Duel of Hearts (28 page)

She leaped from the bench and flew across the room, throwing her arms about his neck wildly. “You
found
me!” she cried, burying her face in his shoulder and bursting into fresh tears. “You've
s-saved
me! Oh, Edward, he … he didn't intend to m-marry me at all!”

Edward grasped her arms and held her at arms' length, scrutinizing her face carefully. “Are you all right?” he asked tensely.

“Yes, she's perfectly fine, bumpkin,” North said drily. “You've managed to arrive in the nick … blast you.”

Edward's eyes narrowed. He pulled off his greatcoat and tossed it aside. “Go into the other room, Cory,” he ordered, his mouth tightening dangerously. “I have some private business with his lordship.” His fists clenched, he pushed past her and stepped purposefully into the center of the room.

“Some
unfinished
business, isn't it?” North agreed, his mouth stretched in an icy smile. “I'm quite ready for you.”

Cory screamed, and Edward stopped short, for North was holding out a small but evil-looking silver pistol. It was fully cocked and held not ten inches away from Edward's head, its muzzle aimed at a point right between his eyes.

Chapter Twenty-One

E
DWARD HAD HAD
a difficult trip. He'd had to push his horses to their limit on roads made dangerous by enveloping fog. The fog had caused him to lose his way twice, one misadventure taking more than an hour to rectify. He'd been buffeted by bitter winds and chilled to the bone by the damp November air. But through it all, he had been sustained by the anticipation of the immense satisfaction he would find in pounding the overbearing John Philip North to a pulp with his bare fists. Now, although it might have seemed to an onlooker (had there been anyone present to look on except a hysterical Corianne) that Edward's attempt to commit violence on the person of the Marquis had been effectively halted by a well-aimed pistol, Edward would not have agreed. No pistol would stop him now!

He felt absolutely no fear as he stared for a moment down the barrel of the deadly silver weapon. After a pause of only a fraction of a second—less time than it could take North to squeeze the trigger—Edward lunged at North's chest, knocking aside the arm that held the gun as his full weight came crashing against the surprised Marquis. The pistol flew from his grasp as the two men toppled over to the floor.

They rolled around, each one trying to get a firm grip on the other's throat. First a chair went over with a crash, then a basket of kindling, and then another chair. With each crash, Corianne screamed. North, his eye on the silver pistol still out of reach across the floor, rolled over—his opponent first under and then above him—in the direction of the weapon. When they neared it, he pushed his right hand roughly into Edward's face while he reached out with the left to grasp the pistol. But Edward saw the movement from the corner of an eye and managed to kick the gun aside. At the same moment, he swung his fist at the unprotected left side of North's face. North groaned and lay still.

Edward, breathless, got to his knees and, using a table leg to support him, pulled himself to his feet, his back momentarily turned to his opponent. North, watching with lidded eyes, pulled up on one elbow, grasped the legs of an overturned chair and heaved it at Edward. It caught Edward heavily on the shoulder and the side of his head. Dizzied, he fell to one knee. Instantly, North was on him again.

The two struggled on the floor again, neither able to loosen the grip of the other. North, beginning to tire, and with his jaw aching badly, cast about desperately for his pistol or some other weapon to use against the bulldog tenacity and strength of his opponent. His eye fell upon the glass that Corianne had knocked to the floor. It was just beyond his reach, lying against one of the table legs. With a sudden surge of effort, he swung himself over upon Edward and, pinioning his shoulder with one arm, reached for the glass with the other. Quickly he struck it against the table leg, breaking off the stem. Cory screamed a warning as North lifted the jagged edge and brought it toward Edward's throat.

Edward caught his hand at the wrist and held it off. This despicable trick was, for Edward, the last straw. Enraged, he forced North's arm back as far as he could, until the pain caused North to gasp and loosen his hold. That was all Edward needed. With a smashing right to North's face, he knocked him senseless.

This time he didn't take his eyes from North's prostrate body as he pulled himself up. His forehead throbbed from the blow of the chair, his shoulder was badly bruised, both his shins ached from the repeated impact of North's boots, and he'd sustained an ugly cut on the back of his hand from the broken glass. But he didn't want the fight to end. “Get up, damn you,” he said to the fallen North. “Get
up
! I'm not through with you.”

North didn't move. A terrified Corianne crept into the room and tugged at Edward's arm. “Please, Edward,” she said quaveringly, “let's leave this p-place.”

“I told you to go to the other room,” he barked at her, his eyes continuing their furious watch over the fallen North. “Now, do as I say!”

Cory, shaken and chastened, backed away at once. But before she could cross the threshold, she heard North groan.

“Ah,” Edward smiled frighteningly, “you're awake, are you? Get up, then. Get to your feet!”

North opened one eye, groaned again but did not move. Edward bent over him, grasped him by the lapels of his coat and shook him. “Get up, blast you!” But North lolled limply in his hold. Edward put both his arms under North's and hauled him to his feet. Keeping him erect by holding on to his neckcloth with his left hand, Edward raised his right fist to strike again.

“
No!
” Corianne squealed in agitation. “Edward,
don't
! That's
enough
!”

Edward's arm remained raised in its threatening pose for a moment, but then he let it drop to his side. “Very well,” he muttered, “I'll let him be. It wasn't nearly the mill I'd hoped it would be.”

He dragged North to a chair and let him fall into it. North slumped down, his legs outstretched awkwardly, his arms dangling down over the arms. One eye remained closed, for it was rapidly turning purple and swelling up alarmingly. The left side of his jaw was already dreadfully distended and discolored. With his one good eye, he looked up at Edward lugubriously. “I shou' ha' killed you when I firs' laid eyes on you,” he said thickly, his mouth too bruised and stiff for proper enunciation. “We shou' ha' duelled then.”

“Yes, we should have,” Edward agreed. He walked slowly across the room to where the pistol lay gleaming in the firelight and picked it up. He studied it briefly. It was loaded and cocked. He sighted down the barrel in North's direction. “Do you still believe you could actually have killed me?” he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “Well, my lord? Are you still so sure?”

There was a commotion at the door. “Edward,
don't!
” The cry didn't come from Corianne. Edward lowered the gun and turned around. It was Sarah in the doorway, looking at him in horror. Behind her, Fitz and Clara were gaping at him as if they'd never seen him before.

Edward laughed mirthlessly. “You needn't stare at me that way. I don't intend to shoot the damned blackguard.”

Fitz stepped over the threshold first. “Well, you
were
pointing that thing at him, you know. Looked very much as if you were taking aim, although I never believed that you would actually—”

“Shoot an unarmed man in cold blood?” Edward finished drily. “How kind in you!” He looked over the three new arrivals with disdain. “No, you needn't worry. I leave that sort of thing to the nobility.” He made an ironic bow in North's direction. “They have more experience at it.”

“Ned!” Clara exclaimed. “He didn't try to shoot
you
, did he?”

“Didn't he?” Edward turned to Sarah, his once-so-breathtaking smile now a distorted sneer. “He's your husband-to-be, isn't he, ma'am? The man you've loved for so long? You must know him better than any of us.
Would
he try to shoot an unarmed man?”

Sarah looked up at him with a feeling of despondent confusion. This bitter irony was not what she'd expected from him. The sense of joyful relief she'd felt when she'd first glimpsed him alive and well as they'd burst in the door had been instantly dispelled by the realization that he was aiming a pistol at the obviously defeated North. She'd been appalled … and terrified. But now, on reflection, she knew she'd misjudged him. Edward would never shoot an unarmed man. But obviously her mistaken first impression had offended him. She wanted to apologize, but his caustic attack unnerved her.

“Well,” he persisted angrily, “can't you answer me?”

She put a trembling hand on his arm. “Edward, don't. Please … I couldn't … I didn't mean…”

He looked at her witheringly and then shook her hand away. Turning, he crossed to North's chair. “And you, my lord … are you equally at a loss for words? Don't you want to tell your betrothed how courageously, how uprightly, how
nobly
you defended yourself?”

North fixed his good eye on Sarah. “Shou' ha' killed 'im that firs' day,” he mumbled. “That very firs' day.”

“Edward,” Corianne whined suddenly, “I want to leave this place!” The entire drama, from the moment Sarah and her friends had come upon the scene, had taken a turn she didn't understand. Somehow, the fact that
she'd
been abducted had diminished in importance. Her humiliation and pain seemed a matter of little moment to anyone else. “I want to go
home!
” she cried pathetically.

“Yes, my dear, in a moment,” Edward said, not taking his eyes from Lord North's face.

North was looking up at him with hatred. “I cou' ha' shot you down like a dog … as easily … and legally … as I'd shoot a sick horse…”

Edward laughed. “Do you think so?” He turned and walked to the wall behind him. Deliberately, he raised the pistol.

“
Edward!
” Cory squealed.

“Ned, what—?” Fitz began, startled.

“Fitz,” Edward ordered, “take that candelabrum from the table and stand it on the bench against the far wall.”

Fitz cast his wife a questioning look. She nodded imperceptibly, and he hurriedly followed Edward's order.

“Yes, thank you, Fitz. Well, North, which one shall it be? The one on the right? The left? Ah, the center one, eh? Good.” He turned his face to the wall, waited a breath-stopping moment, whirled around and, barely taking aim, he fired. The center candle was instantly snuffed out. When the smoke had cleared, it stood erect and unmarked, but its wick was gone.

Edward tossed the gun into the fire and strode back to North's chair. “So you see, my lord, in a duel between us, it would not necessarily be
my
light that's snuffed out,” he said quietly. “If you still wish it, I am willing to keep our duelling appointment any time you're ready.” He gave North a mocking little bow and turned away.

Clara chortled. “He'll never fight a duel with you now.”

“No, I don't suppose he will.” Edward turned to Sarah. “Well, there he is, ma'am. In a day or two, I have no doubt he'll be good as new. And all yours.”

Sarah dropped her eyes from his angry, derisive glare.

Edward took her chin in his hand and forced her to look up at him. “Did you hear me, Miss Stanborough? Your betrothed, your heart's desire, your
love
! Look at him!” He made a scornful gesture toward North, who watched them balefully from the one good eye in his battered face. “The handsome rake … the attractive devil that women can't resist!” He looked down at her, his eyes burning wrathfully. “He's all yours now. I wish you joy of him.”

He went quickly to the door, picked up his greatcoat and threw it over Corianne's shoulders. “Come, girl,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her after him out the door. “We're going home. To Lincolnshire.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

T
HEY DROVE, NOT
speaking very much, through most of the night. Cory cried silently for the first few hours. Edward, wrapped in his own thoughts, did not try to console her. He was puzzling over his own feeling and the unreasoning way he'd ripped up at Sarah. Strangely, his mill with Lord North had done little to ease the anger that seemed to have built up in him. But why had he vented it on her? One would have thought that his rescue of Cory and his defeat of North would have eased his rage and given him some sense of satisfaction. But, inexplicably, a bitterness seemed to have lodged itself somewhere inside him and would not leave.

As the dawn came up, Edward drew up at an inn near Nottingham where, ignoring the curious looks of the innkeeper, he bespoke two bedrooms. He and Cory slept until noon when, by mutual agreement, they rose and took to the road again. By this time they were both feeling better. Eager for the sight of home, they welcomed every familiar detail of the landscape. Cory, her eyes beginning to shine, looked out on the wintry hills and wide fields stretching out beyond the carriage windows with a smile. A pale November sun lit the air, the wind had died down, and the leaves on the ground stirred gently in the wake of the carriage wheels. The countryside had never seemed so beautiful to her before. “I don't think I'll ever go to London again as long as I live,” she remarked.

“Yes, you will,” Edward predicted. “You'll forget your misadventures before very long, and you'll plead with your father to send you back.”

“No, never. Besides, I won't have to plead with Father for long. I expect I'll have a husband to plead with.”

Edward turned his eyes from the road to stare at her with eyebrows raised. “A husband? Really, Cory, you're the most inconstant creature. Only yesterday you were determined to marry North. Now you speak of someone else. Can you have found a new candidate as soon as this?”