Page 90 of Miss Desirable
“Broke my sister’s heart, if you know what I mean. Make him pay for that, Fournier.”
“Nearly bankrupted me, and me an honest tailor. Teach him a lesson, monsieur.”
“Fournier has done it,” Kettering said, coming up on Ash’s left. “The scoundrel is being torn apart by his own pack. Oh dear.”
Fournier’s latest flourish had somehow resulted in the seat of Armbruster’s breeches gaping to reveal a manly fundament.
“Gracious,” Sycamore said. “My virgin eyes.”
“Fournier!” Armbruster tried to hold up his breeches with his left hand and brandish his sword with his right. What the devil are you about?”
“Do you concede, Armbruster?” Sycamore called. “Or will you entertain us further, your pants around your ankles, your sword on display before us all?”
“Never even pinked you,” somebody shouted. “Don’t know when I’ve seen finer skill with a blade. Give it up, Armbruster. You are no more a swordsman than you are a gentleman.”
“I do not concede!” Armbruster bellowed, coming at Fournier from a slight angle. Fournier pivoted, did something with his wrist, and the falls of Armbruster’s breeches were abruptly missing the buttons on one side.
“Foul!” Armbruster cried. “I say foul!”
His second looked embarrassed. “He drew no blood, my lord. Not technically a hit. Combat may continue.”
“I can’t watch this,” Ash said.
“You couldn’tdothis,” Sycamore said. “I couldn’t. Nobody else could. You are a wizard with your fists, and I know how to throw a knife, but this… This is genius, and we are here to see it with our own eyes.”
“I would rather not see that.”
Fournier’s latest flourish had left Armbruster’s breeches gaping from the waist. To keep his pants on, Armbruster had to choose to hold up either the front or the back, leaving at least some part of his anatomy in view.
“Concede,” one of his seconds called. “You are bested, Armbruster, and if this is what Fournier can do when he takes it into his head to assault your tailoring, then I fear for your unborn children should he decide to attack your person.”
Concedebecame a chant taken up by the crowd, while Fournier stood, sword held out to the side, and merely waited. He’d worked up a sweat and made an impressive sight, muscles glistening in the morning sun.
“Oak should paint this,” Ash said. “Give it a heroic title, like Honor Vindicated.”
Armbruster, his fine clothing in tatters, his chest heaving, tossed down his sword.
The tip of Fournier’s sword was under Armbruster’s chin in the next instant. “The price of defeat remains to be paid.”
Armbruster’s gaze swiveled about the crowd, most of whom were glaring daggers at him. The seconds had the grace to stare at the ground, and somebody’s horse chose then to pass a prodigiously ripe blast of equine gas.
“The girl is your daughter,” Armbruster said quietly. “I did not mean to imply otherwise.”
Fournier eased his rapier away. “Then I wish you good day. Thank you for a fine morning’s exercise.” He bowed with a flourish of his sword and moved to the side of the clearing.
Nobody approached Armbruster, not even his seconds. He limped off, clothing flapping in the breeze, as money changed hands, and muttering turned to taunts and threats.
“I believe he’s pulled a muscle,” Ash said. “Getting onto his horse will be agony.”
“One should always take one’s carriage to a duel,” Fournier said as Sycamore poured the contents of his flask over the scratches on Fournier’s arm. “One might well be wounded and need the conveyance to return home.”
“He probably didn’t want anybody claiming his coach for repayment of a debt,” Ash observed as Casriel and Kettering assisted Armbruster to don his morning coat over his ruined shirt and waistcoat.
“I booked his lordship passage to Rome,” Fournier said as Sycamore bound a plain handkerchief around his forearm. “His valet will present the ticket as the last courtesy of a gentleman’s gentleman whose wages are a month overdue, along with a packed trunk and a few coins. Catherine insisted that I facilitate the villain’s departure, lest the matter grow into an unnecessarily large scandal.”
“Rome gets beastly hot in summer,” Sycamore said. “A medium-sized scandal ought to get the job done, if the talk from the spectators is any indication.”
“I don’t believe Armbruster speaks Italian,” Ash added, tying Fournier’s cravat in a tidytrône de l'amourknot. “Though he’ll have some Latin—and a lot of enemies here in England.”
