Duel of Hearts (21 page)

Fitz would have sworn a few minutes earlier that anything which prevented the duel would please him enormously, but this letter left him feeling puzzled and irritated. No wonder Ned had been angry. “Honor on both sides,” indeed! His lordship's arrogance was truly vexing. Who was
he
to decide so insolently on when and where to duel, when
not
to duel, and where the honor lay? North merely snapped his fingers and expected everyone to dance to his tune.

And what was the meaning of the sentence about a betrothal to Sarah? Was the girl demented? Didn't she realize the excesses of North's character? Fitz sighed in disappointment. He'd hoped that she and
Ned
might make a match of it. He'd been sure that she'd shown signs of a
tendre
toward his friend. If only Fitz could discuss all this with his Clara.
She
would understand it better than he ever could. Clara would probably say that Sarah had sacrificed herself—

Good
God
! Could
that
be the explanation? Yesterday, Sarah had been almost beside herself with worry. Had she taken this drastic measure to save Edward? And if so, should she be permitted to go ahead with her scheme? Was there anything that he, Fitz, should
do
about it? “Oh, my Clara,” he muttered under his breath, “where are you when I need you so?”

Before he could ruminate further, he heard Edward stride past the drawing-room door. “Good heavens, man,” he called out, “where are you going?”

“I told you. To wring Sarah's neck!” came the terse reply.

“What?
Now?
It's half-past
four
!”

There was a moment of silence, and then Edward came sheepishly into the room. He met his friend's eye and broke into a grin. “I forgot,” he said and dropped into a chair. He would wait. It would only take six hours.

Lady Stanborough dropped her biscuit into her coffee cup in astonishment. “
North?
” she squealed. “
North?
But I thought it was the
Squire
who—!”

“You only imagined that, Mama,” Sarah explained with a strained smile, reaching across the breakfast table and patting her mother's hand. “Edward and I are only friends. I thought you'd be
delighted
at my news.”

“I
am
. I'm all atwitter. It's just … so unexpected! It's wonderful, of course … if I could only … grasp it.”

“Poor Mama. I'm sorry to have shocked you so. Just give yourself time to let the news sink in. Once it does, I know you'll be overjoyed.”

“I
am
overjoyed. Oh, Sarah, what a
match
! Only
think
of his wearing the willow for you all these years! I've always said it, haven't I? I always knew—”

“Yes, you did, Mama. You were quite right,” Sarah said, lifting her cup to her lips. She hoped that a good swig of hot coffee would melt the lump in her throat. It certainly would not do to burst into tears at this supposedly joyous moment.

“Wait until people hear!” her mother said ecstatically, the significance of Sarah's news beginning to dawn on her. “The whole of London will be
agog
!”

“Why?” asked Corianne, who walked into the breakfast room during Lady Stanborough's effusion. “What's happened?”

“Oh, Corianne,” chirped her aunt excitedly, “
you
shall be the very
first
to hear! Sarah is to become the
Marchioness of Revesne
! Lord North has finally convinced her to become his
wife
!”

Corianne's expression of interested expectation did not change for a few seconds. Then she paled, wavered slightly back and forth, her eyelids trembled shut, and she slid to the floor in a swoon.

It had not been a very good morning for Corianne even
before
she'd heard Sarah's news. She had not recovered her spirits from the blows to her self-esteem of the two previous days, and the morning had brought a letter from Belinda which had given her additional pain. Belinda's tone had been ecstatic, but Corianne had not been able, in her wounded state of mind, to take Belinda's news in good part.
You are not to believe
, Belinda had written,
that I don't miss you dreadfully, Cory, for I do, but your absence has had some delightful results. Now that you are gone, three of the young men whom you “carried in your pocket” have found themselves able to look elsewhere. Sidney Gleggins has become enamored of Alice Burgess, and they are to announce in the spring. (Yes, the same Alice Burgess whom we've so often described as an awkward goose, but she has blossomed out amazingly since Sidney began to court her and now is thought of as a pretty and graceful creature!) And your once-devoted Sir George Farrow seems to be on the verge of offering for, of all people, the feather-headed Trixie Merideth. At every gathering they sit with their heads together, Trixie giggling throughout like a veritable zany. But the best news of all is that
yours truly
has managed to convince a certain Thomas Moresby that she is desirable above all other human creatures
—
even you
!—
and he has actually spoken to Father! We are to be married in May, and you must be sure to come home in time, for I must have you beside me as my maid—or matron?
—
of honor
!

Corianne knew that she ought to be happy for her friend, but it did not add to her wounded self-esteem to realize that, even in Lincolnshire, she was not as devastating to men as she'd been before. To her credit, she scolded herself severely for her lack of generosity, she composed herself as best she could, and she assumed a cheerful demeanor for her entrance into the breakfast room. But the news that Sarah had snatched North away from under her nose had been the last straw. Thwarted beyond her endurance, she simply fainted.

Sarah administered hartshorn, and Corianne came round. She insisted that it was nothing, but Lady Stanborough ordered her to bed. A doctor was immediately summoned. He, too, told Lady Stanborough that nothing was wrong with the girl. “Probably burning the candle at both ends,” he diagnosed, and he prescribed nothing more drastic than a day or two of rest.

Sarah was trying to decide whether Edward should be informed when the man himself knocked at the door. It was just after ten, a rather early hour for a call, and Tait's announcement of Mr. Middleton's arrival took Sarah by surprise.
He has a sixth sense when it comes to Cory's welfare
, she thought with a pang of envy as she went downstairs to greet him.

But, of course, it had not been for Corianne's benefit that Edward had come. It had been Sarah herself who had been troubling his thoughts since four that morning. Fitz had kept him company for a while, but Edward had made his friend go to bed when the clock struck five. Since that time, he'd reviewed everything he knew about Sarah Stanborough in a troubled attempt to understand what she'd done. He knew that his speculations were not as clear as they should have been, for the recollection of their embrace kept interfering with his normally analytical thought processes. He had to admit that the incident had shaken him badly. The lustrousness of her face as she'd held it up to be kissed, the sweetness of her lips on his, the sensation of holding her in his arms had been as exhilarating as it had been unexpected. He was far from a green boy, but he could remember no caress which had so disquieted him.

He tried to push the memory aside. He was in love with Cory, wasn't he? And for the first time in all these years of unspoken attachment, he was actively pursuing her. He'd felt a sense of disloyalty in even
remembering
his feelings for Sarah during that embrace. So he'd forced himself, instead, to recollect the details of the quarrel he'd had with Sarah at the end of that disastrous evening.

The recollection of the quarrel did little to clarify his thinking. He was deeply ashamed of himself for his part in that exchange. He'd accused Sarah of
using
him to pursue her own ends, but later reflection had convinced him that he'd acted out of an unjustified and unexplainable jealousy. How
could
he have challenged her basic and unmistakable honesty? And what right had he to be jealous at all? Never in his life before had he behaved like such a cad. He owed her a most humble apology.

But she owed him an apology as well. She'd had no right to interfere with the consummation of the duel. She, like Fitz, had too little faith in his capabilities, and that fact infuriated him. He would have liked to duel with the despicable North just for the opportunity to
prove
himself to Sarah! If she'd sold herself to that blackguard just to prevent the duel, it was a sacrifice that he, Edward, could not permit.

If
the duel was her reason … the “if” was the key word. Why
had
she taken such a drastic step? How could Edward guess her real motivation? There were certainly signs, last night, that she and North had some connection. But Fitz had told him that it was common gossip that North had been pursuing her for
years
without success. She'd refused him until now. Edward could well understand that refusal. A girl with Sarah's sweetness and sensitivity could not be drawn to a sybaritic scoundrel like North!
Could
she?

There was nothing for it but to ask. If she'd taken this step in his own behalf, Edward had to stop her. He'd come to this decision before eight. He'd spent the next two hours wandering about in the streets. At ten, unable to wait any longer, he'd made his appearance on her doorstep.

Sarah greeted him matter-of-factly and told him about Cory's indisposition. She noticed that he listened with a rather surprising air of abstraction. Nevertheless, she hastily assured him that the doctor had found nothing wrong. “I'm convinced that the doctor would have no objection to your going up to see her for yourself,” she urged with a kind but withdrawn politeness. “She's not asleep.”

“No, thank you. If the doctor says she's well, I see no reason … that is, I've come on a more pressing matter. May I talk to you in private, ma'am?”

The tension in his face gave Sarah a clue to his purpose in coming, and she had no wish to pursue the discussion. “I'm rather tired, sir,” she said, matching his strained formality with her own. “I wish you will excuse me for the time being.”

His mouth tightened. “I've been waiting since four o'clock this morning to talk to you, Sarah,” he burst out angrily, “and I won't wait any longer. Is this room occupied?” Without waiting for an answer, he took her by the elbow and drew her into the breakfast room just beyond where they'd been standing. “I'd like to know the meaning of this, ma'am,” he demanded, waving the crumpled letter before her eyes.

While she scanned the letter, he shut the door. When he came back, she thrust the paper back into his hand. “It seems to me to be quite clear,” she said, walking around the table to the window and staring out of it with unseeing eyes.

“It's clear that you found it necessary to go to North to plead in my behalf, and
that
, ma'am, is an act I find humiliating and … unacceptable.”

“I'm afraid you'll
have
to accept it, Edward, for it is already done.”

He came up behind her. “It can be
undone
!” he exclaimed urgently. “Tell him you will
not
marry him after all.”

“I will tell him no such thing,” she said implacably.

“But why not? Please, Sarah,
listen
to me. If the duel drove you to take this step, I
beg
you to believe that you need not feel alarm about it. I promise you that I am quite capable of—”

“I don't wish to discuss that blasted duel!” Sarah cut in. “The incident that prompted North to challenge you has been explained, and … the matter is
finished
!”

“Not for me.” He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I can't permit you to go ahead with this marriage. Surely you don't
wish
for it!”

“But I
do,
” she declared staunchly.

He stared at her. “I don't believe it!”

“Why don't you? You said yourself, the other night, that I … I … arranged that misbegotten little plot for my own purposes.”

“But I didn't mean it! Forgive me for what I said the other night, Sarah. I don't know
what
…! I must have lost my head.”

“There is nothing to forgive. You were quite right.”

“Are you saying that you
did
plot to lure North here to discover us embracing?” he asked in disbelief.

She couldn't meet his eyes. She looked down at her clenched hands. “Perhaps not, but—”

“Of course not! Why
should
you have done such a thing? There was no need … Fitz says he's been asking you for years to wed him. And you've been refusing him for years, isn't that so?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stop this nonsense, Sarah! Look at me! It
was
the duel that made you accept him. Admit it!”

She drew a deep breath and looked up at him levelly. “Perhaps the duel brought matters to a head,” she lied, “but I would have accepted him sooner or later.”

“
Sarah!
” The look of shocked pain in his eyes was almost more than she could bear. “You can't mean what you're saying. The fellow's a … a…”

“Please, Edward, don't. I can't permit you to speak badly of him … not to me.”

“But the man's completely
unworthy
of you. Are you expecting me to believe that you
love
him?”

“Why should you
not
believe it?”

Nonplussed, he floundered for an answer. “He's not … not at
all
your sort of man. Do you think, in the past few days, that I've learned nothing of your character? Do you think I haven't seen your innate quietness, your deep reserve, your dislike of society's extravagances? Can a man be in your company for more than an hour without recognizing your gentleness, your kindness … so many qualities of sweet good nature? How can you claim to love someone who is so completely your antithesis?”