"The duel transpired in the fall of fifteen," said Thornhaugh to the captivated boy and girl at his side, "at a Hyde Park meadow up Constitution Hill, aptly dubbed the Field of Blood for all that was spilt over countless decades." He was knelt upon the soil, the cane serving well to keep his frail figure steady, and while speaking saw fit to examine the vast portion of barren turf he had bade to explore that day.

"But the story" he continued, "begins a few weeks prior to that day at the Port of London. I was fresh off a long voyage from India, right sick of the sea, chafing at the bit, eager to act the fool and with plenty of means to do so. With the settling of wagers and profits earned from my Company ventures, I landed a rich man. Exceedingly rich, independent…and smug." He gathered a handful of earth into his palm for closer inspection. "This is excellent soil. My compliments to the under-gardeners."

Janie regarded the sample with bemusement, and to his Lordship lamented the absence of the topiaries and hedgerows she had loved so well.

"I foresee you children cavorting in an even better labyrinth ere long." Wistfully, Thornhaugh beheld the landscape. "A puzzle maze, walled with the greenest yews and boxwood, speckled with lavender for its color and scent, curved pathways—no straight lines—and but a single exit leading directly up a small tower that affords its triumphant navigator the most breathtaking view." He let the fine particles fall from his hand. "How does that sound, Miss Darcy?"

Absently she agreed, but soon became impatient with his prolonged interest in ugly brown dirt and said, "The story, my Lord," with the urge to reclaim his attention. "Please go on. Please?"

Meanwhile, an equally anxious George was checking to ensure that the nanny and governess remained at a distance and unsuspecting. "Quickly, sir! Get to the part about the duel."

"Steady on, you two." Absorbed in his occupation, Thornhaugh ran his fingers through the soft mix of sand, clay, and silt. "A good story is about the journey, not the destination. Trust that I have your respective interests in mind. Miss Darcy desires closure to mysteries uncovered in the library; and you, Mr. Wickham, are collecting on my promise to recount the duel which left me with this of several unsightly souvenirs." He lay a hand to that spot on his left side. "This meal ought to satisfy the both of you, if I may be allowed to set the table. Now where was I?"

George and Janie exchanged rueful glances. "The port, sir," said the former, sheepishly.

"Ah yes! And merrily gathered there on the Prosperity's arrival was a large and disparate assortment of my old friends, connections, and cohorts. A raucous rabble they were! a scruffy lot of miscreants with no purpose but to peek at and lay bets on me and my rumored bride. I took no offence, for I am used to and rather fond of spectacle, but their presence was quite the shock to my timid, obscure little wife who could hardly bear to be seen, far less scrutinized."

"And this was our cousin Anne de Bourgh, sir?" said Janie.

"Anne Russell, or Lady Thornhaugh," he flatly corrected. "Her maiden name was renounced on our wedding day in Calcutta along with the life she left behind, which was really more of an existence; and barely that."

"Because of her sickly constitution?" said Janie. Thornhaugh responded with a questioning look, to which she echoed what little Malcolm had claimed he was told about the lady.

"Let us return to the port," replied his Lordship, "and our collective states of shock, my own due primarily to the presence of her primmer and more polished circle of extended family, come to greet their forgone relation with the warmest regards."

Janie remained full of questions. "Why should that surprise you, sir?"

"Perspective, Miss Darcy. From youth to manhood, I was met at the dock by servants, never family, and had no reason to suppose a divergence in her homecoming. You children are familiar with our class structure, no doubt, that those who proclaim themselves 'the most English' find the expression of sentiment to be the least dignified of them all, which was the general rule on which the de Bourghs and Russells were cultivated. My wife and I were akin in that regard. Similar, too, was our estrangement from those who found our chosen (rather than assigned) course of life most objectionable. I daresay neither of us expected so intimate a welcome. My Lady was especially touched by their devotion which had endured despite her ill-considered, ill-bred actions that, one might argue, sent her grief-stricken mother to her grave."

"Lady Catherine," Janie reflected aloud.

"Indeed, miss. A pity the old woman expired before we had a chance to be introduced. I am fairly certain we should have got on well." He smiled briefly, wickedly. "And speaking of families and alliances, I was all the more surprised to see my own brother John as part of the welcome wagon, a gesture which, as a definite breach of convention, was not above suspicion. But the world was set back on its axis once I learned of his engagement to the former Miss Darcy."

"Aunt Georgie!" Janie smiled.

"Whose pleasant nature struck me from the first moments of our acquaintance. With your family in general I was especially pleased by the warm reception given to Lady Thornhaugh, full of the kindness and love which had eluded her throughout her short life, and for which I remain thankful. I did my best to mirror that quality on the evening your aunt Georgie came to Russell Square for her nail-biting meeting with the duke; for ol' Bedford would not know kindness if it bit him square on the bum."

The children sniggered, as did Thornhaugh. "Of course, there were more relations at the dock that day, including those who would have accompanied your aunt Georgie as her guardians. Now who could that have been, Miss Darcy?"

"Our father and mother!" Janie gleefully guessed. "Uncle Richard, too!"

"Well done!" Bearing down upon his cane, Thornhaugh rose to stand, brushing the dirt from his knees. "There now. I believe the applicable characters are all established.

"Are any of us part of the story, sir?" Janie's eyes were hopeful.

Thornhaugh chuckled. "Tangentially but absolutely, my dear. You have good parents, and good parents make every decision with their children in mind."

Janie beamed up at him. "Then Ben and I were in London, too. But not George, I should think, for he was living at Longbourn."

"Having no part in any interesting stories," George flippantly noted. "Mamma hated Town like poison." He caught Thornhaugh staring at him intently. "Sir?"

His Lordship cast his gaze back to the dirt, into which he twisted his cane as he said, "It is immaterial. You were all so very young, if not unborn." His eyes searched and found the eight-year-old, whose interest was entirely on the large toad discovered about ten yards up ahead. "Perhaps this story ought to resume at a more opportune time and place. Mr. Malcolm is too near for my comfort."

"He can't hear us," George assured him, looking to where the boy had just bounced even farther away with his new amphibious friend. Thornhaugh watched the scene with increasing delight.

Seeing that he was distracted again, Janie tugged on his sleeve. "Was our uncle Matty there, sir? At the port?"

The question served to recapture his attention. "Ah! So glad you mentioned him, Miss Darcy, for his appearance in this story is paramount. Indeed he was not at the port, but rather off treating soldiers in some dingy hospital. This was just after Waterloo, so they needed all the medics that could be spared, even students. A benevolent man, that Fitzwilliam, and a true intellect. But you know this, of course, as well as you know your family as a whole to be caring, shielding, and noble in spirit and heart if not by blood. Given such impressive attributes, the impression I made upon them was predictably substellar. Most appalling, in fact. Never mind the reputation that preceded my arrival, which was infamous enough. Just imagine the situation from their end of it, the helplessness of seeing their pale, slight, brittle cousin in such poor health and yet so happily nestled against a hale and hearty wastrel to whom she freely turned over her life, properties, fortune, and heart. Foolish of her, was it not? And oh, how they must have hated the sight of me! There I was, marching loftily down the gangplank, their family and my trophy swathed in my arms like a babe while the insufferable mob stretched their necks for a closer look at—"

"Oh, do tell us more about her, sir!" Janie cut in. "Was it love at first sight?" She looked off dreamily, lost in her girlish fantasy. "Had you stolen away to India, against every objection, because you could not bear to be without each other? Did—" She was silenced by the sudden placement of George's hand upon her shoulder and the vigorous shaking of his head. "What is it?"

"You mustn't interrupt," George cautioned her with a pointed glance at his Lordship, whose face was bereft of all expression.

"Digressions are inanely time-consuming," he said with cold civility. "There is little role in this story for my former missus, except as a device linking me to your family. I take full blame, Miss Darcy, for igniting your interest in her. And if you will accept my apology, I shall endeavor hard to stay on point and stray no more. Do you?"

Janie shrunk from his uncommonly stony countenance. "Er…yes, sir."

His features softened and he smiled down on her warmly. "Thank you, miss. As a side note, should you ever suffer the ill fortune of loving a misfit, be not surprised when that love cannot be reciprocated, nor when he is rightfully spurned by those who care for you. Few men, regardless of their station, are less palatable than one so cavalier towards…well, just about everything. But let us move forward now. I would not, were I able to change the past, hesitate to do so, but…regrettably…"

Thornhaugh paused again, eyes following the youngest Darcy now zipping towards them with the toad in his one-armed grasp. "Mr. Toad has lost his way," Malcolm cried out as he ran past. "He needs a home! I'm going to set him over by the trout pond!"

"Use both hands, Mr. Malcolm!" Thornhaugh called out to him. "Gently now! There's a good lad!" As an aside he murmured, "Toads are not drawn so much to water, but let us not spoil the boy's fun. Sure as I am standing, it will find its way right back to this soil; just wait and see." Using his cane as a baton in which to direct, he further instructed Mrs. White, "Go along with him! See that Mr. Toad is well settled!"

The nanny went off with Malcolm, leaving the governess as their overseer. Thornhaugh shouted, "I mean to have a look at the fountain, Baxter! No need to follow; I can manage ably!" He then herded his two companions at a slow but steady pace. "Come along, children. Where did I leave off?"

"Regret," said George.

"Resignation," Thornhaugh corrected. "I had long ago opted not to resist—but rather to embrace—the universally ill opinion of me, and as such behaved accordingly, glorying in my release from duty and inhibition, happily disregarding everyone but myself. As my own family's approval was dead in the water, I cared even less to win anyone else's. I had, as usual, other winnings in mind. From the moment my feet touched dry land, all I could think about was gaming and... other decadences. Compulsion itself is a beast, and I took care to feed mine frequently. Doggedly. Blissfully."

"Shame on you, sir," Janie scolded like a cross nanny.

His Lordship scoffed. "'Tis a reproof heard no less than a thousand times, Miss Darcy, rolling off of my back like water off a duck's. Not that your scorn unmerited, mind you. Just imagine the insults, enemies, and challenges one accumulates over a twenty-year policy of amoral to distinctly immoral appetites, coupled with an immunity to ridicule. This particular duel was my…" (he counted on both fingers) … "ninth."

"Crikey, sir!" George cried. "Had you won all of them?"

"Let us say, Mr. Wickham, that I quit the field in most cases sufficiently satisfied. On this day, however, was there no satisfaction to be gained. Darcy knew there would not be, as did Matthew Fitzwilliam."

Janie gasped. "They knew about the duel, sir?"

"Why they were there, Miss Darcy, among other notable figures I shall divulge in time if your patience and attentiveness endures. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, miss. With my wife's health in rapid decline, with her doctor near useless, and with no cure to administer, I had agreed to leave her in the care of those willing and able to offer her comfort, namely her aunt and uncle Matlock on Park Lane, on their request and my condition that I remain free to pursue my personal and professional interests unhindered. This agreement suited everyone, including Darcy, who remained a subject of my fascination throughout that period. And still does, to be honest; for I have yet to see his equal in terms of commitment to one's family—be they immediate, extended, or merely lawful—as a sheer matter of principle. As an acute observer of humanity, I was determined to explore his character further by means of performing my bit for John's betrothal dinner as the heir, as a brother, as a future in-law, and—with respect to the duke—as a general nuisance." He chuckled heartily. "And sure enough, Mr. Darcy did not disappoint. For the sake of his dear, shy, nervous sister, he held his nose and bore both mine and my father's most offensive company like a champion. A strenuous feat for a principled man is this. That evening rose his respectability in my eyes, but therein lingered little in the way of goodwill between Darcy and I, mostly conflict, a warring of spirits, a clash of temperaments, a colliding of characters…just what are you giggling about, young lady?"

"You sound like Mamma," said Janie, "when she tells the story of how she and Papa first met."

"Yes, well, that comes as no surprise. They probably found each other nigh intolerable before accepting the truth of it: that she is all that Darcy is not and him all that she is not, together forming everything they need and could ever wish for. Not until you are of a ripe age, Miss Darcy, shall you really appreciate the fairy tale match that bore you marvelous brood."

"But…," George stammered, "Aunt Lizzy married Uncle Darcy for money."

"Did not!" … "The devil you say!" cried Janie and Thornhaugh in unison.

George was all confusion; for this narrative was indeed the opposite of that which his mother had always asserted. A love match made more sense, considering their oft-expressed affection, but why on earth did Mamma lie about such a thing? "Then she…Aunt really did marry him for love? Truly?"

"I can scarce comprehend it myself," said Thornhaugh. "A free spirit as Mrs. Darcy deserves much credit for loving him so well, and accepting him so fully."

"My papa is the best man in the world," Janie replied firmly.

"No argument here, miss; but for my part, I generally avoid the stiff, stodgy, exhaustingly dutiful sort, hopelessly drawn as I am to idler, jollier bands of fellow fun-seekers like…" he cut a fleeting glance at George, "like the gentlemen's daughters who were forbidden from the dodgy dens I frequented in St. James', young, silly, impetuous young ladies who discard their better teachings, who simply cannot not help themselves, who will gladly risk their reputations, and so much more, just for a little more romance, flirtation, dancing, unfettered attention, unbridled pleasure." His gaze shifted to Janie. "All the indulgences you are warned against, Miss Darcy. Shall you listen as those girls did not, thus bearing harsh, sometimes violent repercussions? Are you resolved to stay clear of such places and people, especially of rogues like me? Do not answer, for I have veered off course again." He took a moment to collect his thoughts before resuming impassively. "Park Lane, three weeks after landing. Lady Thornhaugh has succumbed, thusly severing my connection with her family, with Darcy, essentially with the country as my whims urged me towards my next adventure as quickly as it could be arranged. Said Ben Franklin, 'Dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff Life is made of.' America! That was it, my new purpose. I would go there."

Asked George, "Why America, sir?"

Thornhaugh considered briefly. "I do believe I was drawn rather to its ideals than the country itself; but, in any case, so bound I was for that course that I relinquished my wife's portion in a trice, selling off Rosings on the very day she expired."

Janie's eyes went round. "Rosings Park, sir? Our uncle Richard's estate in Kent?"

George matched his cousin's expression. "You gave up Rosings to the Fitzwilliams?"

"Well, not for nothing, Mr. Wickham. As I was eager to sell, the Earl Matlock was eager to buy. Negotiations were brief, his first offer accepted, and that was that. I understand James Fitzwilliam is dead now; but pray, what has become of the place?"

Janie answered, "The dowager Lady Alexandra lives there now."

"Ah, brilliant! How glad I am to hear she was not consigned to a dower house. I have retained of her a fond remembrance, as an excellent hostess and a model of refinement."

"Aunt Alexandra gives balls and parties all year long," said Janie. "Mamma says her invitations are the most sought after in Kent. We visit Rosings every year in the winter. The Fitzwilliams stay there in the autumn months, and the Russells in the summer."

"Then you are making good use of it. Children and laughter year-round. In that minimal stretch of time it was mine, I had scarcely a notion of what a home should be."

"Are we almost at the duel now, sir?" George impatiently cut in.

Thornhaugh stopped in his tracks, quite taken with the view as he said, "Now this, right here, is the ideal spot for orchids. I can see them now. Oh, they shall flourish like—"

"Sir!" George and Janie cried fiercely.

The man crossed his arms, regarding them both with mild indignation. "I find myself reluctant to continue, children, as this story is to take a decidedly coarse turn. I dare say that I ought never to have begun. Seemed an amusing enough prospect at first, but now…"

"You promised, sir," George reminded him.

Thornhaugh raised an eyebrow. "I hardly recall any promises made to your nine-year-old cousin, Wickham."

"I'm almost ten!" Janie disputed before adding, with some hesitancy, "It's not so bad as the violin story, is it?"

"It can be no worse," George argued, "than those nasty circles of hell you've described."

"You read Dante, Miss Darcy?" asked Thornhaugh. "Including Paradiso?"

She blushed. "Just Inferno, sir."

"Morbidly captivating, is it not? But you may find this factual depiction of mankind's evils more chilling than an imagined vision of divine retribution. Shall you risk it?"

"Ohhhh, heavens…" Janie dithered for some moments, and then gave in to the temptation with a decided, "I shall, sir!"

Thornhaugh's frown deepened. "See what you've done, Wickham? I told you this was not a good time to raise the subject of duels, but you pushed and prodded…"

"Janie!" cried George with authority, pointing in the direction of the trout pond. "This part is not for girls. Go and play with Malcolm."

"No!"

Thornhaugh shushed them with a look back at the still but watchful governess. "Very well, Miss Darcy," he said furtively. "But no tears, and no nightmares, understood?"

"How am I to help that?"

"Warm milk," George replied before urging his Lordship to continue. And so he did, pausing every so often to take a deep, scratchy breath as his lungs fought mightily to accommodate his natural cadence and swagger.

"This was an anomaly among duels stemming not from the usual fit of foolish male pride. My challenger's hatred had in fact been stewing and festering for a couple of years, the reason to be soon revealed…but from the day I landed in Town he kept track of my whereabouts…and with clever use of my own manservant to do so."

"Your servant betrayed you," George solemnly observed.

"There can be no betrayal, Mr. Wickham, where there is no social agreement. In all my years could I rely on but one subordinate to never fail me, and that was Mr. Reddy, who was…who is dead now. But this…" a longer pause was taken to muster enough lung power, "…this bottom-rung lackey who went by the name 'Stewart' was nothing to Reddy—nothing! and my hiring him was a sorely miscalculated risk that plays right into this narrative. But back to my challenger, whom I knew not from Adam, but would see me dead all the same. It was on the day of my wife's funeral when he appeared out of obscurity to throw down his gauntlet…baring in broad daylight the most hideous burn scars spread over one side of his face, coursing, by the look of his mottled left hand, down his entire figure. I later discovered this to be one of many cruel consequences of daring war efforts that earned the man his baronetcy."

"A baronet!" George exclaimed, "You fought an inferior, sir? That's against the rules!"

"Never mind that," cried Janie, even more aghast. "His Lordship was called out at his own wife's funeral."

"Had I attended, Miss Darcy, he might very well have done so. Luckily, my wife's family were spared that humiliation as I was confronted in a more suitable setting: a cardroom in St. Giles."

They came to a tiered fountain that had once marked the center of the labyrinth, and his Lordship expressed a hope for the fire-damaged structure to be repaired rather than demolished. Janie, having lost all patience for his digressions, lept upon the stonework encompassing the fountain to meet the man at eye level, her stare resembling Uncle Darcy's in its severity. "I don't believe it," she angrily asserted. "You are embellishing the story."

Thornhaugh affected a similar stare, scarcely containing his amusement at her flared temper. "Am I now? And how can you tell, miss?"

"You could not be so wicked," she declared with arms folded, "to be out playing cards on such a day. Nor would you have neglected your wife while she lay on her deathbed."

Thornhaugh mimicked her obstinate stance and cross expression. "And just what, my dear girl, ever gave you the impression that I am a virtuous man?"

Janie leaned close to his ear and whispered something out of George's line of hearing, to which Thornhaugh replied in the same inaudible tone:

"As one finds a fallen tree blocking the road to his intended destination." He nodded in the direction of Summerhill.

Their hushed exchange persisted as she returned with, "But you could have gone around the…tree, sir. Or simply moved it aside. Why take it up and transport it hither?" She pointed to the very spot on which they stood.

"I intuited there to be persons who had a special use or some regard for the tree, and was not mistaken. A gentlemanly courtesy is hardly equal to a noble deed."

Janie pulled away, stamped her foot, and affirmed at a volume that George could actually hear, "But it was that, sir!"

"You may self-soothe to your comfort, miss," he coolly replied. "I'll not contest what you believe." They stared for some moments till his Lordship blinked first, inhaled a lungful of breath, and wheezed out, "Am I not a devil to you, Miss Darcy?"

"No, sir, you are not."

"So be it. A hero I shall remain in your eyes." He grinned, and with a subtle wink at George added, "May no one try and make you think differently."

George, quite tired of their little aside in which he had no share, bade Thornhaugh to resume the story. "What grievance had this baronet against you, sir?"

"Whatever it was," said Janie, "his Lordship was innocent. Right, sir?"

"Indeed I was, Miss Darcy! And that is the God's honest truth."

"Innocent of what, sir?" George inquired with less certainty.

"Of the sort of crime against a woman—the man's wife, as it happened—that even I dare not disclose to a couple of half-corrupted youths. It is too heinous. But on my life, children, I was guilty of nothing more egregious than…dishonor."

As George knew better than his more credulous cousin, he endeavored to gain more clarity. "So you…dishonored another man's wife, sir?"

"Well, they were as yet unacquainted at the time of the alleged occurrence, Mr. Wickham, but dishonor the woman I did. Hell, she practically begged me to—ouch!" Thornhaugh rubbed his arm after George gave it a firm punch. "What was that for?"

"You needn't be so coarse," George scolded with the reminder that a respectable lady was present.

"Bloody h—very well then. A little late for that, but…" Thornhaugh bowed to Janie. "Forgive me, miss. Henceforward, I shall keep the vulgarities to a minimum."

"George Wickham!" called Miss Baxter, taking several steps in their direction. "Did you just strike his Lordship?"

"At my behest, Baxter," Thornhaugh called back, "for the testing of my muscular tissue," then murmuring, "that will leave a welt."

"Sorry, sir," said George.

His Lordship sat upon the flat stonework, his company joining him at either side. Said Janie, "It must have been a heinous crime indeed, my Lord, for this baronet to hold against you so violent a grudge for so long."

"He was a man of many grudges, Miss Darcy, and none of them concerning me at all. I was not his true enemy, merely a symbol of all the others, every vicious nob who had wronged him in that war. In short, he was a nutter! designed over much time and with painstaking effort by that spiteful wench—pardon me; his adoring wife—to be an instrument of her own mad hunger for revenge, and all because I ruined and then jilted her in a rather clever play, if I do say so—"

"Ruined! Jilted!" cried Janie in outrage. "Oh, no, no, no, sir…"

"No? Right then, allow me to revise." A clearing of his throat followed another deep breath. "I had realized I was…undeserving of the fair lady and her sizable dowry, and by that acknowledgement, with recognition of my duty to family, rank, and lineage, released her from our tacit agreement, despite my desperate insolvency and her fixated ambitions, to our mutual…disappointment. How does that sound, miss?"

"Better, sir. But the lady was…more disappointed than you were?"

"I daresay she took my rejection—er, our separation—decidedly unwell, given the loss of that enviable title she had so badly coveted. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; and heaven help the man who ever crosses you, Miss Darcy."

"Mamma says anger is lonesome, while envy and spite are the best of friends."

"And vengeance their drunken uncle," he quipped. "Spare the proverbs, miss; for I speak on reality's terms, not ideal, and this story is driven by vengeance on both ends. I can only be truthful, that her poor mad husband was primed to do her bidding, his hatred of me founded on a vicious lie, his mind filled with her poison while I was making my fortune overseas."

"Why take up with her in the first place, sir?" asked George. "People are always marrying for money or titles. Surely there were scores of wealthy, titled heiresses for a marquess to pick from."

"Alas, the pickings were scant, Mr. Wickham, as I had made myself notorious. And with she but a social climbing tradesman's daughter nigh on a spinster's age, an accumulation of losses set the both of us on a rather desperate course. But while I managed to right my own ship, she sank hers to sea bottom. No matter. I accepted the challenge, happily at first. And to this day, I hold nothing personal against my fearless adversary who had served with such devotion to King and Country, only to be dealt a vicious blow by both, to his mind and body. His awarded dignity was a rare thing in that it was earned through incredible deeds of strength and courage, and not bought, born into, or inherited. A shame, that. The man really was a hero. A true hero."

"Like my father was," said George, who felt an inexplicable jolt of panic when Thornhaugh gave him a strange, stern look. "Sir?"

He sharply looked away. "Remember that Stewart fellow, children? I became aware of his double-dealing on the night before the duel was to commence, when he fled from my corner during a boxing match." He smiled at their faces alight with shock and disbelief. "Who is to say we nobles cannot fight as well as a peasant! I won a goodly amount on that one. Broke a bigger man's nose with one punch." He mimed the action, delivering a swift uppercut to the air. "Your father was there, too, Miss Darcy, eyeing me as always with solemn disapproval. But he helped get my broken body to his cousin Matthew for mending, nevertheless, with that worthless sod Stewart—whom I paid handsomely! —still unaccounted for."

"But why would he leave you, sir?" asked Janie.

"He was an outlaw, a commissioned officer wanted for desertion among other crimes, most of which relating to unpaid debts. It was a crowded venue; and the moment he saw a potential threat walk in the place, he dashed away like a startled hare."

"Bloody coward!" George snarled.

"Oh, but not the last I would see of him, Mr. Wickham. The very next morning, he showed up at the field to serve as my mad opponent's second."

"What!" cried George with incredulity.

Thornhaugh nodded in affirmation. "Once he'd fled the fight, you see, there was little choice for him but to appeal to his other idiot employer for funds. Quite stupidly, I underestimated the lengths to which that wretch would go for the acquiring of a little more money, just a little more, but always more; for we gamblers have never enough." His labored breathing grew harsher, his face went darker. "They torched my ship. With Stewart's help, the baronet burned it to cinders, along with every bit of freshly loaded cargo. Every piece of…everything! So vividly I remember, watching the sky gleaming orange in the distance as I rode furiously to the dock. Far too late." With a look at both children, he snapped out of his dismal trance and said in better humor, "Needless to say, I was displeased, and had a difficult time retaining my composure. And from that moment, there was no other recourse but death, either his or mine. The tables, as I saw them, were now turned. Now I would be demanding satisfaction, that being one baronet's crown on skewer; perhaps a few broken bones for Stewart. I had several options in mind as I made my way to Hyde Park to meet them."

"I'd have killed them both on sight," George declared.

"Big words, little G—Mr. Wickham. But I was bound to keep a sounder, cooler head than my mad opponent. It was my one advantage against several disadvantages." He then met Janie's stunned, enthralled countenance. "Though little effort is required to aim and fire a flintlock, my injuries from the fight were still fresh and excruciating. And to that point, despite unfaltering hostility between us, your father stubbornly refused to leave my side, no matter how much I protested. His recklessness was truly baffling, what with his wife and children to consider. I had no need of him, you see, for I had already procured a crack shot among my misfit staff to serve as my second. Obviously, Matthew Fitzwilliam as a most valuable medic was a most welcome companion; but Darcy had no business there, no business at all." Another deep, arduous breath suddenly launched Thornhaugh from his seat and fumbling for his handkerchief. He coughed and coughed for ages, and with the bunched cloth pressed against his mouth uttered, "That is enough I think, children. As you see, I survived the duel intact. Lucky me."

"But sir!" George shouted, both him and Janie giving chase till his Lordship barked at them to stay away. "What happened next? And what about that wretch Stewart? Please, sir!"

"Enough, Wickham!" Thornhaugh called back while stumbling farther and farther away. "Go and play, the both of you! Get to Malcolm, to the pond! Bloody urchins! What is it, Baxter?"

The woman was rushing towards him waving a letter as a man on horseback quit the scene. "Sir! Sir! It's from Sir Frederick!"

George turned away from Thornhaugh just as he tore open the letter, and along he went with Janie in mutual disappointment. They soon met up with Malcolm and Mrs. White under a tree near the water's edge, both merrily engaged in their shaping of a boat from rough foliage and a giant leaf for a sail.

Hard as they tried, George was as hard pressed as Janie to feign interest in the activity.