Page 107 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

“What do you mean to do with me?” David asked in panic, the rhododendrons slapping his face like hands in a line of insulted ladies.

Rhys strolled alongside them, strumming the broken lyre he’d recovered. “You swore you were leaving town. This time we’ll make sure you have a very bon voyage.”

“To where?” David demanded, recklessly for a man being carted off like an old carpet.

Simon dropped him head and shoulders into the leafy foliage. “How does the bottom of the Thames sound?”

“Not enough distance.” Heath relinquished his hold on David’s feet. “He should settle in the Swiss Alps. Or in Germany. You speak German, don’t you, Sir David?”

“Not a word.” David scrambled back to his feet, trapped in a triangle of three unforgiving gentlemen. “I only meant to apologize to Ravenna.”

“By jumping out at her in the dark?” Rhys said in affront. “You tried to kiss me, you disgusting maggot.”

“Perhaps he should enlist in the Bengal Army,” Heath said. “There’s an opportunity to advance in India.”

Sir David straightened, looking abruptly sober. “I don’t do well in the sunlight.”

Simon regarded him without a glimmer of compassion. “You don’t do well in the dark, either. Perhaps you need to be kept indoors. As in a gaol cell. You cannot assault a person you believed to be my wife and crawl off only to strike again. I gave you a chance when I should have thrashed your hide. Doubtless that is what I should do now.”

David raised his hands in surrender. “I shall leave England voluntarily. How long am I to stay away?”

“Seven years is a good start,” Simon said. “However, I think I might prefer the satisfaction of a challenge.”

“I won’t accept.”

“Coward.”

“I’m the one he assaulted with a kiss,” Rhys said, unlacing his bodice to take a breath. “It seems that I should be involved in this matter.”

Heath extended his arm to intercept Rhys’ blow. Simon’s own hands clenched in rage. Didn’t he have the duty to defend his wife? An obligation, in truth?

“Stop it,” Heath said in a controlled voice. “We have been spotted.”

As if to verify his observation, a loud gasp came from the direction of the pavilion. The four men turned in unison, their aggressive tendencies arrested.

Simon’s anger temporarily dissipated. He knew that gasp. It was the one sound in the world that never failed to undo him. He thought of the times Ravenna had caught her breath beneath him in abandon, in innocent trust.

This utterance, obviously, was not an expression of delight. It was one of shock, swiftly followed by the whispers of another lady coming up the path. Of course it would have to be the ever-observant and inescapable Jane.

Wherever Jane wandered, as Simon had learned, others followed. In effect, it was a repeat if reverse performance of the Park Lane incident that had brought Simon and Ravenna together.

A crowd gathered. Grayson forged through its epicenter with his host, the Duke of Wenderfield. Where in this costumed group of partygoers was Ravenna? Had Simon misheard? Surely it wasn’t Jane’s gasp that had quickened his blood. That wasn’t right. It could not be.

By this time several astute guests had taken note of Sir David’s disheveled costume, the blood on his shirt, and Lord Rhys, strumming a lyre, wigless in a woman’s dress. Understandably, questions circulated through the garden like dandelion puffs blowing in the wind.

Heath, as the calmest gentlemen present, rose to the occasion. “We are enjoying a stroll around the garden,” he said to Simon and Rhys. “Sir David is out of chances. I’ll make arrangements for him to pack and book his passage to India. He has a long future to anticipate as a servant of the Empire -- in a remote outpost where one hopes he will cause no harm to anyone except himself.”

Simon opened his mouth to offer his thoughts, as did Rhys. Heath quieted them again. “I assured Julia that no one would start a controversy or commit murder tonight. I will not upset my expectant wife or allow anyone else to do so. Is that understood?”