“You are a complete fool,” Hetty said thickly.
“You’ve mentioned that,” he murmured. “Twice, I believe.”
She could hardly bear to look at him. His was face drawn, his lips pinched from pain, his waistcoat sodden and scarlet – and still, he managed to look up at her as though she were the dawn itself, and he a man blessed enough to witness it one final time. (You must forgive me, dear reader, for any theatrical flourish – I assure you, ourhero is indeed lying in blood, but this is not a tragedy, and I daresay you will enjoy the ending quite thoroughly.)
Behind them, Lottie remained frozen in place with mouth parted in abject horror. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered. “Truly, I didn’t. Oh Lord. Am I to marry him now?”
“You most certainly are not,” Hetty snapped, her eyes never leaving Theo’s pale face.
“Thank God,” Theo muttered. “No offence, Miss Charlotte.”
“None taken,” Lottie returned, visibly relieved. “You are far too old for me in any case.”
“I’m two-and-twenty,” he protested weakly.
“Precisely,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose. “Practically ancient.”
Theo gave a faint groan. “Someone lift me up, I beg of you, before I expire from insult as well as injury.”
“I shall fetch the carriage,” Jasper said as he stood. “Tolliver, you may assist – if you vow not to deposit him in a ditch out of familial vengeance.”
Ben gave a tight nod and turned on his heel to follow. Cousin Horatio trailed in their wake, muttering to himself about honour and the moral hazards of recreation weaponry.
Lottie, meanwhile, strolled towards the hedge and the insensible physician, who remained prostrate and utterly useless. She prodded his leg with the toe of her boot and said, with more curiosity than concern, “Are you quite dead, sir? Or merely overwhelmed?”
The physician gave a groan and flapped one hand feebly.
That left Hetty quite alone beside Theo, kneeling in the damp grass with no thought for propriety or posture, the hem of her gown utterly soaked with morning dew and her gloves stained through with his blood.
Theo moved his hand with visible effort until his fingers found hers and curled weakly around them. “Well,” he said faintly, “this has taken a rather exciting turn.”
“You have made a dreadful mess of things.”
He gave a wheezing sound that might’ve been a laugh, or perhaps merely the exhalation of a punctured lung. “I have made the mess? My dearest Miss Tolliver, if you had simply agreed to marry Lord Wetherby last Season as your mother so desperately hoped, none of this would have occurred.”
“I should sooner wed a damp sponge in a cravat.”
“Wetherby is very nearly that,” Theo murmured, “only with a title and a most unfortunate mole.”
Hetty pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.
“You ought to write a pamphlet,” he continued, voice pained and yet still far too playful for a man bleeding in a meadow.“A Most Dreadful Guide to Ruin, by Miss H. Tolliver.Subtitled: How to Orchestrate a Duel, Scandalise One’s Entire Family, and Accidentally Shoot an Earl.”
“Oh, do be quiet.”
“I would,” he said, eyes twinkling despite the discomfort, “but it is terribly difficult to hold one’s tongue when the lady in question looks so tragically beautiful in the mist. Like a statue in mourning. Or perhaps a governess on the verge of collapse.”
“That line must work wonders in drawing rooms.”
“It has yet to be tested in a duel recovery scene, I admit. I do find it promising”
Hetty looked down at their joined hands – his fingers pale against her bloodied glove – and then back at him. “If you die, I shall never forgive you.”
He grinned at that, reckless and boyish and infuriatingly handsome, and it made her want to kiss him and throttle him in equal measure. “Entirely fair.”
Hetty exhaled through her nose and pressed his hand tighter in hers.
“And for the record,” Theo murmured, “if this is to be my end – bleeding in a field, surrounded by Tollivers – I cannot say I am surprised. I always suspected your family would be the death of me.”
