“I tried to shoot you because of the malicious falsehoods I mistakenly believed you spread about my sister. I missed.”
“While I was sitting. Unsporting of you.”
“I was outraged, you see. And later on, when you forgive me, it will be that much more magnanimous of you. Lord Courtenay, having sowed his wild oats, returned to a quiet life at his ancestral seat. He was accosted in a most vicious manner by the common son of a merchant.”
“Why did we have tea before the shooting?”
“I wanted to take you unawares.”
“Very unsporting indeed.”
“But now I’ve vented my spleen and I feel the score is even. After your servants come—ah, I hear pounding at the door, so you might as well open it and assure them there isn’t a corpse—I’ll go back to Lady Montbray and then to London. The duel will be quite unnecessary. Nobody will be firing any pistols anywhere near you, not while I’m still breathing.”
Courtenay let in the butler and assured him that all was well and that he and Mr. Medlock had merely settled a dispute in a rash way. Julian took his leave, coolly shaking hands with the man he loved while ten wide-eyed servants looked on.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It turned out that there was nothing like getting shot at to stir up local sympathy. If Courtenay hadn’t known what Julian was capable of, he might have thought it a mere coincidence. But since he knew Julian was nothing less than a genius, he understood that this response was exactly what Julian had intended.
The magistrate called on him the very evening of the incident to inquire if Courtenay was in need of any assistance, and then proceeded to enjoy one of the last bottles remaining in the Carrington cellars while bemoaning the sad behavior of today’s youth.
“Mr. Medlock had heard some untrue rumors about his sister,” Courtenay said mildly, just as Julian had instructed him. “I daresay I’d have done the same.”
“Yes, well, in my day we did that sort of thing out-of-doors.”
Courtenay couldn’t argue with that.
The next morning brought the vicar and his daughter—the redoubtable Miss Chapman who had been his mother’s aide de camp—carrying with them a bottle of elderflower cordial and tales of a church steeple that needed replacing. Courtenay was about to commit to financing the repair, because that was plainly what they intended, when inspiration struck. “I daresay we ought to let Mr. Medlock have the honor. He’s devilish awkward about what happened yesterday and this would give him a chance to make things right.” The vicar and Miss Chapman left, doubtless intending to spread the tale of hapless Mr. Medlock. Courtenay wrote to Julian in London about the steeple, but didn’t get a letter in return.
It was a steady stream of callers after that, and Courtenay returned each call in turn. If anything, the neighborhood seemed vaguely disappointed that Courtenay wasn’t more obvious a sinner. If you were going to have a reprobate in the neighborhood, it seemed a waste to have but a reformed one, a man who had quite properly left London when his name got mixed up with a married lady’s, and then got himself shot at when he was entirely unarmed—truly, you could go into the library at Carrington Hall and see the bullet hole for yourself! But at least the man who had done the shooting—a confused young man, easily swayed by gossip—was replacing the church steeple. That had to count for something, everyone agreed.
In this way, Courtenay was transformed from a wild scoundrel to something tame. The stories told about him were in the past tense. Any village gossips who hoped to see ladies of ill repute being ferried in from London were sadly disappointed; Courtenay didn’t host so much as a single orgy nor even a dinner party. He kept country hours and evidently intended to let the house to some relation or connection of his with an even finer title than his own.
Two weeks passed in an orderly progression of morning calls and visits with the bailiff and land agent, without a single word from Julian. Of course he could hardly swan in after firing pistols in the library, but Courtenay had expected something. Every additional day he became less certain of what terms they had parted on. At the time, Courtenay had been certain that they were to build a future together, a future of shared time and shared touches, a future that dazzled Courtenay with a shining brightness he could hold in his hand and keep close.
But now he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps he had been confused. Perhaps that wasn’t what Julian had intended at all. Perhaps the fact that they loved one another mattered as little as he had feared.
And then Courtenay would be left with the other side of Eleanor’s strange rock, not the dizzying crystals but the workaday stone of neighborhood calls and land stewardship, the anticipation of Simon’s arrival in a few weeks, the crops that were growing lushly across his land. There was work to do, and he’d get along fine without the dazzling crystal. The gray rock would be enough.
He was walking through the gardens when one of the young stable boys came running. He hadn’t had the heart to sack any of the stable hands or grooms, even though there weren’t any horses for them to tend to. The stables were empty, his mother having taken the horses with her. Courtenay thought that what he really ought to do was acquire horses for the servants to tend to, even though he could ill afford such an expense. This was likely a backwards way of dealing with things, but this was his property and if he wanted to use his scant available funds to purchase horses and implement some kind of breeding program, then that’s what he’d do.
“What’s the matter, lad?” he asked the panting stable boy.
“There’s a great big black stallion that the man says is yours.”
“Mine?” Courtenay echoed. A thought—impossible but lovely—occurred to him. “Does he have any markings?”
“A white sock on his left foreleg, my lord.”
Courtenay broke into a run in the direction the boy had arrived from. It was indeed Niccolo, and none the worse for the past few months apart. The horse nickered in recognition, and Courtenay ran his hands all over the animal’s glossy coat. “How did this happen?” he asked the man who had brought the horse.
“There’s a letter, m’lord,” the man said, doffing his cap.
Courtenay took the letter. His name was written across the front in Julian’s bold slanted hand. Courtenay broke the seal unsteadily.
My Dear Lord Courtenay,
Please accept the return of your horse as a token of both my esteem and my earnest desire to apologize for my bad behavior and slanderous accusations earlier this month. I blush to add that I must impose on you even in the making of amends. During your horse’s stay in Wiltshire, he befriended a chestnut mare. In order to secure your horse’s return, I had to agree to purchase the mare as well. Unfortunately, I have no way of stabling an additional horse; thus I must depend on your kindness and understanding to give shelter to this poor beast whose acquaintance was the one happy outcome of your own dear horse’s exile. She has all the spirit of a chaise longue, and therefore will admirably suit your nephew or perhaps your new tenant’s secretary, at least until she delivers herself of the foal she undoubtedly carries.
