“Did you deserve it?”
He grinned. “Definitely.”
“She doesn’t look like she’s contemplating spiders at the moment.” And something about the way she was touching the other man’s chest as she straightened his waistcoat made Dougal clench his back teeth together. Eaton didn’t deserve a moment of her time.
Perhaps another facer though.
“Just watch,” Henry suggested, as if he knew what Dougal was thinking. “Believe me when I tell you, I have plans of my own for Eaton. But the man does love a duel and he’s unfortunately, very skilled. He’d shoot you between the eyes and then trot off for breakfast.”
“I wasn’t suggesting a duel.”
“No, but he absolutely will.”
“Noted.” Duel or not, the man needed punching. Repeatedly.
“In fact, I expect he’s coming this way for just that purpose.” Henry smiled, slowly. “Or would be if he wasn’t suddenly tripping over ladies.”
They did seem fixated on carrying him away in a determined, relentless flurry of silk and lace and diamonds.
“Oh, well done, Tam,” he murmured when Lady Tamsin deftly turned Eaton around, away from where Dougal stood. She batted her eyelashes at him. Dougal thought that was a trick from the penny papers, but apparently it worked. Eaton’s chest puffed out. “But it won’t save him. Not from me,” Henry added softly.
Tamsin glared at Henry over her shoulder, as if she’d heard him, and motioned to the exit with her chin. Sharply. Imperially, even.
“We’ve got our marching orders,” Henry said, mildly. He didn’t seem inclined to move.
A woman wearing an entire pheasant’s worth of feathers in her hair, sniffed at Dougal. “These things aren’t done,” she snapped. “Though I suppose one can’t expect any better from you.”
“Lady Watling.” Henry didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t appear to have to. She sniffed again and waved her fan furiously, more feathers attached to the spines. She put Dougal in mind of a disgruntled Christmas goose.
“There ’ll be a duel, mark my words.” This time it was a man who spoke, as eager as a hedgehog digging for earthworms. His pointed nose only helped the comparison. Now that the shock had worn off, the whispers were sharpening. “The Thorncroft duchy will be down another duke by dawn.”
“Good riddance,” his friend replied. “He’s positively savage.”
“Ease off, Beaufort.” Henry didn’t raise his voice, but it still cut through the crowd like a bayonet, reminding Dougal that the other man had been on the Continent for the duration of the war.
“A duke should be elegant,” Beaufort insisted. “This is what comes of elevating someone from the gutters. Disgraceful.”
Henry pushed away from the wall, very slowly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t bother,” Dougal said. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve heard that.”
“I suppose not.” Henry spoke a little louder, and very clearly. “Though I’m sure the Prince Regent has no intention of forgiving a duel since he’s taken such an interest in the Thorncroft duchy.”
A fair point.
If Dougal had to marry within months, getting himself impaled or shot full of holes was likely to be frowned upon. He imagined that would infuriate Eaton even more. “Are you trying to defend me?” Dougal asked Henry curiously.
“Force of habit,” Henry said. “You don’t leave a man on the field.”
“This is hardly a battlefield.”
“You’d be surprised, Thorncroft. You’d be surprised.”
“Well, much as I appreciate it, to be fair, I did punch him,” he added. “Even I know that’s hardly ballroom behavior. I should go.”
Except he couldn’t, because Meg had broken away from the other ladies and was walking towards him. Her expression was perfectly polite and mild. He wondered that no one else noticed the gleam in her eye. It was downright bloodthirsty. “He insulted you,” he blurted out before she could say anything.
“He insults all women,” she pointed out.