True Born (5 page)

John suddenly stepped up and delivered a
great slap to Hugh's face. It was not a blow of a man against
another, but an open handed slap as if Halford were a boy. The
force of John's blow made the Earl’s wig turn on his head, and the
glass in his hand was sent flying.

There were loud gasps, but still no one came
forward or moved.

"Name the day!" was all that John said, and
everyone knew what he meant.

Hugh was quiet and there were tears of anger
going down his red face. Again John said, "Name the day!"

The Earl had no choice but to say, in a
strangled voice, "The day after tomorrow!"

"Send me your seconds," John said.

He turned around then, and finally his eyes
rested on Georgiana's face, but there was nothing like love in
them. He swept his gaze over her beautiful dress, her powdered
hair, her jewels, and there was an entire world of disgust in his
expression. "
Your ladyship,"
 he spat out, and there had
never been more disdain in two words.

Georgiana's lips parted to say something, but
what could she say? She was used to playing a role, but she hadn't
expected to be the villainess, the woman who had forsworn a
passionate love and sided with injustice for money and
position.

John had already turned his back on her as if
she mattered no more to him than her husband, and he was walking
away. He even ignored Ned, who stood staring at him, open-mouthed.
The crowd of observers parted for him again, as if he could command
their movement, and he left.

It was after this night that he became known
as Mad Jack.

In normal circumstances, the Earl of Halford
would not have been described as a coward.

For one thing, as a high ranking and very
rich nobleman, there was no occasion for him to exhibit remarkable
physical courage.

He was very fond of riding, did it better
than many other men, and kept one of the best stables in England,
because he could afford it. He shot competently, enough to go
hunting a few times a year, as people like him did.

He was not a highly talented swordsman
because he didn't have to be: a man of his station would hardly
ever need to fence, unless it were for his own amusement, and
fencing did not amuse him. He had learned to do it, as idle young
men learned these things.

Neither did he have to know how to use his
fists because what gentleman, what Earl, would need to descend to
the level of boxing or street fighting? Ned had seen the back of
his hand a few times when they had been boys, and there had been a
scuffle or another against some friend of his childhood, and that
had been it.

He had been afraid for his life when John had
invaded his house the night before, and he hadn't been the only
person who had felt fear. Gentlemen did not behave the way that
John had behaved: he had been given some breeding, but he had acted
with the freedom of a bastard.

Hugh could refuse to fight him on the grounds
that it was John who had behaved disgracefully, that it was he who
had acted like a brigand. A gentleman could refuse to fight such a
man, as was set out in the dueling code. It was widely accepted
that to be called out in a rough, ill-bred way violated the point
of a duel, which was honor.

And yet Hugh knew that John had cut the
better figure the night before. He had seen it in everyone's faces:
pity or disdain for him, admiration for the bastard.

If he used an excuse which was normally
accepted to avoid fighting John, he would never be seen as a man
again. At thirty years of age he would be the laughingstock of the
country, the man whose face had been slapped in his home, in front
of a hundred people. He would be the man who then had avoided
getting satisfaction out of fear.

He knew that he did not have any chance to
win a duel against John. He doubted that he would even be able to
cross swords with his half brother before his was wrenched from his
hand. John was a superior swordsman, an excellent shot, he was the
hero of several battles in India, a man rising so fast in the ranks
of the army that he might make colonel before the age of
thirty.

And so, Hugh reflected, by accepting the duel
he would redeem himself, and John would be the coward, the man who
used his brutal skills to bully his half brother.

Hugh was frightened, but he didn't believe
that John would kill him. He would be wounded, and that would ruin
John's stellar career, without him having to do anything. John
wanted to kill him, but he wouldn't, because he wouldn't kill a man
whom he could so easily beat.

He was going to humiliate Hugh as much as
possible, to make him seem so weak and helpless that what the Earl
had done by stealing his inheritance, throwing his mother out of
her home as she was dying, and marrying the girl whom John loved
would be seen by all as acts of poltroonery.

And Mad Jack, as they were already calling
him, might be a dangerous enemy to have, but he would always be
straightforward in his attacks. Halford could be the more
relentless man, if he put his mind to it. He had inestimable
wealth, great influence and, above all, he had Georgiana.

There had been a supremely interesting moment
for Hugh the night before, a moment when he had stood deeply
humiliated and still remarked on the look that John had thrown at
his wife. It had not been a look of hatred. No, it had been a look
of violent passion, and of disappointed love.

Therefore Hugh seemed calm as he selected his
seconds, Sir Henry Mowbray and Lord Erskine, as he ignored their
advice to refuse the duel, and as he asked them to go to John and
determine weapon, time and place.

Hugh had instructed them to choose rapiers.
They had been shocked, thinking that pistols, which were not usual,
were yet the best chance Hugh had against John. But Hugh had
thought that there was much more likelihood of an accident with a
pistol, whereas John would control how much damage he wanted to
inflict with a rapier.

He ought to stay calm, and concentrate on
what was to come the next morning; he ought to stay away from
conflict. But that night at dinner he scanned the faces around the
table, reading their expression by candlelight: Ned looked as
worried as he ever did, which was not a great deal, and Bess only
stared at her plate without eating. The younger girls, Dorothea and
Cecily, kept silence. The strange new arrival, Hester, ate quietly,
her idle hand on her lap.

Georgiana sat, barely touching her soup or
her wine.

Anger began to grip him, though he had told
himself to have the calmest evening he could. When dinner was
finished, he couldn't help following Georgiana down the corridor to
her room.

She had played her part and had asked him to
consider not dueling, she had even shown concern for him. Yet his
anger kept increasing as he walked behind her. Everyone else had
stayed in the dining room, sensing that something was amiss. Bess
had hissed, "What are you going to do?" Hugh had ignored her.

He followed Georgiana, and he could see by
the set of her shoulders and head that she knew that he was behind
her. Her step quickened, and so did his. When she reached her room
she rushed inside and tried to shut him out, but he pushed the door
open and walked in, closing it behind him.

"What do you want?" she asked him almost with
defiance.

"What do you mean, what do I want? This is my
house, and you are my wife. Why should I not be in your
bedroom?"

She was quiet, and waited for what he had to
say.

"Are you hoping that bastard will kill me
tomorrow?"

Her eyes were lowered. "He won't kill
you."

Her words infuriated him, because she meant
that John would not stoop to kill a man so much weaker than him.
The insult from his own wife was the drop that suddenly made him
lose his head: he grabbed her by the hair, bending her head
backwards, but there was still no fear in her eyes.

"He won't kill you," she repeated.

He slapped her. It was the first time he had
ever hit her, the first time he had hit any woman. She stood with a
glowing red cheek in the light of the candelabra, and her
expression didn't change; it was the same expression that she had
had on her face when she had watched John the night before.

"How dare you look at me like that?" he asked
in a low voice.

"How am I looking at you?" she asked with her
head thrown back, almost in abandon.

"I will strike you again!"

"You may strike me a thousand times. Am I not
your wife?"

"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction!"

"Nothing you can do would give me
satisfaction!"

This new insult only made him rush at her and
knock her against the wall. Before he could stop himself he was
tearing at her dress, and dragging her to the bed, where he threw
her.

She didn't struggle as he lifted her skirt
and placed himself between her legs, opening his breeches and
entering her with force.

But the look he could not tolerate never left
her face, even as she submitted to him without struggling. It was
the look of a woman who loved a man whom she thought superior to
her husband in every way. It was a look of disdain and triumph at
the same time.

After he had finished the act which brought
him no pleasure, and did not seem to sufficiently punish his wife,
he sneered at her.

"There is something, Georgiana, that you
don't seem to have considered, and it is this: there is little
point in your admiration for John and his animal behavior. If he
kills me, he will hang. If he doesn't kill me, I will still be your
husband. I shall never give you a divorce. You shall always be
mine. I can have you imprisoned in a madhouse where even he would
never manage to find you. And if, in any case, you wish to run away
with him, your sisters will be disgraced: no man shall marry them,
no man would dare - not even, I think, a peasant in some cold wet
mountain of Scotland. I would make sure of it."

He reached out and pushed a lock of hair away
from her face, as if to inspect his property, and the damage he
might have done to it. "So you see, my dear, if John is to have
you, he will have to destroy you first. And what kind of love would
that be?"

He stood up at his leisure, pleased that his
wife now found nothing to say, and that her eyes were quite dead,
with no defiance, no triumph, and no hope in them.

Fog hovered over the snowy fields, and the
duelists were asked to wait for there to be more visibility and
less danger to them.

A duel wasn't meant to result in death, but
in satisfaction for the injured party, though in this case it was
hard to know who the injured party was. John Crawford had been
called a bastard, and he was one. He had forced the Earl of Halford
to seek satisfaction by treating him like a coward in his own
house.

Though the invasion of a nobleman's house and
the scene which had taken place had been most unseemly, Halford's
treatment of Crawford's mother had been very cruel, and some people
of the Earl's acquaintance privately admired John for the passion
and daring he displayed in avenging her. But no one said so, as one
was meant to show solidarity to one's own class.

Now Hugh stood inside an abandoned mill,
wrapped in a fur coat, wearing his wig and a hat, and trying not to
seem as though he were cold. The snow worried him, since it would
make the ground slippery, a disadvantage that he did not need.

"How do you feel?" Lord Erskine asked him as
they stood together.

"I am well," Hugh replied curtly.

On the other side of the field John stood in
his boots, wearing no coat, only his jacket and breeches.

The fog was rolling out and the sun was
climbing higher, and Hugh watched his half brother as he looked out
onto the field, almost as if he were taking a moment to appreciate
the beauty of the land, of the snow on the trees and the blue of
the sky. John's profile, with its fine aquiline nose and square
jaw, had more nobility in it than Hugh's, or Ned's for that matter.
It had taken Mrs. Crawford's low blood to create the handsome
bastard, while the hundreds of years of intermarriage between a few
Catholic families of great pedigree had produced Hugh's less sharp
features and faded complexion.

Hugh hated John with all his might, hated his
looks, his valor, his calm. He hated the love that Georgiana had
for him: he would have loved his wife, had she liked him a little.
He had thought that he would make her forget John with his
attentions and his patience, but she hadn't forgotten him for one
second.

Of course she had not,
 Hugh
thought in the silent corner of the mind where one could admit
anything. Women would not forget a man like John.

Suddenly the bastard turned to stare at him
with his wolf eyes, and Hugh realized with a start that it was
time. His heart began to beat hard.

He removed his coat and hat, trying not to
shiver as he handed them to the groom. John was already waiting for
him in his shirtsleeves, a black cravat around his neck, and black
gloves covering his hands. Hugh stripped down to the same garments
and walked towards him. He could hear the snow crunching beneath
his feet, as loudly as if each of his steps were causing an
explosion. He could see the clouds his breath made around his
face.

John didn't even seem to be breathing: he had
the look of a man who was about to administer the lesson of a
lifetime to another. Yet Hugh knew that the lesson wouldn't be
enough for John, that nothing would now be enough for him, that
nothing would diminish the fury he felt over the way his mother had
been treated. That thought made Hugh smile.

There was then something like a sneer on his
face when he reached John, and it made him seem more courageous
than he was. But there was no change in John's eyes. Standing
before him, Hugh hated him so much that he almost wished John would
kill him, or hurt him so badly that he would hang for it.