Copper wanted to run. So did Michael. Even knowing this was probably his last day on earth.
He heard in Philip’s words the desperation of a father who was about to lose a son. Words he had heard since Wykeham had laid out the challenge. The words of a man who had spent an entire day trying to comfort his wife after she heard about the duel.
But it was Clara’s words that had haunted Michael since the race. Sentences that tumbled over in his head in endless circles. Words that had generated a nagging suspicion that he did not want to believe but that he could not release. A suspicion that had torn a raw, burning wound in his gut at first, but now left him feeling remote and numb.
You have already lost that race as well.
You may drop your suit for I am already ruined.
He can put me aside. I am not worth it.
Since the day they met, Clara had insisted that she would find a way to make the duke end his suit... and she had. A suit that had begun before Michael had met her. A suit that had intensified after Michael had shown interest in her, interest he had believed—desperately wanted to believe—she returned, to the point of setting up their night at the farrier’s.
But she also knew that Wykeham had a propensity to take part in duels. Michael had told her that fact himself, and now the look she had exchanged with her maid that day at Ashton House entwined itself with his other suspicions.
Suspicions that told him that Lady Clara Durham was not, in truth, different from other women. Not an innocent. That like Eleanor Carlson, she had used him for her own goal—to divest herself from the Duke of Wykeham. Everything that she had done led to this moment.
So be it. It would end here. All of it. The pain. The restlessness. The betrayal.
“Are you sure the challenge said dawn?” Robert shifted on his horse. “At Epsom he said ten.”
“After Father brought up the authorities, Wykeham decided dawn would be better. Less risk of arrest for murder.”
“No duke has ever been convicted of murder after a duel.” Robert adjusted the balance of the wooden box holding the dueling pistols across the pommel of his saddle. “No one takes these things seriously anymore. You can end this. Focus on the success of Saturday.”
Michael fell silent again. He had tried. Since the race, they had received so many inquiries and responses to the new business—and Michael’s obvious knowledge of horses—that their butler had replaced the silver salver in their entrance hall with a wooden box. He knew he should be celebrating.
But the image of Clara defiantly throwing what they had done at Wykeham—I am already ruined—overthrew all other sensations. She had wanted him to ruin her, not to show her affection but to make herself undesirable to the duke, after all other efforts had failed. And if that did not work... a duel. A duel intended to end the life of a duke. But this effort would fail as well. Michael would not shoot. Wykeham would kill Michael and still claim her.
So be it.
“Ashton!”
Michael looked to his left. Wykeham approached, his horse in a canter, along with two other men, only one of whom Michael recognized—the doctor who treated so many members of theton. They slowed their horses as they grew close to the Ashton men, stopping a few yards away.
“Who is your second?”
“My brother, Robert.”
Wykeham gestured to the two men with him. “Lord Alexander Pym, my second. I believe you know Dr. Oakley. He is here in case I only wound you by mistake.”
“Very thoughtful.” Michael ignored the sharp look his father gave him.
“Shall we do this?”
Michael nodded, and the six men dismounted. Robert pulled Pym aside to confer with him as Wykeham and Michael merely examined each other.
“You know she contrived this.” Wykeham shifted his weight to give favor to one side. “She used both of us.”
The numbness had settled over Michael, a consuming blanket with an expanding sense of apathy. He was about to die, and part of him simply no longer cared.
“I will have her anyway. You know that. I am not about to let that little chit ruin my plans.”
“Even if she makes your life miserable?” Philip asked. “You have never struck me as a man who would court misery.”
Wykeham smirked. “It will be she who is miserable. I will ensconce her in my country estate along with my mother and return to London. I have mistresses who await my company.”
Philip shifted his eyes to Michael, eyebrows arched, probably expecting Michael’s temper to flare. But the numbness held sway.
