The Viscount's Unconventional Bride. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ her masculine voice, but she did not use it any more than she had to. Mr Linton’s attempts to engage her in conversation were met with little more than polite monosyllables. When he offered her a dish, she took some from it and said, ‘Thank you, sir’, and when he commented on the fine weather, she said, ‘Very fine, sir.’ She thought she was doing well until the meal ended and Burrows suggested they continue the game of cards abandoned the night before. ‘You must give us the opportunity to recoup some of our losses, Smith,’ he said.

      ‘I did not win so much,’ she said, pretending indifference. ‘’Twas only a trifling amount.’

      ‘A trifling amount,’ he repeated. ‘Then let us put up the stakes.’ He turned to Jonathan. ‘Will you join us in a game for trifling stakes?’

      Jonathan considered declining, but they would only ask someone else, and he wanted to be near the boy, if only to protect him if his losses became too great and he found himself at odds with his playing partners. He accepted, cards were called for, the seal broken and the game began.

      Louise was careful, very careful, especially as the half-guinea stake was now a guinea. If she lost all her money, what, in heaven’s name would she do, stranded miles from her objective and with home so far behind her it seemed like another life? Some way must be devised to end the game before that happened. They would not allow her to plead tiredness as she had the evening before.

      They played several hands in which she won a little and lost a little, mainly due to inattention. ‘Mr Linton, I could have sworn you held no more trumps,’ she said after he had trumped her winning hand.

      ‘Are you accusing me of cheating?’ It was said angrily.

      Now what to say? She had not meant to accuse him, simply to point out that her concentration had momentarily lapsed. Admit it and let them walk all over her? Tell them she was too tired to go on? She shrugged. ‘If the cap fits, Mr Linton…’

      The boy had nerve, more than he would have dared under the circumstances, Jonathan conceded. ‘I have no cap, Mr Smith. Nor anything up my sleeve.’ He shook his sleeves out one by one to prove it.

      ‘God’s truth, the young shaver’s bold as brass,’ Bill Williams put in. ‘Call him out, Linton. You can’t let him get away with calling you a cheat. I’ll stand second for you.’

      The whole thing was getting out of hand and Jonathan wanted to bring it to a speedy conclusion, but he had been insulted and he was not in the habit of letting anyone, least of all a green bantling, get away with that. He hesitated. ‘Go on,’ Charlie Burrows urged him, while Louise held her breath. ‘You are not afraid of that skinny young cub, are you?’

      Frowning inwardly, Jonathan took a deep breath and addressed Louise. ‘You give me no choice, sir. I must call you out.’ It was either that or be accused of cowardice, which was unacceptable to him.

      How on earth had she got into such a pickle? Louise asked herself. She wanted to turn and run all the way back to Barnet. Never, in her wildest dreams, had she imagined something like this. The teasing and banter that went on when she played her brothers for pennies and shillings had not schooled her for such a situation. She should never have started to play either yesterday or today. Now what was she to do? Admit herself in the wrong and take the ridicule of everyone in the room, not only the other players but everyone else who had stopped whatever they were doing, to listen and wait. And she would have to abandon her winnings. She had been counting on those.

      ‘You give me no choice either, sir,’ she said. ‘I accept.’

      ‘You accept?’ he asked in astonishment, then to give the boy a way out, added, ‘I will take a simple apology in lieu.’

      She was nothing if not stubborn. ‘Would that not be tantamount to admitting I am in the wrong?’ she asked.

      ‘Yes, but you are.’

      ‘Stop beatin’ about the bush, Linton,’ Williams said. ‘Mr Smith, as Mr Linton’s representative, I ask you to name your second and choose your weapon.’

      ‘Swords,’ she said without hesitation. Unless Mr Linton was particularly cruel and determined, he would not deal more than a glancing blow, just enough to draw blood, before saying he was satisfied. A pistol shot could kill without him meaning it to. Why she thought he did not want to kill her, she did not know. And in the last few days she had become more than a little reckless. As for a second…She looked round the room. ‘Will anyone here stand by me?’

      ‘I will,’ Joe said, at a nod from Jonathan.

      ‘I’m not having duels on my premises,’ the innkeeper said. ‘If you must fight, take yourselves off somewhere else. There is a field on the other side of the river just outside town. Go there.’

      ‘It’s too dark now,’ Bill Williams said. ‘We will meet there at dawn.’

      ‘I will take charge of the pot,’ the innkeeper said, scooping it up. ‘You can have it back tomorrow.’

      Louise went up to her room to find Betty taking up most of the bed and snoring her head off. Should she wake her and insist they leave at once? Where would they go if she did? And did she really want to be branded a coward? Would they come after her and exact their pound of flesh anyway? Why, oh, why had she been so foolish as to start this escapade in the first place? If her parents had not been out when she returned to the house after the shock of hearing what she had, if she had been able to speak to them there and then instead of being alone to stew over it, she might not have done what she had. Now it was too late.

      She sat on the edge of the bed and let the tears roll down her cheeks. They were the first tears she had shed since sitting alone in the arbour. She had been so determined to find her lost mother, she had given herself no time for tears, no time for reflection or considering where it was all going to lead. If only she could have confided in Luke, he might have come with her, kept her safe, let her be herself, not some mythical Mr Smith. And on top of all that she felt responsible for Betty.

      In a few hours the sun would come up and everyone would gather in the field on the outskirts of the town to wait for her and Mr Linton to appear. To the onlookers it would be an entertainment, like a play, to be watched and applauded. She dreaded it and wondered how to get out of it without making a complete cake of herself. She could say her sword was broken, but they would find her another and she needed a weapon she was familiar with. She rose and went to the hook on the back of the door where she had hung her belt before going down to supper. She withdrew the sword and made a few practice moves. It felt comfortable and balanced in her hand and reminded her that she had always enjoyed fencing and been good at it. She had to go through with this charade of a duel or lose all credibility as a man of honour.

      Jonathan had no intention whatever of killing the lad. He would not hurt a hair of his head. He had killed once before in a duel and the sight of the man’s bloodied body being carried away had been a terrible shock and one he would never forget. Ever since then he had avoided getting into situations that called upon him to defend his honour. So how had it happened this time? He was annoyed with himself for handling things so badly. He had only to declare he did not fight children and everyone would have laughed and there would have been no challenge.

      But how could he have done that? The boy would have been humiliated, made a laughing stock and he did not want to subject him to that, but he was of a mind to teach him a lesson. One simply did not go about accusing people of cheating at cards without a shred of evidence. He wondered why the pair had embarked on the adventure in the first place—could it have been for a jest, СКАЧАТЬ