The Honourable Earl. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ because she was not exactly sure where the duel was to take place.

      In her haste she stumbled over her father’s walking stick which he had propped against the wall in the hall. She stopped to pick it up and replace it, then reached for the door latch.

      ‘Lydia! Where do you think you are going?’

      She froze as her father, with a dressing gown over his nightshirt and his grey hair awry, came down the stairs behind her. Slowly she turned to face him. ‘I…I thought…I thought I heard a fox in the hen run.’

      ‘I hear nothing. And you are dressed.’ He grabbed her arm and almost dragged her into the room he used for a study, where he kept his books and composed his sermons. ‘Now, you will come in here and tell me what this is all about.’

      ‘But I can’t,’ she wailed. ‘It is not my secret.’

      ‘Oh, then it must be Freddie’s. Only Frederick would be irresponsible enough to drag you into one of his scrapes.’

      ‘He didn’t drag me in—’

      ‘Where is he?’

      She hung her head and did not answer.

      ‘He has left the house, hasn’t he? I was sure it was the sound of horses that woke me. Where has he gone? It is only just after five o’clock.’

      She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Papa, I must go to him, I really must. Please do not ask me why.’

      Her reply in no way reassured him and he looked about him as if the contents of the book-lined room would give him his answer. She suddenly became aware that Freddie had left the cupboard open where the pistols were usually kept and the empty shelf seemed to stare out at them accusingly. She tried to move across to shut the cupboard door at the same moment her father saw it.

      ‘My God! What has the silly fool been up to?’ He swung round to Lydia. ‘You know, don’t you? You know where he has gone?’

      She was truly frightened by the steely look in his eye and backed away a little. ‘No, Papa, that was why I wanted to follow him. To stop him. Now it is too late. He is gone. Oh, Papa, he is going to fight Ralph Latimer.’

      ‘Back to bed,’ he commanded. ‘I will deal with this.’

      ‘But you don’t know where he has gone.’

      ‘I can guess. Now back to bed. We will talk about it when I return.’

      She turned wearily to go back to her room, knowing that when he did come back she would be in for a scolding and probably punishment; her father could be very severe when he chose, but that would be nothing to what would happen to Freddie. Papa was always scolding Freddie over something or other and threatening to take him away from University and send him into the army ‘to make a man of him’, he said. Mama had always argued him out of it, but now… Losing her beloved brother was something she did not dare think about.

      She curled up in her bed beside the still-sleeping Annabelle, and waited.

      She must have fallen asleep because it was bright day when she woke and five-year-old Annabelle was gone. The house was silent as the grave; she could not hear even the servants going about their business. Nor had Janet, the maid who looked after all the girls, brought her hot water as she usually did. She rose and went to the window. The sun was high and Partridge, who was both groom and driver when they took the carriage out, was leading her father’s cob into the stable. And Freddie’s horse stood nearby, still saddled.

      She dressed hurriedly without bothering to wash and dashed down the stairs. At the entrance to the morning room she stopped suddenly. Her mother and two older sisters were sitting in a group, looking up at Freddie. The two girls were weeping loudly and Freddie looked as though he had seen a ghost. His face was almost transparent and his blue eyes, usually so bright with mischief, were dull and lifeless. She turned from her siblings to her mother and drew in her breath in shock. Her mother was staring up at her brother as if she did not recognise her son. Her face was chalky white with two high spots of colour on her cheeks and her hands were kneading a lace handkerchief, tearing it to shreds.

      ‘What has happened?’ Lydia asked.

      ‘Lydia. Come here.’ Her mother held out one hand to her and she went to kneel at her mother’s feet and put her head in her lap. ‘Lydia, you must be very brave. We have lost our prop, the centrepiece of our lives, our dearest, most faithful…’ She paused, as if wondering how to put what had happened into words, and then, deciding there was no way to soften the blow, added, ‘Lydia, your poor papa is dead.’

      Lydia tilted her head up to her mother. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t. I thought it was Lord Latimer…’ She swung round to her brother. ‘You said…’

      ‘Papa came,’ he said. ‘Ralph shot him.’

      Lydia scrambled angrily to her feet and faced her brother. ‘Then why didn’t you shoot him back? I’ll do it if you won’t. Papa…’ She collapsed in a heap, sobbing out her grief. ‘It’s my fault. I told him and he went after you. I let him go.’

      ‘You could not have stopped him, any more than you could have stopped me.’

      ‘And this is what your wickedness has brought us to,’ her mother said bitterly, addressing Freddie. ‘You have been going wild for months, you and that young man from the Hall, and this is the result. I dread to think what his lordship will have to say on the matter—’

      ‘He has no cause for complaint,’ Freddie said heatedly. ‘It was his son who fired the shot, not me. It is not his family cast into mourning.’

      ‘Will he be prosecuted?’ Margaret stopped crying and scrubbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

      ‘Who is there to prosecute him?’ her mother put in bitterly. ‘His father is the Lord of the Manor and a justice. It will be hushed up as an accident and it were better it were, because duelling is illegal and Freddie was not blameless in the matter—’

      ‘Mama!’ Freddie protested.

      ‘Oh, what is to become of us?’ her mother wailed. ‘Without your papa…’

      ‘Mama, I think you should lie down and I will send for Dr Dunsden to give you something to help you sleep,’ Susan said, taking charge of the situation. ‘Later, there will be arrangements to make.’

      At that moment, they heard a horse galloping up to the house and then a loud knocking on the door. Lydia, only half aware of what was going on around her, heard the maid go to the door and a few moments later came to announce the Earl of Blackwater.

      ‘God, he wasted no time,’ Freddie muttered, as the Earl made his way into the room, dressed in a riding coat and buckskin breeches tucked into polished riding boots. He was wearing a short brown wig and, except for his drawn countenance and bleak eyes, anyone would think he was out for a morning hack. He stopped just inside the door and surveyed the tableau.

      ‘Anne, we must talk.’

      ‘Yes,’ she answered dully while the girls looked from one to the other taken aback by his familiar mode of addressing her. ‘But can it not wait? My husband is hardly—’

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