The Convenient Marriage Read online

  Lord Lethbridge was still sitting over his wine, still meditating over the events of the day, when he heard the door open. He looked up, and stiffened. For a moment they faced one another, Lethbridge rigid in his chair, the Earl standing silent in the doorway, looking across at him. Lethbridge read that look in an instant. He got up. ‘So Crosby did visit you?’ he said. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the brooch. ‘Is that what you came for, my lord?’

  The Earl shut the door, and turned the key in the lock. ‘That is what I came for,’ he said. ‘That, and one other thing, Lethbridge.’

  ‘My blood, for instance?’ Lethbridge gave a little laugh. ‘You will have to fight for both.’

  The Earl moved forward. ‘That should afford us both gratification. You have a charming taste in revenge, but you have failed, Lethbridge.’

  ‘Failed?’ said Lethbridge, and looked significantly at the brooch in his hand.

  ‘If your object was to drag my name in the mud, why, certainly!’ said Rule. ‘My wife remains my wife. Presently you shall tell me by what means you forced her to enter your house.’

  Lethbridge raised his brows. ‘And what makes you so sure that I had any need to employ force, my lord?’

  ‘Merely my knowledge of her,’ replied the Earl. ‘You have a vast deal of explaining to do, you see.’

  ‘I don’t boast of my conquests, Rule,’ Lethbridge said softly, and saw the Earl’s hand clench involuntarily. ‘I shall explain nothing.’

  ‘That we shall see,’ said Rule. He pushed the table down to one end of the room, against the wall, and blew out the candles on it, leaving only the pendent chandelier in the centre of the room to light them.

  Lethbridge thrust the chairs back, picking up his sword from one of them, and drawing it from the scabbard. ‘My God, how I have waited for this,’ he said suddenly. ‘I am glad Crosby went to you.’ He put the sword down again, and began to take off his coat.

  The Earl made no reply, but set about his own preparations, pulling off his top-boots, unbuckling his sword-belt, rolling up his deeply ruffled shirt-sleeves.

  They faced one another under the soft candlelight, two big men in whom rage, long concealed, burned with a steady strength too great to admit of vain flusterings. Neither seemed to be aware of the strangeness of the scene, here in the upper parlour of an inn, with below them, penetrating faintly to the quiet room, the hum of voices in the coffee-room. With deliberation they set the stage, with deliberation snuffed a candle that was guttering, and divested themselves of coats and boots. Yet in this quiet preparation was something deadly, too deadly to find relief in a noisy brawl.

  The swords flashed in a brief salute, and engaged with a scrape of steel on steel. Each man was an experienced swordsman, but this was no affair of the fencing-master’s art, with its punctilious niceties, but a grim fight, dangerous in its hard swiftness. For each antagonist the world slid back. Nothing had reality but the other man’s blade, feinting, thrusting, parrying. Their eyes were on each other’s; the sound of their stockinged feet shifting on the boards was a soft thud; their breathing came quick and hard.

  Lethbridge lunged forward on his right foot, delivering a lightning thrust in tierce, his arm high, the muscles standing out on it ribbed and hard. Rule caught forte on forte; the foible glanced along his arm, leaving a long red slash, and the blades disengaged.

  Neither checked; this was no quarrel to be decided by a single hit. The blood dripped slowly from Rule’s forearm to the floor. Lethbridge leaped back on both feet and dropped his point. ‘Tie it!’ he said curtly. ‘I’ve no mind to slip in your blood.’

  Rule pulled a handkerchief from his breeches pocket, and twisted it round the cut, and dragged the knot tight with his teeth.

  ‘On guard!’

  The fight went on, relentless and untiring. Lethbridge attempted a flanconnade, opposing his left hand. His point barely grazed Rule’s side; the Earl countered in a flash. There was a scuffle of blades, and Lethbridge recovered his guard, panting a little.

  It was he who was delivering the attack all the time, employing every wile known to his art to lure Rule into giving an opening. Time after time he tried to break through the guard; time after time his blade was caught in a swift parry, and turned aside. He was beginning to flag; the sweat was rolling in great drops off his forehead; he dared not use his left hand to dash it from his eyes lest in that second’s blindness Rule should thrust home. He thrust rather wildly in carte; the Earl parried it half-circle, and before Lethbridge could recover, sprang in, and seized the blade below the hilt. His own point touched the floor. ‘Wipe the sweat from your eyes!’

  Lethbridge’s lips writhed in a queer, bitter smile. – ‘So – you are – quits?’

  The Earl did not answer; he released the sword, and waited. Lethbridge passed his handkerchief across his brow and threw it aside.

  ‘On guard!’

  A change came; the Earl was beginning at last to press the attack. Hard driven, Lethbridge parried his blade again and again, steadily losing strength. Knowing himself to be nearly done, he attempted a botte coupée, feinting in high carte and thrusting in low tierce. His blade met nothing but the opposition of Rule’s and the fight went on.

  He heard the Earl speak, breathlessly, but very clearly. ‘Why did my wife enter your house?’

  He had no struggle left to waste in attack; he could only parry mechanically, his arm aching from shoulder to wrist.

  ‘Why did my wife enter your house?’

  He parried too late; the Earl’s point flashed under his guard, checked, and withdrew. He realized that he had been spared, would be spared again, and yet again, until Rule had his answer. He grinned savagely. His words came on his heaving breaths: ‘Kidnapped – her.’

  The swords rang together, disengaged. ‘And then?’

  He set his teeth; his guard wavered; he recovered miraculously; the hilt felt slippery in his wet grasp.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I do not – boast – of my – conquests!’ he panted, and put forth the last remnant of his strength to beat back the attack he knew would end the bout.

  His sword scraped on Rule’s; his heart felt as though it would burst; his throat was parched; the ache in his arm had become a dull agony; a mist was gathering before his eyes. The years rolled back suddenly; he gasped out: ‘Marcus – for God’s sake – end it!’

  He saw the thrust coming, a straight lunge in high carte aimed for the heart; he made one last parry too late to stop the thrust, but in time to deflect it slightly. Rule’s point sliding over his blade, entered deep into his shoulder. His own dropped; he stood swaying for an instant, and fell, the blood staining his shirt bright scarlet.

  Rule wiped the sweat from his face; his hand was shaking a little. He looked down at Lethbridge, lying in a crumpled heap at his feet, sobbing for breath, the blood on his shirt soaking through, and forming a pool on the oak boards. Suddenly he flung his sword aside and strode to the table, and swept the bottle and the glass off it. He caught up the cloth and tore it with his strong teeth, and ripped it from end to end. The next moment he was on his knees beside Lethbridge, feeling for the wound. The hazel eyes opened, considering him. ‘I believe – I shan’t die – this time – either!’ Lethbridge whispered mockingly.

  The Earl had laid bare the wound, and was staunching the blood. ‘No, I don’t think you will,’ he said. ‘But it’s deep.’ He tore another strip from the cloth and made it into a pad, and bound it tightly round the shoulder. He got up and fetched Lethbridge’s coat from a chair, and rolling it up placed it under his head. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he said briefly, and went out, and from the head of the stairs shouted for the landlord.

  Stout Cattermole appeared so promptly that it seemed as though he must have been waiting for that call. He stood with his hands on the banister, looking anxiously up at the Earl, his brow puckered,