Why couldn’t he listen to his own advice?
The two opponents exchanged a long, level look. “We can settle this back at the Residency,” said Alex in a hard voice.
Fiske readjusted his gloves. “I shall look forward to the sport.”
“How very sporting of you,” said Alex dryly.
“I’ll put odds on you, old man,” said Pinchingdale to his messmate, brightening at the prospect of a bit of blood and bookmaking. Remembering his purpose, he added, “Just came to tell you that we seem to be all packed up and ready to go. Proper beds at the Residency tonight!”
Fiske’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy’s. “Except for those of us who wake at dawn.”
With an inconsequential comment to Pinchingdale, he pointedly turned his back on Alex. Whatever it was he had said, it must have been amusing. Penelope could hear Pinchingdale’s arrogant laughter floating away with the sound of their retreating footsteps.
From the entryway, someone signaled to Alex, undoubtedly about one of the hundred tasks to do with getting the cavalcade back underway. Alex held up a hand, indicating that he would be along in just a moment.
Turning to Penelope, Alex looked at her searchingly. “Are you all right?” he asked gently.
All right? Had there ever been a more idiotic question in the history of the world?
Every emotion she had ever had boiled and churned and spilled over like acid, burning through whole layers of skin, leaving her naked and exposed and vulnerable. She felt as though her guts had been dragged out through her nose and left lying all over the cobblestones.
“You idiot,” she fumed. “You pigheaded, mule-brained, feeble-minded man. You walked right into that like—like an idiot sheep to slaughter. Did you ever stop to think that he might have done it on purpose?”
“Yes,” he said calmly. Penelope gaped at him. Taking advantage of her momentary speechlessness, he added, in a voice that brooked no dispute, “Fiske can’t be allowed to say such things about you with impunity.”
“Why not, when it’s true?” demanded Penelope frantically. “Others have said worse.”
Alex’s face set in lines of pure granite. “Not anymore.”
He appeared to be missing the point. Images of Freddy, waxy-skinned and lifeless, flashed through her head, oddly intermingled with images of Alex, Alex sprawled like a dropped doll on a patch of trodden ground, mouth slack, eyes hollow. They were all muddled together in her head, death after death after death, and all on her account. She had thought she could save him by staying away. Why, oh, why had he been fool enough to seek her out?
Balling her hands into fists at her sides, Penelope said fiercely, “I won’t, won’t, won’t let you kill yourself for me.”
She knew she had lost even before he spoke. He grinned down at her, an endearing, boyish grin that made her throat lurch with the presentiment of future pain. “What makes you think I’ll lose?”
Idiot!
Penelope didn’t even attempt to answer. If she had possessed Charlotte’s vocabulary, she would have excoriated him in a thousand different ways, each more scathing than the last. But she didn’t. She walked right past him, listening carefully to the slap of her own boots against the paving stones, willing the sound to expand and expand until it drummed out the shrill buzz of raw panic that roared in her ears and battered against her chest.
This was worse, far worse, than finding a cobra waiting for her by her dressing table. Then she had been calm. There had been no one’s life but hers to account for, and she held that life cheap. No great loss to the world if she were to shuffle off this mortal coil. Henrietta and Charlotte would mourn her for a week—when they eventually found out—and Freddy, were he still alive, would have celebrated her memory by going on a spree with his mistress.
But, Alex! Steady, reliable, careful Alex. What had he been thinking? Was it part of the same madness that had seized his brain when he had allowed himself to take up with her? She had battered at him and battered at him and battered at him until he had; less a seduction and more an assault, sapping and razing his defenses, turning him inside out for her own selfish gratification.
Penelope swallowed hard, fighting the image of Freddy lying in the palanquin, dead and cold, with gold coins where his eyes should have been. As she watched, the bright gold hair darkened slowly to black, like a shadow creeping over the moon, and the coins shrouding his eyes blackened and tarnished and charred until they, too, were black, black and empty. It would be Alex lying there instead and no matter how she tried to shake him he wouldn’t wake up, he wouldn’t ever wake up, and it would all be her fault.
With an effort, Penelope took hold of her rising panic, forced it down, hunching over her horse’s neck until Buttercup sidled and knickered reproachfully. She forced herself to lighten her seat, but the leather of her riding gloves stretched tight across her knuckles as she gripped the reins. The duel had to be stopped, that was all there was to it. She wouldn’t let Alex die as Freddy had.
Chewing the inside of her lip, Penelope rode along beside Fiske and Pinchingdale, grateful for the broad hat that shielded her face as mile passed mile. The Resident might be the answer, Penelope thought determinedly. It was his jurisdiction. He would have the power to stop the duel.
Unless he didn’t want to. Penelope’s hopes, which had begun to rise, abruptly crashed again. The Resident was a man, after all, and there was no telling how they would react to perfectly logical requests. Honor must be served and a duel provided good sport.
Even if the Resident did stop the duel, it would go poorly for Alex. Duels were technically illegal—in England, at least. Penelope had no idea whether the rule extended to India. If it did, Alex might find himself facing disciplinary action or demotion for having embroiled himself in such an affair. All the sordid details would have to come out, Fiske’s insinuations, Alex’s reactions. It would look bad for him. It would look even worse if it ever came out that it was all true. Adultery was a crime, too, and public opinion, with all its usual perversity, would run on the side of Freddy, simply because he was dead. Freddy. He always had had a miraculous ability to wallow in muck and come out shining golden. Death hadn’t changed that.
Strange, that the thought of him still evoked such bitterness in her. She had thought death would have conquered that, transmuting bitterness to grief and recriminations to guilt. For a time it had. But like an alchemist’s experiments, the transformation had proved illusory.
There was no point in thinking about Freddy, she told herself harshly. He was dead. It was Alex who needed to be kept alive.
Perhaps she could lock him in his quarters and prevent him from appearing at the appointed time.
No. He would hate her for it, and Fiske would gloat at Alex’s supposed cowardice in fearing to meet him. Besides, knowing Alex, he would calmly and methodically find a way out. He was too competent by half.
Far better, she could confine Fiske in his quarters. A crazy smile tugged at the corners of Penelope’s lips. It made the muscles in her face hurt. She had got out of the habit of smiling. But it felt good.
The plan was just crazy enough to work. Penelope snuck a glance sideways from under her hat brim. It would be a double revenge, preventing Fiske from meeting Alex and tainting him with the imputation of cowardice at the same blow. It was perfect, and so much easier than trying to immure Alex. It wouldn’t take much. Some poppy juice in Fiske’s after-dinner brandy, a whispered suggestion of an assignation—and then the key turning in the lock, leaving him to sleep it off till well past dawn.
Penelope felt herself buoyed by a new sense of purpose and resolution. She might have killed Freddy, but she could save Alex. Even if he wouldn’t necessarily thank her for it. Well, too bad for him, she thought, with a stirring of her old imperiousness. At least he would be alive to not thank her.
It was dark by the time their cavalcade passed under the great gate of the Residency. Alex was nowhere to be seen—presumably preparing for a meetin
g that would never take place, Penelope thought with satisfaction. She submitted to being lifted down from her horse by Fiske, simpering at him for all she was worth.
“Penelope!” someone cried out, and Fiske, whose hands had lingered longer on her waist than strictly necessary, nearly dropped her.
The slight form of a young woman raced down the steps of the Residency, holding up her skirt with one hand and waving the other in animated greeting, her blond curls frothing in front of her face with her joyful progress.
Penelope squinted in the uncertain light. Heavens, what with Alex and snakes and Freddy’s death, her mind was beginning to go. She was starting to hallucinate.
The hallucination skidded to a halt in front of Penelope, grabbing Penelope’s gloved hand in an affectionate clasp.
“Oh, Penelope! I’m so glad to see you!” exclaimed Charlotte.
If she was a hallucination, she was a surprisingly corporeal one. Penelope inched her fingers out of Charlotte’s clasp.
“What—?” she began.
Lady Charlotte Lansdowne—no, the Duchess of Dovedale now, Penelope reminded herself—beamed at her, glowing like the royal fireworks all going off in unison. “We’re on our way to Mysore, so Robert can show me where he lived. We’ve been to Calcutta already on the way, and some lovely little villages, and seen such sights and ruins. And aren’t the elephants wonderful? I hadn’t thought they could be nearly so big,” said Charlotte all in rush, bouncing up and down in her enthusiasm.
Her very evident happiness hit Penelope like a door in the face. Confronted with Penelope’s stony countenance, some of the glow faded from Charlotte. She looked searchingly at her old friend. “Pen, what’s wrong?”
“Freddy is dead,” Penelope said brusquely.
Charlotte’s hand flew to her mouth, which had formed a perfect O. “Oh, Pen.”
‘Oh, Freddy,’ more like,” said Penelope, with deliberate callousness, even as she hated herself for doing so. Venting her anger at Charlotte was like kicking a kitten. “He’s the one in the box.”
Charlotte’s lips folded closed over what was clearly about to have been another Oh, Pen. Penelope wished she wouldn’t do that; even if the intent behind it was good, it had always grated on Penelope’s nerves like nails on a slate.
Instead, Charlotte turned to a servant, and said, with charming diffidence, “Please, might we have some tea?” before turning back to Penelope with obvious concern in her big, cloudy eyes. When had Charlotte acquired that unconscious air of command? More had changed than just a ring on her third finger.
The source of it all stepped out from behind her, coming more staidly down the steps. “You might want something a bit stronger than that,” said Charlotte’s husband.
Penelope eyed him warily. Back in England, they had not gotten along. He had blamed her for the infatuation of his friend, Tommy Fluellen—heavens, it wasn’t as though she had asked the man to follow her around—and she had made no secret of her conviction that his designs on Charlotte were less than honorable. So he had proved her wrong. It had seemed a sure-enough proposition at the time.
Respect for the dead—or at least respect for a death, since he had no respect for Freddy—tempered whatever residual resentment the new Duke of Dovedale might have held for her.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” said Penelope baldly. “You had nothing but contempt for Freddy.”
“Like you,” blurted out Charlotte. Coloring to her eyebrows, she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, Pen. I didn’t mean—that is . . . Oh, dear. But it’s just that you did criticize him. Rather a lot.” She hastily shut her mouth before she could put her foot down it any farther.
With friends like these, who needed poisonous snakes? It didn’t help that Charlotte was right.
“And you never criticize your husband?” she said frostily.
“Only when I deserve it,” said the duke, genially enough, but there was a hint of steel under it, and an unspoken warning in the way he threaded his arm around Charlotte’s waist.
Penelope wanted nothing more than to fling herself down on the steps and bang her fists against the cold stone until her hands cracked and bled. She wanted to howl like a child in a temper tantrum, stamping her feet and shouting that it wasn’t fair. Why did everyone else get cosseted and coddled and protected while she was left to fend for herself? It was always the lumpy part of the porridge for old Penelope.
Fleetingly, Penelope remembered the way Alex had looked in the caravan courtyard, striking out for her honor. But that wasn’t really for her, any more than those days on the road had been an expression of anything more than the desires of the moment. Alex was in the habit of playing protector. And he didn’t like Fiske.
“You called for tea?” said Penelope tightly.
The duke’s arm dropped from around his wife’s waist.
Penelope didn’t miss the private look that passed between the two. It made her feel like a spoiled child in the presence of indulgent adults prepared to humor her so far as might be necessary to ensure general tranquility. Penelope’s throat tightened. It would have hurt less if she hadn’t known herself to be behaving like a spoiled child.
Her husband had just died. Didn’t that count for anything?
She could almost hear the mocking laughter. Like you, Charlotte had said, silly, absentminded Charlotte, who always saw more than was convenient and didn’t have the good sense to hide it. And it was true, all of it. When it came down to it, she didn’t like Freddy. She had never liked Freddy. But she had married him anyway. Somehow, that made it all worse.
“Shall we?” said Charlotte timidly, threading her arm through Penelope’s and supporting her steps, as though she were an invalid. Considering that Penelope was a good head taller than Charlotte, it was a particularly futile gesture. If Penelope went over, they would both go splat.
“Why not?” said Penelope bitingly. “One must never underestimate the restorative powers of tea.”
She let Charlotte lead her into the Residency, into a small parlor on the side of the house, pleasantly cool in the peaceful dusk. The visiting duchess had already made the room her own, novels piled carelessly on a side table, a journal marked with a red ribbon lolling open on the settee. The tea was waiting for them, all the proper accoutrements laid out neatly on an octagonal table. Charlotte busied herself preparing the tea, waiting until the leaves were steeping before saying tentatively, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Penelope prowled restlessly back and forth, heedless of the caked mud being transferred from her hem to the Resident’s prized Persian carpet. “I want it all to go away. I want to go to bed and wake up and find that none of it ever happened. That’s what I want.”
“Your marriage or Lord Frederick’s death?”
“Both.”
“Oh, Pen.”
“Don’t ‘oh, Pen’ me!”
Charlotte sat down abruptly in a chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
Penelope pressed her eyes tightly together. “I know. I do know. It’s just . . . hard. All of it.”
She looked at Charlotte sitting there so placidly. Charlotte, who had found her Own True Love—one could practically hear the capital letters every time Charlotte looked at her husband. But Charlotte had believed in her duke, even when circumstances had militated against him, and others, including Penelope, had advised her not to trust him farther than she could throw him. Charlotte had earned her happy ending.
If circumstances had been different, might she and Alex—no. She wouldn’t let herself start thinking rubbish. It might be all flowers and poetry in Charlotte’s world, but it wasn’t in hers.
Once she rescued Alex from the idiocy of this duel, that would be the end of it, all obligations over on both sides. She had bullied him into dallying with her, and he had defended her out of duty. There was no point in falling into Charlotte’s fantasy land and deluding herself that it might ever be anything mor
e.
A wild laugh tore out of Penelope’s throat. “I did something you wouldn’t approve of,” she blurted out, rounding towards her friend in a swirl of heavy fabric. “I committed adultery.”
There it was. No euphemisms. No pretense.
Penelope could tell Charlotte was horrified, even though she made a valiant effort to hide it. “I never thought you and Lord Frederick were well-suited,” she said diplomatically, before adding hastily, “not that I hoped he would get bitten by a snake, of course.”
“You don’t understand. I was with Alex—Captain Reid—while Freddy was dying. I didn’t know—I had no idea—”
Charlotte lurched forward in her chair, her innocent face earnest. “But you couldn’t have known. Oh, Pen. How could you possibly have foreseen that something like that might happen?”
It was on the tip of Penelope’s tongue to tell her about Fiske. But she shrugged the impulse aside. Matters were complicated enough. “Bad things happen. If I hadn’t caused him to be exiled to India, he wouldn’t be dead.”
“Bad things can happen anywhere,” said Charlotte earnestly. “He might just as well have fallen off his phaeton or tripped into the Serpentine or been bludgeoned to death by footpads. You certainly didn’t mean any of this to happen when you—well, you know.”
“Just because I didn’t mean him to die from it doesn’t make it any less my doing.”
“Everyone dies eventually,” said Charlotte, looking down into the clouds created by the milk in her tea. In a barely audible voice, she added, “No matter how much one wishes otherwise.”
Not even Charlotte could muster that much sympathy for Freddy. With a jolt, Penelope realized that Charlotte was not thinking of Freddy, but of her parents. She spoke of them so seldom that it was easy to forget how deeply she had been attached to them.
Feeling beastly, Penelope plopped into the chair next to her friend’s. “I’m sorry, Lottie.”