Chapter Fourteen
"Here we are," said Frederick, tapping the outside of the famous bay window with his cane. "White's Gentlemen's Club. The only place in London worth being seen in, old chap."
"I cannot believe you talked me into this," said Edward, through gritted teeth. Frederick laughed.
"It's supposed to be an enjoyable place to pass the time, Thorne. Not a torture chamber."
"For you, perhaps. You're not the man called a murderer by half of London."
"Let's forget about the past for say half an hour and see if we can't have some fun, eh, Thorne?" Frederick opened the door and entered the club ahead of him. After he had divested himself of coat and hat, he walked into the main room and was greeted by cheers.
"Lathkill! Good to see you!"
"I say, chaps, it's the Earl of Lathkill!"
"Come and have a drink with me, Lathkill!"
Edward followed him, and every cheerful voice died away. At the far side of the room, there was a clinking sound as a knocked-over bottle spilled its expensive contents to the floor.
"Who remembers my good old friend the Duke of Redhaven?" asked Frederick, his voice ringing loud in the silence. Nobody answered. Unabashed, Frederick took Edward's arm and led him towards a group of men who all but flinched away. "Come along, Thorne. Let's make some introductions."
Slowly, the conversation resumed. The room filled with slightly muted chatter. Edward allowed himself to be seated at a table of whist players who now looked extremely nervous.
"Well, Your Grace," said a red-cheeked fellow who Frederick had introduced as Viscount Hatherford. "How do you find London? Is it much changed since your last visit?"
"In the most important aspects, I believe, it remains as it always was," said Edward coldly. Frederick shot him a look. Edward settled back with the cards in his hands and wished himself elsewhere.
London had not changed. He was still the object of suspicion, rumour, and fear wherever he went.
The only bright spark about this city had been Adelaide, and she now lay cold and lifeless beneath its soil.
"Too right," said the young man sitting at Hatherford's side. He had a mass of golden curls which gave him a rather cherubic aspect, and he toyed with them constantly. "London's entertainments are always the same dull old thing – who wants to drink warm lemonade at Almack's, for goodness' sake? Give me a hunt on a misty morning and a shotgun in my hand any day! Let London hang!"
"Henbury, you are a philistine!" laughed Frederick. "Don't tell me you would gladly swap the theatres – the Opera House – the history and romance of London for your muddy strip of land in Devon?"
"We all know what reason Henbury has to avoid the theatre," said Hatherford, waggling his eyebrows. Henbury twiddled a curl around his finger and sulked while the other men laughed. "Oh! But His Grace the Duke of Redhaven does not know! Shall we tell him of your most recent escapade, Henbury?"
The other men cheered, and Henbury made a great show of pleading his case. Edward took pity on him.
"It will give me no pleasure to be the cause of another man's embarrassment. Let his secrets remain secrets."
"That's frightfully decent of you, Your Grace!" gasped the beleaguered Henbury.
Another sharp look from Frederick spurred Edward into action. "Gracious, man, there's no need to stand on ceremony here. Call me Redhaven."
"Well, Redhaven, let me ply you with a cigar and a swig of this fine brandy," offered Hatherford, forcing the cigar into Edward's hand before he could object. "If you are insistent on behaving like a decent chap when we all know Henbury does not deserve a bit of it, you must allow me to corrupt you a little."
Edward pretended to puff the cigar and began to relax a little. Once the initial shock had worn off, Frederick's friends seemed more than happy to welcome him into their circle.
But how could they behave in such a way towards a man who, seconds earlier, they would have decried as a rogue? Edward himself would never be able to hide his sense of justice under brandy and cigars.
Once he had decided a person was not worth his time, he never stooped to accommodate them. Why, he had spent ten years refusing to stoop to ingratiate himself into society! Now, here he was, surrounded by men who had heard the very worst about him – and who did not mind.
Edward could not understand them, nor approve their friendliness. All the same, in the depths of his heart, he had to admit that he was allowing himself to enjoy it.
By the time the clock chimed midnight, Edward had won two games of whist, lost three, and was forced to admit, when Frederick asked him, that the night was not the disaster he had predicted.
"Hatherford's a dashed fine chap," said Frederick slapping Edward on the back. "A good friend of mine. I can't tell you how glad I am to finally have the opportunity of letting you into my circle of acquaintance, Redhaven."
"You're growing sentimental, Lathkill," Edward warned him.
Hatherford himself interrupted their quiet conversation. His apple-cheeks had flared up to an alarming shade of crimson. "Don't turn around, Redhaven," he muttered urgently. "Don't look."
"What on earth is the matter?" asked Edward, ignoring Hatherford's warning and turning to scan the room.
The moment his eyes fell on the man standing in the doorway, he understood what had caused Hatherford such a panic.
Lord Oliver Barnet had just entered White's.
Edward had not seen his one-time friend for ten years. Despite his rising anger, he could not help but notice that those years weighed heavily on Lord Oliver. Where once he had stood straight and tall, he now hunched over at an awkward angle. His face was lined and had lost all its old brightness – the glow which Adelaide had spoken of so fondly – and had taken on a greyish pallor. He did not look like a man who should be up and about at midnight. He did not look like a man who should be out of bed at all.
Edward found no pity in his heart for Lord Oliver's diminishment. He had already been transported back to that rainy morning on Hampstead Heath. His fingers itched for the trigger of his pistol. He could almost hear the gunshots.
His ears still rang with the echo of the screams that followed.
Lord Oliver took one lurching step into the room, dragging his left foot behind him. He used not one cane but two, and leaned on them heavily. Of course. The bullet had entered his left hip.
Edward realised that Frederick had an arm around him and was holding him back. "Easy, there, Thorne. It's not worth a scene."
"Adelaide's life," said Edward, through gritted teeth. "Adelaide's life is worth it –"
"You have had your vengeance!" Frederick hissed, though Edward knew he had no idea of the truth behind their long-ago duel. "Look at him! Look at him, Thorne!"
Lord Oliver had not noticed Edward, though he was aware that the room had fallen once more into tense silence. He was looking around in confusion. Another man sprang up and offered him a seat, and an arm to lower himself into it.
The Lord Oliver who Edward remembered had been spry, athletic, quick on his feet. He had been very fond of dancing. Too fond.
"I did this to him?" asked Edward, wonderingly. Again, his mind replayed Lord Oliver's scream as the bullet struck him.
The bullet meant for Edward had whistled past his ear. He swore, afterwards, that he felt the wind of it grazing his face.
A breath of wind. That was how close Lord Oliver had come to wiping out the entire Thorne family that day.
"Time to go, Thorne," said Frederick, the urgency in his voice breaking the spell. Edward shook him off.
"I want to speak to him."
"Thorne –"
"I want to ask him how he dares show his face in polite society after –"
"Thorne! He could very well ask the same question to you."
Hatherford had prudently positioned himself in front of Edward and Frederick to screen them from the room, but even his rotund bulk could not hide them entirely. People were starting to pay attention. Lord Oliver was still looking around, uncertain, trying to find the source of the tension.
"I acted only as a gentleman ought," Edward growled. Frederick did not know the whole story. It was only natural that he wanted to make a hasty, painless exit.
No-one knew what had really happened ten years ago but Edward, Lord Oliver, and Adelaide. And Adelaide was dead.
The thought that there were men in the room who believed, even now, that Edward and not Oliver had been the man to kill her sent hot rage rising like bile in Edward's throat. His fists were clenching at his sides.
"What do you intend to do, Thorne?" demanded Frederick. "Strike the man you crippled? He's nothing, Thorne, nothing at all anymore! Let him be."
A man bent his head to Lord Oliver's ear and muttered urgently. Oliver's eyes flared wide. He looked across the room and his gaze connected with Edward's with a jolt that sent them both spinning ten years into the past.
"He was my friend," Edward ground out. He did not know whether he was speaking in anger or simply sadness.
Lord Oliver began to rise, shakily, to his feet. He intended to leave.
Edward made a sharp, irritable gesture to send him back down into his seat. He bowed swiftly to Hatherford. "A pleasure to meet you. Goodnight. Coming, Lathkill?"
"Certainly," said Frederick, fumbling to gather his winnings from the card table.
Edward swept past the man he had broken without another glance. Only when he was outside in the hallway, struggling to set his hat upon his head, did he realise how heavily he was breathing. His fingers were shaking.
He held his hand up to Frederick, half-amused. "Do you see that tremor? A good thing I had better nerves ten years ago."
"It doesn't bear joking about, Thorne," muttered Frederick, shrugging into his coat. "Let's get out of here."
Edward looked at the door they had just closed behind them. He felt a strange pang. A yearning for something.
Lord Oliver might have lost his health on the day of their duel...but Edward had lost everything else.
"What was he doing, coming back to London the one month I happen to be here?" Edward wondered aloud as Frederick drew him out into the starry night. "He must have known."
"I sincerely hope he did not. The man must have a death wish. Honestly, Thorne, if you want people to have a better opinion of you, you would do well not to walk around with such murder in your eyes."
"Perhaps he wishes to make amends."
"Make amends? With you?" Frederick let out a spluttering laugh. Now that the moment of danger had passed, his behaviour was growing a little giddy. "Is such a thing even possible?"
Edward thought of the way Angelica's lips had quirked upwards as she pronounced him fearsome. She, clearly, saw more in him than the fearsome, unforgiving Duke. "Perhaps it ought to be."
"And how do you propose to make amends to him?"
"I?" Edward repeated, astonished. "I have nothing to apologise for!"
"You challenged him. You maimed him. You left him for dead. Whatever he did to upset you, Thorne –"
"You have no idea what he did."
"All the same. I really think it would be better if you let things lie. Dredging up the past can only harm you."
"Perhaps you're right." Edward was nothing if not aware of his own deficiencies. In matters of social justice, he would let himself be guided by Frederick.
"Come along, now," said Frederick, breathing a sigh of relief. "Let's take a hackney carriage back to my place. I'm much too fraught to go to bed. We'll play another round of cards and settle ourselves down before bed. How does that sound?"
Edward looked up at the sky. It was not quite the sky that hung over Redhaven Castle, bright with stars and gashed with the distant beauty of the Milky Way. London's smoke obscured much of the night's splendour. But there was still enough to remind him that his own concerns, in the great scheme of the universe, were very small.
"Thank you, Lathkill," he said. Frederick jolted with surprise and looked at him almost shyly.
"I don't know what's gotten into you tonight, Thorne. I don't think I've heard those words cross your lips since – well, not ever!"
Edward patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you."
Frederick broke out that smile which had entranced half the ladies of London. Twice as bright as any star. "You're welcome, Thorne. You're welcome."