Slowly, Cassie raised the pistol and pressed it against her temple. “If you do not cease your madness this instant, I swear I will pull the trigger.”
“Cassie.” Edward stared at her, drawing in his foil. The earl turned slowly toward her, and dropped his rapier to the ground.
“Put that pistol down, Cassandra,” he said. She could hear fear in his voice.
Cassie tightened her grip on the butt. “I mean it, my lord. Damn both of you. Edward, leave go. Forget your wretched honor. I love him, do you hear? I could not bear it if you harmed him. And you, my lord, do you wish to destroy our lives by being the cause of Edward’s death?”
Her eyes were pleading on Edward’s face, and he looked at her uncertainly.
The earl strode toward her. She lowered the pistol from her temple, and aimed it at his chest. “I shot you once, my lord,” she said in a voice of deadly calm. “Do not doubt that I would do it again.”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes boring into hers. “Cease this nonsense, Cassandra. You interfere where you do not belong.”
“Do not belong?” she shrieked at him. “Are both of you so lost to reason? I swear to you that I will put a bullet through you if you do not promise me you will stop.”
She thought she had won, for Edward nodded his head at her. As she looked at him, her hand was suddenly borne violently downward. A sharp explosion rent the silence, and the bullet tore into the cold ground.
The earl grasped her shoulders and shook her.
Cassie stared stupidly down at the useless pistol dangling from her fingers. She raised her face to his and whispered brokenly, “Please, no, my lord. Please do not do this. I lied to you last night. It is you I love, you must believe me.”
He pulled the pistol from her fingers and tossed it aside. “So you will do anything to protect your lover,” he said coldly. “Even though he does not want you, you plead for his life.”
“No. You must listen to me, Anthony. Please, listen to me.”
“Are you ready to continue, my lord?” Edward asked, his face a set mask.
“Certainly, Lyndhurst. Scargill, take her away from here.”
Just as Scargill’s hand closed over her arm, the sky rumbled with grating loud thunder and rain burst through the thick gray clouds.
“En garde!” Major Andre’s command rang out once again.
“Major, you cannot allow this. We must stop them.” Cassie felt impotent tears sting her eyes and wet her cheeks, mixing with the raindrops.
“Honor must be satisfied,” he said sharply. He stared straight ahead at the earl and Edward, refusing to meet her eyes.
Through the heavy veil of rain, Cassie watched the earl and Edward, their clothes plastered to their bodies, their movements tentative on the slippery ground. Suddenly Edward slipped on a muddy clot of earth, and he clutched frantically at the empty air to regain his balance.
“Damn, the earl could have had him,” Major Andre said.
Cassie drew in an appalled breath. The earl had held back. God, what was he trying to do? Did he seek to kill himself?
Cassie suddenly went limp against Scargill’s arm, and her head lolled back against his chest. “Dear God,” she heard him cry. “Help me, sir, she’s fainted.”
The instant he released his hold upon her to lift her into his arms, Cassie whirled about and drove her heel against his shin. Scargill gasped more in surprise than in pain and stumbled backward.
“Madonna, don’t!”
Cassie rushed toward the earl and Edward, jerking off her sodden cloak as she ran. Their figures were indistinct through the thick haze of rain, and even the loud clashing of steel against steel was muted in the downpour.
The earl saw her rushing toward them and quickly drew back from Edward. In the next instant, she threw her cloak between them, and flung herself against the earl.
Edward did not see her until the moment she covered the earl’s body with her own. His foil caught in the sodden cloak, but his momentum carried his thrust forward. The tip of his blade sliced through the cloak and sank with sickening ease into her shoulder.