The fact that he didn’t merit a moment’s regret couldn’t change her heart. Her heart was determined to mourn him. And hate him. She hoped he roasted in hell. Even if she wept bitter tears of pity over his damnation.
She abhorred this morass of contradictory emotions. The longing for Northumberland’s clean emptiness was an ache in her bones. Perhaps once she was back where she belonged, she’d stop feeling so confused and miserable.
With silent punctiliousness, a footman opened the door to the street. Defiantly she raised her chin. A new life awaited. The Marquess of Ranelaw be damned.
Mr. Demarest pressed her gloved hand with a meaningful gesture. “Please remember what I asked you,” he murmured.
“Of course,” Antonia replied equally softly.
She hadn’t mentioned Demarest’s proposal to Henry or Cassie. What would her brother make of such a marriage? Perhaps having finally found her, he’d feel she owed him her complete attention. At least for the foreseeable future.
Another footman opened the coach door. Demarest took her arm with a possessive gesture that only someone as unworldly as Henry would miss. He led her outside.
She was about to step into the carriage when she realized someone ran along the street toward them.
To her astonishment, it was Cassie. Not Cassie in decorous London mode. But Cassie as her boisterous, pink-cheeked country self. The Cassie she’d watched chase stray calves and runaway chickens and flap her arms to frighten birds off sprouting seedlings.
“Antonia!” Several paces behind her, Antonia saw Bella struggle to catch up to her charge, who hurtled down the city street as though she crossed an empty field. “Antonia, wait!”
Cassie must have decided to say good-bye after all. Pleasure briefly warmed her turbulent regret. Mr. Demarest—Godfrey, she supposed she should call him—smiled tolerantly at his daughter’s hoydenish ways. Henry stared curiously at his cousin. With her bonnet askew over ruffled fair hair and her face flushed with exertion, she looked breathtakingly pretty.
Cassie raised a trembling hand to her heaving chest and spoke in a wild rush. “Antonia, there was a duel. Ranelaw’s been shot. He’s like to die.”
Like to die. . .
All Antonia’s self-serving lies about looking forward to her new life evaporated in an instant.
To reveal the jagged shards of her heart.
“What?” she stammered, wrenching free of Demarest.
Cassie bent at the waist and struggled for breath. Her words emerged in staccato bursts. “John Benton shot him. This morning. In Richmond.”
Through the clamor in her head, she managed an astonished whisper. “Johnny shot Ranelaw?”
How was it possible that Johnny Benton had shot Ranelaw?
Ranelaw was the lethal one. Benton was as friable as pastry in comparison.
This made no sense. Duels were illegal, a capital offense. If death resulted, the survivor risked prosecution for murder.
Demarest grabbed her arm. “What is all this? What is this scoundrel to you? I thought the cur went after Cassie and you told him to take his filthy attentions elsewhere.”
She shook him free and stared aghast at Cassie. “You must be wrong.”
Slowly Cassie regained her breath. Heaven knew how far she’d come. The girl’s reaction to hearing the Marquess of Ranelaw was at death’s door must have aroused curiosity. It hardly mattered. All Antonia heard, repeated over and over like a tocsin, was like to die.
Nightmare images of blood flooded her mind. Ranelaw lying in a pool of red, screaming with agony. She closed her eyes and struggled to prevent her stomach forcing her breakfast back up her throat. How could Ranelaw die? Even when she’d threatened to shoot him, she’d recognized a mere bullet couldn’t put paid to that animal vitality.
Yet it seemed a mere bullet promised to do just that. A bullet fired by her effete first lover. The earth popped off its axis and went dancing through space.
Cassie spoke in a jumbled rush. “Suzannah’s brother heard at his club. Ranelaw had some quarrel with Benton’s waistcoat. Benton’s fleeing for the Continent to evade the law. Ranelaw is at home, but they say he won’t survive the day.”
Henry frowned, his eyes darting between the two women as though he measured volatile chemicals in an experiment. “What is this to my sister? It’s interesting gossip, I grant. But surely not worth haring across London to deliver.”
Cassie stared at Antonia. “You can’t let him die believing you hate him.”
“I do hate him,” she said flatly, even as she felt her life ended with Ranelaw’s.