Kate slid her gaze to Samuel, worried. She knew Evan’s words poked at his deepest feelings of unworthiness.
“What can you possibly offer her?” Evan demanded, as Miss Elliott’s voice soared to operatic heights. “You’ve no breeding. No education. Not even an honorable trade. You can’t provide her with a home befitting a lady.”
“I know.” Samuel’s expression hardened to that veneer of impenetrable stone.
“You’re beneath her,” Evan said, “in every possible way.”
“I know that, too.”
Don’t agree with him, Kate shouted in her mind. Don’t ever believe it.
Evan sneered. “Then how can you dare to ask for her hand?”
“Because I love her,” Samuel replied in a low, quiet voice. “I have more love and devotion to give that woman than there is gold in England. And I have the manners not to prattle on while her pupil is singing.” He made a menacing thrust with his javelin. “Shut it, or I’ll skewer you.”
After that, every soul in the room remained quiet and still until Miss Elliott sang her last, sweetly pure note. Kate’s chest swelled with pride in her pupil and happiness for her friend.
Best of all, she had hope for the men’s reconciliation.
“Thank you,” she told the men, alternating her gaze from one end of the hall to the other. “I know you understand what that meant to me. How hard Miss Elliott worked.”
She let her arms drop to her sides and retreated to the border of the hall, leaving them to regard one another. Surely now they must comprehend—no matter their differences as men, they both wanted what was best for her.
“Now,” Kate asked, “can we put away Sir Lewis’s artifacts and discuss this like rational people?”
Apparently not.
“One,” Evan said.
The two men rushed at each other and collided in the center of the hall with an ugly crunch. The impact of javelins on shields sent them bouncing back, repulsed by the force of the impact. No one had been seriously hurt—which pleased Kate, but evidently frustrated the men. They threw their javelins aside.
Evan reached for a battle-axe next, but in pulling it down from its wall rack, he misjudged the weight. The horrific weapon crashed to the floor, narrowing missing his foot and sinking two inches into the parquet.
By now Lark, Harriet, and Aunt Marmoset had joined in the shouting. “Stop! Both of you, stop! This is absurd.”
But apparently there were yet loftier heights of male absurdity, just begging to be explored. Both of them had moved to some place beyond logic or reason, where only male pride and bloodlust held sway.
Thorne plucked a quarterstaff from a rack. It was a long, wooden pole weighted at either end for the purpose of inflicting bone-crushing blows.
For his part, Evan now reached for a morning star—a heavy, spiked ball dangling at the end of a chain. He lifted the mace’s handle with two hands and began to swing the menacing projectile in circles over his head. It made a fearful whistling noise as it picked up speed.
Everyone stared at it, rapt. The image was transfixing—this instrument of death swinging faster and faster through its drunken orbit.
Evan’s face told her even he was wary of what he’d unleashed—and uncertain how to control or stop it. He shot Kate a bewildered look. His eyes seem to say, Did I truly do this? Fight your betrothed with javelins and broadswords and then lift a bloody medieval mace over my head and start swinging it recklessly about in a room full of people?
Yes, Evan. You truly did.
She was glad he’d finally come to his senses about this entire ridiculous battle.
But it was too late.
When he released that thing, it was going to fly fast and hard and wreak destruction in whatever direction it chose.
He said, in a very polite, calm, aristocratic voice, “I can’t hold it much longer, I’m afraid.”
“Katie,” Samuel barked. “Get down.”
All the ladies obeyed, diving into corners and taking cover under chairs. Kate ducked behind one of the discarded shields.
Thorne positioned himself as her human guard, lifting his quarterstaff in both hands and keeping his eye on the circling morning star. He looked like a cricketer, readying to bat—and in essence, he was. Brave, stupid man.
“Samuel, please! Just take cover!”
With a savage shout, Evan released his grip on the mace. Kate ducked instinctively, unable to watch any further.
She both heard and felt the horrific crash. The initial impact was sharp and jolting, then almost musical, with the plink and crack of shattered glass.
The ball must have found a window and taken its bloodthirsty spikes soaring out into the garden. She could not speak for the hedgehogs, but with luck, it would seem no people had been hurt.
Drawn by the sound of calamity, guests began pouring in from the ballroom. Several carried candles or lamps.
“What the devil’s going on here?” Lord Rycliff demanded.