any random noble lady, but if we’re talking about the subject of your heart and desire, I’d be an ill friend indeed if I turned my back on you now.”
Nigel nodded. “Thank you, my friend.”
Andrew shook his head, speaking around the stem of his pipe. “Don’t thank me yet. I can’t help feeling like I’m feeding you to the beast.”
Nigel walked home with Andrew’s words spinning in his head. He settled in the chair before the fire to ponder but had only been there for a few minutes when he heard a knock upon the door. He walked to a small window just to the side of the door and looked out, stopping short when he saw Margaret standing on the step. She was standing nervously, her hands clutched in front of her, her bonnet drawn close around her face.
He turned and stood with his back against the door, feeling her nearness but depriving himself of her presence at the same time. He knew what would happen if he opened that door, if he let himself think about the woman he loved so much, if he let himself hold her in his arms again. He would give in, he would fold under Reginald’s pressure, and he would forsake his mission to avenge her. He could not do that.
“Captain Bateson,” she called, knocking again.
Nigel heard a rustle at the kitchen, and Mrs Cather appeared in the doorway, clearly intent on answering the door in lieu of her master’s aid. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of him standing there. He knew that he struck a strange figure, but her face did not betray surprise or annoyance. She only hesitated a moment and then nodded her head and disappeared back into the kitchen without making a sound.
“Nigel, please,” she called, more quietly. He didn’t know if she was speaking to him, or if she was speaking to herself. She only waited a few more minutes, and then she was gone. It was just as well – Nigel had what he wanted for the duel in two days’ time: his second, the arranged meeting, and his weapons. He only wished that it had felt more right holding the line, for in truth her departure had seemed like the strangest thing he had ever let happen. He closed his eyes, and wished her back again.
Chapter 26
Margaret had no reason to believe Nigel was on the other side of that door, and yet still as she knocked she felt his presence. She could not imagine the kind, open-hearted man she had known all her life refusing to grant her entrance, but then again she had never imagined him to agree to a duel in the first place. She walked home with a heavy heart.
Guy Bateson was outside on the front lawn tending to a brace of newly caught rabbits. He put the gory scene aside as she walked up, stepping forward to bow in proper greeting.
“Are you going to see your son today?” she asked. “I was hoping to speak with him in town, but I’m afraid he was not in.”
“He wouldn’t be,” the old man said with a smile. “He was going to see his friend, a Major Andrew Moorhouse, and I don’t know that he would have returned so soon.”
“Isn’t Major Andrew staying at Sir Arthur’s country estate?”
“Right now. According to Nigel he has more than his fair share of London business, and will have to hurry back there within the next few days.”
Margaret smiled weakly. “Well, when you see Nigel again, would you tell him I wish to speak with him?”
“Of course, my lady,” the man said politely, “but I must give you fair warning. He sent word just yesterday that he would be quite engaged elsewhere for the next few days, and I was not to expect him until the day after tomorrow.”
Margaret felt a sudden surge of fear and a bad taste in her mouth. She couldn’t prove it, but she became all at once certain that the duel she so dreaded had been set, and that Nigel’s reason for avoiding his father’s company was the same as his reasons for avoiding hers – he did not wish to be intercepted again in his quest.
“Did he say anything to you about what his business was?” she asked, trying and failing to keep her voice even and unassuming. The old man frowned.
“Now that you mention it, I don’t believe he did. He’s not always so open with me about