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Bernard Lamb strolled toward them with an amused look on his face. “Silver spoon he was born with got lodged in his throat, perhaps.”
Adam and Angela laughed at the cruel remark.
Tony was incensed that Adam Savage stood with her enemy against her. She rushed at Bernard Lamb and slashed him across the face with her riding crop. “You son-of-a-bitch, if you want to shoot me, meet me at Battersea Fields and we’ll finish it! My seconds will be in touch with you.”
Tony turned on her heel and quit the stables.
Bernard Lamb held his neckcloth to his torn cheek, hurling vile curses after his titled cousin.
Adam Savage narrowed his eyes in thought, but he did not interfere. Something deeply disturbing was between these two young men and he would have to discover what it was. At the moment Tony’s rancor had boiled over and Savage knew he wouldn’t see reason until he’d had a chance to cool down. He was certain of only one thing. There would definitely be no duel!
He said to Bernard, “What’s between you is none of my business, but I regret he assaulted you while you were my guest. Come up to the house and have it tended.”
“It’s nothing … just a scratch,” Bernard insisted, and Savage couldn’t help but be impressed.
Tony went straight back to London with Roz. She sat up on the box with Bradshaw to avoid her grandmother’s questions. No hint of this trouble must reach Roz’s ears or she would forbid Tony from taking her revenge. She clenched her fists and shoved them deep into her pockets. She was certain of only one thing. There would definitely be a duel!
Chapter 23
Antonia awoke in a deep sweat. It was the third night this had happened and the third night she had had the recurring dream. It took her a moment to realize that the time was nigh.
She threw back the covers and shivered as the cool predawn air touched her fevered skin. An autumn chill was in the air that she welcomed, for she would of necessity wear a long cloak to conceal her identity.
She moved silently in the dark so she would disturb no one. If Mr. Burke heard her, she was lost. Before she retired last night she had laid out her garments with care and even poured her wash water from the jug to guarantee silence.
She removed Anthony’s damp nightshirt, then buried her face in it as if she could gather strength from a garment he had once worn. She stood naked and shivering and whispered, “Tony, help me.”
A measure of calm resolve descended upon her. She was doing this to avenge her twin and also in sheer self-defense, for she knew with every fiber of her being that Bernard Lamb was going to kill her if she did not take his life first.
With determination she lifted up the sponge to wash away the memory of the vivid dream that still clung about her tenaciously. It was always the same. They were on the dueling field just as dawn broke, counting, counting. Bernard Lamb always turned and fired on the count of nine.
Tony pulled on shirt, breeches, stockings, and boots with such steady hands, she surprised herself. She felt predestined to do this thing. It all had such an air of inevitability about it that she was calm even though she was afraid. She knew with a knowledge as old as time that her fate rested in her own hands. The conclusion was foregone. If she did nothing, she would lose. If she acted, she would win. That was the secret of everything, really. The secret of life and death.
Tony was grateful to Adam Savage. He had shown her that the most precious quality in life was courage. He had set out to make a man of her and he had succeeded. Tony had the guts of a man, the fortitude and the resolution of a man. Though she lacked a man’s strength she made up for it with a woman’s quick wits and intuition. Bernard Lamb didn’t stand a chance.
She had taken advantage of the fact that Adam Savage was tied to Edenwood and his weekend guests. She knew he had an appointment with the Prince of Wales and could not return to London until His Royal Highness had been entertained.
Tony had called on young Southampton and Colonel Dan Mackinnon, knowing their addiction to guns and shooting. They had been involved in many duels and of course Colonel Mackinnon had that superb collection of firearms. She swore them to secrecy and watched their excitement grow. Both were avid for risk and danger. Each time they acted as seconds their reputation grew, and now they were known as the Hellfire Bucks.
There was a set ritual that must be observed in the code duello. So far, all was as it should be. The opponent holding the higher rank must issue the challenge. They would now call upon Lord Lamb’s opponent with the time and the place and allow him choice of weapons. There was little doubt it would be pistols; duels hadn’t been fought with swords in the last fifty years.
Mackinnon tucked a pistol case under Tony’s arm and recommended he take a little target practice at Charles Fox’stir.Southampton gave him the address of his favorite brothel in Covent Gardens and told him to ask for Mrs. Cole. Every man should experience Jassy Cole before he died. Southampton was only having his dark little joke; it was understood that the opponents would not aim to kill, but merely try to render each other hors de combat. Tony took the colonel’s advice and ignored Southampton’s.
Sleep had been most elusive mainly because she dreaded the dream, so she had burned her candles late into the night pouring out her suspicions and her fears onto the pages of her journal. Upon rereading it she discovered she had catalogued more grievances against Savage than she had about her hated cousin. The ridiculous thing was that she admired almost everything about Adam Savage. The sticking point was his legion of women.
She finally faced it and admitted the truth. She was envious down to her very bones. She coveted him as she had coveted nothing before. She wanted him to make love to her. Longed for it; pined for it. Sex was slyly referred to as the Game and everyone she knew was a player. Men flaunted their mistresses while married ladies took secret lovers.
Society had an inexhaustible appetite for pleasures of the flesh and indulged in liaisons at any and every hour of the day or night. Every amusement was designed with coupling in mind. Brothels and bawdy houses stretched from Covent Garden to Shoreditch. Pleasure Gardens such as Vauxhall and Marylebone were specifically designed to pander to assignations in their grottoes, groves, and yew walks. Then there was Ranelagh, up the river and up the social scale, but its theater continually staged sexual romps to titillate its audience before they slaked their appetites in private, recessed little supper alcoves.
Fireworks displays, badger baiting, and cock fighting were merely fashionable excuses to gather, pair off, and mate. It seemed to Tony that everyone was a club member but herself. Posing as a male had given her glimpses of what she was missing, but sex was still by and large a dark, mysterious temptation that left her wildly curious and deeply dissatisfied with her lot.
Rereading her journal shocked her into realizing she was obsessed with sex. Each night, she had blown out her candles convinced her dreams would be sensual fantasies; instead, each night she refought the duel.
Tony picked up the long black cloak and folded it over her arm. She would not wrap herself in it until she was on the flagstones of Curzon Street, just in case she tripped upon the stairs.
She crossed the street to avoid the light from the street-lamp on the corner. As she cut through Green Park it was still pitch-black. She heard men’s drunken laughter as a group of bucks left White’s Club in St. James’s, and she quickly crossed Stable Yard Road where Southampton was to pick her up in a hired hackney.
She glanced about but saw no waiting carriage. She pulled the cloak about her dry throat and swallowed her apprehension. Were they late or was she early? She had never been abroad at this hour before. The empty street seemed to have an eerie, echoing quality. Noises from the river carried to her on the damp air and she jumped as a cat slunk around the corner. Perhaps they wouldn’t come. Her imagination took flight. Savage had discovered her plans and put a stop to the duel! No, she assured herself, he didn’t suspect a thing. He had called upon her the moment he’d returned from Edenwood. His cutting words still echoed in her mind: “I haven’t time for your childish theatrics, so I want your word as a gentleman you won’t carry this duel nonsense any farther.”
