The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [149]
“We have used him. Badly,” Grey said, answering the thought, and his brother grimaced again.
“Depends on how you look at the results,” Hal said, but his voice lacked conviction.
Grey rose, stretching his back.
“No,” he said, and was surprised to find that he felt very calm. “No, the results may justify it—but the means … I think we must admit the means.”
Hal swung round to look at him, one brow raised. “And if we do?”
“Then you can’t stop him, if he’s decided to fight. Or not ‘can’t,’ ” Grey corrected himself. “But you won’t. It’s his choice to make.”
Hal snorted a little, but didn’t disagree. “Do you think he does want it?” he asked after a moment. “He intimates that he threw Twelvetrees’s treason in his face publicly to stop his machinations before they could go too far—and he certainly accomplished that much. But do you think he foresaw that Twelvetrees would call him out? Well, yes, I suppose he did,” Hal answered himself. “Twelvetrees couldn’t do otherwise. But does Fraser want this duel?”
Grey saw what his brother was getting at and shook his head. “You mean that we might be doing him a favor by preventing his fighting. No.” He smiled affectionately at his brother and put down his cup. “It’s simple, Hal. Put yourself in his place, and think what you’d do. He may not be an Englishman, but his honor is equal to yours, and so is his determination. I could not pay him a greater compliment.”
“Hmmph,” said Hal, and flushed a little. “Well. Had you better take him to the salle des armes tomorrow, then? Give him a bit of practice before he meets Twelvetrees? Supposing he does choose swords.”
“I don’t think there will be time.” The feeling of calm was spreading; he felt almost as though he floated in the warm light of fire and candles, as though it bore him up.
Hal was staring at him suspiciously.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I thought it out this afternoon, and reached the same conclusions that we have just come to. Then I sent a note to Edward Twelvetrees, demanding satisfaction for his insult to me at the club.”
Hal’s jaw dropped.
“You … what?”
Grey reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out the crumpled note.
“And he’s replied. Six o’clock tomorrow morning, in the gardens behind Lambeth Palace. Sabers. Odd, that. I should have thought he’d be a rapier man.”
32
Duello
MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE, HE SLEPT THAT NIGHT. A DEEP, dreamless sleep from which he woke quite suddenly in the dark, aware that the day was coming.
An instant later, the door opened, and Tom Byrd came in with a candle and his tea tray, a can of hot shaving water balanced in the crook of his arm.
“Will you have some breakfast, me lord?” he asked. “I brought rolls with butter and jam, but Cook thinks you should have a proper cooked breakfast. To keep up your strength, like.”
“Thank Cook for me, Tom,” Grey said, smiling. He sat up on the side of the bed and scratched himself. He felt surprisingly well.
“No,” he said, taking the roll to which Tom had just applied a lavish knifeful of apricot preserve, “this will do.” If he were facing a daylong battle, he’d tuck solidly into the ham and eggs, black pudding, and anything else on offer—but whatever happened today wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, and he wanted to feel light on his feet.
Tom laid out his clothes and stirred up the shaving soap while Grey ate, then the valet turned round, razor in hand and a determined look on his face.
“I’m a-going with you, me lord. This morning.”
“You are?”
Tom nodded, jaw set.
“Yes, I am. I heard the duke and you talk about it last night, saying he oughtn’t to be there, and that’s all well and good; I see that him being there would just make more trouble. I can’t second you, of course. But somebody ought to