I will not stand for it!
I will meet you on the dawn of your choosing, on the green of your choosing, armed with the weapons of your choosing.
Please reply in writing posthaste to my second, my brother Archibald who waits in the carriage. (He cannot come in, he is lame from the war)
Jonathan Rimperton, Fourteenth Baron of Leister
Balthazar dropped the letter. “No, it cannot be,” he said, and then began to laugh. He could not stop laughing. His sides began to hurt from it, it was too absurd.
“Your Grace!” Henri cried, as if he was being felled by an illness.
Between guffaws, he said, “Read the note.”
Henri picked it up and scanned it. “A duel! You must not do it! This fellow says he is rash, there is no telling what will happen! He will fire early, I know it. Do not answer this, Alden can say you are not at home and make this Mr. Rimperton go away.”
“Your Grace?” Alden said. “Shall I tell Mr. Rimperton that you are not at home?”
Balthazar heaved in a breath to calm his laughter. “First, that person in the carriage appears to be fifty, if a day. He pretends to be the younger brother. How old is this rash and lovesick baron supposed to be? Second, I do not see why we should send poor Archibald away when he has traveled all the way from Portland Place.”
Henri dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. “You will answer this, then,” he said, sounding very dejected.
“Oh yes,” Balthazar said. “My coat, if you please.”
“You will go out there?” Henri asked. “Why? Do you know this scoundrel?”
“I believe I do. Mr. Archibald Rimperton, otherwise known as Miss Mayton. I cannot wait to hear what she will have to say for herself.”
“Miss Mayton?” Henri cried, grabbing a coat from the wardrobe and helping him into it. “What world am I living in, where everything is topsy-turvy and nothing makes sense?”
“In Lady Rosalind Bennington’s world, it seems,” Balthazar said. He left his butler and his valet pondering what Miss Mayton was doing dressed as a man with hair all over her face.
Balthazar jogged down the stairs. Benjamin opened the door for him, though from his expression it did not seem as if his footman felt at all positive about their recently arrived visitor.
As Miss Mayton saw him emerge from the house, and he was certain itwasMiss Mayton, she waved her hand out the carriage window and shouted gruffly, “Halt! My brother insists on a written answer. Come no closer!”
Balthazar would bet she did not wish him to come closer. Nor would Lady Rosalind and her sisters, who were no doubt crouching under blankets.
He strode forward despite her wish to send him back into the house. “Now, Mr. Rimperton, do be reasonable. I am not going to kill your brother so thatyoucan step forward as the fifteenth baron. Furthermore, it would take quite a lot to get me out of bed at dawn.”
As he approached the window of the carriage, he saw Miss Mayton’s eyes grow wider and wider. She waved a cane around and shouted to the coachman. “Drive on! Go! Drive on!”
The coachman appeared entirely at a loss, but he did start the horses and they went at a fast clip down the street and around a bend. The carriage trotted around the gardens to head in the opposite direction. In the distance, he saw the Earl of Westmont’s coat of arms on the door.
Balthazar watched them go with his arms folded, laughing to himself. Lady Rosalind was an entrancing and bold woman.
“I suppose I’d better propose before she arranges her own kidnapping,” he said to his startled footman.
*
Rosalind slumped onthe sofa. They had rushed off from Conbatten’s house after he approached the carriage…and refused the duel.
Sandren had been in near apoplexy over the whole thing and not seeming very convinced that they had lost at Mrs. Ellington’s goose chase and must now go round Piccadilly again before setting off for home. They had needed the extra time to get Miss Mayton out of her disguise.
Sandren was certainly relieved to be taking them home, but exceedingly suspicious over why they had to make an extended journey over it.
That, of course, was nothing. Conbatten had refused the challenge to a duel to win her and that was everything.
Since they’d arrived back to the house, the earl had come into the drawing room. Miss Mayton, seeing Rosalind was not yet up to facing anybody, had told her father that they were still engaged in discussing personal ladies’ matters.
