Elizabeth told me last night that he had been challenged to a duel by Viscount Uxbury, that horrid nobleman who treated poor Camille so shabbily. I will not go into detail on how it came about, but the duel was set for dawn this morning in Hyde Park. Cousin Alexander was his second (it was through him that Elizabeth found out) and expected it to be a slaughter. I do not doubt everyone else who heard about it did too. Ladies may not interfere in any way in a duel. It is a gentleman’s thing, all about honor and such nonsense. I could not make any sort of appeal to either one of them and of course I could not attend. But I did, and Elizabeth came with me.
Hyde Park is enormous, but fortunately we found the spot quite easily even though it was still almost dark when we got there, clad in dark cloaks and looking furtive, like Macbeth’s witches. There was a huge crowd there, and even though they were not making a great deal of noise, there was quite enough to lead us in the right direction. Besides, there were horses stamping and snorting all around them. It was a miracle we were not seen. I believe there would have been dreadful consequences if we had been, though I have not pushed Elizabeth into describing just what they might have been. I might have found myself consigned to teaching in an orphanage schoolroom for the rest of my life! As it was, we got behind the trunk of a stout oak and I climbed up to lie along a branch. I have never done anything like it before in my life. I was terrified. I was probably eight feet off the ground and felt as though I were half a mile up.
I do not know how I am to describe what happened. The Duke of Netherby and Cousin Alexander were the last to arrive apart from a few stragglers. My heart was thumping against the branch, and it had nothing to do with how high I was. I was waiting for the pistols or the swords to be produced. And Viscount Uxbury looked so very large and menacing. But there were no weapons. They had decided, it seemed, to fight it out with their fists, though that is not right either, since the duke did not use his fists at all. And, Joel, he stripped right down to his breeches—I blush to write the words. He even removed his boots and stockings, and then he looked so small, so inadequate to what was facing him, that there was not the faintest hope in my poor bosom. And yet he looked lithe and perfect too and incredibly beautiful. Oh dear. I wish I had not written that last sentence, but even if I erase it with half an ocean of ink you will be able to read what I wrote. Let it stand, then. He is terribly beautiful, Joel.
When the fight was announced and he walked out onto the grass to meet the viscount, I fully believed in what Alexander had predicted. And when the viscount threw the first two punches, I almost died. But I would not hide my face against the branch for I felt largely responsible, you see. I was nasty to Lord Uxbury at the ball and then Avery escorted him out—yet he was the one to be challenged. I suppose it is not the thing to challenge a woman to a duel.
Joel, his arms moved so fast I did not even really see them. But he pushed those deadly fists aside as if they were no more than gnats, and he kept doing it even when Lord Uxbury moved in for the kill with a whole series of punches, any one of which would surely have killed Avery if it had found its mark. But he moved his feet and his body and his arms with such agility that he deflected or avoided them all, and then he spun about and lifted one leg to an impossible angle and slapped his foot against the side of the viscount’s head—although it was well above the level of his own—and the viscount went down with a crash. I still do not know quite how Avery did that, even though he did it again a little later with the other foot against the other side of the viscount’s head.
Lord Uxbury, as well as everyone else, had clearly expected an early and easy victory. By then, though, he was clearly rattled. He had taunted Avery from the start, calling him ridiculous and silly names, but then, after he had been hit on the side of the head for the second time, he lost his temper and said some really nasty and shameful things, which I will not repeat, about Camille and Abigail and me too. I wish I were more adept with words to describe what happened then even before my name was fully out of Lord Uxbury’s mouth. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I have never even heard of any such thing. He left the ground, Joel—Avery, I mean—and half turned in the air before planting his feet one at a time beneath the viscount’s chin and kicking out and then landing on his feet. Viscount Uxbury was not on his feet by that time, however. He crashed backward and just lay there. He was still prone on the ground when Elizabeth and I left, but he was not dead, for which fact I was very grateful, much as I dislike and despise him.