Page 17 of Gentleman Jim

Maggie recognized the untruth as soon as she said it.

She did know why she was more upset with St. Clare, even if she couldn’t admit it to her friend. The fact of the matter was that, though she’d often felt powerless in the years since her father’s death, she was wholly unaccustomed to being made to feel a fool.

Three forfeits indeed.

What a country bumpkin St. Clare must have thought her. No doubt he’d been laughing at her the entire time. And she so disposed to think well of him for no more reason than that he bore a passing resemblance to Nicholas Seaton!

After shooting Frederick Burton-Smythe through the shoulder, John Beresford, Viscount St. Clare returned to his grandfather’s house in Grosvenor Square. He had a brief word with his groom, an even briefer word with his valet (who gaped at the singed sleeve of St. Clare’s shirt with blank horror), and then, as he did after all of his duels, he withdrew to the breakfast room and ate an exceptionally large meal.

It was while he was drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper that his grandfather strode into the room.

“Out!” Lord Allendale growled at a lingering footman. The servant scurried away as the earl took a seat across from St. Clare at the table.

A taut silence permeated the room, so ominous that, at last, if for no other reason than mere curiosity, St. Clare was compelled to lower his newspaper. “Well, sir?”

The Earl of Allendale’s once golden hair had gone silvery white, and except when his blood was up, the fire in his distinctive gray eyes had dimmed, but a life of activity and adventure—a life that had bronzed his skin and strengthened his body—had left him free of many of the maladies of old age. He didn’t suffer from rheumatism or gout. He was never confused or forgetful. And though he was the first to admit that he walked a bit slower than he once had, he stubbornly did so without the aid of a stick.

He’d never been a typical English aristocrat. Some even called him an eccentric. Cursed with an insatiable desire to travel the world, he’d spent the better part of his life abroad, the last years of which he’d dragged his grandson along behind him. It had only been recently—as St. Clare approached his thirtieth birthday—that the earl had begun to show signs that he wasn’t so very different from a typical English aristocrat after all.

“I have it from Jessup that you fought a duel this morning,” Allendale said.

St. Clare saw no reason to deny it. His grandfather of all people should understand. He was no stranger to affairs of honor. Proficient with pistols and swords, it was he who had honed St. Clare into the uncannily lethal shot that he was today. “I did.”

“With an inconsequential squire from the country.” Allendale’s tone held an unmistakable note of warning.

St. Clare gave his newspaper a regretful glance before folding it and laying it down on the table beside his plate. “An heir to a baronetcy if that makes any difference.”

“A baronetcy in Somerset.”

He met his grandfather’s formidable gray glare. “Your point, sir?”

“Be careful.”

“I am exceedingly careful.”

“I believe you know what I mean.”

St. Clare leaned back in his chair. “As you see, I have survived the encounter without a scratch.”

“Have you?” Allendale’s mouth tightened. “I was given to understand that the pistol ball singed your shirtsleeve.”

St. Clare inwardly cursed Jessup. There was a reason his grandfather often referred to the elderly butler as Argus. Just like the mythical giant, Jessup seemed to have a hundred eyes. “A trifling thing,” he said stiffly.

“And what of your opponent? This Somerset heir to a baronetcy. How did he fare?”

“Better than he deserved.”

Allendale fixed him with a long look. “You got him through the shoulder, did you? Which shoulder? The right?”

St. Clare gave a curt nod.

“And with which hand does this fellow wield his weapons?”

A slow smile edged St. Clare’s mouth. “Up until this morning, his right one.”

“That pleases you, does it? Tell me, my boy, what was it that this squire, or whatever in blazes he is, did to earn your notice? Cheat at cards?”

St. Clare shrugged one shoulder. “He might have done.”