Anna felt as though all the blood had drained from her head. The air felt cold in her nostrils. There was a buzzing in her ears. “A duel?” she said. “A fight? To the death?”
“Oh no,” Elizabeth said. “Alex will stop it before it comes to that.”
“How can he stop the course of a bullet?” Anna jumped up from her chair. “How can he redirect a sword thrust? What are the weapons to be?”
“Alex did not say,” Elizabeth told her. “He said only that he feared a slaughter.”
“I must go to Archer House,” Anna said, turning toward the door. “It was I who angered Lord Uxbury. Avery must not die for something I said. I shall go and put a stop to it.”
“Oh, you cannot, Anna,” Elizabeth said, catching at her arm. “You cannot interfere in gentlemen’s business, especially an affair of honor. It would be horribly humiliating for Avery if you tried. He would be fearfully angry, and you would not change his mind. He is not the challenger. Oh, you must see how impossible it would be.”
Yes. Anna could. “Where?” she asked. “When?”
“Hyde Park,” Elizabeth said. “I do not know just where, but I have heard that duels are usually fought among the trees on the east side of the park, where they are least likely to be observed and stopped. Duels are illegal, you know. They are usually fought at dawn, probably for the same reason. Alex will come here as soon as he may to relieve my mind. He promised that he will relieve it. We will hear by breakfast time.”
“The eastern side—this side—of Hyde Park, at dawn,” Anna muttered, frowning.
Elizabeth gazed at her. “You are not thinking of going, are you?” she asked. “It is absolutely not the thing, Anna. Women are not allowed . . . They are not allowed even to know of such meetings. There would be huge trouble for you if you tried to interfere. You would become a social pariah, and you would make Avery the laughingstock.”
Viscount Uxbury was a large man, Anna was thinking. He was tall and rather broad, and it seemed to her that the breadth of his chest and shoulders owed at least as much to muscle as it did to fat. He was twice the size of Avery, and she did not really believe, did she, that the duke had once put him down with a few fingertips to the chest. Anyway, that would not matter tomorrow. If swords were to be the weapons, the viscount’s reach must be very much longer than Avery’s, and he would have the advantage of height. If they were to be pistols, well . . .
Elizabeth sighed. “What time will we be leaving?” she asked.
“We?” Anna’s eyes focused upon her.
“We,” Elizabeth said. “But just to watch, mind, Anna, if we are not caught before it even begins, as I daresay we will be. Not to interfere.”
“Not to interfere,” Anna agreed. “As soon as darkness begins to turn to light? I shall tap on your door.”
Elizabeth nodded, and for some reason they both laughed. It was quite horrifying.
“I think,” Anna said, “I had better ring for a fresh tray of tea.”
He was going to die, she thought, and all she could think to do about it was to drink tea?
Seventeen
Avery and Alexander arrived at the appointed spot in Hyde Park when the sky was graying with early dawn. They were early, but they were not the first to arrive, by Jove.
“Walling agreed with me,” Riverdale said, clearly exasperated, “that the quieter we kept this meeting, the better it would be for all concerned. It looks as though Uxbury disagreed and told every man he knows and they told everyone they know. This is intolerable.”
Avery was reminded of that first bout of boxing he had fought at school—if fought was the correct word. A crowd of men, buzzing with anticipation, was gathered about an empty clearing among the trees, their horses and curricles variously disposed in a rough circle behind them. If the Watch did not detect them and arrest the lot of them there was no real justice in the land. Avery suspected that the Watch, or whoever enforced law and order in Hyde Park, would develop a severe case of deafness and blindness—if it was out at all at this hour. The hum of excitement increased when the challenged hove into sight. Uxbury and Walling had already arrived. So had a man dressed entirely in somber black, a largish black leather bag on the grass beside him. The sawbones, no doubt. How predictably ostentatious of Uxbury to engage the services of a physician for a fight that involved no weapon more lethal than the body. Or perhaps there was some wisdom in it.
Every face that turned his way to watch him approach bore the same expression. The lamb to the slaughter, they were all thinking. He curled his fingers about the handle of his quizzing glass and raised it to his eye, and almost everyone suddenly discovered something of more urgent interest to take their attention. Uxbury, striking a pose, was gazing at him across the circle of grass with haughty dignity. Avery examined the expression through his glass. He would wager it had been practiced before a mirror.