“You devil!” she panted, and looked wildly round for some means of escape. The long window was open, she knew, for the curtain blew out into the room. But his Grace was between it and her.
“You begin to think better of it, child? Remember, tomorrow will be too late. This is your chance, now. In truth,” he took a pinch of snuff, “in truth, it matters not to me whether you will be a bride or no.”
With a sudden movement she wrenched herself free and darted to the window. In a flash he was up and had caught her as she reached it, swinging her round to face him.
“Not so fast, my dear. You do not escape me so.”
His arm was about her waist, drawing her irresistibly towards him. Sick with fear, she struck madly at the face bent close to hers.
“Let me go! How dare you insult me so? Oh, for God’s sake let me go!”
He was pressing her against him, one hand holding her wrists behind her in a grip of iron, his other arm about her shoulders.
“For my own sake I will keep you,” he smiled, and looked gloatingly down at her beautiful, agonised countenance, with its wonderful eyes gazing imploringly at him, and the sensitive mouth a-quiver. For one instant he held her so, and then swiftly bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.
She could neither struggle nor cry out. A deadly faintness assailed her, and she could scarcely breathe.
“By God, it is too late!” he swore. “You had best give in, madam—nought can avail you now.”
And then the unexpected happened. Even as in her last desperate effort to free herself she moaned the name of him whom she deemed hundreds of miles away across the sea, a crisp voice, vibrating with a species of cold fury, sounded directly behind them.
“You delude yourself, Belmanoir,” it said with deadly quiet.
With an oath Tracy released the girl and wheeled to face the intruder.
Framed by the dark curtains, drawn sword in hand, murder in his blue eyes, stood my lord.
Tracy’s snarl died slowly away as he stared, and a look of blank amazement took its place.
Diana, almost unable to believe her eyes, dizzy with the suddenness of it all, stumbled blindly towards him, crying:
“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, Jack!”
He caught her in his arms, drawing her gently to the couch.
“Dear heart, you never doubted I should come?”
“I thought you in France!” she sobbed, and sank down amongst the cushions.
Carstares turned to meet his Grace.
Tracy had recovered from the first shock of surprise and was eyeing him though his quizzing glass.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, my lord,” he drawled with easy insolence.
Diana started at the mode of address and looked up at Carstares, bewildered.
“I perceive your sword in the corner behind you, your Grace!” snapped Jack, and flung over to the door, twisting the key round in the lock and slipping it into his breeches pocket.
To Diana he was as a stranger, with no laugh in the glittering blue eyes, and none of the almost finicking politeness that usually characterised his bearing. He was very white, with lips set in a hard straight line, and his nostrils slightly expanded.
His Grace shrugged a careless refusal.
“My dear Carstares, why should I fight you?” he inquired, seemingly not in the least annoyed by the other’s intrusion.
“I had anticipated that answer, your Grace. So I brought this!”
As he spoke Jack drove the sword he held into the wood floor, where it stayed, quivering.
Nonchalantly Tracy took it in his hand and glanced at the hilt.
His fingers tightened on it convulsively, and he shot a piercing glance at Jack.
“I am entirely at your service,” he said very smoothly, and laid the sword on the table.
Some of the glare died out of my lord’s eyes, and a little triumphant smile curved the corners of his mouth. Quickly he divested himself of his fine velvet coat, his waistcoat and his scabbard, and pulled off the heavy riding boots, caked with mud. He proceeded to tuck up his ruffles, awaiting his Grace’s convenience.
As one in a dream, Diana saw the table pushed back, the paces measured, and heard the ring of steel against steel.
My lord opened the attack after a few moments’ cautious circling, lunging swiftly and recovering, even as the Duke countered and delivered a lightning riposte en quinte. My lord parried gracefully in tierce, and chuckled softly to himself.
With parted lips and wide eyes, the girl on the couch watched each fresh lunge. A dozen times it seemed as though Carstares must be run through, but each time, by some miraculous means, he regained his opposition, and the Duke’s blade met steel.
Once, indeed, thrusting in quarte, Tracy’s point, aimed too high, flashed above the other’s guard and ripped the cambric shirt at the sleeve. My lord retired his foot nimbly, parried, and riposted with a straight thrust, wrist held high, before Tracy could recover his opposition. The blades clashed as forte met foible, and my lord lunged straight at his opponent’s breast.
Diana shut her eyes, expecting every moment to hear the dull thud of Tracy’s body as it should fall to the ground. It did not come, but instead there sounded a confused stamping, and scraping of blades, and she looked again to find the Duke disengaging over my lord’s supple wrist and being parried with the utmost ease and dexterity.
Carstares knew that he would not be able to last long, however. His shoulder, fretted by the long ride, was aching intolerably, and his wrist seemed to have lost some of its cunning. He was conscious of a singing in his head which he tried, in vain, to ignore. But his eyes glowed and sparkled with the light of battle and the primitive lust to kill.
The Duke was fencing with almost superhuman skill, moving heavily and deliberately, seemingly tireless.
Carstares, on the other hand, was as swift and light
