Page 19 of Kathryn

Andrew said, with exaggerated patience, “I meant dull in the other sense of the word, darling. Even as a boy he had impossibly dull habits. He was no fun.”

“Fun?” she repeated.

“Yes. Fun. You know about fun, don’t you?”

“I know about stupid young bucks and their notions of fun,” she retorted. “Just get on with your story. What happened at this duel?”

“I’m getting there,” he said in a chastising tone.

Katie bit her lip.

“My point in mentioning his younger days was that when he came back to school the second year, he wasn’t that much bigger, but he suddenly knew how to fight. Somebody had taught him well over the summer and that was the end of his weekly thrashings. He also joined both the shooting and fencing clubs—and was bloody scary at both.” Andrew shrugged. “As far as I know, Dulverton never did make any friends, but everyone left him well alone after the first year.” An almost fond smile curled his lips.

“What is it? Why are you looking like that?” Katie asked.

“I was just remembering that duel. I have to admit it was one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.

“You were actually there?”

“Lord, Katie! You don’t think there was a man in the ton who missed that, do you?”

“All those men and nobody had the sense to try and stop it?”

He looked at her as if she’d just sprouted a second head.

“Never mind,” Katie said. “Men are truly idiots.”

Andrew didn’t seem to hear her, his thoughts obviously on the past. “Most of us expected Hendry to run for his life, but the man had a sliver of honor after all. Or he might have stayed because Dulverton made such a huge bloo—er, target that Hendry thought he might be lucky. In the end, he did get lucky—at least as far as the duel went—because Dulverton just stood there and let Hendry get the first shot off.” Andrew snorted and looked stunned. “Dulverton’s a dull duck, but there’s no denying the man has ice in his veins. Poor Hendry’s hand was shaking so badly that he didn’t come close to hitting Dulverton even though the duke faced him head on rather than turning to the side to make a smaller target.” He cut Katie a look. “Which is what a man with any sense would do. After Hendry’s shot went wide he looked on the brink of fainting away, but again he surprised us and held his ground. And then Dulverton did something nobody expected.” He met Katie’s gaze and shook his head in wonder.

“What?” she demanded. “What did he do?”

Andrew laughed. “He handed the pistol to his second without even taking a shot.”

“And that is… odd?”

“Unprecedented, is more like.”

“But surely Dulverton would have faced repercussions if he’d killed the son of a viscount?”

“Lord, Katie. Hendry was in the process of running off with the man’s wife. There wasn’t a peer in the land who’d have punished Dulverton for killing the man.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“That is actually the best part of the story. He did Hendry one worse than killing him; he humiliated him. Twice. First, he lowered his pistol without shooting. Then he marched up to the man and said, “Christina is yours, now. That is the only reason I left you alive; so you can take her and be gone. And then he hopped in his carriage and left.”

“I do not understand why you are so amazed. It seems a sensible thing to do to me,” Katie said. “Why keep a wife who didn’t want him?”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “There speaks a woman.”

“A sensible woman,” she muttered.

Andrew was still caught up in the past and did not appear to hear her. “As far as I know, that is the only time Dulverton did not behave dully.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “What happened afterward?”

“Hendry and Christina left soon after. Dulverton’s divorce was granted with startling celerity, even for a duke. Even though she was free, Hendry never married her, and she died in childbed a few years later.”

“I cannot believe I never heard so much as a whiff about this duel and his divorce.”