Page 79 of Henrietta

Hetty gave a murmur of agreement which – she hoped – would discourage further conversation. She had to think.

‘Hetty,’ he said. ‘Regarding what I said after the banquet—’

‘It is quite all right,’ Hetty overrode him impatiently – there was no time for this.

For some reason, this irritated Arthur. ‘I was not going to apologise.’

Now, she did look up. ‘You were not going to apologise? You were so unreasonable!’

‘You will admit the provocation was great.’

‘I will admit no such – Oh, I cannot bear—’

She struggled for a moment, tongue-tied.

‘Take your time,’ Arthur said, and the words could – on another day – have been a harmless tease, but on that morning, after all that had been exchanged between them, Hetty did not take it as such. Narrowing her eyes at him, she uttered the only words she could think to say: ‘It was so wonderful seeing you.’

Arthur glared at her, rose stiffly to his feet and left the room. Hetty, the colour high in her cheeks, was pushed to stand to her feet. Hang her missish scruples! She had more spirit than to heed such silly objections. Gathering her maid, she made a quick change of dress into one of the nondescript morning dresses she had not worn in months, and asked Dawson to fetch her a hackney cab.

For all the courage she had mustered, however, Corky was not at his apartments, as his man informed them in deeply disapproving accents.

‘Oh, dear,’ Hetty’s maid said, vastly relieved.

But Hetty was not prepared to admit defeat – having steeled herself to action, she was not returning home unless she had done something. She hesitated by the hackney, which they had left waiting for them, considering whether calling upon Jackson’s saloon – where she knew Corky would be at some point that day – would ruin her reputation entirely, when she spotted the back of a familiar figure entering a house further down the street.

Mr Hargan. Of course. She had been a fool not to see it earlier – there was another gentleman involved in this mess who might be able to help her.

Mr Hargan had had a trying few hours. This was his first time acting as a second in a duel, and had he known how much work went into the thing he never have agreed to be involved. Firstly, of course, he (and Corky’s second, Mr Whitfield) had tried to defuse the conflict – not the easiest thing in a packed ballroom – trying to explain to each of his friends that falling out to such a degree over spilt lemonade was absurd. But all for naught. The date was set, the weapon chosen. Then, of course, it had become apparent that neither Timothy Allerton nor Corky owned a set of duelling pistols themselves – and somehow, in the ensuing embarrassment, he had been landed with the task of trying to procure the damn things. On a Sunday, no less.

Not one to shirk away from an unpleasant duty, Mr Hargan had managed – through great effort – to obtain the weapons which now sat, gleaming villainously, upon his table, and was just taking a pause from this endeavour before his next task: securing a doctor.

Thus, when his valet announced that there was a young lady was here to see him, his first reaction was horror.

‘A lady? For God’s sake say I’m not at home—’

But Hetty, tired of waiting on men, had already entered.

Mr Hargan stared at her rather wildly.

‘How do you do?’ she asked politely. ‘I hope you can forgive the intrusion.’

Truthfully, Mr Hargan was not sure that he could. ‘Miss Clithero! You did not come alone?’

‘My maid is in the corridor,’ Hetty assured him. Then, in an abrupt dispensation of pleasantries, she demanded impetuously: ‘Oh, Mr Hargan, how can you permit Timothy and Corky to make such asses of themselves? A duel, really? I thought better of you.’

Mr Hargan coloured. ‘It is not my fault,’ he insisted. ‘I wasn’t even there when it happened!’

‘Have you tried to reason them out of it?’

He assured her he had. The first duty of the seconds in an encounter was to do all that lay in their power to bring about a reconciliation between their principals, and this Hargan – and Corky’s second Mr Whitfield – had tried to do. But there seemed to be no way to bring the thing about. Indeed, Allerton and Corky’s account of events were so confused and so inconsistent that Hargan was at a loss to know what even had happened – which made it damn difficult to try to affect a reconciliation, didn’t it? But when he expressed this to Miss Clithero, she did not seem the least impressed.

‘You cannot allow them to kill each other over something so silly,’ she told him severely.

‘Kill each other?’ Mr Hargan sounded shocked she would even suggest something so out of the question. ‘Dash it, won’t do that – couldn’t do that! The terms are set for twenty-five yards. Shouldn’t think either of them likely to hit a haystack at that range.’

Hetty’s gaze fell on the box that lay upon the table, and the two weapons that lay in the case, burnished and wicked. No matter Hargan’s reassurance, one thing was certain: to hand one each to two foolhardy boys was the highest piece of stupidity.

‘Even if one hits the other in the leg or the shoulder, it could become a mortal wound – why, have you not heard of Lord Qualley, who suffered a shot to the arm while hunting?’