“It’s a turkey, but don’t worry. I have a plan.”
He’d thought long and hard about it last night and knew this fight wouldn’t be easy. Trevor had fought Ronnie before and so had firsthand knowledge of exactly how powerful the big man could be. And that was with his fists, not a six-foot-long stick of hardwood. As for Mr. Rausch, who knew what the man planned? He wasn’ttoneven if he ran in the right circles to be. He hadn’t been educated in the usual schools, but was generally known to be wily. Such a man was completely unpredictable, and Trevor wasn’t anxious to see what he was capable of in a quarterstaff fight.
Fortunately, it hadn’t taken Trevor long to figure out a course of attack. He meant to knock Ronnie unconscious first simply because the man was an idiot. A damned turkey was not a dodo bird! Next he would face off with Mr. Rausch. Though he’d like very much to beat the man for the insult to Mellie, Mr. Rausch had already been punched three times yesterday. That predisposed Trevor to be forgiving. If Rausch offered an apology, then Trevor would accept it and lay down his staff. If he didn’t, well then Trevor planned to fight until he won.
He’d had a little experience with the quarterstaff long ago. He would be able to get at least a few blows in. That was all honor required. And then he would step away from the fight and appeal to Mellie. She needed to marry him. It was the only possible solution, especially if she was pregnant. As a logical girl, she would see that.
She had to.
So he grabbed the damn staff and began the long walk to Hyde Park. They were only a few feet out the door before the duke lifted the quarterstaff from his hand.
“I guess I’m your second now, so I should carry that.”
Trevor took a moment to process that statement. Bloody hell, it was early. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “That’s right. Brant is my second. So why did you come to my rooms?”
The duke looked rather sheepish, his gaze skittering away before returning to Trevor. “I, um, came to tell you something.”
Great. More bad news. “Spit it out, man. What’s the newest disaster?”
“Well, it’s my wife and Eleanor.”
Dread twisted dark and hard in his chest. It was never good when women worked in concert.
“They’ve, um, decided to take Mellie’s part in this.”
“And see her wed to the winner of a du—fray?”
“And see that none of you gets her.”
That sounded like Eleanor. And the duchess. And Mellie, for that matter. “How?”
“They’ve, um, decided to take up arms for the turkey. They’ve got truncheons. Their plan is to let you three knock one another out and then declare the turkey the winner.”
“She’s not going to marry a turkey.”
“No. Cook is right now trying to decide how to best make it into a stew.”
Of course she was. He had no witty response to that. No judgment on the absurdity of this entire affair. He simply knew that Mellie had set the course. He had to follow it or relinquish her forever. And that, he would never do.
Then they made it to Hyde Park. Trevor slowed his steps, but made no comment. Which left it to the duke to express his awe with a low whistle. Every man, woman, and child in thetonhad risen early to watch. There were even vendors selling sausages or meat pies. Plus a dozen tarts looking for their own business.
“It’s like a hanging,” the duke said under his breath. “Only with peers.”
And him as the doomed man. Or the jester.
On that cheery thought, Trevor pushed his way through the crowd to the central clearing. Four posts encompassed by rope marked the edges of a square. The combat area, he assumed. It was hard to see through the press of people, but things soon became clear. To his shame, he was the last one there. But in his defense, his second had done everything in his power to sabotage his showing up at all.
He looked first at Ronnie, who was strutting in the center and waving his quarterstaff as if it were as light as a cricket bat. It was also bigger than Trevor’s. By about three feet.
“Bloody hell, where did Brant get my staff?” How absolutely perfect that his second hadn’t even bothered to get a correctly sized quarterstaff. The duke, naturally, had no answer to that, especially as Ronnie drowned out his words. The idiot was insisting that the last surviving dodo bird not be sacrificed on the altar of true love. Apparently, he had some scientific restraint to his poetic soul, and he chose to exercise it here.
“That’s not a dodo bird,” Trevor said, pulling two natural history books from his satchel. He had spent some time last night—while Brant was procuring his shorter-than-average quarterstaff—to visit one of his favorite scholars of natural history. Together they had found the appropriate volumes, and Trevor now set them out for all to see.
“This,” he said pointing to a sketch of a bird with a huge hooked beak and a short, stubby yellow tail, “is a dodo bird. This is a turkey.” He lifted a sketch of a bird with a huge dark fan of a tail, a small head with almost no beak, and a distinctive red chin called a waddle. He handed the sketches off to the nearest person, knowing it would make the rounds of the crowd.
Ronnie, of course, didn’t even look. “After generations some differences are expected. Changes in environment would certainly cause greater variety in the creature.”
“Pretentious bugger,” said a voice beside him. He recognized the voice as belonging to Mr. Rausch.