Rafe looked uncomfortable. “Oh, but... Aren’t rifled barrels unsporting?”
“Cheating, you mean?” asked Richard in amusement. “Only the English think so, and none of the duels I described took place in England.” He shook his head. “Only the English would prefer to be shot at by a pistol which might discharge the ball in any direction but the one where it was aimed.”
Rafe grinned hesitantly.
“The important point to remember,” Richard went on, “is that duels are not mere sporting events, but life and death contests where either man, no matter how grievously wronged or how innocently accused, might pay with his life. They are not to be entered into lightly. If you are ever challenged, you should do all in your power to reconcile the matter peacefully, and I hardly need say that making a challenge is rarely the wisest strategy.”
“Has Mr. Rieger fought any duels?”
“No,” said Richard. “When anyone has challenged Rieger, he has chosen a bare-knuckled brawl as his preferred contest, and the offended parties have always discovered that their honor was not aggrieved so seriously after all.”
Rafe laughed. Richard grinned.
“Gabe wants to join the army,” said Rafael abruptly.
Richard’s brows went up. “Does he?”
His nephew nodded. “Instead of university.”
“He’s rather young for the king’s shilling,” said Richard wryly. Gabriel was only fourteen. “And I do not think your mother would be pleased.”
Rafael huffed in reluctant laughter. “She is why he wants to go into the army. Or the navy. He says they take cabin boys younger than he is now. He... He wants adventure, and daring, and action. He wants to explore the world, as you did.” He shot a nervous, sideways glance at Richard. “And he knows Mama would never approve.”
“Until he is a grown man, he must consider what she says. Even I hesitate to argue with her judgment, and a boy of fourteen can have no justification at all.” Richard took his own pistol, now loaded and primed, and turned his shoulders. “Stand straight and lean,” he said. “Feet apart just so. If you are ever being shot at, present the slimmest possible target.” He cocked his pistol and raised it. “If you ever must shoot at someone, aim carefully.” He pulled the trigger, and again bark splintered away from the red circle. “And hit what you aim at.”
Rafe stared at the tree. “It must take some nerve, to meet a man and know he’s going to take a shot at you.”
Richard smiled. “I have rarely been accused of lacking nerve.”
His nephew laughed, the tension breaking. “By God! Not at all! The bravest fellow I know, Uncle.”
Richard fell silent as the young man loaded his pistol, adjusted his stance, took aim, adjusted it, checked his stance, readjusted his aim yet again, and finally pulled the trigger. Rafe exclaimed as bark blew off the tree; he put down his pistol and charged across the grass to see for himself how close to the target he’d come.
Richard stayed where he was.
Rarely accused of lacking nerve. No, rather the opposite, his entire life, even when his life had been the thing at risk, on the ocean, exploring jungles and forests, climbing mountains. His mother had once scolded him thatsomefear was healthy in a man, and that he was sending her to an early grave with his utter lack of it. Richard had laughed and kissed her cheek, not even cowed by that. So why was he dithering over a London ball?
He took a deep breath and let it out. He wasn’t—dithering, that is. He was going to that ball, and he would give as long a speech as Sir Paul wanted to hear, and then he was going to dance with Evangeline in front of all London.
Let everyone make of that what they would.
Chapter 28
When George had asked her to chaperone Joan, Evangeline had thought she was reasonably well prepared for it. After all, she’d once been a young lady of good family making her debut. Even if she hadn’t cared to obey all the fussy rules, she knew what they were.
Too late she was realizing that adhering to those rules was rather like exercise; too many years without, and even the most seemingly trivial thing made her want to tear out her hair in frustration. An invitation to a ball had arrived from Lady Brentwood, most gratifyingly—but with a note that incensed Evangeline.
“I know Catherine Brentwood and I were never friendly,” she raged to Fanny over tea. “But how dare she!”
Fanny raised one brow. “How? She thinks very highly of herself, that’s how. She always has.”
Evangeline made an exasperated noise and poured another cup of tea, adding a drop of brandy. “And with what reason? We were girls together—not close, but cordial. But more to the point, she would be insulted beyond belief if I said anything like that to her!”
Fanny took her time replying. “She is friends with your sister-in-law.”
This time Evangeline made herself count to ten before speaking. “Of course. I would not have expectedanyinvitation otherwise. And I am pleased she’s invited Joan. I just...” She snapped her mouth closed and shook her head, wildly irked.
The note lay on the table between them. Evangeline planned to burn it, but she’d had to show Fanny, because she needed someone else to see for themselves. Lady Brentwood had written that she hoped they would attend, but that she trusted Evangeline not to cause a stir—“for Miss Bennet’s sake, if not for mine or my guests’,” as she put it.
