Page 96 of Affair

“I do not know who he was. He wore a black domino. When I saw him, I assumed it was you. But his voice …” She hesitated, as though searching for the words. “It was all wrong. Broken.” She glanced at the clock. “You must go. I promise to tell you everything later.”

“This is the second time that someone has attempted to turn you against me.”

“A useless exercise.” She shook out her skirts as she went to open the study door. “Hurry, Baxter. Hamilton will be waiting. He is depending upon you to save his friend’s life.”

She was right. There was no time now to get the full story from her. First things first, Baxter reminded himself.

“Damnation.” He went out into the hall, picked up his hat, and opened the front door. He looked back at her as she watched anxiously from the entrance of the study. “You have been up all night. Go to bed. I shall call upon you this afternoon. We shall discuss this matter of the note at that time.”

“Very well, but you will send word about the outcome of the duel?”

“Yes.”

“And you will be careful?”

“As I keep reminding you”—he turned to go down the steps—“I’m not the one who is scheduled to meet Anthony Tiles at dawn.”

“I know. And as I keep reminding you, Baxter, I comprehend your true nature too well to believe that you will be as careful as I could wish.”

“I don’t know where you gained the notion that I’m the reckless, neck-or-nothing type. Not only do I lack the temperament for that sort of dashing behavior, I also lack the proper tailor. Good night, Charlotte.”

Dawn arrived with a light, drifting fog that cloaked Brent’s Field in a swirling gray shroud. An appropriate atmosphere for such a grim and stupid affair, Baxter thought.

He stood with Hamilton and watched as the paces were counted off by a young man with an air of dissipation that would have done credit to a confirmed rake twice his age.

“One, two, three …”

Pistols pointed toward the sky, the blank-faced Norris and the feral-eyed Tiles paced away from each other.

“… eight, nine, ten …”

“Are you sure this will work?” Hamilton asked in a low voice.

“That is the twentieth time you have asked me that question,” Baxter muttered. “And for the twentieth time, all I can tell you is that it ought to work.”

“But if it doesn’t—”

“Be quiet,” Baxter ordered very softly. “It is too late to alter the plans.”

Hamilton subsided into nervous silence.

Baxter cast him a swift glance as the deadly cadence was called. Hamilton was a good deal more anxious about this business than his friend on the field. Norris was definitely not his usual self. Baxter had studied him covertly as he had gone through the preliminaries.

Norris had the air of an automaton. He answered direct questions but he would not discuss the situation in any detail. He seemed oblivious to most of what was going on around him. When Hamilton had pleaded with him one last time to give Tiles the apology that would halt the duel, Norris had appeared not to have heard him.

“… fourteen, fifteen, sixteen …”

Hamilton shifted and gave Baxter another quick, searching glance. Baxter shook his head once, silently warning him not to speak.

He had done his best to give Norris the best possible odds in the event that his plans were unsuccessful. He had negotiated with Tiles’s seconds for a distance of twenty paces rather than the fifteen that had been suggested. The additional space between the opponents would make accuracy more difficult, even for a man of Tiles’s skill.

“… seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.” The dissipated young man grinned with unpleasant anticipation. “Make ready.Fire.”

Baxter heard Hamilton catch his breath. On the field, both men turned. Norris made no attempt to aim carefully. He simply pointed the pistol in Tiles’s general direction and pulled the trigger.

The explosion boomed loudly in the fog.

Tiles did not even flinch. He smiled coldly and raised his pistol.

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