Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Evan, stop. Stop!” Kate grabbed her cousin by the sleeve, wrenching him away. “Don’t do this. I’ll explain. We’re going to be married.”

“Married?” Evan’s face twisted. “To him?”

Thorne approached and placed one hand at the small of her back. “I meant to come speak with you, Drewe. I meant to ask for her hand properly, but—”

“But what? You decided to defile her in a darkened room first? You bastard.”

Evan lunged at him again, and Kate jumped between the two men just in time.

“Wait,” she called out. “We need to talk. All of us. But we’ll never manage it if you’re leaping at each other’s throats.”

She put one hand on either man’s chest and pushed them toward opposite sides of the hall. “Just give me a few moments.”

“Very well,” Evan said. He added ominously, “A few moments.”

More voices reached them from the shadowed corridor. “Kate? Evan? Is everything all right?”

Harry, Lark, and Aunt Marmoset stepped into the candlelit entryway of the long narrow hall.

“The dancing’s been paused for supper. We were hoping to make the announcement soon,” Harry said, eyeing the men’s furious expressions and Kate’s disheveled gown. “But it looks as though you’re . . . busy. Corporal Thorne, what a surprise.”

“We’ll just pop back inside,” Lark offered.

Aunt Marmoset smiled. “I hear there’s a fresh bowl of punch.”

“No, stay,” Kate said. “Please, stay. All three of you. This concerns you, too.” She laid a hand flat on her belly, just as she did when she needed support to sing loud and clear. “Corporal Thorne and I have reconciled. We’re going to be married.”

From his side of the hall, Evan fumed. “Kate, you can’t. Do you have any idea who this man is? I had him investigated, you know. Back when we first arrived in Spindle Cove.”

“You had him investigated?”

“Yes. I had your welfare in mind. And that of the family. I wanted to know just whom you were marrying. And it’s a damned fortunate thing I made those inquiries, too. This man is a convicted felon, Kate. He spent years in prison.”

“I know that. He’s told me everything. He was convicted of poaching as a youth, but he was released to join the army.”

“Where he committed even more villainous offenses.”

“I know that, too. But then he mended his ways and served honorably under Lord Rycliff for years. Like I said, he’s told me everything.” She turned to Thorne. “I’m sorry to do so much speaking for you. Would you rather defend yourself?”

“Doesn’t matter what I say,” Thorne replied. “He’ll see in me what he wants to see. My lord, I don’t much care what you think of me, so long as Katie—”

“How dare you.” A wash of red pushed from the line of Evan’s crisp cravat all the way to his hairline. “How dare you speak of her in such a familiar fashion? She is Lady Katherine to you.”

“He may speak to me however he wishes,” Kate said, taken aback by the fury in Evan’s voice. “We are in love. We’re going to marry.”

“Kate, you haven’t even heard the worst of it yet. Do you know where this man came from? His mother was a harlot in some disgusting, low-class bawdy house in Sou—”

“In Southwark,” Kate finished. “I know.”

“He told you that?”

“No, I know because I remember it. Because I lived there, too.”

The ladies gasped. Kate hated to shock them by bringing it up at this time and place, but could such an announcement ever come as anything less than shocking?

Evan said, “You lived together? The two of you, in a . . . ?”

“We were children, both of us. It seems that’s where Elinor ended, after leaving Ambervale. She lived under a new name, Ellie Rose, and yes—I spent my first four years in a bawdy house. All my memories of it were hazy until just the last few days, but with Samuel’s help I’ve pieced them together.”

“He’s lying,” Evan said, eyeing Samuel with a dangerous glare. “He’s convinced you of something that isn’t true.”

“I wish for my mother’s sake that it weren’t true. But I remember it, Evan. I can’t imagine why she ended there. Perhaps she was too afraid to seek help. Perhaps, as a farmer’s daughter, she felt unequal to the task of living as a lady.” On that score, Kate could sympathize.

She approached her cousin with caution. “Please don’t worry about the family. We’ll find some way. I’ll . . . I’ll simply sign everything over to you before the wedding. All the properties, all the money.”

“Like the devil you will,” Thorne said. “Your inheritance is your birthright, Katie. You grew up alone, with nothing. You deserve this now. That’s why I came here tonight. I won’t let you give it up. Not for me, and most definitely not for a puling reptile like him.”

“And I won’t let a convicted felon destroy what remains of my family’s name,” Evan interjected. “If you care for her at all, why would you connect her with that place again? Marry her, and the truth will come out. All England will know her as the marquess’s daughter who was raised in a whorehouse.”

“I don’t care,” Kate said. “I don’t care about idle gossip, and neither does Samuel.”

“But I care,” Evan said. “I shall have no choice but to care. To have any hope of salvaging Lark’s prospects, I would have to sever all acquaintance with you both. Publicly and completely. There would be no more outings or balls. No family holidays at Easter and Christmas.” His voice lowered to a hoarse rasp. “Kate, we would be forced to cut you in the street. It would eviscerate me, no question. But I would do it, to protect my siblings.”

Kate knew he would. He’d do anything for them. Her stomach knotted. “But you’ve already told me I can’t simply disappear. Even if I don’t marry Samuel, I’ll be the subject of public scrutiny. I don’t see how the revelation can be avoided.”

“I do. You’ll marry me, and we’ll conceal all this ugliness from public view.”

Samuel swore. “What the hell is this? She’s not marrying you.”

Evan ignored him and spoke directly to Kate. “If we marry, there will be no need for any court proceedings. Anything that’s yours would legally become mine once we wed. No property needs to change hands. The Drewe title and Gramercy fortune will remain united. Then we can avoid all court inquiries and scandal.”

“But Evan . . .” She tried to put the words kindly. “You and I don’t love each other. Not that way.”

“Love.” Evan snorted. “Love is a fierce and intoxicating thing, but I will tell you from bitter experience, it cannot balance the loss of fortune, reputation, and family. On this, Kate, I suspect your own parents would agree.”

For the first time, her cousin’s words gave Kate pause.

And Evan knew it.

“Simon and Elinor were in love,” he said softly. “Passionate, desperate love. They scorned the rules of Society and disobeyed the wishes of their families to be together. Look how their story ended.”

“It hasn’t ended yet,” Samuel said. “But I’ll tell you how it will end. With their daughter being rightfully restored as Lady Katherine Gramercy, heiress to property and fortune.”

Evan spoke only to her, levelly and forcefully. “Kate, think of the family.”

Samuel tightened his arm about her middle. “If there’s any tarnish on the Gramercy name, then be a gentleman, Drewe, and own it. You, or someone in your family, threw her mother to the streets. This convicted felon did what he could to save her from that. And I’ll protect her to the grave now. If you ever—ever—try to shame her for what she could not help, with the aim of keeping your own life gilded and comfortable . . . ? You will answer to me, and there will be blood.”

Evan lunged in anger.

“Stop this!” Kate cried. “Stop this, please.”

She didn’t know what to say or do. They were both misunderstanding each other’s intentions so badly, and so willfully. Neither man was interested in hearing reason. They just wanted an excuse to hate each other, and she was it.

This was disaster in the making.

But there was one way she could end this entire argument. Much as it pained her to announce it to the group at large, she could see no alternative.

“Evan,” she said, “I cannot marry you. Surely you must understand . . . Samuel and I have been intimate. I must marry him.”

Evan was silent for a torturous eternity, simply breathing in and out. “No. You don’t need to marry him.”

“But didn’t you hear me? I—”

“You need to marry someone, yes.” He raised his head and turned a murderous look on Samuel. “That someone will be decided at dawn.”

In unison, Harry, Lark, and Aunt Marmoset groaned.

“Oh, Evan.”

“Not again.”

“Six? Truly? Six? Five was impressive, but six is the setup for a bad joke.”

Evan quelled the objections with a look. “By the rules of dueling, Thorne—I suspect you may not be so familiar with them, not being a gentleman—I issued the challenge, so the choice of weapons is yours.”

Kate was in turmoil. Weren’t pistols the traditional choice? But Samuel’s right hand was still weakened from the adder venom. His aim with a pistol would be disastrous. He wouldn’t have a chance in hell.

“She’s made her choice,” Samuel said. “There’s not going to be any duel.”

Oh, thank heaven. Thank God.

Evan strode about the hall, swinging his arms. “You’re right, Thorne. A duel isn’t necessary.”

Truly? He would give up on the idea that easily? To Kate, this turn of events seemed too good to be true.

It was.

Evan stopped before one of the mounted suits of armor and drew the sword from the grasp of the phantom knight’s gauntlet. “Why wait for the morning, when we can settle this tonight?”

Kate took back her prayers of thanksgiving and exchanged them for desperate pleas for deliverance.

Evan hefted the sword in his right hand, testing its balance. Though the weapon must have been centuries old, it was well cared for and polished to a mirror gleam.

He said, “Takes you back to the era of true chivalry, doesn’t it, Thorne? The days when a man cared something for a lady’s reputation.”

Harry spoke up. “Evan, don’t be ridiculous. Everyone here cares for Kate.”

“I don’t want anyone fighting over me,” Kate said. “It’s not worth it.”

“Like hell it’s not.” Samuel turned to her. “Don’t ever say you’re not worth it, Katie. You’re worth epic battles. Entire wars.”

Her heart pinched. “Samuel . . .”

“Yes, Helen of Troy?” She thought she saw him wink as he backed away, reaching for a sword to match Evan’s.

After all this time . . . he would choose this moment to be charming.

“It’s all right,” Lark soothed, drawing her aside. “It’s all a bit of show to preserve honor and save face. You know how gentlemen are.”

It didn’t matter how gentlemen were. Samuel wasn’t a gentleman. He was not the sort of man to take up arms in a show of honor. He would fight.

Worse, any given blow might send him to that other place—that shadowy battlefield where he knew nothing but instinct and survival. Even if he wished to back down, he might be unable to do so in the heat of the struggle.

She saw no way this could end but badly—bloodily—for everyone concerned.

“Stop this,” she cried. “Both of you, please. Evan, you don’t understand. Samuel cares for me. He sacrificed everything to save me from that awful place.”

“He stole your virtue. He’s a blackguard.”

Kate wanted to argue that she’d given herself willingly, and that the idea of a woman’s virtue as a possession one man could steal from another was straight from the Dark Ages. But judging by the scene before her, accusations of medieval behavior would fall on deaf ears.

The men circled one another in the center of the hall, like two wild beasts bristling and snarling in warning. The bloodred carpet they trod upon did little to calm Kate’s fears or ease the men’s thirst for violence.

“You really want to do this, Thorne?” Evan asked.

“No. Because when I kill you, it will be sad for Katie and a mess for Sir Lewis’s house staff.”

“I spent four years fencing at Oxford.”

“Child’s play,” Samuel scoffed. “I spent a decade fighting my way through enemy lines, using nothing but a bayonet.”

I’m sure you did, Kate thought. But that was with a strong, healthy arm, not a grip weakened by snake venom.

“I won’t surrender her,” Samuel said. “You can’t convince me you’re the better man.”

“Very well. Then I’ll let my blade do the talking.”

Kate cringed as Evan swung his sword, but Thorne parried the blow capably. They clashed several times in quick succession. The ringing clangs of metal against metal shivered through her bones.

Just as suddenly, they broke apart and retreated, each breathing hard. The ritual of mutual, animalistic circling began again.

“Don’t do this, Samuel,” she pleaded. “He’s only desperate to save the family. It’s his passion. He wants so much to take care of his siblings and for Lark to have—”

Samuel laughed bitterly. “There’s nothing noble in this. Can’t you see he’s had this planned? He’s been maneuvering you into marrying him all along. That’s why he hasn’t let you out of his sight since they arrived in Spindle Cove. He cares, all right. He cares about the money.”

“And you don’t?” Evan stopped circling and leveled his sword at Samuel. “Those American ambitions disappeared rather quickly once you learned of her inheritance. You want her money so badly, you’re willing to drag her name through the gutter to get it.”

“The gutter you left her in.” Holding his blade pointed at Evan’s chest, Thorne looked around the room, from one Gramercy to the next. “I will never believe that no one knew of her. That you could not have found her and saved her years of degradation and misery. You’re either liars or fools.”

“Samuel, look sharp!”

Evan took advantage of his opponent’s distraction and made a slicing blow that caught Samuel’s sword and sent it spiraling away, into the darkest corner of the room. But before Evan could even demand his surrender, Samuel shifted his weight back and made a full-force kick at Evan’s wrist. Evan cried out in pain and dropped his sword. Rather than reach for it, Samuel kicked the weapon out of reach.

Both men were disarmed.

“Oh, thank heaven,” Kate whispered. “Maybe now it will be over.”

Harry shook her head. “You don’t know my brother very well.”

Evan turned to the next suit of armor in the row. This one held not a sword, but a shield and a long, slender javelin. He wrenched both shield and weapon from the pedestal. “Always fancied a go at this.”

Across the hall, Thorne turned to the armored figure’s counterpart and began to do the same.

Once they were identically armed, the men backed toward opposite ends of the hall, as if preparing for a joust.

“There’s no doubt you’re a lady now,” Harriet said to Kate. “They’ve organized a full tournament for your affections.”

“This is ridiculous!” Kate cried. “The midsummer fair was over weeks ago. What’s next, squaring off with crossbows?”

“Don’t give them any more ideas,” Lark whispered.

“On three, Thorne,” Evan called, raising his shield with his left hand and balancing the javelin with his right. He planted his boots firmly in the plush red carpet. “Three . . . two . . .”

“No!” Kate plucked her discarded stockings from the floor and dashed into the center of the hall, waving them like white, streaming banners of surrender. “Stop!”

The men stopped.

Everything stopped. Suddenly, the hall was completely, unearthly quiet. Because from the ballroom, they heard music. Not orchestral music. Just the gentle strains of the pianoforte and a familiar voice, lifted in song.

“Oh,” Kate gasped, recognizing the tune. “It’s Miss Elliott. At last, the brave dear. She’s finally performing for her friends.”

“Mozart,” Evan said, recognizing the aria. “Excellent choice, Kate. It suits her voice very well. Do you attend the opera frequently, Thorne?”

“No,” Samuel replied tightly.

Without taking his eyes from his opponent, Evan spoke to Kate. “Do you see? I will be good for you. I can give you not only the protection you need, but the companionship you deserve. We converse on politics and poetry, play brilliant duets.” He waved his javelin at Thorne. “He might make your blood pound with illicit thrills, but he can’t give you those things.”

Kate slid her gaze to Samuel, worried. She knew Evan’s words poked at his deepest feelings of unworthiness.

“What can you possibly offer her?” Evan demanded, as Miss Elliott’s voice soared to operatic heights. “You’ve no breeding. No education. Not even an honorable trade. You can’t provide her with a home befitting a lady.”

“I know.” Samuel’s expression hardened to that veneer of impenetrable stone.

“You’re beneath her,” Evan said, “in every possible way.”

“I know that, too.”

Don’t agree with him, Kate shouted in her mind. Don’t ever believe it.

Evan sneered. “Then how can you dare to ask for her hand?”

“Because I love her,” Samuel replied in a low, quiet voice. “I have more love and devotion to give that woman than there is gold in England. And I have the manners not to prattle on while her pupil is singing.” He made a menacing thrust with his javelin. “Shut it, or I’ll skewer you.”

After that, every soul in the room remained quiet and still until Miss Elliott sang her last, sweetly pure note. Kate’s chest swelled with pride in her pupil and happiness for her friend.

Best of all, she had hope for the men’s reconciliation.

“Thank you,” she told the men, alternating her gaze from one end of the hall to the other. “I know you understand what that meant to me. How hard Miss Elliott worked.”

She let her arms drop to her sides and retreated to the border of the hall, leaving them to regard one another. Surely now they must comprehend—no matter their differences as men, they both wanted what was best for her.

“Now,” Kate asked, “can we put away Sir Lewis’s artifacts and discuss this like rational people?”

Apparently not.

“One,” Evan said.

The two men rushed at each other and collided in the center of the hall with an ugly crunch. The impact of javelins on shields sent them bouncing back, repulsed by the force of the impact. No one had been seriously hurt—which pleased Kate, but evidently frustrated the men. They threw their javelins aside.

Evan reached for a battle-axe next, but in pulling it down from its wall rack, he misjudged the weight. The horrific weapon crashed to the floor, narrowing missing his foot and sinking two inches into the parquet.

By now Lark, Harriet, and Aunt Marmoset had joined in the shouting. “Stop! Both of you, stop! This is absurd.”

But apparently there were yet loftier heights of male absurdity, just begging to be explored. Both of them had moved to some place beyond logic or reason, where only male pride and bloodlust held sway.

Thorne plucked a quarterstaff from a rack. It was a long, wooden pole weighted at either end for the purpose of inflicting bone-crushing blows.

For his part, Evan now reached for a morning star—a heavy, spiked ball dangling at the end of a chain. He lifted the mace’s handle with two hands and began to swing the menacing projectile in circles over his head. It made a fearful whistling noise as it picked up speed.

Everyone stared at it, rapt. The image was transfixing—this instrument of death swinging faster and faster through its drunken orbit.

Evan’s face told her even he was wary of what he’d unleashed—and uncertain how to control or stop it. He shot Kate a bewildered look. His eyes seem to say, Did I truly do this? Fight your betrothed with javelins and broadswords and then lift a bloody medieval mace over my head and start swinging it recklessly about in a room full of people?

Yes, Evan. You truly did.

She was glad he’d finally come to his senses about this entire ridiculous battle.

But it was too late.

When he released that thing, it was going to fly fast and hard and wreak destruction in whatever direction it chose.

He said, in a very polite, calm, aristocratic voice, “I can’t hold it much longer, I’m afraid.”

“Katie,” Samuel barked. “Get down.”

All the ladies obeyed, diving into corners and taking cover under chairs. Kate ducked behind one of the discarded shields.

Thorne positioned himself as her human guard, lifting his quarterstaff in both hands and keeping his eye on the circling morning star. He looked like a cricketer, readying to bat—and in essence, he was. Brave, stupid man.

“Samuel, please! Just take cover!”

With a savage shout, Evan released his grip on the mace. Kate ducked instinctively, unable to watch any further.

She both heard and felt the horrific crash. The initial impact was sharp and jolting, then almost musical, with the plink and crack of shattered glass.

The ball must have found a window and taken its bloodthirsty spikes soaring out into the garden. She could not speak for the hedgehogs, but with luck, it would seem no people had been hurt.

Drawn by the sound of calamity, guests began pouring in from the ballroom. Several carried candles or lamps.

“What the devil’s going on here?” Lord Rycliff demanded.

A good question. Sucking in what seemed to be her first proper breath in an hour, Kate emerged and assessed the scene.

Evan remained standing, staring at the broken window. On his brow, blood oozed from a small razor-thin cut. Otherwise, he appeared unharmed.

As for Samuel . . .

Oh no. Her worst fears were realized. He wasn’t physically harmed, but mentally . . . His eyes were dilated. his nostrils flared. He wasn’t there. Just the same as with the melon siege, with one important difference.

This time he was armed.