In the Garden of Disgrace (36 page)

Jillian smiled. “It is a good thing Aunt Pru
has already gone to bed or I would never hear the end of it. You
must promise not to tell her about the trousers, Phillip. She will
be upset enough when she finds out how we spent this evening.” When
he gave her a reluctant nod, she asked, “What time is it?”

Her cousin checked his timepiece. “Just
after one o’clock. I promised Wickham I would meet him at the site
at fifteen minutes before five. We should leave about four.”

“We have a few hours to waste then. What
does everyone suggest?”

The consensus was food since, with all the
excitement, no one seemed to have eaten. They piled into the
kitchen, raiding the larder, and for a brief while Jillian was
transported to another time eight years before when she had felt
the same camaraderie with these two individuals she felt tonight.
Not that things could ever be like they were, but at least for a
little while it was nice to pretend.

Plates laden, they wandered into the small
dining room and sat at the table.

“I’ve not had this much fun in ages,”
Meredith said. And that did appear to be the truth, for she looked
more composed and less ragged than she had in recent days. “If I
weren’t so worried about Lionel everything would be perfect.”

“Forgive me for saying so, Merry,” Phillip
put in, “but I don’t see how you could still care for your husband.
I think something is fundamentally wrong there.”

“One can’t always choose where to love,”
Meredith said, evidently unoffended. “I’ve done things, things of
which I’m ashamed,” her gaze slid in Jillian’s direction, “to have
a life with Lionel. I know you both must believe me insane, but I’m
happier with him than without him.”

“Do you think the baby will make a
difference?” Jillian asked.

Phillip, who had been staring at his plate
of food, shaking his head with an attitude of outright amazement as
Meredith spoke, looked up when Jillian asked the question.

“Baby?” he inquired.

Meredith nodded. “Lionel and I are expecting
a child.”

The expression on Phillip’s face indicated
that he wondered the same thing Jillian had wondered when she first
heard the news—how had that couple stopped hurting one another long
enough to make a child? However, if the marquess still took his
wife to his bed, it was obvious why Meredith still had hopes.

After that the trio spent the remainder of
the night speaking on topics of a less personal nature, much to
Jillian’s relief. They returned to the parlor after eating, all
three complaining of drowsiness. Meredith and Phillip on opposite
sides of the settee dozed, thus Jillian found herself alone with
her thoughts.

She could hear the ticking of the
grandfather’s clock in the entry hall, the time between the hourly
chimes seeming interminable. She paced the floor, a nervous
crawling under her skin caused by the odd sensation of exhaustion
mixed with an inability to sleep.

Five minutes before the hour of four she
roused her companions.

*****

The air was cooler than Jillian had expected
for a morning late in August. What remained of the night sky was
clear, an unending expanse of blue-black sporting a few lingering
stars. She and her partners in subterfuge had ridden in a hired
carriage to the dueling site, a field outside Bath on the west side
of the town. Phillip had the driver park some distance away,
hoping, he indicated, to avoid discovery.

“You ladies stay here unless absolutely
necessary,” he said. “I don’t want either of you hurt.”

“Phillip,” Jillian said, “do you really
believe they will cancel this madness without someone’s
intervention? Merry and I are prepared to do what we must, aren’t
we Merry?”

Meredith, her face a study in stoicism,
nodded.

They watched Phillip trot to the field where
several male bodies—no one Jillian could identify—milled
around.

“How does news travel so fast?” Jillian
asked, shaking her head. “Look at all the people who have come out
to witness the bloodshed.”

“Can’t imagine what kind of person would be
interested in something this depraved,” Meredith said, her eyes
like shiny crystals in the shadows of the carriage. “This reminds
me of eight years ago, doing what we really oughtn’t and having a
wonderful time. Strange how things have come about. It has taken
you a long time to recover, Jillian, but I feel certain you will be
happy.”

“I wish the same for you, Merry. Hopefully
this baby—”

“I am under no delusions,” Meredith
interrupted, “that this baby will turn Lionel into the man he
should be. But maybe he will feel more loyalty toward me, being as
I’m carrying his child. I hope it is a boy,” she said
wistfully.

Jillian, moved by pity, did not know what to
say to that. Instead, she turned her attention to the field.
Frustrated by her inability to see, she grabbed the mask on the
seat that matched the domino she wore and opened the carriage
door.

“Come on, Merry, there’s no sense waiting
here until it is all over and we can do no good—which is, by the
way, what I think Phillip has in mind.” She climbed to the ground
and helped the other woman do the same. To the driver, she said,
“Remember what I told you. If all goes as we discussed you will be
handsomely rewarded.”

“Aye, m’lady,” the man said.

The two ladies, holding hands, skirted the
field, staying in the shadows and hopefully far enough from the
main event to remain undetected. Since Jillian wore male clothing,
if someone did see them, from such a distance they would probably
be perceived as a young couple out on an adventure.

A hedgerow grew along the westerly side of
the field and they made for that, hunching low which brought them
close enough to hear voices but still provided protection. Peeking
through the foliage, Jillian put her index finger to her lips,
signaling her companion to silence.

From what she could determine the rules of
etiquette were being discussed, rules that would guide the two
gentlemen as they tried to kill one another. She shook her head,
baffled by the demented quality of the proceedings.

She wished Adrian would turn around, for his
back was to her and she could not see his expression. However, she
could see Lionel. In the light of a torch held by a person Jillian
did not know, Meredith’s husband resembled a man near death, his
pasty face pinched with apprehension.

“Oh, Jillian,” Meredith moaned, “Lionel
looks terrible.”

“He’s terrified, Merry, and with good
reason. Though I think, given his obvious fright, you might want to
be proud of him because he did come. Many men have run under such
overwhelming circumstances.”

“I don’t care for that—I just want him to be
all right.” At once Meredith gasped. “They are taking out the
pistols!”

And they were. Another man, also unknown to
Jillian, held open the box that contained the weapons. She turned
to her friend.

“I’m afraid it is now or never. Are you able
to continue?”

Meredith brought trembling fingers to her
lips. “I think I’m about to be ill,” she whimpered.

“You can’t give into weakness, not now. See
here, they are lining up.”

The two combatants stood back to back,
pistols held in the air, the barrels of their respective guns
vertical to the ground. Any moment the count would begin, a count
that would end in gunfire and possible death. At the very least one
of the men would be wounded.

Jillian gave Meredith a fierce shove.
“Go!”

Meredith, eyes alight with dread, rose up
and bounded awkwardly over the hedgerow. Twigs caught at her skirt
and Jillian heard the rending of cloth. Merry stumbled free of the
bushes, almost losing her balance. Before she had fully righted
herself she began to run. It was probably the best diversion she
could have provided, for the Marchioness of Edgeworth was pitched
headlong—due to her own clumsiness—onto the field, only yards from
where the hostilities were in progress.

As Jillian had hoped, Meredith had created a
spectacular distraction. The lady was on her feet now, weeping
loudly, begging Lord Wickham not to kill her husband.

Lionel approached his wife. “Meredith,”
Jillian heard him say, “you shouldn’t be here. This is no place for
a woman.”

“Lionel, please, there is something I must
tell you. I-I can’t let you die without knowing.”

Meredith clung to him and, with a gentleness
that amazed Jillian for its unexpectedness, Lionel put his arm
around his wife and led her away from the gawkers. Maybe the threat
of death had made him realize what he was about to lose.

Jillian, her fingers shaking with the
audacity of what she intended to do, put the mask she carried over
her face and laced the ties. Everyone appeared to be watching the
Edgeworths thus she came to her feet, straightening as she did, and
began running down the length of the hedgerow. The first gap in the
bushes, she stepped through the opening and onto the field. That
strategy, coming from the angle she did, allowed her to sidle
toward the group while garnering the least amount of attention.

Where is Phillip? she thought frantically as
she joined the spectators. She had seen her cousin only moments
before but the people had shifted. She was terrified of being
stopped and questioned. Luckily, no one had paid her any heed, the
drama between Lord and Lady Edgeworth and the impending duel
receiving more interest than one lone masked individual.

If anyone did challenge her, she decided the
young man she was supposed to be would say he had been attending a
masquerade ball where he first heard of the duel and had wanted to
see the conflict for himself. She wondered if she could make her
voice sound masculine enough to be believable. It might work,
hidden in her domino and mask, if she were perceived to be not much
more than a lad. She prayed that would be the case, for as Meredith
and Phillip had forcefully reminded her, under close scrutiny she
would not be taken for even that.

A hand from behind grabbed her elbow and
Jillian almost shrieked aloud like the woman she was. That surely
would have given her away. She swung around and met Phillip’s
furious stare.

“You nearly scared the life out of me,” she
whispered.

“I’d like to
squeeze
the life out of
you,” he countered. “I knew when I saw Meredith you could not be
far behind. Why didn’t you wait in the carriage as I told you to
do?”

“From the looks of things you intended to
leave us there until all was finished.”

“Unlike you, Jillian, I trust Wickham.”

For the flicker of a moment his statement
forced Jillian to recognize the uncertainty of her plan, but she
cast off the thought before it could take hold.

“Give me your pistol, Phillip.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Don’t you
dare
tell me that. I saw
it hidden beneath your coat when we were in the carriage.”

“Jillian, I don’t like this part of the
arrangement. I’d be a fool to give you a gun. Why, you’re the most
unpredictable—”

“Give it to me.”

For long moments Phillip stared at her, lips
compressed in a tense line. Then he glanced from side to side,
checking to see if they were being watched. Extracting the pistol
from under his coat, he covertly palmed it off to her.

“What if something goes wrong?” he asked.
“There’s no bullet in the chamber, but no one else knows that. What
if you are regarded as a danger?”

Jillian, now holding the pistol in her right
hand, pulled the weapon into the sleeve of her domino.

“You think too much,” she said, turning her
attention to the couple still talking on the other side of the
field.

As she watched the marquess patted
Meredith’s hand, and from Jillian’s vantage point he looked to be
offering his distraught wife words of comfort. At last he pulled
away.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Jillian said, “it
appears Meredith cannot detain her husband any longer. He’s coming
back. But, Phillip, can you see the expression on his face? I think
Meredith’s announcement has touched him because he seems positively
shaken.”

“One can only hope.”

“Quick, I must confront Adrian now or lose
my opportunity.”

Phillip took her arm. “I can’t help you,
Jilly, if things go awry.”

“I understand, really I do.”

Having said that Jillian eased her way
around the small crowd with her cousin following in her wake. Lord
Wickham stood off to one side, a scowl of impatience marking his
features. Fortunately, he was alone which would make it easier to
approach him, although at the moment he looked anything but
approachable. He glanced up as Phillip and Jillian came abreast of
him.

“Yes?” the earl said, eyebrows raised as his
gaze darted between the two of them.

Her cousin opened his mouth to respond but
Jillian feared his nervousness would cause him to say the wrong
thing, thus she was propelled into action. In an instant she
slipped her left hand through the crook in Adrian’s right arm and,
as she did, pressed the barrel of the pistol into his side.

“Don’t move, my lord.” She growled the
words, dropping her voice to a timbre that hurt her throat.

At once she felt him stiffen and he looked
down at her, his eyes narrowing ominously.

“What is this?” he snapped. His gaze shifted
to her cousin. “Angsley?”

Adrian made to pull away from her, and
Jillian drew back the hammer on the gun. The audible click seemed
to reverberate through the night.

“Mr. Angsley,” Jillian said, “please tell
the organizers of this little event that Lord Wickham needs to
share a few words with the gentleman in the domino and they have
taken a short walk. His lordship will return presently, and then
the contest can proceed.”