but I do think he’s awful, Margaret. An absolute tyrant.” She glanced out the window as the carriage came to a halt in front of the Trumbles’ town house. Her face tightened. “Speak of the devil.”
Maggie followed her gaze. It was Fred, or rather, the back of him, ascending the steps to the door and disappearing inside. She’d have recognized that coppery hair and those brawny shoulders anywhere. “What is he doing here? I’d have thought he’d still be abed.”
The footman opened the carriage door and handed them both down.
“Something must have happened to drive him from his rooms,” Jane said as they climbed the front steps to the house. “We shall soon find out.”
Inside, the butler informed them that Fred was waiting in the drawing room.
Maggie stripped off her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves, and smoothed her hair into order. “I’ll go to him, Jane. It’s best he and I speak alone.”
“Very well,” Jane said. “But only for a quarter of an hour. You know you shouldn’t be seeing him without a chaperone. And certainly not if he’s in a mood.”
“I’ll be fine,” Maggie promised. “If there’s anyone I know how to handle, it’s Frederick Burton-Smythe.”
Bold words and ones that she reminded herself of as she entered the Trumbles’ drawing room. Fred was standing near the bank of green damask-draped windows. At the sound of her footsteps, he turned. His right arm was bound up in a cloth sling, held close against his chest. She supposed it was meant to take the weight off of his injured shoulder.
“Margaret.” His eyes raked over her. The cut of her new muslin day dress showed off her figure better than anything she’d worn in years.
“Fred. This is a surprise.” She crossed to a petit-point chair near the marble fireplace and took a seat. She couldn’t risk the gilded silk settee. It would only encourage him to sit beside her. “I wouldn’t have thought it advisable for you to be out as yet. Has your physician allowed it?”
He came to join her, lowering himself into the delicate chair across from her. The carved legs gave a creak of protest at his bulk. “I’m hale as a horse. Only a trifle sore.” A frown darkened his brow. “I expect you’ve heard what transpired.”
“The day of your duel? I’ve heard that Lord St. Clare bested you.”
Fred’s already mulish expression transformed into a scowl. “It was dumb luck. The wind was high, else my bullet would have struck him first. It came very close to doing so. His sleeve was singed. But I don’t expect Miss Trumble and her brother will have told you that part of the story. Gossiping busybodies always get their facts wrong.”
She looked at him steadily. He was angling for a fight. No doubt his pride was hurt. “Is this what you’ve come to see me about? Gossip about your duel?”
“Not about my duel,” he said. “The gossip has been about you.”
Her brows lifted. She affected a look of unconcern, even as a flicker of uneasiness set her on her guard. “Oh?”
“I’ve been hearing countless tales. Indeed, people have been at great pains to bring them straight to my door. Tales of you and the man responsible for this.” Fred lifted his elbow in its sling only to drop it back against his chest with a thump. “I’ve come to find out if the tales are true.”
“How on earth should I know?” she asked. “I don’t even know what it is you’ve heard.”
“That he’s been making advances toward you,” Fred replied sharply. “I demand that you tell me what’s been going on. I have a right to know. If he’s been coming here—”
“Is that what they’re saying?”
“Yes, dash it all. They say he’s been calling on you here. That he’s been seen with you in Bond Street, and at Hookham’s Library. That he’s even taken you driving in Hyde Park. And all of this—”
“Really, Fred.”
“All of this,” Fred raised his voice, “after the blackguard shot me through the blasted shoulder!”
Maggie’s nerves jumped. From childhood, Fred had been a hothead and a tyrant. As a grown man, however, he’d rarely shouted at her, preferring to exert his dominance with high-handed edicts and masculine condescension.
But not now.
Now, he was, once again, the formidable bully of her youth.
“Be reasonable,” she said. “It was you who issued the challenge. You who shot first. What else was he to do but return fire?”
“Has he called on you here? Have you received him?”