Chapter One
Achill, early morning breeze rushed across Putney Heath, ruffling his shirt and icing his blood like an omen.
It was only just light enough to see, and to Marmaduke Travis, Viscount Durward, everything and everyone looked ghostly grey. But he could clearly make out the white handkerchief held at arm’s length by Foster’s second, and Foster himself, twenty paces away, in the classic duellist’s stance, offering Durward as slender a target as possible.
In the grip of his usual fatalism, Durward could not be bothered with the rigmarole of buttoning his dark coat up to the neck and turning aside. In fact, he’d thrown his coat to Calton, his second, and stood now in his shirt sleeves. He had the feeling that this was it, that Foster would be the one to finally do for him.
A pity. He liked Foster.
Oh well, can’t be helped now. Durward turned aside only out of respect for his old friend and raised his familiar duelling pistol. Across the yards of heath, Foster raised his weapon too.
Durward took careful aim at his opponent’s shoulder. It was almost second nature for he had fought several duels with these pistols, and he was a crack shot. He had won all of his fights to date, apart from one which he had cheerfully declared a draw as he’d hailed his erstwhile enemy off to compare wounds in the taproom of the nearby inn.
The handkerchief fluttered downward and Durward fired, even while his spirit soared, ready to meet the pain and his Maker in rapid succession. Both pistols fired.
For an instant, neither duellist moved. Surprised, Durward lowered his pistol. It seemed he had survived again, with the usual inexplicable chaos of disappointment and dread.
Oh well, at least there’s breakfast. He had opened his mouth to shout the thought aloud when Foster crumpled to the ground.
“Oh, thedevil,” Durward uttered between his clenched teeth. He was already running across the heath, behind the other seconds and the doctor.
Calton, Durward’s second, got there at the same time. His face was white as he lifted his head and looked at Durward.
“Afraid you’ve done it this time, old fellow,” Calton said unsteadily. “I think he’s dead.”
The blood sang in Durward’s ears. “No. No, this wasn’t meant to happen.”
“What the bloody hell did you expect,” snapped the doctor, shoving Calton out of the way to get to his patient, “when you’re doing your best to blow each other’s heads off?”
I expected him to blow off mine...
“He’s alive,” the doctor said grimly, reaching for his bag. “But only just, and I doubt he’ll last.”
Calton tugged Durward’s arm. “Come on. We’d better get you away from here.”
But Durward wouldn’t go. Not until Foster was put in the coach to be driven back to his family, hanging onto life, as the doctor put it, by a thread.
“Where do you want to go?” Calton asked with forced cheerfulness, for if Foster died, there would certainly be a murder charge against Durward. “The United States?”
“Aren’t we at war with the United States?” objected Wade, Durward’s other second. “If we’re not, we soon will be.”
Calton grimaced. “Maybe South America would be best.”
“Nonsense,” Durward said briskly. “The Mullins fight is this afternoon. I’m for the Duck and Spoon.”
THE MULLINS FIGHT,in a rural field where the law could not stop it, was indeed well worth watching, and the subsequent evening’s drinking, gaming, and wenching turned out to be quite spectacular in its way. However, with the best will in the world, Durward seemed to be looking down on it all from a distance. As thoughhewere dead instead of Foster. The way it was supposed to be.
As far as he knew, Foster was still hanging on by that thread the following day when Durward drove himself into Harwich.
“You need a ship,” Calton had said while throwing clothes into a bag for him.
Durward scowled. “I need to stay and face the consequences.” It was the only thing that felt right in a world turned suddenly so wrong.
“You can’t, old boy. Murder’s a hanging matter, even for a peer. Even if you got off, your whole family would likely be ruined. You’ve got to bolt, to give them a chance to weather the storm.”
Fortunately, Durward’s sister Bethany was already married to a decent sort, while his brother Duncan was still at school and would probably escape the worst of the shame. But Calton was probably right. Flaunting the scandal in Society’s face would be unforgivably selfish. He really only had one course of action. Flee the country and avoid justice.
Considering all the rules he’d been breaking his entire life, he had no idea why this one should stick in his craw. The Mullins fight and his night in the Duck and Spoon were his final defiance, his last huzzah before ignominious flight.
