Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

“And for what he did to you,” Bertrand Lamarr added.

“And for what he did to me.”

“How?” Riverdale asked. “You have an idea, Lyndale?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I would have written a note before leaving the hotel, but I wanted to get out of there before Jessica recovered sufficiently to . . . complicate matters. Perhaps I may write it here, Netherby. I will invite him to meet me in Hyde Park today, this afternoon, to discuss how we will proceed from here. I will inform him that I and my wife’s relatives are seriously considering having him arrested for rape and murder and attempted murder—of me. I will invite him to come and tell me why we ought not to do that. I will imply that I am willing to let him go unmolested if he can come to some sort of agreement with me—to keep out of my sight for the rest of his life, perhaps.”

There was a brief silence.

“Weak,” Hodges said. “He will know perfectly well that no solid case can be made against him.”

“But there may be enough doubt there,” Riverdale said, “to make him nervous.”

“I will emphasize,” Gabriel said, “that there are to be no weapons, that it is not a duel to which I am challenging him.”

“If he believes that,” Boris Wayne said, “he has feathers for brains.”

“There will be no weapons,” Gabriel said, “except my fists.”

“He would still be an idiot,” Peter Wayne said, looking him up and down. “If I were in his shoes, I would bring some weapon. Probably a gun.”

“So would I,” his father agreed. “He has every motive to get rid of you, Lyndale, if he possibly can.”

“I will not be going alone, though,” Gabriel said. “If one or more of you can be persuaded to go with me, that is. There would be too many witnesses. He would not dare risk being taken up for a hanging offense.”

“But what if he does?” Boris Wayne asked.

“I believe,” the Marquess of Dorchester said, “there must be more of us with you than will be apparent to the eye.”

“Slinking in the bushes?” Hodges asked. “Armed to the teeth, Marcel?”

“There is to be no shooting,” Gabriel said. “There are to be no deaths. No violence except what I plan to mete out with my fists—and what he may choose to return with his.”

“That is the ideal,” Riverdale said. “Sometimes, however, reality is different. Shall we agree that there will be no unprovoked shooting?”

“I suppose that is the best we can aim for,” Gabriel said. He knew it was essentially a weak plan. So much could go wrong. But something must be done. Of that he was determined.

There was a brief silence, during which no one came up with any more brilliant ideas.

“Write the note,” Netherby said, getting up from his chair behind the desk. “I shall give myself the pleasure of delivering it in person.”

“Heaven help the man,” Boris Wayne said, laughing.

“Where shall I suggest we meet?” Gabriel asked as he walked behind the desk. “Hyde Park is rather large.”

“There is a handy clearing among the trees on the eastern side of the park,” Riverdale said. “Netherby fought a duel there some years ago. That did not involve pistols either. Or swords. Only Netherby’s lethal feet. Bare feet, I might add.”

“Mine, alas,” Gabriel said, “are capable only of conveying me from place to place. I believe my fists are handy enough, however. Give me specific directions. Manley Rochford will be as unfamiliar with the park as I am.”

“Will he come?” Adrian Sawyer asked.

“Of course he will,” Lord Molenor said. “Netherby will be delivering the note, will he not?”

And so it was that a few hours after leaving his hotel, Gabriel was standing in a largish clearing of level grass in an area otherwise of rather dense trees on the eastern side of Hyde Park, awaiting the arrival of Manley Rochford. Bertie was with him, as was Riverdale. Most of the other men who had gathered in Netherby’s study had been persuaded to stay away, though it had gone much against the grain with all of them. Dorchester, his son, Dirkson, and Netherby were somewhere out of sight. Well out of sight. Gabriel had not caught a glimpse of any one of them.

“Will he come?” Bertie asked when it was five minutes past the appointed time.

“It will be a bit of an anticlimax if he does not,” Gabriel said, strolling away from his two companions to the other side of the clearing. “But if he does not come to me, then I will go to him.” He peered through the trees to see if anyone was approaching from that direction.

And it was just at that moment that a shot rang out from somewhere behind him, quickly succeeded by another.

Twenty-two

Down, Lyndale. Down , Vickers!” the Earl of Riverdale yelled. “Devil take it!”

It was advice he did not immediately apply to himself. He came hurtling across the distance between himself and Gabriel and brought him down with a flying leap.

If he had been shot, Gabriel thought, both the warning and the tackle would have come too late. But he did not believe he was dead. Pain registered all over his body, and for a few moments, while the breath was still knocked out of him and most of the sense out of his head, he tested the pain to discover if any of it was attributable to a bullet wound. And, if so, if it was fatal. He did not believe he was at death’s door. But he was bound to be in shock, and shock, he had heard, could delay one’s reactions for a considerable time. His ears were certainly ringing. He could hear voices even so—neither Riverdale’s nor Bertie’s. Nor his own, though he did consider the possibility that one of the voices at least was his.

Someone was wailing in a demented sort of way. Not him.

Someone else was warning that although he was down, he ought to be careful. Neither he was identified.

A third voice was saying with perfect clarity, “You do not have to hold me. I have no intention of running away.”

And then, unmistakably Netherby’s voice— not his usual bored voice, but one of far greater authority. “He is dead.”

The wailing voice acquired words. “You killed him. You murdered him. Papaaaa! ”

Riverdale eased off Gabriel and cautiously raised his head. Gabriel pushed himself to his feet and absently brushed himself down. One detached part of his mind observed that his right boot had suffered what might be irreparable damage in the form of long scuff marks. Horbath would not be pleased.

“ Who is dead?” Bertie was demanding of Netherby, who had just stridden into the clearing, not looking anything like his usual indolent self. Bertie was also brushing at his clothes.

“Manley Rochford,” Netherby said, his words clipped, a hardness in his face Gabriel had not seen there before. “He was about to shoot Lyndale in the back. Had you no more sense, Thorne, than to move away from the other two? Had you no more sense, Riverdale, than to let him? Or you , Vickers?”

“Who killed him?” Gabriel asked, wondering if the buzzing in his ears was entirely attributable to the gunshots. “You?”

“I had no clear line of fire,” Netherby said. “It looked as though he was approaching with his son in all good faith. Dorchester saw otherwise and got off a shot. Though his was not the first, and if I am not much mistaken, it merely grazed Rochford’s gun hand and forced him to drop the pistol. We did agree there were to be no deaths if they could be avoided.”

“Who, then?” Bertie demanded as they all strode off into the trees. “Egad, but that man has a loud voice.”

That man , Gabriel could see, was Anthony Rochford, bent over the body of his father, and clearly distraught.