Jo Beverley - [Malloren] (3 page)

The light but lethal blades tapped and slithered, stockinged feet padded back and forth on the springy grass, agile bodies flexed and twisted, recovered, extended, retracted, lunged….

Attacking blades were beaten back, but not always without contact. Soon, despite the cool morning air, both men poured sweat, and hair flew free of ribbons. Both shirts were gashed red. No more than scratches yet, but Bryght’s heart was racing as his brother’s must be. Plague take it but it was close. A slip could settle this, or it might come down to endurance.

The two men fought in silence to the music of the blades, all concentration in eye and hand, and on the sword—the flexible extension of the hand, arm, and body. Agile feet and strong legs moved them back and forth with lethal speed. Both must know it was even, for they pushed the risks now, hunting the falter.

Curry thrust high, forcing an awkward parry that still sent the point slicing across Rothgar’s shoulder. Curry was ready with an echo thrust to the heart, but by some miracle Rothgar kept his balance and knocked the rapier wide.

Both men stepped back, panting and dripping, then lunged forward again. It could not go much longer. Then Rothgar parried another clever thrust and extended, extended almost beyond strength and balance so his rapier point penetrated Curry’s chest just below the breastbone. Not deep enough to kill. Not even deep enough to seriously wound. But instinct
staggered the man back, shocked, hand to the wound, and the crowd gasped.

Perhaps they thought him killed.

Perhaps he thought the same.

With a rapid flick, Rothgar pinked him in the thigh so blood ran free. Curry tried to collect himself, to get back his balance and control, but Rothgar’s sword flickered past a confused defense of the heart to pierce deep into his left shoulder.

The maiming wound. Curry would live, but unless he was very lucky, he would not use a sword with his left arm again.

Bryght realized he’d stopped breathing, and sucked in air. All around, cheers and applause made this seem absurdly like a popular scene at the opera.

Curry, to give him credit, seized his fallen sword in his right hand and tried to go on, but Rothgar disarmed him in a few moves. His sword rested at the man’s heaving chest, poised with intent over the false wound. Still sucking in breaths, he said, “I assume you are now … resolved to sing songs that are up to date and in tune?”

Rage flared in Curry’s eyes, the rage of one who’d never been defeated, who had thought himself invulnerable, and in a way still did. “Singing be damned. Lady Chastity Ware was a whore, and still is—”

He died, his heart pierced, before more filth could spew forth.

R
othgar pulled his sword free and the doctor came forward, in no great hurry, to confirm the end. None of Curry’s stunned friends seemed inclined to gather around the corpse and mourn, and suddenly, like a flock of birds released from cages, chatter rose all around.

Rothgar looked around at his audience. “Gentlemen,” he said, instantly gaining silence and attention, “as you heard, Sir Andrew Curry tried to bring a lady’s name into this, thereby offending not just my family’s honor, but that of our gracious monarch and his wife. The king and queen have accepted Lady Raymore at Court as a woman of virtue. Their wisdom and judgment is not to be questioned.”

After a startled moment, mutters of support swelled, scattered with calls of “Aye!” “God save the king!” and “Devil take him who thought it!” Curry’s cronies shared panicked glances and slipped hastily away.

As men gathered around Rothgar to congratulate, and to relive the fight, Bryght saw that no one remained to arrange for removal of the body. He took the Malloren footman over to the doctor and put matters in hand. With luck Dr. Gibson or one of his colleagues needed a cadaver to mangle. By the time he’d dealt with that, Fettler was assisting his brother back into his coat.

“Were you as pressed there as you looked?” Bryght asked.

Rothgar took a deep swallow from a flask. It was doubtless the pure water he had brought in daily from a spring on the chalk downs. “He was good. But he never dug beneath the surface.”

They climbed into the coach, the valet sitting opposite, and it moved off to take them back to Malloren House.

“Are any of the wounds serious?”

“Mere scratches.”

“I don’t suppose he thought to poison his sword.”

Rothgar’s lips twitched. “Don’t be theatrical.”

“It’s just the sort of thing scum like that would do—”

But his brother had leaned his head back and closed his eyes, so Bryght cut off more words. Even Rothgar must feel some effect of peril, exertion, and dealing out death. Bryght considered his own nervous reaction and knew he had lost all taste for this sort of thing. He wondered if his brother was feeling the same way.

When they arrived at Malloren House, he couldn’t stop himself following Rothgar up and into his handsome suite of rooms. He knew common sense and a host of excellent servants would take care of him, but he had to follow. Rothgar raised his brows, but didn’t throw him out as he stripped off his ruined shirt. There were, in truth, only small cuts and scratches. The worst was the slash across the shoulder, and that wasn’t deep.

Bryght began to get his brain back. “So,” he said, “do you think that was one rash man, or a plot?”

Stripped down to drawers, his brother was washing. “If it was a plot, I assume they will try again. It will be informative to see how.”

“Again? Plague take it, you can’t just wait for the next attack.”

“How do you suggest I prevent it? Nor would I wish to. I prefer to have any murderous enemy flushed out of cover and dealt with.” Rothgar toweled dry and issued crisp commands about bandages and clothes. “You take an interest in mathematics. One point tells us nothing. Three should pin down the source.”

“Next time it might be poison, or a pistol in the dark.”

His brother sat so his barber could dress the wound on his shoulder. “I do my best to guard against such things.”

“Even so—”

“Heaven save me from newly hatched family men!” Rothgar
turned sharply toward him. “It can be the only explanation for all this fussing. Nothing is particularly changed, Bryght. Except you.”

The barber patiently shifted to work from the new angle.

To hell with it, Bryght thought. He’d have the discussion he’d been seeking. “My circumstances
have
changed,” he said, passing the ruby signet back to his brother. “Having found domestic comfort, I quake at the prospect of having to take up your responsibilities.”

“I will do my best to spare you that fate until you are far too old to care.”

“Can you spare Francis, too?”

He was referring to his son. For a telling pause, Rothgar concentrated on sliding the ring back onto his right hand, then on flexing his bandaged shoulder and nodding his approval. At a murmur from the barber, he turned again and the man began to shave him.

Bryght’s jaw tensed. The issue here was marriage—Rothgar’s marriage and siring of a son and heir—and his brother was warning him off. Because Rothgar’s mother had gone mad, he had resolved not to continue that tainted blood in the line. It had always been understood that Bryght or one of his brothers, sons of a different mother, would produce future generations of Mallorens.

The subject was forbidden, but Bryght couldn’t take the warning this time. As soon as the barber put down the razor and began to wipe away traces of soap, he demanded, “Well?”

Rothgar rose to put on the shirt and breeches offered by junior valets. “Perhaps one day high rank and power will be your son’s delight.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“He will, I assume, be trained to do his duty anyway.” The exquisitely embroidered gray silk waistcoat came next, and a valet set to fastening the long line of chased silver buttons.

Bryght was sweating as if he was in fact engaged in a duel.

He had long accepted his place as Rothgar’s heir. Growing up the son of a marquess, he had willy-nilly learned a great deal about the business, and Rothgar had insisted that he
learn more. Though unwilling, he was capable of taking up the burden if necessary.

When he had married last year, he’d accepted that his eldest son would one day inherit the marquisate. Now, however, that theoretical heir was a nine-month-old child with copper curls and a beloved smile. Francis, whom Bryght and Portia wanted to grow up free to explore the whole of this exciting modern world. How was Francis to shape a life of his own, yet be ready to take on awesome responsibilities tomorrow, or next year, or forty years from now?

Or never.

Intolerable.

But how to argue the case … ?

He realized that he’d let Rothgar have his way. He’d let the matter drop. Perhaps his nerve had failed him, for he knew his brother would fight any pressure to marry as fiercely, as ruthlessly, as he had fought Curry.

The coiffeur carried in a gray wig, back hair hidden in a gray silk bag gathered by a black ribbon. The grandeur of his brother’s preparations finally caught Bryght’s attention. “Where the devil are you going?”

“You have forgotten that it’s Friday?”

He had. Every Wednesday and Friday the king held a levee. Attendance was not precisely compulsory, but any man of importance at court or in government was expected to attend if he was in London. If he did not, the king could assume that he was siding with one of the factions opposed to his policies.

“You still intend to go?” Bryght queried. “The king must know you just fought a duel.”

“He will wish to be assured of my good health.”

“There’ll be a dozen men there able to—”

His brother’s raised left hand, glittering now with two fine jewels, silenced him. “Country living is corroding your instincts, Bryght. The king will wish to see me, and it is necessary that the world see that I am completely unharmed and unshaken. Besides which,” he added, glancing at a tray of cravat pins presented for his selection, “the Uftons are in town and I am promised to present them.”

“Who the devil are the Uftons?”

“A small estate near Crowthorne.” He touched a black, baroque pearl. “Solid people. Sir George is showing his son and heir the wicked wonders of London, doubtless in the same way he has shown him hoof rot, mange, and sour land. Carruthers has them in hand.”

Bryght abandoned his protests. Rothgar might, if so inclined, disappoint the king. He would not disappoint the Uftons.

He would not disappoint anyone today. He was preparing for a grand entrance. The scarce-noticed barbering had doubtless been the second of the day, removing any trace of dark bristle in preparation for the powder and paint. Essential, of course, to give an impression of noble delicacy. Though normal for court, the extreme care now was doubtless intended to restore the veil after the earlier exhibition of lethal strength.

Bryght thought of Shakespeare. “All the world’s a stage …” First the violence of the duel, then the studied artifice of the court. Perhaps later the wit of a salon, the seductive magic of a ball, or the danger of the gaming tables. He himself had played on these stages before his marriage and enjoyed them, but he had always lacked his brother’s consummate art.

“Have you thought that the king might disapprove of Curry’s death?” he asked.

“If he wishes to rebuke me, he must be given the opportunity.”

“What if he wishes to throw you in the Tower? Make you stand your trial?”

“That too. It was a properly run affair, however, in front of many witnesses.”

“Your killing blow could be seen as unorthodox.”

Rothgar turned to Bryght. “You wish me to skulk here until I know the king’s mind? Or perhaps you think I should flee to Holland, or even take ship to the New World?”

Put like that, attending the levee was the only course, and in full magnificence. He should have known. When did Rothgar ever misplay a hand in this game?

His brother was fascinating and admirable, but at times he seemed scarcely human. His attention to detail, even the detail of his costume for this appearance, the fact that he was almost always on stage and in complex roles, had to take a toll. It was not a lifestyle to wish on a laughing cherub. Rothgar, after all, had been shaped by terrible losses and demands.

Perhaps the dark steel had always been there, but four tragic deaths had formed him into the man he was today—a man who had been plunged into his powers and responsibilities at nineteen. A man who had created and now controlled a small empire, who perhaps needed that empire, and control of it, as guard against fears of loss.

Or guard against fears of madness.

His mother had gone mad and murdered her newborn child. Rothgar, a young child himself, had been a powerless witness. Sometimes Bryght thought that his brother’s need to control was a kind of madness in itself. He tried to make the world a theater stage, with himself as director. Or perhaps one of the complex automatons he liked so well. A machine controlled by him; his, and his alone, to keep in working order; a world where he truly could keep disaster at bay.

It was an awe-inspiring performance, and Rothgar did remarkable things for his family and for England, but Bryght wished no crucible of pain to form his son into his brother’s like. Yet he had let the subject slip away.

Before he could gather courage to try again, Rothgar eased into his precisely cut jacket. The dull steel-gray silk fit without a ripple, and was lavishly embroidered with black and silver six inches deep all down the front. Fettler smoothed the silk across his shoulders and down the back, chasing nonexistent flaws. Though Rothgar wore an ornate small sword, Bryght knew he could never fight in such a restrictive garment. However, he looked, doubtless by design, like an ornamental steel blade himself.

His breeches were of the same gray, as were his stockings. He stepped into black shoes with silver heels and buckles and chose a snowy silk handkerchief edged by the most subtle band of silk lace. Lastly, Fettler pinned the silver star of
the Order of the Bath to his left breast, the gold cross in the middle being the only color about him.