“Do you need to ask?” Stephen replied as he darted to the side, avoiding another blow from Gerard. “He’s too good. He doesn’t play by the rules.”
“What rules?” Gerard said with a satisfied smirk.
Stephen darted out of the way from another blow and hurried toward Allan across the room.
“Your turn,” he said, thrusting the sword into Allan’s grasp.
“Thanks.”
“Oh, what’s wrong?” Stephen asked, looking at him intently.
Allan didn’t answer. He turned away and shrugged off his tailcoat, pulling on the padding that Gerard passed him next.
“Aye, a couple of days of wedded bliss, and look at him?” Gerard gestured toward him. “Glowin’, are ye nae?”
“This is not amusing,” Allan replied tartly.
“Aye, all right.” Gerard backed up into the middle of the room. “How about ye take yer frustrations out on me with that sword? It might make ye feel better.”
The temptation was too much to refuse. Allan advanced forward with the blade, doing his best to forget all thoughts of Frederica.
He thrust the blade forward though Gerard dodged it easily. Allan had to keep advancing, his footwork neat as per all the lessons he had ever been given in fencing, but Gerard was the greater fighter. With one firm blow back from Gerard, Allan was pushed so far back that he nearly fell over.
“God damn it,” he muttered. “Where did you learn to fight like this?”
“Trust me, ye dinnae want to ken the answer to that,” Gerard said with a deep laugh. “Growin’ up nae in the ton has its advantages, and its disadvantages.” He waved his broader sword at Allan, urging him to fight again. “Ready?”
“Ready — ah!” Allan practically yelped in surprise as Gerard leapt toward him again.
Allan could hear Stephen sniggering nearby as he watched though Allan attempted to block it out as much as possible. He threw himself into the fight, managing to get a few strikes in that nearly caught Gerard though he never quite made contact.
For a few blissful minutes, Allan was able to forget the anger in him. He could ignore the fact that though Frederica had indeed come to have her breakfast as he had requested, she had risen before him and was practically done when he got to the table. They’d had just a minute or so of polite conversation before she had left.
“There.” Gerard cried as he managed to press the blunted sword to the middle of Allan’s padded chest. “Ye need to move yer feet faster, me friend.”
“Ah, I know.” Allan sighed and dropped the sword at his side. “It’s your turn to get beaten up, Stephen.”
“How about we take a break for a minute instead?” Stephen suggested. “I’d like to know why you are so angry with the world so soon after marrying.”
“Why do you think?” Allan dropped down to a bench at the side. Gerard threw him a towel as Stephen passed him a glass of lemonade.
“Ah, yer new lady wife nae takin’ to bein’ yer wife so easily?” Gerard asked, sitting beside him.
“It’s like she’s a stranger in the home,” Allan said tartly. “She and I aren’t complete strangers to each other. We met before. At the time, I thought…” he trailed off though he caught Stephen’s gaze.
Just in that look, he could tell his oldest friend had sensed what he had thought existed all those years ago.
When Allan and Frederica had met, conversation had been a little easier. It had made the attraction he had felt to her burn all the brighter, but that was long ago now, as if it had never happened at all.
“I just thought that when we had married, things might be easier,” he said, tearing his gaze away from Stephen to look at the lemonade glass in his grasp. “She was asking permission to change things in the house, as if it isn’t yet her home.”
“May I make a suggestion here?” Gerard said, sitting forward.
“Please, I’d be glad of your thoughts.”
“We dinnae ken where yer wife has been this last year, do we?” Gerard pointed out. “As such, I highly doubt she spent the year in vast fortune or a house anywhere near as big as yers. For all ye ken, she could have been hidin’ in a very modest house indeed. She may be very used to feelin’ like a guest in someone else’s house. To showing it respect because of it.”
“Well said from a humble man,” Stephen pointed out as he handed Gerard another lemonade.
