Liz Carlyle - [Lorimer Family & Clan Cameron 02] (36 page)

Gus Weyden stared back at him, raw hatred burning in his light blue eyes. Behind Gus stood Crane, Evangeline’s brawny footman, and just inside the door hovered Theo, staring at the floor, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

Good Lord . . .
Tottenham!
“What day is it?” Elliot rasped sickly.

Hugh put his glass down with a thud. “Saturday. Why?”

Damnation! Elliot looked into Gus’s blazing eyes and felt a horrific wave of guilt. Theo would not even meet his gaze. This, then, was the boxing match Theo had wanted to attend, the very diversion the boy had begged Elliot to arrange. Suddenly, Elliot’s guilt was suffused with anger. This was no place for green boys; the crowd was very nearly a mob, with tempers barely tethered. Moreover, Crane was hardly an appropriate escort. Indeed, a lad of Theo’s age had no business here at all, damn it. But if he was to have come, it should have been with Elliot, where he could have been properly supervised.

Unexpectedly, Gus started forward toward their table. Elliot tilted back his chair to look up at him, arching one brow in greeting. “Weyden,” he said smoothly, in as gentle a tone as he could muster, “surprised to see you here.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet you are, Rannoch!” the young man bit out. There was no mistaking the frank hostility in his voice.

Suddenly, Hugh and Winthrop pulled themselves up erect in their seats to survey the situation. “Are introductions in order, Elliot?” his uncle asked caustically, his gaze raking the newcomer.

“Apparently not,” murmured Elliot softly, his eyes searching Gus’s taut face for any sign of their former friendship. “Look, Gus, I can explain . . . explain everything. Can we go outside?”

“You can go to hell, you lecherous pig,” replied Gus coolly. Then, like a bolt of lightning, the young man’s booted leg shot out, kicking Elliot’s chair from beneath him. Dulled by two days of incessant drinking, Elliot’s reactions were pathetic, and he found himself sprawled on the floor amid a tangle of boots and chairs. A hushed murmur rippled through the crowd as necks craned to see the incipient brawl.

Winthrop was up in a flash, pulling a staggering Elliot to his feet. His eyes shot warning daggers into the grumbling crowd. Almost at once, the tapster was upon them, his hefty ax handle balanced loosely in his hand. “Take it outside, gents,” he advised in a low, cool voice.

“Gladly,” snarled Gus Weyden, spinning on one heel. As he approached the door, Elliot saw Crane touch him lightly on one arm, then murmur a few quiet words in Gus’s ear. Gus responded by tossing a vitriolic glance back over his shoulder at Elliot, who still stood, weakly gripping the table edge.

Roughly, Gus shoved away the footman’s hand. “I don’t give a bloody damn who he is,” Gus growled over his shoulder, his challenge unmistakable. “Outside is good enough for me.” And with that, he turned and strode through the door.

“Outside!” shouted an eager voice from the rear of the tavern. “The two swells ’re gonna fight!” Suddenly, half the room seemed to surge to their feet as Elliot dusted himself off, grabbed his hat, and headed for the door.

Heedless of Winthrop and the audience that followed on his heels, Elliot slapped on his hat, threw open the door, and strode out into the packed dirt yard. A flow of latecomers still trickled toward the tavern as a stream of horses moved from the road into the wayside. In the midst stood Gus Weyden, stripping off his coat. He hurled it into the hedgerow, then spun toward Elliot, his hands set resolutely upon his slender hips.

It should have been hilarious, but Elliot saw no humor in the matter. With the most determined stride he could muster, Elliot approached Gus, one hand elevated, palm outward. “Look, Weyden, be reasonable. I just want to talk ab—oof!”

Gus’s first punch caught him squarely beneath the chin, snapping his head back and sending his hat tumbling into the dirt. Elliot staggered backward, catching himself just as Winthrop reached the fray.

The blow induced a stir of anticipation among the crowd as they realized the mill was in earnest. Shouts and cajoles mingled with hastily murmured wagers as the emotionally charged mob surrounded and sized up the two combatants. “Two quid on the big nob,” Elliot heard a rough, uncultivated voice rasp from the edge of the growing throng.

A bitter, determined smile curved Gus’s mouth as he waved Elliot toward him with one hand. “Come on, Rannoch,” he taunted softly. “I don’t give a bloody damn how big you are.”

“I just want to talk, Gus. Not fight,” said Elliot softly, bending down to scoop up his dusty hat. Angry jeers broke from the crowd just as his fingers touched the brim, and almost simultaneously, Gus’s boot connected with his ribcage, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

The crowd roared.

“Three-to-two odds!” shouted an eager voice from the back of the mob as Elliot hefted himself ungracefully from the ground.

“In whose favor?” quizzed Sir Hugh avariciously. Elliot’s head pivoted backward in amazement just as Gus’s next punch caught him evenly in the stomach, sending him reeling ignobly backward again.

“The youngster, I s’pect,” came the stunned, uncertain response.

Elliot burned with righteous indignation. Damn it all, Gus was no more inclined to listen than Evangeline had been, and now his own uncle was taking odds on his fight. Lifting his chin to face his accuser, Elliot saw Gus’s muscles bunch for the next blow and, summoning all his strength, effectively threw one arm high to block the punch, catching Gus squarely in the gut with the opposite fist.

“Nah,” hedged the gamester again as Gus exhaled in a whoosh and staggered backward. “Odds on the big gent, I reckon.”

Gus quickly regained his balance and wound up for the next punch. Tired of treading the high moral ground, Elliot stepped back, ripped off his coat, and hurled it at Hugh’s face. Like a couple of enraged roosters, the pugilists began to circle each other, as if pulled by centrifugal force.

“Don’t make me do this, Weyden,” cautioned Elliot softly. “I may be coming off a two-day drunk, but I’m nearly twice your size.”

“Aye, Elliot, brute strength?” jeered Gus. “Is that the way of it? Is that how you forced yourself on Ev—”

“Shut up, you fool!” roared Elliot, diving into the younger man.

He took Gus down with a forceful blow, sending them both tumbling to the dirt yard in a whirlwind of dust. Around them, the crowd skittered back from the fray as Elliot pinned him hard against the ground and sprawled on top.

Gus tried to spit upward into Elliot’s face. “Evie loved you, you unprincipled libertine!”

Elliot leaned deeper, forcing his opponent’s shoulders into the dirt. “Damn you, watch your tongue!” he whispered, this time against Gus’s ear. “Now, I understand you’re angry, and mayhap you’ve every right, but this is neither the time nor the place to mention the names of—”

Suddenly, Gus’s knee came up out of nowhere to catch Elliot almost square in the crotch. Elliot roared in pain, rolled to one side, then lay there panting as Gus scrambled to his feet.

“Get up, you son of a bitch,” snarled Gus, waving him up invitingly. The knuckles of his hand were already dark and swollen.

“Oh, hell!” rasped Elliot. “Pound me to flinders, then, Weyden, if it’ll make you feel any better.” He spit out a mouthful of dust and launched himself at Gus again. In a matter of seconds, they were rolling through the tavern yard like a pair of snarling mongrels, first Elliot on top, then Gus. Fists and elbows flew as the world seemed to tumble about Elliot, pulling him into a whirling vortex of dizziness and nausea.

Both men were panting and covered in grime. At last, Elliot succeeded in getting the upper hand, pinning Gus firmly to the ground once more, and fighting to subdue his own flip-flopping stomach. Elliot’s hair hung limply over one eye, partially obscuring his view of his opponent outstretched beneath him. Just then, Gus shifted, and Elliot looked down to see that the younger man’s nose streamed with blood. It gushed down his face and throat, coloring Gus’s once-white linen with a bright red stain.

The vision was just too much.

Elliot was undone, the sight overcoming his suddenly delicate sensibilities. With a groan of protest, he rolled off Gus and crawled onto his knees, clutching at his belly just as the glass of ale rebelled and came up ignominiously into the dirt of the tavern yard.

Suddenly, Gus, too, was on his knees, clutching his heaving stomach. But he, Elliot saw with outrage, was laughing.
Laughing!
A fair mill amongst friends was one thing, but dash it all, laughing at another fellow’s hangover was not at all the thing. And a knee in the ballocks was just damned dirty fighting.

Instinctively, the crowd drew back. A couple of fellows scuffled off toward the taproom as the odds-makers scratched their heads. It was apparent to all that the row was over, at least for the nonce.

“Drat you, Weyden,” Elliot grunted, staggering uncertainly to his feet, then spitting violently into the yard. He reached down and yanked Gus up with newfound strength, then dragged the young man in the general direction of the stables. “You and I are going to settle a few things, my friend.” He glowered back over his shoulder at Crane and Sir Hugh and their coterie of spectators. “
Alone!
” he bellowed, and the crowd shrank back as if burnt.

In the shade of the stables, Elliot shoved Gus down into a pile of hay and collapsed wearily beside him. Much of the younger man’s rage appeared to have been dissipated in the dirt. His bloodlust now reduced to a narrow-eyed scowl, Gus began mopping at his nose.

With a sigh of relief, Elliot dragged a filthy shirtsleeve across his brow and heaved a ragged breath. “Look here, Weyden,” he slowly began. “I know this looks bad, but you have got to help me. Just listen to my side of the story . . .”

*   *   *

Evangeline had been in the front hall when Gus limped up the steps earlier that evening, Crane and Theo following in his wake. Now the erstwhile pugilist sat slumped in an ancient kitchen chair, his booted legs spread wide, his head tilted back against the topmost chair rung.

“Aye, miss! They do say boys will be boys,” quoted Mrs. Penworthy as she cheerfully lifted a now-tepid compress from Gus’s bloated face. Beneath it, his nose was engorged to twice its size, and one bruised eye was already swollen shut. Bracing her plump hands upon her knees, the housekeeper squatted down and peered appraisingly up into Gus’s nostrils. “But I s’pect ’tis broken, more’s the pity. And we’ll be needin’ a beefsteak for that right eye.”

From a pot on the kitchen stove, the cook, Mrs. Crane, sniffed pitifully, then lifted another steaming cloth from a cast-iron pot containing a malodorous boiling concoction. Using tongs, she plopped it onto a porcelain tray and sighed morosely.

“Mr. Roberts—
the marquis of Rannoch
—is a grown man, Mrs. Penworthy,” snapped Evangeline. “As is Gus, much as he likes to ignore that fact.” She picked up the cloth by one corner, waited a moment as it cooled, then resolutely folded it and applied it to the worst of Gus’s bruises.

Gus scowled beneath the steaming compress and tried to lift his head from the rung of the ladderback chair. “I’b well aware of my owd age, Evie,” he groused nasally. “And I don’d think you’re being fair to Elliod aboud this. Hear me oud, thad’s all I ask.”

“Fair?
Fair?
” Evangeline screeched. “You’ll bloody well get fair, Gus Weyden, when your mama returns home and sees that you have been brawling in a tavern yard like common riffraff! And with an amoral reprobate like him, no less. I vow I cannot credit it! Have you no notion of propriety?”

“Eh?” interjected Mrs. Penworthy. “P’raps ’e likes a good mill well as the next ’un—but that nice Mr. Roberts, a reprobate? Don’t seem quite the right word somehow.”

From the steaming kitchen pot, Mrs. Crane gave a sharp, tragic sigh. “ ’Tis Crane’s fault, anyways,” she moaned, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Sweet piety! What come over ’im, I arst you? Carryin’ off them boys to a boxing brawl. And all the way to Tottenham! Lucky t’weren’t worse.”

“Oh, devil fly away wid Crane!” grumbled Gus, tossing the compress aside and staggering up from the chair. “I think I’b ode enough to know whad I’m aboud! And Elliod’s nod a reprobade.”

“You think not?” whispered Evangeline coldly, leaning forward to lock her gaze with his. “Then just what would you call a man who debauches, then abandons, innocent young ladies? A man who flaunts his mistresses, swindles naïve young men out of their inheritances like some conniving Captain Sharp, and engages in bloodthirsty duels for the casual entertainment of his friends?” Evangeline gave a sharp yank on Gus’s collar.

“Lies!” retorted Gus nasally. “Bloody insulds! Who the devil said such things?”

“Lady Trent,” hissed Evangeline, setting her hands stubbornly upon her hips. “And now that I think of it, calling that man a reprobate
is
a bloody insult—to the expression, not the man!”

Before Gus could respond any further to Evangeline’s choleric invective, Frederica burst into the kitchen, came to a skidding halt just inside the threshold, and gave a horrified squeak. “Is it true?” she asked in a stricken voice, staring up at Gus’s harrowing visage. Her face drew taut in an expression of terrified innocence, and she burst into tears. “Is it true what Theo says? That you and Mr. Roberts had a fight?” she sobbed. “That you
hit
each other?”

“Damnation,” cursed Evangeline, pitching the next compress across the kitchen and whirling about in a rush of silk. She stalked toward the door. “That’s it! That is the last tear to be shed at Chatham over that dissolute scoundrel! It is time I made it clear to him that he’s not to come near any member of this household.” She clambered up the ancient kitchen steps as Mrs. Crane and Frederica wailed miserably in her wake.