Lord Allerton.’ The doctor straightened up. ‘Get your clothes on before you catch the chill—I would not be surprised if you take a fever, even so.’

      That was it: score settled. Nothing to stop him taking the next coach north. Home.

      As Jack got to his feet and began to shrug on his shirt with Lord Gledhill’s assistance, Lily sank back against the bush under which she had been hiding. I am not going to faint. I am not!

      To have crouched there, silent, through that interminable, formalised ritual had been a nightmare. It had all seemed impossibly unreal at first as the men stood and talked in their little groups, as though they were striking a bargain over the price of something, or solemnly conferring on a matter of law. Then the shock of seeing Jack stripping off, the shame of feeling a thrill run through her at the physical power of him and then the terror of seeing Adrian raise his pistol and fire.

      To have seen the bullet strike Jack, tear through skin and muscle, watch him stand there as the blood coursed down his arm—and shake with reaction when she realised he was not killed—then be struck with terror that he would drop Adrian where he stood and become a fugitive … It was worse than she could ever have believed possible.

      Swallowing, Lily backed out from her cover and hurried away through the spinney. Before she could reach the doctor’s carriage, nausea