Page 99 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“Heavens, no! I’ve never exchanged a word with that dreadful man in all my life.”

“Then who told you?”

Beatrice’s jaw dropped. “Why, you did, Juno. At the Spanish art exhibition, you said something about the effects of painting nudes.”

Her fingers flew to cover her own open mouth. “I thought you didn’t hear.”

“I pretended not to. It was hardly a surprise. And, in truth, I don’t care, though I could never admitthatin public. But honestly, one cannot take two steps in an art gallery without seeing some man’s painting of naked women, and I swear, if I see one more depiction of some mythicalravishing, I shall scream! Then those same men have the gall to pontificate about morals. Oh, I wish I hadn’t told him, Juno. I’ve wrecked your career and destroyed our friendship, and now Prescott will be killed.”

“And your ball will be ruined!”

“I know!” Beatrice wailed, then stopped short. “You are making fun of me. Precisely as I deserve.”

Juno slumped back against the squabs. “It seems so unlikely for the duke to brawl or duel.” She forced a deep breath through her tight lungs.“What is the nature of their quarrel?”

“All Prescott told me is that the duke insulted me and his honor.” She rolled her eyes. “Men say they keep such matters secret to preserve our delicate sensibilities, but I suspect they won’t tell for fear we’ll laugh at their shenanigans.”

“But Leo—Dammerton—he doesn’t hunt or shoot. I doubt he even knows how to duel.”

“Oh, this lot are born knowing how to duel, aren’t they? They have little practice duels in the nursery before their nanny brings their tea.”

Leo was in this mess because of her, Juno was sure. What a fool he was, to risk his life at worst, his future at best. It was just as well that at four in the morning, less than twenty-four hours from now, her ship would sail for Naples. Their first kiss had thrown his life into a decade of chaos, he had told her. Once more she was creating havoc without meaning to. It was better she left.

But, by all the stars in the sky, she would ensure he was still alive and well when she left England’s shore. Or she’d shoot the foolish man herself.

* * *

“You really don’t wantto do this, Polly.”

“Oh, I really do.”

Leo leaned back against a plane tree and stretched his legs out before him. The bark roughed his back; the ground chilled his seat. His clothes would be dirty, but he was too tired to move. His first duel and he was already bored with it. And how the devil was he supposed to shoot straight when he’d not had a wink of sleep?

St. Blaise, still in his evening clothes, was sprawled out on the grass alongside him.

Around them, mist billowed over the park and wreathed the trees, blending into the indecisive blue-gray of the pre-dawn sky. A few birds were beginning to stir, but nothing else moved. Three duelists meant three men were serving as second, yet not one of those three men had remembered to bring a surgeon, so the duel could not begin. Prescott’s second had gone in search of one.

Meanwhile, St. Blaise’s second had fallen asleep on the grass beside Thomas Macey, who cast occasional worried glances at his watch. Prescott sat alone on a log, with the air of a man who was reconsidering all his recent decisions, and possibly some of his older ones too.

Leo shifted on the hard, cold ground and studied the gun on his lap. An intricate mother-of-pearl inlay adorned its grip. It was nice to admire the mother-of-pearl, so he did not think about what came next. Once a gentleman was committed to a duel, it was out of his hands and he must go through with it, whether he wished to or not.

A duel was like a betrothal that way.

“Let’s call it off,” St. Blaise persisted. “You do realize a duel involves shooting? Of the two of us, one of us knows a lot about shooting and one of us knows a lot about embroidery.”

“Papa Duke insisted I learn to shoot as a boy.”

“And have you fired a gun in, say, the past fifteen years?”

Leo considered the gun. “Surely the mechanism has not changed much. Bullet, trigger, and so forth.”

“I will have shot you and be tucked up in bed before you’ve even found the trigger.”

“No, you won’t. Because you’ll do the decent thing for once in your life and stand still while I shoot you.”

St. Blaise rose up onto his elbows. “I’ll apologize to you, you apologize to Prescott. Everyone’s honor will be satisfied, no blood shed, and we can chuckle about it over bacon and eggs. Come, doesn’t bacon and eggs sound better than getting shot?”

Leo said nothing.

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