Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,47
that thought did not cause him any worry or concern. Perhaps that was because his life had contained so many other, more real dangers. Heading into a desert skirmish with fifty men, going up against his brother’s army—better armed, better fed, probably better trained—had stripped him to the bone and left him raw. Meeting the nephew of a duke in the park at dawn? It seemed about as dangerous as a visit to Almack’s. Not that he would know, never having been invited to such an elevated gathering. According to his friend Byer, whose mother had dragged him to balls at Almack’s for almost a decade, the place was the culmination of every man’s greatest fear: a Tattersall’s for men. Where marriage-mad mamas inspected and selected the prospects with as much ruthless expertise as a man chose a mount.
“It’s a dashed nightmare,” Byer had complained more than once. “Women inspectin’ your teeth, trying out your paces, reviewing your bloodlines. You’re lucky, Marlington—that will never be your lot in life.”
And it hadn’t been. He’d skipped the inspection period and had jumped straight into the traces. He ground his teeth. Thinking of marriage only made him think of his wife, and he didn’t want to do that right now. Gabriel hated to admit it, but he was more than a little jealous as to what her hot-eyed swain had sent her on their wedding day.
“Fool,” he muttered, focusing on more important matters. Like this meeting with Visel. He’d seen the man fence at Angelo’s. He was not bad with a sword, but Gabriel was better. He had practiced with his stepfather over the past few years, and the Marquess of Exley had been accounted one of the best swordsmen in Britain in his youth.
No matter how certain he might be of his skill, Gabriel couldn’t help recalling his last conversation with the Marquess of Exley, which had taken place just this morning while the women were preparing for the small wedding ceremony.
“Dueling is not only a matter of skill. Sometimes the outcome is a matter of odds, probability—statistics,” the marquess had said.
Gabriel cocked his head. “I beg your pardon?”
“Cardano, Pierre de Fermat, Pascal, Huygens, Laplace.” Exley frowned when Gabriel continued to look blank. “What did they teach you at Oxford?” He waved a dismissive, elegant—and, Gabriel knew—lethal hand. “Never mind. The point is, you’ve enjoyed good fortune thus far. That will become less of a certainty if you continue to engage in such dangerous activities.”
Gabriel bristled at that. “Good fortune and no small amount of skill, I would like to think.”
“That is true; you are a superlative hand with both pistol and sword,” Exley agreed mildly—since he was the one who’d honed and polished Gabriel’s skills in both areas. Gabriel tried not to preen at this rare praise from a man all of England considered one of the most proficient at both. “However, all good things come to an end. Sometimes a less skilled opponent can surprise you. Sometimes”—his features hardened—“the outcome depends upon nothing but chance. After all, a clock that stands still is sure to point right once in twelve hours.”
Gideon frowned. “I beg your pardon, sir. A clock that—”
Exley rested his fingertips against each other and stared at Gabriel over the steeple of his fingers. “I’m going to do something I rarely do: repeat myself. I advise you to heed me well.” His tone was neutral, but Gabriel could see by his calm, implacable stare this would not be over until Exley finished saying what he had to say. Well, he owed the marquess the courtesy of listening.
“I am listening, my lord.”
“You will eventually either run out of luck or your skill will fail you or your opponent will have more skill, or your opponent will be so . . . clumsy you might inadvertently cause more damage than you intend or even, God forbid, kill somebody.”
Gabriel agreed. Still . . . “That never happened with any of your duels, and you had four—three more than me.”
“That is correct.”
He had not needed the older man to spell out his meaning. While Gabriel might think that engaging in swordplay with Visel would be like whipping a puppy, he knew he shouldn’t make the mistake of viewing the duel with complacency: No outcome was ever certain. Especially not when your opponent was as irrational as Visel appeared to be. The man hated him—and had their situations been reversed, Gabriel knew Visel would have chosen pistols.