Jenny proved to have mastered the letter K and therefore to have earned her kitten. Hoare promised to bring it to her with his next visit. He then penned a request to Sir George as Port Admiral that he be permitted to sleep away from his command tonight and also wrote the necessary warning to Bennett. Hoare invited his prospective second to address a chop that evening.
"You need not have sent me the warning," Bennett told him immediately upon his arrival at the Swallowed Anchor. "A Mr. Dupree of the twenty-ninth Foot waited upon me this afternoon. We agreed on tomorrow, at the usual hour. Dupree insisted on swords, and I had no recourse but to accept. I'm told that your opponent, Pargeter, is a formidable swordsman-at least when he's sober."
Bennett looked at Hoare questioningly and perhaps a trifle apprehensively. As far as his friend knew, Hoare suspected, he had never before faced a swordsman on the field of honor. It had always been pistols.
"I'd have preferred fists," he whispered. "Drunk or sober, the son of a bitch misused my name and grossly insulted the lady who happened to be in my protection at the time. I wonder if he knows she's a Colonel's wife and the very good friend of the Duke of Cumberland."
Bennett whistled. "Flying a bit high these days, ain't you, Hoare? I'm surprised at you. You've been lying pretty low lately, since you began making those visits to Weymouth."
"Believe me, my friend, Mrs. Colonel Prettyman is a business acquaintance, nothing more."
Bennett was a sea lawyer-a genuine one, one in the service of the Admiralty, and not one of those semiliterate lower-deck troublemakers who went by that name in the Navy. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, but Hoare could read his mind.
"Business, eh?" Bennett's voice was skeptical.
"Your good health, Bennett," Hoare whispered, raising his glass of claret.
On their previous excursion of this kind, Hoare and Bennett, with their opposite numbers and the surgeon referee, had had to wait their turn on the convenient strip of greensward over the town while a pair of boys settled their grievance. Today's deep blue dawning saw the party in sole possession of the field. Mr. Hawley, the surgeon, who had experienced even more of these affrays than Hoare, oriented the line along which the combat would open so that neither opponent would have the sun in his eyes when it rose. Subsequently, as usual, the engagement would take its own course.
From a long mahogany case, Hawley removed a pair of swords, taking a third for himself. Even in the gloaming, Hoare recognized them. He had used them or their like as fencing sabers, for they had been borrowed from the atelier of the emigre cidevant Vicomte Marc-Antoine de Chatillon de Barsac. Their buttons, however, had been removed and their points brought to a razor sharpness.
"My opponent ought to be told that I'm used to these weapons," Hoare said, ostensibly to Bennett, but in a whisper loud enough to reach the two soldiers.
"I don't give a damn whether he was raised with them in his cradle," Pargeter said.
Each of the duelists doffed his uniform coat and handed it to his second. Each stepped up to Hawley, the referee, to select his weapon and tested it between his hands before taking his place as instructed. During the referee's instructions, Pargeter let his gaze wander about the glade while Hoare listened intensely. Pargeter, he saw out of the corner of his eye, moved well. He would be a tough opponent. Hoare thought he would be lucky not to be struck first: First blood was to conclude the affair. The two saluted each other and crossed blades across the referee's.
Hawley raised his referee's sword sharply, to clear the fighters' blades. A tap, a clink, and the dance was on.
Pargeter's wrist was firm, his eyes level in the growing light. They circled once, back, feeling each other out while holding themselves in reserve. Hoare parried Pargeter's first lunge, threw it aside, lunged himself, was stopped, and the two came chest-to-chest in a bind. With a shove, Pargeter made to thrust Hoare back, out of balance, but Hoare was prepared and would not be toppled. It was Pargeter who rocked back.
The point of Hoare's blade pressed up, none too gently, into the soft flesh under Pargeter's chin.
"Did Spurrier put you up to this?" Hoare whispered harshly in Pargeter's ear as the seconds cried, "First blood!" in unison.
Hawley whipped his sword up, disengaging the combatants.
"Lower your weapons, gentlemen," he commanded.
He had no need to inspect Pargeter. A trickle of blood, detectably red in the sunrise, stained the soldier's cravat.
"Show me your palms, sir," Hawley said, turning to Hoare.
Hoare spread his hands, as if in appeal. They were whole.
"I see blood on only one of you gentlemen," Hawley said. "I declare honor satisfied."
"Do you need medical attention, sir?" he asked Pargeter.
"For this pinprick? Don't be an ass," Pargeter snarled. His blood was up. So was Hoare's.
"Henceforth, mind your tongue, sir," Hoare rasped.
"Henceforth, fellow, mind your back," was Pargeter's reply.
Neither showed ready to shake hands with his adversary. The three noncombatant members of the party stood at a loss. At last, both groups drifted away, in clouds, almost palpable, of business left unfinished.