‘Be my guest. Many have tried!’ Rotherby replied glacially. ‘But even you should know her fate was sealed the moment she chose to meet me outside Rotherby House.’
‘It wasn’t my finest decision,’ Sophie agreed swiftly, ‘but I still think this can be resolved another w?—’
‘You, sir, are a cad and a rogue!’ Damerel snarled. ‘I demand satisfaction, and will free Miss Fairfax from all obligation. Choose your weapon!’
‘I really think Phoebe would not be at all happy—’ Sophie tried again, glaring at her brother-in-law.
‘Is that a challenge?’ Rotherby hissed.
‘It is a promise, sir!’
Sophie swung her gaze from Viscount Damerel to Lord Rotherby and back to the viscount in utter disbelief. Each was eyeing the other with such a murderous expression that she would have been tempted to laugh, had they not been wholly serious.
And this was only compounded by the fact that the fireworks in the gardens were beginning to pale beside the drama in the room. Whispers began to echo through the large hall, as guests turned away from the windows and towards the tense scenes unfolding behind them.
‘Then let us dispense with the formalities and get on with it!’ Damerel hissed, drawing his sword so swiftly that for a moment it seemed to be over before it had begun.
But Lord Rotherby was more than ready, and met his advance with a stinging defence that made the entire room gasp.
‘With pleasure!’ he ground out, forcing Damerel back with a series of menacing strikes that made several of the ladies swoon instantly.
Sophie scowled at their drooping forms, wondering if they knew what a disservice they were doing to the rest of their sex.
‘Ten francs on the scarlet domino!’ a gentleman called from the back of the crowd, prompting a flurry of similar wagers.
She glowered at the watching crowd, before spinning to cast an imploring look at the duellers, yet they seemed to have forgotten her existence already.
She bristled furiously. So much for protecting her reputation, they were intent on making her the talk of Paris! And yet, they were already halfway along the Hall of Mirrors, their feints and parries drawing a chorus of gasps and heckles from the mesmerised crowd.
Several times, a lunge nearly found its target, and several more times a lightning manoeuvre deflected it, prompting the crowd to acknowledge their skill appreciatively. Then a series of furious strikes drove Damerel backwards, forcing him over a drinks table and knocking a champagne bowl into the arms of a nearby footman. The whole room gasped as Rotherby snatched up the ice tongs and used them to deflect Damerel’s sword, before they, too, were thrust into the arms of the gaping footman. And then they were back to it, driving each other harder than ever.
Sophie clenched every muscle she possessed as she followed their glinting blades in the candlelight. It was just like Damerel to defend her honour whether she liked it or not, and just like Rotherby to choose swords over reason. She scowled harder, wracking her brain for a way to stop the fight that didn’t involve throwing herself between them.
‘For I may be a Fairfax, but I have never pretended to be Phoebe!’ she muttered savagely beneath her breath.
‘Le combat est trop serre!’ one lady moaned. ‘It is too close… they will die!’
Seconds later, several crowd members began chorusing their support, glaring at Sophie as though she had the power to stop it, and yet the duellists’ fevered brows and unrelenting strikes said very differently.
Frantically, she cast her gaze around the room, but there was nothing but suspicious stares and judgement. Rotherby and Damerel were intent on murdering one another, the crowd were pointing and whispering, and by breakfast her name would be just as synonymous with scandal in Paris, as London too.
In truth, she could think of only one very sensible and proper person who could possibly make a difference now. Gritting her teeth, Sophie picked up her skirts and spun, cursing all gentlemen and their vainglorious ideas to eternity.
ChapterNineteen
COMBAT AND DISHONOUR
Two minutes later
Sophie sprinted as only a debutante on the verge of becoming a murderess knows how.
‘I heard you had to skip London because of some damned faro nonsense… refused to believe any of it of course… and then you turn up here like the devil himself…’
‘Not content with ruining yourself, it seems you must also drag my innocent sister into your scandal! Have you no honour at all…?’
She scowled intently as her thoughts darkened. She’d always known Lord Rotherby was a rake, and that he was running from a scandal too, but to hear he was most likely a common cheat who’d skipped town felt far worse. A wave of intense disappointment flooded her veins, exacerbated by the viscount’s accusations. And if he was capable of acting dishonourably with gentlemen, of what was he capable with ladies? Had she really, despite all her protestations, fallen for a skilled libertine?
‘For while a libertine is a scoundrel, there is always a chance of redemption with a rake…’
