gracing me with her lovely smiles was more than you could bear?”
Darcy merely smiled, a chilling smile without humor that unsettled the Marquis, who frowned. His attempts to rouse Darcy’s anger and ruffle his composure were failing miserably. Orman began to sweat. He knew Darcy’s reputation as a superb fencer and had dwelt on little else all night, in fact. Orman was stouter than Darcy, muscular and potent. However, Darcy had the advantage of height with subsequently longer legs and greater reach. Orman could likely outlast Darcy in a contest requiring endurance, but his skill level with swords did not near Darcy’s and he knew it. He must alter his stratagem.
With a plan in mind, he engaged and another round of vicious thrusts and parries ensued. Darcy received a gash across his chest, not terribly deep, but a scar would remain to match the two on his waist. Orman pressed with a steady barrage, driving Darcy back. He applied no particular finesse, trusting to sheer brute force and stamina to wear his opponent down. Darcy landed three more superficial blows, leaving Orman bleeding from several sites.
Despite the fury of his assault, Orman was unable to connect with the nimble Darcy. Both men suffered from loss of blood and pain, but Darcy was a man vastly more familiar with the rigors of hard labor and the trial of persevering with injury after years of training horses. His breathing was only mildly labored and a light sheen of perspiration covered his brow. Orman, on the other hand, was wheezing and sweating liberally.
After a wild thrust, which Darcy parried with his free hand, earning a shallow slice to his palm, he was successful in piercing Orman’s thigh scant inches below his groin and less than a fingerbreadth from his femoral vein. Orman screamed and pitched forward, the duelists grabbing each other’s sword arms at the wrist, clinched tenaciously nearly nose to nose. They grappled together in a back-and-forth dance of engagement. All of a sudden, Darcy vehemently twisted his right arm free, aggressively smashing his elbow squarely onto Orman’s nose, feeling and hearing the satisfying crunch he had promised Elizabeth, followed by a gush of blood and lusty bellow.
In a fit of raging blood lust, Darcy intended to end it there, and would have, but Orman had one last trick up his sleeve. With blood streaming down his face and tears of pain obscuring his vision, he nonetheless had the presence of mind to sweep out with his uninjured leg, knocking Darcy completely off his feet. He landed hard on his back, air escaping his lungs in a loud whoosh. He lay there for a second, stunned and gasping, but saw Orman closing in with an overhand stroke with one purpose only: to kill. Dimly he heard Richard yell a warning.
Drawing from a reserve of strength of unknown origin, he gambled and rolled toward his attacker, lashing out with the sword miraculously still clenched in his hand, and cleanly sliced though the posterior muscles above Orman’s left knee. Orman screamed in agony, sword falling from suddenly nerveless fingers as he collapsed in a heap, clutching a now useless, hamstringed leg.
With renewed vigor, Darcy was on top of Orman in a millisecond, knee pressed painfully into his abdomen and left hand choking his throat while the sword point punctured the skin over his erratically pounding heart. Orman’s shrieks were cut short by a sharp clench of Darcy’s fingers, and he met his victor’s blazing eyes with raw fear. The spectators had drawn near.
“Shall I render mercy, Orman?” Darcy inquired frigidly as if merely asking the time of day, “Or should I kill as justice demands? Tell me the truth, swine, and be swift as I judge you have precious minutes before you bleed to death. Did you lay hands on my wife?”
“Yes, but…”
“Did you assault her with the design of enforcing intimacy?” Darcy’s sword penetrated through the skin, grazing a rib. Orman writhed but Darcy strengthened the pressure to his belly, twisted the sword minutely, and repeated, “Did you?”
“Yes! I—” gasp “—never meant her harm! Forgive me! Mercy, please!”
Placing the edge of the blade against Orman’s throat, Darcy leaned down until he was virtually nose to nose. In a deadly voice he pronounced, “Marquis of Orman, you have been vanquished in a test of honor and have confessed before these witnesses. By tomorrow all of Derbyshire, and then beyond, will know your transgressions. The choice is yours. To live, maimed and a coward, and forsake this region for the rest of your natural life, or to die by my sword. Which will it be?”
“Live,” he whispered.
“So be it. Remember your choice, Orman, for I swear that I will offer no mercy in the future.”
Lizzy woke that morning some two hours after dawn to an empty bed and fear clutching her heart.
Darcy had effectively evaded her queries the previous night by touching and kissing in all the places and ways that drove her wild with passion. Their lovemaking had been as rapturous and blissful as always, leaving her satiated and sleepy. She fell into a deep slumber immediately with her head on his chest and body nestled snuggly in his arms. If for Darcy their union had been tinged with a vague trepidation and mild nostalgia elicited by the potential for a negative outcome at the duel, it was offset by the exhilaration and overwhelming love he felt for her and the certainty that righteousness was on his side.
Now she sat in their sitting room, attempting unsuccessfully to eat some toast. Nausea and anxiety warred for dominance rendering her appetite nil. Samuel had assisted Marguerite in walking Elizabeth, but all he knew was that his master had left at dawn with Col. Fitzwilliam. It was logical to assume they were simply riding, yet she felt otherwise.
By nine-thirty when Richard knocked at the door, Elizabeth was in a near panic. She stood without thinking, swaying at the sudden pressure to her ankle. He was by her side in an instant.
“Richard! Where is William?”
“Calm down, Elizabeth; he is fine. Here, sit…”
“No! Take me to him now!” She clutched his arm tighter and took a step toward the door.
“Elizabeth, are you insane? If I allow you to walk all the way to the study, your husband will skin me alive. He sent me to assure you he is well and will be up as soon as he…”
“Listen to me, Richard Fitzwilliam,” she said in a voice of steel, glaring through narrowed eyes, “I am certain you two were up to no good today. I do not know what, although I imagine it has something to do with Orman. You
Richard laughed and shook his head. “You two are quite a pair. Never have I seen two more stubborn people.”
“Richard!”
“Alright, I concede. I fear you must submit to my carrying you, cousin. I am not brave enough to face the wrath of two Darcys in one morning.”
When Lizzy entered her husband’s study, it was to find him sitting shirtless on his desk, grimacing and smeared with blood, the physician bent over his right side. He glanced up in surprise at the sight of his wife in his cousin’s arms.
Lizzy squealed and struggled frantically, Richard almost dropping her. She tottered to Darcy and he steadied her with a bandaged left hand. “Elizabeth, you are not supposed to be walking!”
“We can discuss that, Mr. Darcy, after you explain all this!” Richard burst out laughing, and even the doctor coughed a suppressed snicker.
Darcy was pale and weary but otherwise in quite good humor, so he too smiled at his wife. “Gentlemen, may we have some privacy?” When they left, he cupped her aggravated, teary face in his hands and kissed her deeply.
She succumbed for a moment and then yanked away angrily. “Fitzwilliam, you will not evade again with kisses!”
He smiled slyly, drawing her gently toward his lips once again, intoning huskily, “Oh, I do believe I could, beloved.” He brushed her mouth lightly. “But I shall reveal all first.”
He told her everything, dramatizing only moderately, as she examined his wounds. All were superficial except for the stab to his side that luckily had cleanly pierced the flesh, missing all vital organs. He had a nasty bruise between his shoulder blades and a painful bruise on his left instep.
“Are you in pain?”
“Nothing a whiskey and some tender female soothing will not alleviate.”
She snorted. “I should spank you rather than succor you!”
He grinned roguishly, “As you deem just, my love. However, we should wait until the physician completes stitching me up.”
