The Wedding Duel (The Dueling Pistols Series) (40 page)

Keene must be freezing in just his shirt. Sophie didn't think he even had socks on. She reached beside her and came up with Keene's jacket and a waistcoat that she'd grabbed at the last moment before leaving.

She signaled to one of the footmen who accompanied them to hold the horses. She handed the garments to Amelia. "Give these to Keene."

She felt the weight of Keene's gaze as she leaped from the side of the phaeton without unfolding the step. She didn't look back at him as she moved toward the house. In the doorway Mary Frances and Victor stood together. She looked disheveled, and he looked distraught.

The distant keen of a baby's cry caused Victor to jerk his head toward the sound.

"Do you know where I might find some rope?" asked Sophie.

Victor stared up the stairs, his face full of yearning. "The baby."

Sophie wasn't even sure he'd heard her. Perhaps Mary Frances would be more assistance. "Good idea, go fetch the little darling and take her to her mother." Amelia would need to be occupied.

Victor met her eyes briefly before bounding up the stairs. Sophie followed him into the house. Mary Frances trailed behind her.

"We need to find a length of cord or something we can use to rescue George."

"My father is going to kill me." Mary Frances's eyes glazed. "I can't believe this is happening to me."

As far as Sophie could see there wasn't that much happening to Mary Frances. Surely, she hadn't had her heart broken this night. Or wasn't about to watch her husband destroy himself. No, she'd had a proposal earlier this evening. Had it been just this night? "Help me, and you'll be home sooner."

"I fear I shouldn't bother to go home, now." Mary Frances turned toward the drawing room and bumped into a pedestal with a vase on it.

The vase rocked and Mary Frances grabbed it before it fell. She set it back on the pedestal with a slow deliberation that set Sophie's teeth on edge.

"Stars above. I believe that is a genuine Ming vase." Her voice was filled with awe. "I very nearly broke it."

Sophie didn't care if it was a solid gold vase. She crossed the room to a writing desk near the front window. She opened the drawers of the desk and rummaged through the contents.

Mary Frances backed away from the vase, her hands outstretched as if she would take a flying leap to save the pottery if it decided to plunge to the ground.

The vase didn't matter. George deciding to plunge to meet his maker was the issue at hand. Sophie's hand closed around a ball of twine, no doubt used to wrap packages for mailing. She pulled it from the drawer and flew toward the doorway.

Mary Frances grabbed her arm and steered her a ten-foot-wide berth around the vase. "It has to be worth twenty thousand pounds at the very least."

Sophie shook her off and raced up the stairs. If she could secure George so he couldn't leap, then they could move to the next order of business, getting him in from the roof. She found the open window by the draft spilling down the hallway.

She secured one end of the twine to a bedpost in the room. She stepped over an empty bottle of blue ruin to reach the open window. Lifting her skirts, she climbed out on the rain-slicked slate shingles.

The mist had turned to a steady drone of rain. She inched carefully down to where George sat huddled near the edge of the roof. Now that she was close to him, she could see he was crying, his shoulders shaking.

"I can't live like this," George said repeatedly. He didn't seem aware of her presence.

Sophie could hear Keene, his voice persuasive, but she wasn't sure George was listening. She looped the twine into
a circle wide enough to slide over George's head and shoulders.

"Sophie, what the devil are you doing?"

Keene's shout startled George at the same time Sophie slid the loop over his head. He reared back, his flaying hand allowing her to get the loop around his torso, but as she yanked on the end of the half hitch knot she'd tied, her feet slid out from under her.

George shoved her away, and she lost what was left of her balance. She heard Keene's anguished shout as she careened off the edge of the roof.

Keene's heart jolted with a vicious thump as Sophie rolled over the edge of the roof. He lurched forward as her body swung down and came to a swaying halt when she caught the guttering. One of her slippers fell slowly to the ground, turning end over end as it fell to the mound of bedding in the street. His stomach flopped.

Keene hit the cobblestones of the street with a jarring thud, falling to his knees. He belatedly realized he'd jumped from the carriage roof. Beside him Amelia clutched some dark clothing to her chest.

He was up and running before he could think, before he could accept help to rise. He had to stop Sophie from falling. He burst through the door and took the stairs three at a time, cursing every step. What if she fell before he made it?
Please, God, don't let her fall.

He ran down the hall, his boots clumping on the floor. Victor leaned out of the nursery. "I heard your shout. What happened?"

"Sophie." Her name barely croaked out of his mouth. Keene couldn't get any more words past the block in his throat.

Victor followed him into the room with the open window. Keene dove out the window, his hands slipping on the slick slate. He slid and scrabbled to the edge where he could still see her fingers clasping the rim of the rain trough.

"I tried to reach her. I can't." George struggled against the twine wrapped around him. His every movement tightened the knot holding him in place. "I didn't mean to knock her off. God, I didn't mean to."

Keene didn't pay him any attention. He couldn't lose Sophie, not now. Not when he'd finally found her. He reached her and wrapped his hands around her wrist, holding her, but he had no leverage. He braced a foot against the gutter and tried pulling on her, but he slid toward her instead of hauling her up.

For an eternal second he thought he would slide off, too. George wrapped his arms around Keene and held him, providing him with the resistance he needed.

"I'm going to pull you up."

Sophie raised herself up a couple of inches so she could peer over the edge of the roof. "No, Keene, you can't. There's a window just below me. If you open it, I can get in there."

Keene tugged on her arm. George behind him braced him.

Sophie blanched. "Stop!"

"Help me!" Keene shouted. Her fingers were bleeding, yet she continued to hang onto the gutter rather than release her hold on it. Why didn't she let him have her weight?

"The twine won't hold the weight of the three of us. Please, Keene, let me go."

"No."

"Even if I fall, I should likely just break a leg."

Small comfort. "I can't let you go."

"You can't pull her up, either," commented Victor from the open window. "Hang on, Sophie. I'll get the window open." His voice grew distant. Keene heard him yell for Mary Frances.

Keene pulled on her. He wanted her safe in his arms.

"Let me go, Keene."

"I can't."

"You have to trust me. I don't need you to rescue me."

"Why didn't you stay home?" He couldn't let go of her wrist, yet he slowly realized his hold was futile. But he could no more let go than he could bring the man in moon close enough to catch her.

He heard sounds below him.

"I've got her legs, let go, Keene." Victor's voice was close, but distorted and disembodied.

George spoke behind him. "Let her go, man."

"If she falls, so help me God, I'll strangle both of you."

"I'll swing toward the window and release," said Sophie. "Don't hold on if I'm not going to make it. Landing on my feet should be better than falling on my head."

"I'll guide you," answered Victor.

"No!" shouted Keene in blind frustration.

"Let me go, Keene. You're hurting me."

"You can't control everything." George tightened his hold around Keene's waist.

Keene released his grip on his wife. His stomach knotted and cramped. He watched her inch along the gutter and then loosen her hold, and he died inside with each movement away from him.

Sophie endured the sickening drop to the window below her. Victor had his hands against her legs. He guided her fall, catching her around her thighs when she was low enough. She feared he might pitch out the window with her if her weight overset them, but he managed to guide her through the casement, and probably saved her some nasty bruises.

Her hands hurt, and her heart pounded in delayed realization that she could have fallen to her death. Victor let her slide to the floor. Sophie held onto him, her arms around his neck. A sob escaped her throat.

He was so similar in body type to Keene that she could close her eyes and pretend it was him, except Keene wouldn't work with her, wouldn't hold her in the aftermath of danger.

Sophie knew in that moment, as Victor held her and rocked
her in his arms, that she had to leave. Keene would have chosen
the moment to lecture her. Even when he had assisted her off the window ledge at her home, he hadn't offered her comfort, and Lord knew she needed it now. The last thing she needed was a lecture.

Keene charged in the room. Thunderclouds darkened his eyes. He streaked across the room and grabbed Victor's jacket with both hands and yanked him away from Sophie. "Stay away from my wife."

Keene swung Victor into a wall. A small table fell over. Mary Frances took a step toward it and then drew up short.

Victor swiveled around, anger marring his features. "Damn it, man, would you have preferred I let her fall?"

Keene turned toward Sophie, his face twisted in fury. "What the hell were you thinking? Don't you have a brain in your head?"

Sophie swallowed hard and lifted her chin a notch. "What I did made more sense than trying to talk a despondent man out of a desperate act."

Victor stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders. "Good God, Sophie needs comfort, not a scold."

Keene stepped forward and shoved Victor back toward the open window. "Don't touch my wife again."

He shoved again, and Victor stumbled backward. He gripped the casement on either side of the gaping opening.

For a moment Sophie wasn't sure if Keene meant to push Victor out the window. Keene reached out, his hand fisting around Victor's lapel.

"Don't—"

"Would you try to kill your own brother, again?" Victor's face mottled as darkly as Keene's.

"What?" Keene reeled back almost as if he'd been slapped.

Victor shook his head, straightened his jacket and stepped away from the window. They stood facing each other, as alike as two peas in a pod. Oh, Victor's hair was a shade lighter and longer, but their features twisted in rage were so similar as to defy coincidence.

Victor stood implacably straight and looked at Keene with an expression of total disdain. Keene's expression was harder to read. Shock and uncertainty surfaced through the anger.

"That's enough, Keene," said Sophie.

"I meant to pull you back," Keene whispered.

Victor smoothed the rumpled material of his jacket. He joined Mary Frances on the far side of room and wrapped his arm around her waist. She held Amelia's baby in her arms.

"What about George?" asked Sophie. She stared at the picture Mary Frances and Victor made.

"Oh, God, are you all right? I didn't mean to make you fall." George and Amelia entered the room. He trailed the twine behind him, and she hung onto him as if afraid to let him go. He sank down on a chair and buried his face in his hands. "I'm so sorry."

"No harm done." Victor sidestepped Keene.

Keene's face twisted. Sophie resisted the urge to go to him, to offer him comfort. He moved behind Victor and closed the window. When he turned around, a stony mask sat on his face.

Amelia sank down beside George. She took his hands in hers. "I want to come home, George, but you can't keep treating me like I'm the worst person in the world. You've done thoughtless insensitive things that have hurt other people, too."

"I want you home. I can't live without you, but I've lost all that money and have no way to repay it. We shall be in debt for the rest of our lives. I have made a much worse mess than you."

"You might sell that vase downstairs. Mary Frances says it is worth twenty thousand pounds," said Sophie.

"You have other art around the house. I saw a painting I believe might be a Holbein," offered Mary Frances.

A light of hope crossed George's face, and then he obliterated it. "I can't do it. I can't forget that the baby is not mine."

Victor stepped forward. "You don't have to. Just do the best you can. It won't matter. Or Mary Frances and I can take her and raise her as our own."

Mary Frances jumped. Did she know the baby was Victor's?

"Keene says—"