At which point, Mellie had enough. She had been moaning about the lack of love, and here providence had provided her with her last and final choice. A man who professed to love her to the depths of his poetic soul.
Very well then. Hadn’t she said this entire Season would be a farce played out with her in the center? Then by all means, she should allow fate to have its way.
“Agreed!” she cried. “I shall be at Hyde Park tomorrow morning at dawn. A melee duel with quarterstaves. The man left standing wins me.” She looked at the three men in turn, daring them to contradict. “And the turkey gets to compete as well!”
Then she spun on her heel and stomped away.
Twenty-two
Men like to prove their worth. Allow your rake to demonstrate his value in his own fashion.
Trevor didn’t know how he got into these things. Before Mellie, he’d never challenged anyone to a duel in his life. And now? He was being roused before dawn by the Duke of Bucklynde and wondering if anything was more ridiculous.
He blinked, peered blearily at Radley, and managed to mumble a completely irrelevant question. “Where is Brant?”
“Asleep out there. Left this, though, with a note.” He held up a flask.
Trevor blinked and tried to focus while the pounding in his head worsened. Thanks to Brant, he had spent too much time last night toasting to a good bout in the morning. Truthfully, he thought his best friend was trying to get him good and drunk so that he’d sleep through the duel. Er…fray. They’d spent some time discussing if a duel with three—or perhaps four—participants could be rightly called a duel. They decided that fray was the more accurate term.
“What does it say?” he managed as he pushed himself upright.
The duke turned the bottle toward the light and read in a dry voice. “I hope you sleep through the fray. I certainly intend to because she is not worth even one lost morning’s sleep.” The duke frowned at the couch in the other room. “That’s rather severe, I’d say.”
Trevor waved the comment away. “Brant doesn’t think any woman is worth a morning’s sleep. Or anything else for that matter. Though he has enjoyed my amorous misfortunes of late. As well as a great deal of bad wine and worse brandy.”
“Hmm. Best mates, are you?”
Trevor shrugged. He’d known Brant since Eton. They certainly had some history, but they were more schoolboys who shared adventures every now and then. Except Trevor wasn’t particularly enjoying this adventure or his friend. “I’ve gotten tired of him.” His dislike began the first time Brant disparaged Mellie. By this point, Trevor wondered why he’d even allowed the man inside his home.
Meanwhile, the duke merely shrugged. “He’s well out on the women. I’ve found an excellent one. I thought you had as well.”
The man didn’t have to finish the sentence. Trevor knew he’d mucked things up royally. But even he hadn’t guessed that he’d have to fight a duel—or a fray—to win the woman’s hand. The woman who might now be carrying his child.
“Hang on,” said the duke as he flipped over the note. “There’s more writing on the back.”
Trevor didn’t really want to know, but hadn’t the interest to stop the duke from reading.
“He says to drink this before the fight for strength. What does he mean by that?” He opened the flask and sniffed. “It smells like tea.”
“Brant likes to pretend he’s an apothecary.”
“With tea?”
“He adds things to it. Angelica and chives for a cough. Cloves to make an old light skirt pretty. That kind of thing.”
Radley stoppered the flask. “Does it work?”
Trevor answered with a shrug, but he took the flask and tucked it into a satchel. Meanwhile, he pulled on his clothes with slow, resentful movements. “Why did she have to add the turkey? As if I don’t feel ridiculous enough.”
The duke had no answer. He seemed the kind of man who didn’t bother with questions like why. He simply accepted and moved forward. He held out Trevor’s cloak, and then paused before he passed him the quarterstaff that was leaning against the wall.
Damn the thing was huge.
“So you plan to fight for her then?”
What kind of question was that? “Of course I do. They can’t have her. Neither man is worthy of her.”
“It’s the oversized chicken I’d be worried about.”