"You dare to call my husband coward, sir," she said, her voice thick with contempt. "You, who showed what a true and brave gentleman you are by threatening to sever my fingers one by one until I agreed to marry you. You disgrace the name of Highbury, and the aristocracy you belong to."
She turned to the prince, and curtsied briefly.
"You will excuse me if I take my leave, Your Highness. I will wait for you in the coach, Anthony."
She bent down, picked up her reticule from the chair and then walked out of the room, head high, looking neither to right nor left, the soft rustling of her gown clearly audible in the silence. The door closed quietly behind her.
"Bloody hell!" breathed Philippa in awe. "That was magnificent!"
Daniel sat down suddenly. David moved round to his side.
"I would not remove the knife from his shoulder until you have something with which to staunch the blood," suggested the baronet calmly. "It will probably be terribly messy otherwise. I don't think His Highness will appreciate it if you bleed all over his aubusson carpet."
"Indeed I will not," said the prince coldly. "In fact the only thing I will appreciate, once your wound is tended, Lord Daniel, is that you leave my house immediately and do not return."
A servant appeared, carrying a bowl of water and a cloth. Carefully he cut away the sleeve of Daniel's coat and shirt, which were already soaked with blood.
"Such a pity my wife chose that moment to interrupt, when I was about to tell you that you had convinced me of the need to accept your challenge after all. If, once your wound has healed of course, you are still determined to duel with me, I shall oblige you, providing it is only to first blood and not to the death."
"I will gladly act as your second, Sir Anthony," offered Prince Frederick.
Sir Anthony had not thought it possible for Daniel to blanch any more, but he did at this news, and so did David. Interesting.
"Unless, of course, you wish to concede first blood to my wife and end the matter there," continued the baronet. "I will leave it up to you. Now, with your permission, Your Highness, I will also take my leave."
At the door he stopped, and turned round.
"Ah, may I request the return of the knife, my lord, if you have finished with it? I believe it holds some sentimental value for my wife."
"I'm not going to apologise," Beth said, the moment he climbed into the carriage.
"No more do I expect you to," said her husband, handing her the knife. "It will need cleaning. You behaved admirably, my dear. I'm proud of you. Now, I need to think. Please, let us take the time to calm ourselves a little and wait until we get home before we discuss this any further."
At home, they went straight upstairs to change.
"Aren't you angry with me at all?" Beth asked, eyeing him warily as he took off his wig and coat and sat down at the dressing table to remove his paint.
"No," said Alex. "He goaded us beyond endurance. I couldna expect you to put up wi' it, although I'd hoped ye would. Ye were lucky, though. If ye'd missed ye'd hae killed him, or worse, hit the prince. Did ye no' realise he was standing right next to Daniel when you threw the knife?"
"Of course I did," she said. "Luck had nothing to do with it. I wanted to hurt him, and I knew you didn't want to fight him, for some reason. I realised that if I hit him in the right shoulder I'd have my revenge for his insults and also stop him duelling for a few weeks until it heals."
Alex stopped wiping his makeup off and looked at her.
"Are ye telling me you aimed exactly for that spot on his shoulder?" he asked.
"Yes. I'd rather have gone for the heart, mind you, but I wouldn't want the earl to be childless either. I really like him. Why are you surprised? You know I can use a knife." She paused in her undressing to look at him. His eyes were sparkling.
"Well, aye, I kent ye wouldna hesitate to stab a man if there was need. Ye proved that wi' Duncan. But I didna ken ye could throw them as well."
"I told you I threw a knife at Richard once, remember."
"Aye. But ye missed."
"I intended to miss. I wanted to get his attention."
"Truly?" said Alex, completely forgetting about the situation with Daniel in his excitement at discovering this new skill of his wife's. "Could ye put your knife straight through that picture there?" He pointed to an indifferently executed painting of two small children which hung above the fire, and which they both disliked.
"Yes, if you want," said Beth. "Which bit of the picture do you want me to hit?"
"How about the boy's shoulder?" suggested Alex with a grin.
She stood, dressed only in her stays and shift, and took aim. Then her hand came back over her shoulder and forward with lightning speed, and the knife was quivering in the picture.
Alex went over to examine it.
"Bas mallaichte!" he breathed. "Ye did it! Could you teach me, and the others?"
"Yes of course, if you want," she said. "But you're so skilled with weapons I assumed you'd be able to do it already."
"No. That is, I can throw knives and make them stick in things. But I couldna aim wi' that accuracy. That's amazing! Your mother taught ye that?"
"Yes."
"What an awfu' fine woman," he said admiringly.
"I'm glad you think so, after all the insults she received this evening. Why did you let him do that, Alex, call me a whore and you a coward too? Why didn't you accept his challenge? You didn't have to kill him."
Alex pulled the knife out of the picture and handed it back to Beth, then ran his hands through his hair.
"He was up to something, Beth. He wanted me to accept the challenge. He was desperate for me to. If I'd agreed to play cards he'd hae accused me of cheating or some such thing. He was determined to get me to duel wi' him. Did ye no' see that? He'd never have refused a direct order from Prince Frederick to apologise otherwise. I wasna sure at first, but after ye'd left the room I accepted the challenge, when his arm's healed, and Fred volunteered to be my second. Daniel went white as snow, and so did David. I'll bet he'd already agreed to second Daniel."
"What do you think he was going to do?" said Beth.
It's my guess that they intended to get me to a private spot for the duel, and kill both myself and my second. They could always say there'd been some sort of accident wi' the pistols, or that my second tried to kill Daniel after he'd shot me, and had to be killed in self-defence. Of course, they assumed my second would be one of my servants. They could hardly kill the heir to the throne. That's why they blanched when Fred offered."
"Why does Daniel want to kill you, though?"
"I dinna ken, rightly. It's probably nothing more than spite. He's never forgiven you for not marrying him, and me for rescuing ye, as ye rightly said. I expect he'll hate us even more, now ye've tellt the whole of society the details. It wasna widely known that he'd abducted you."
"It is now," Beth said dryly. "Do you think he'll take up the challenge, then? Will you have to kill him?"
"I canna kill him, Beth. I've promised his father I'll no' hurt him, that I'll look out for him when I can."
"You've what?" said Beth, incredulously.
"Aye. Why d'ye think I didna kill him at the Fleet when he abducted ye? I wanted to, God knows."
"I never thought about it," said Beth. "But I thought you were Sir Anthony then, and he's a bit squeamish about blood."
Alex laughed.
"Aye, it's a devil to get out of silk and velvet," he said. "I'm going to have tae watch Daniel now, though. I dinna think he'll take up the challenge to a fair duel. It wasna what he was after. If he does I'll accept Frederick's offer, and wound the young gomerel enough tae put him out of action for a wee while. I'm more worried that he'll try something more underhand. Ye'll have to be careful for a while, too, Beth. Dinna go out without Angus or Duncan, if I'm no' with ye."
"Why?" said Beth, thoroughly worried now. "What do you think he might do?"
"Nothing, until his shoulder's healed, I hope. After that, I dinna ken. But I dinna want him to hurt you, because if he does, I'll kill him, promise or no, and I wouldna feel good about that. I want to avoid that, I must avoid that, at all costs."
"The earl must be a very good friend to you," said Beth, knowing that Alex did not make promises lightly, and hoping he would now elaborate on the details of his friendship with this man he saw only seldom.
"Aye, he is" said Alex, and then he changed the subject to arranging times for Beth to give the others knife-throwing lessons, and would be drawn no further.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
August, 1745
The atmosphere inside the stagecoach to London was somewhat merry, or at least as merry as it is possible to be when one has been closed up with one's fellow passengers for several days in a contrivance with hard seats and ventilation only from inconvenient draughts, and then jounced along the rutted and sometimes dangerous roadways of England for over twelve hours a day.