A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(78)
Author: Tessa Dare

“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.”