The Duke's Daughter (15 page)

If Avery had intended to avoid the rest of the Radley family while he waited for an opportune moment to leave for Edinburgh, he was sadly mistaken.

While his own experience of family life had been a seemingly never-ending round of rows and beatings, the Radley family were an entirely different proposition. They were a sociable, amiable group of people who liked to spend time in one another’s company. Coupled with the hero status which both Lord Stephen and now Lady Emma appeared to have bestowed upon him, Avery found himself constantly surrounded by family members.

The only person who seemed to make a concerted effort to avoid him was Lucy. At least during the day. When he woke most days, she would be dressed and gone from their room. At breakfast, she would sit quietly beside him and concentrate her attention fully on her toast and coffee. She made little effort at conversation. Avery felt it best to leave her alone and not press matters in front of her family.

What they would make of the situation when he suddenly up and left for Edinburgh filled him with dread. What sort of cad abandoned the beautiful daughter of a duke on their honeymoon?

One morning, as Lucy sat idly stirring a spoonful of sugar into her breakfast coffee, the quiet was broken by the arrival of the Duke of Strathmore, carrying a hunting rifle.

Out of the corner of his eye, Avery saw the Duchess of Strathmore give her husband a disapproving look. It was obvious Lady Caroline did not take kindly to guns at the breakfast table.

‘Ah, Avery, glad to see you are up. I was thinking of heading up the valley this morning and seeing if we can bag a deer or two. Alex and Stephen are forming two legs of the hunt, we just need a fourth. Since David is not here, I thought you might like to tag along.’

Avery looked at the rifle slung over the duke’s arm. It was a good solid piece, nice workmanship, but he doubted it was as accurate as his own trusty Baker rifle. He had brought all his possessions to Scotland with him, so the rifle currently resided in his partly unpacked travel trunk in the bedroom he shared with Lucy.

He was torn. He hadn’t hunted since he was injured. With his damaged left hand, he wasn’t sure he could handle a rifle properly.

‘I’m not certain as to how much use I would be; I haven’t fired a rifle since I got this,’ he replied, holding up his gloved left hand.

The duke gave a cursory nod of his head.

‘Well, if you want to find out if you can still manage to fire off a decent shot, now is the time,’ Lord Strathmore replied.

Avery looked around the table, and then finally at Lucy.

‘Go on, it will do you good to get out of the castle for a few hours,’ she said.

An hour later and Avery was standing, rifle in hand, in a wooded area of Strathmore Valley. The simple act of removing his rifle from his travel trunk and unwrapping it had been more difficult than he had anticipated.

Seated on the bed, he felt his heart pounding in his chest. The last time he had actually looked at his rifle was the afternoon of the battle. His mouth went dry. Nerves threatened to get the better of him.

‘Pull yourself together, man, it’s only a bloody deer,’ he muttered angrily to himself.

As he followed the rest of the hunting party up the valley and into the woods, he kept repeating the same mantra over and over again.

You can do this. You were a soldier; soldiers don’t fear death.

He stopped for a moment and tried to catch his breath. The year or so of recovery from his wounds and recent soft town living had left him short on stamina. The Avery Fox of old would be disgusted at the physical condition he now found himself in. In his army years he would have run without pause to the top of the valley and sprinted back down just for fun. Now he stood gasping as he struggled to suck air into his lungs.

Forcing himself to a slow trot, he finally caught up with the rest of the hunters.

They were standing at the edge of a small clearing, the perfect spot to lie in wait for quarry. It wasn’t long before the first deer showed. A young doe, only two or three years old, came into view.

Lord Stephen hissed, ‘Yes!’ and raised his rifle. The duke put out an arm and gently lowered it.

‘You know better than that, lad,’ he rebuked the boy.

Stephen uncocked his rifle and pointed it to the ground.

‘Yes, Your Grace, sorry, Your Grace,’ he replied.

Avery noted, not for the first time, the firm but fair way in which the duke dealt with his sons. The doe would soon be a breeding one; her fawns would carry on the future of the herd. If Lord Stephen went ahead and killed her, a valuable bloodline would be lost.

‘I think you should stick to grouse today if we come across any,’ the duke said.

A look of disappointment crossed Stephen’s face, which was swiftly replaced with a huge smile when he saw Avery. He took one look at Avery’s rifle and exclaimed, ‘Oooh! Is that a real army rifle? Did you kill anyone with it?’

The duke and Avery exchanged a look of silent understanding. There would be no encouragement of Stephen’s youthful fervour for battle glory. Avery had learnt over the years that it didn’t pay to encourage young men to take a fancy to the weapons of death.

Stephen was not much older than Avery had been when he ran away from home and joined the army. Looking at the bright, hope-filled face of his fourteen-year-old brother-in-law, Avery wondered how on earth he had managed to lie his own way into the army at the tender age of thirteen.

Because with all that you had been through, you had long ago lost your look of innocence.

Reflected in the scars and lines on his face had been the signs of his childhood years of fighting, stealing and grafting merely to survive.

‘Is that a Baker rifle?’

Avery nodded.

Stephen stepped closer and reached to touch the barrel. His fingers stroked the brass front sight with knowledgeable reverence.

‘This really is an army-issued weapon, just like in the books. But it’s been modified. The barrel has been heated and bent.’ He frowned. ‘Where is the bayonet?’

Caught off guard, Avery sucked in a deep breath. Stephen Radley was a well-read young man. But books and pictures were one thing. How could he possibly tell the impressionable boy that he had left the 24-inch bayonet of his rifle stuck in the chest of a young man on the battlefield in Belgium?

That his last, lingering memory of the bayonet was the blood which oozed along its blade as he heard the young French soldier breathe his last painful breath.

‘They took them from us when we returned to England, for safekeeping,’ he lied.

The duke and Alex said nothing to challenge his story.

‘Can you still fire a rifle?’ Stephen pressed him further.

‘Come now, Stephen, leave Avery alone. You tire him with your childish notions. We are here to hunt deer, not discuss the war,’ Alex said.

Stephen scowled at his brother’s rebuke.

‘I was only asking,’ he replied.

Avery gave Alex a brief nod of thanks. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if he could handle the Baker. There was the palpable fear that his nerve would fail.

There is only one way to find out.

‘I’m not sure, Stephen, but I shall give it my best try,’ he replied.

With the rifle on its leather strap slung over his shoulder, he followed the duke and his sons further up the steep hill. At the top was another small wooded area.

Alex stopped and held up a hand.

‘There is a large old hart just on the other side of the ridge. He must be a good ten seasons old.’

The duke came and stood beside him, studying the hart in question. Finally, when satisfied that it was an old beast, past its prime, he gave his consent for the hunt to begin.

‘You take the right flank, Alex and Stephen; Avery and I will take the left. We are still downwind of him, so he shouldn’t catch our scent.’

Avery stopped and fitted a shot to his rifle. In times past, he had been able to get a good three shots off in a minute. Now he doubted he would be able to reload in under two.

When his forefinger and thumb slipped, jamming against the trigger, he swore.

Lord Strathmore gave a low whistle, signalling his sons to stop their progress up the hill.

‘Sorry, it’s been a while since I used this,’ Avery said. So much for the career marksman he had once been.

‘Take your time; the hart is still grazing. Do you want some help?’

Avery shook his head, determined to do the job which had been second nature to him for nearly half his life. Finally, he got the rifle loaded and made his way up the hill.

The hart was old and grey. It had clearly seen many a winter. One antler was broken off, no doubt from fighting with other stronger males.

‘Your shot, Fox,’ Alex said, lowering his rifle.

‘What do you do with the carcass when you finish the kill?’ Avery asked.

‘Take it back to the castle. The meat will be roasted up for supper in a few days, once it has been allowed to hang. The rest of it will be given to the castle staff to divide up among the villagers. Someone usually takes the antlers and sells them. This is Scotland; nothing is ever left to go to waste,’ Lord Strathmore replied.

As long as it wasn’t a senseless kill, Avery could reconcile himself to the hunt. He had hunted enough deer in the mountains of Portugal, during the long campaign against Bonaparte’s troops. At times the only thing which had stood between the men of his company and starvation rations was bitter, fire-burnt venison.

He raised his rifle with his right hand and brought it to rest between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

The deer lifted its head and sniffed the air; something had roused its awareness. The members of the hunting party stood perfectly still.

As he had done many times before, he allowed his breathing to slow. Having been a sniper in his army days and therefore distant from the heat of battle, he was used to taking his time to compose his shot. Bullets were never wasted. He set his cheek against the rifle, smelling the oil for the first time in what felt like forever. Closing his right eye, he settled the gaze of his left into the gun sight. Gently lifting the rifle another quarter inch, he aimed straight at the deer’s heart.

A shot rang out and the beast dropped to its knees. A quick and painless kill.

‘Huzzah!’ Lord Stephen cried, and raced up the hill to where the deer lay.

Avery stood rooted to the spot, staring at his lowered rifle. He had taken a life.

It shook him to his core.

His close brush with death had robbed him of his detached interest. Even at this distance, he could hear the slowing of the deer’s heart as its life slowly ebbed away. He swayed, unsteady on his feet.

Lord Strathmore came to his side and lay a hand on his shoulder.

‘The servants will bag and carry the carcass back to the castle. You don’t have to go and check on the kill.’

Avery looked at Lucy’s father as he felt the first wave of nausea wash over him. He sucked in a deep breath, steeling himself to go and look. It was only an animal, not a human he had just shot. What must the others think of him? So much for the battle-hardened warrior.

‘I will be fine; let’s go,’ Avery replied. He steeled himself to face the inevitable sight of blood.

He made it halfway up the hill before he had to stop. Dropping to his knees as his stomach lurched, he could go no further.

He waved the others on, desiring privacy as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto a nearby green tussock.

When finally he finished retching, Avery sat back on his haunches. He wiped the tears of humiliation away from his eyes.

‘Some bloody war hero,’ he muttered.

Back at the castle he sought refuge in his room. He was too embarrassed to remain out in the bailey with the rest of the hunting party. From the bedroom window he could hear the loud whoops and cheers as the staff brought the trophy of the hunt back into the castle.

He went to the small wooden table which held his personal toiletries. Taking a cloth, he soaked it in the cool water of a washbowl and washed his face. Standing facing himself in the mirror, he took in the red of his bloodshot eyes.

The bedroom door opened and Lucy stepped inside, carrying a small cloth bundle. She locked the door behind her and put the bundle down on the bed.

She came to his side.

‘How did the hunt go?’ she enquired.

He shook his head. Word of his performance during the hunt must have reached her ears.

‘I feel about as good as I look, if that is any indication. I cannot believe I embarrassed myself in such a way in front of your father and brothers. What must they think of me?’ he replied.

She brushed a hand on his arm, something he had noticed she did more of lately. Just the occasional small touch, but he found it unsettling.

Lucy’s tender exhibition of affection would make telling her of the decision he had made on the way back to the castle all the more difficult.

He hated himself.

‘From what I hear you handled the rifle well and made the kill clean. That you didn’t go up and look at the dead hart really doesn’t matter,’ she replied.

He scowled at his reflection in the mirror.

‘What about my rather unmanly display; what did they say about that?’

She reached up and touched his cheek.

‘I don’t know what you mean. No one made mention of anything else. To be truthful they were rather impressed with your one-shot kill. Even my father is not that accurate with a rifle, and his was made by the king’s private rifle maker.

‘Yours is an army standard-issue rifle, which has been wrapped up in a blanket at the bottom of your travel bag for a long time. Considering how much it has probably been bashed about over the past few years, I’m surprised the sights were still set true. Perhaps it’s because your skills as a marksman outweigh any impediment your rifle may have,’ she replied.

He looked at her, astounded once more by her knowledge of all manner of things unladylike. How did his wife know about gun sights and how much they got knocked about?

‘I was physically ill on the mountainside. I couldn’t face going to see the kill. I’ve become what I’ve always hated and feared. A coward,’ he replied.