He leaned forward and slapped his glove across Jocelyn’s cheek.
“Gladly,” Jocelyn said with languid hauteur. “Your second may meet with Sir Conan Brougham at his earliest convenience.”
The Reverend Forbes’s place was taken by Captain Samuel Forbes, resplendent in his scarlet regimentals, and amid the buzz of heightened excitement among the spectators, Jocelyn was aware that the remaining Forbeses were forming a wavering queue behind. He yawned delicately behind one hand.
“And you will meet me over the matter of my sister’s honor, Tresham,” Captain Forbes said, and slappedhisglove across the same ducal cheek.
“If fate permits me,” Jocelyn told him gently. “But you will understand that if your brother has spattered my brains across a field of honor before I am able to keep our appointment, I will be forced to decline your invitation—or at least Brougham will on my posthumous behalf.”
Captain Forbes wheeled his horse away, and it was apparently Sir Anthony Forbes’s turn. But Jocelyn held up a staying hand and looked from one to the other of the three remaining brothers with careful disdain.
“You must forgive me,” he said softly, “if I beg to decline the opportunity of meeting any of the three of you on a field of honor. There is no honor in attempting to punish a man without first challenging him face-to-face. And I make it a personal rule to duel only with gentlemen. There is nothing gentlemanly about attempting to wound a man by killing his brother.”
“And nothing safe about it either,” Ferdinand added hotly, “when that brother can stand up to answer the cowardly trick for himself.”
There was a smattering of applause from the ever-growing circle of spectators.
“You three,” Jocelyn said, raising his whip and pointing it at each of the brothers in turn, “will take your punishment at the end of my fists here and now, though I suggest we move to a more secluded area. I will take on all of you at once. You may defend yourselves since Iama gentleman and would not take unfair advantage even of rogues and scoundrels by having you tied down. But there will be no rules and we will have no seconds. This isnota field of honor.”
“Oh, I say, Tresham,” Ferdinand said with cheerful enthusiasm, “well done. But it will be two against three. This is my quarrel too and I will not be left out of the satisfaction of sharing in the punishing.” He dismounted as he spoke and led his horse in the direction of the grove of trees toward which Jocelyn had pointed. Beyond it there was more grass but no paths, and so it was rarely used by those riders and pedestrians who frequented the park daily.
The three Forbes brothers, as Jocelyn had guessed, could not avoid the meeting without losing face. The other gentlemen crowded after them, delighted by the unexpected opportunity of watching a mill in Hyde Park of all places.
Jocelyn stripped off his coat and waistcoat while his brother did the same thing beside him. Then they both strode out into the grassy ring, formed by the crowd of acquaintances who had gathered to watch.
It really was a vastly uneven contest, Jocelyn realized with some disappointment and contempt before even two minutes had passed. Wesley Forbes liked to use his booted feet and clearly hoped to disarm his opponents with one well-placed kick to each. Unfortunately for him, Ferdinand, who had quick reflexes, caught his boot in midair with both hands just as if it were a ball and held him off balance while he used one of his considerably longer legs to poke the man sharply in the chin.
After that, and to enthusiastic cheering from the vast majority of the spectators, it was two against two.
Sir Anthony Forbes, who landed one lucky punch to Jocelyn’s stomach, tried for some time to match his opponent strike for strike, but soon he began blubbering about its being unfair to fight him when it was Wes who had tampered with the curricle.
The crowd jeered.
“Perhaps it is poetic justice, then,” Jocelyn told him as he jabbed at Sir Anthony’s defenses and waited longer than was really necessary before delivering thecoup de grâce, “that I should be punishing the wrong brother.”
At last he let fly with a left hook and a right uppercut, which felled his opponent like a wicket going down before a cricket ball.
Ferdinand meanwhile was using Joseph Forbes’s stomach as a punching ball. But hearing the general cheer as Sir Anthony went down, he ended his own bout with one pop to the man’s face. Joseph’s knees buckled under him and he rolled on the ground, clutching his bloody nose. He did not attempt to get up.
Jocelyn strode over to the other two brothers, who had watched in silence. He nodded courteously enough. “I shall await further word from Sir Conan Brougham,” he said.
Ferdinand, without a visible mark on his body, was pulling his coat back on and laughing gaily. “One could have wished for all five,” he said, “but one must not be greedy. Well done, Tresham. That was inspired. No duels for those three but simple punishment. And audience enough to tell the tale for weeks to come. We have reminded everyone of the consequences of annoying a Dudley. Come to White’s?”
But Jocelyn had just grown aware of how much time had been used up in this encounter.
“Perhaps later,” he said. “For now I have something of extreme importance to attend to.” He looked assessingly at his brother, waving off the gentlemen who would have come to congratulate them and mounting his horse. “Ferdinand, there is something you can do for me.”
“Anything.” His brother looked both surprised and gratified. It was not often that Jocelyn asked something of him.
“You might spread the word,” Jocelyn said, “subtly, of course, that it has turned out that Miss Jane Ingleby, my former nurse and the main musical attraction at my soiree, is in reality Lady Sara Illingsworth. That I have found her by happy chance and taken her to Lady Webb’s. That all the rumors surrounding her name are about to be proved as exaggerated and groundless as most rumors are.”
“Oh, I say.” Ferdinand looked vastly interested. “How did you find out, Tresham? How did you find her? How—”
But Jocelyn held up a staying hand. “You will do it?” he asked. “Is there any grandtonentertainment tonight?” He was dreadfully out of touch.
“A ball,” Ferdinand said. “Lady Wardle’s. It is bound to be a horrid squeeze.”
“Drop word there, then,” Jocelyn said. “All you need do is mention the bare facts once. Twice perhaps for good measure. No more than that.”
