"Why?"
"Because if you involve another, the world will know. And if Eleanor then refuses to marry you, as she has a perfect right to do, she will be ruined." "You wouldn't marry him instead of me!" Astley swung around. "He hasn't asked me," Eleanor said, head high.
Leopold actually sympathized with Astley this time. He could have ducked; he certainly knew what was coming. But he took a hard right to his chin.
Eleanor grabbed Astley's arm. "He's marrying Lisette! For pity's sake, Gideon. He can hardly marry me when he's promised to her."
"Then why are you in her bedchamber?" Astley said, panting.
Although it hurt like the devil, Leopold refused to give his opponent the satisfaction of seeing him feel his chin. "Because I'm a bastard," he said heavily.
"You are that," Astley said. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you'd rather marry Lisette than Eleanor."
It hurt to open his mouth, and not only because of the blow. He didn't manage to open it before Eleanor intervened once more.
"He does!" she said, her voice tight. "What are you trying to prove, Gideon? Leopold has decided that Lisette will be a better mother to his children. He bedded me, but that gave him precisely as much desire to marry me as it gave you. In short: not much."
Astley started to speak, but she held up her hand. Her eyes were flaming. "Neither of you seem to care, but I'll tell you this: I deserve better than either of you. I deserve a man who will love me, who will believe to the bottom of his heart that I'm exactly the woman he wants to raise his children.
Who won't think of me as just a woman to bed."
Leopold felt her words as if a blow had shuddered down his spine. He had never meant to hurt her.
And yet there were tears standing in her eyes.
"I deserve more," she repeated savagely.
"I think you'll be a wonderful mother," Astley said, like an eager puppy dog.
"No, you don't." "I do!"
"You want to marry me because you realize you made a mistake. But that's not the same as loving me now, Gideon. We lost each other, somehow. And frankly, you loved Ada, for all you are disparaging your time together. You loved her."
Astley swallowed. "I—"
"You loved her and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can mourn her properly."
"But if you won't marry either of us—"
"Don't tell me that you're afraid I'll end up a spinster! I'll tell you exactly who I am going to marry: a common man, not a duke. Both of you are so steeped in privilege that you never really thought I was good enough for you. I am going to find an ordinary man who will court me. And he won't be a duke. Now if you don't mind, I'll leave you."
She left.
Leopold pulled on his shirt. "I'll leave for London immediately," he said, tired to the bone. He felt as if a clamp were tightening around his heart, as if he'd—He couldn't let himself think about what he had done.
"No, you won't."
"For God's sake, Astley. She doesn't want either one of us." "You fool," Astley said. "You utter blithering fool."
Leopold laughed, shortly. "Are you trying to get me to slap you this time? Because believe it or not, I don't believe in duels anymore."
The slap made his head fall back and his teeth rattle.
"What in God's name was that for? That's the third time you've struck me in five minutes."
"Because I love her," Astley said. "I behaved like a young ass when I left her. And maybe she's right when she says it's too late for us. But you—you used her. You made her fall in love with you, and you rejected her. I'm going to kill you."
For the first time, Leopold felt a stir of alarm. Faint, but real. "You can't kill me."
"Yes, I can," Astley stated clearly. "I dishonored Eleanor. This will atone for what I did to her. I'll revenge her. I'll take you down because it's the right thing to do. You broke her heart. I've never seen her look like that, not when I left her, and not thereafter. By God, I never understood the point of dueling before but I understand it now."
Leopold knew when a man had irrevocably made up his mind. He pulled on his boots. "Tomorrow at dawn."
"Where?"
"There's a stretch of green down by the river. It will do." He felt inexpressibly weary. A man wanted to kill him because he had broken the heart of— It was impossible.
She was so logical, so cool, when she agreed with him that he should marry Lisette. Women had moaned and murmured and shouted their love for him before, not that he ever believed them. Hell, Lisette had patted his cheek and told him that she loved him
earlier that morning.