One Moonlit Night (Moonlight Square: A Prequel Novella) by Gaelen Foley Read Free Book Online Page B

shook his head. Bloody ridiculous.
    Well, Father had always warned him it would end like this…
    The pink blush of the dawn sky glowed behind the screen of the black trees, reminding him of Katrina’s cheeks last night while they were dancing.
    He hoped Society would be kind to her. He regretted that he might not be there to see her triumph in her own eccentric way.
    Netherford came stomping over to him, disturbing his thoughts.
    “This is damned unfair,” the duke growled as he joined them. Their friend Viscount Sidney followed a step behind. “We’ve all been with the woman. Why did he suddenly focus in on you?”
    Gable shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Jason.”
    “Doesn’t matter?” the duke exploded. For all his faults, Netherford was terribly loyal, at least to his male friends.
    But Gable really did not wish to spend what might be his final moments on Earth soothing the duke’s fiery temper. Instead, he grasped for his usual dry humor. “So how does the club’s betting book rate my odds?”
    Sidney flashed one of his famous sunny grins, even now, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Fifty-fifty, ol’ boy. Myself, I have total faith in you. But don’t worry. If he shoots you, I have plans to do the old man a vile treachery of some kind. I’m considering all sorts of nasty options.”
    “Oh, I rather think vile treachery is what got me here in the first place,” Gable muttered. “But thanks anyway. You’re a mate.”
    Then Netherford was summoned to hear the instructions from the worried-looking gent acting as the neutral party.
    As if they did not already know how the movements of this grim ritual played out.
    “I cannot think what must’ve got into Lord Hayworth to start caring about his wife’s indiscretions at this late date,” Sidney mused aloud in a tight voice, continuing Netherford’s conversation of a moment ago in an effort, Gable suspected, to distract him from thoughts of his imminent doom.
    “No idea,” Gable said quietly. “But I do know what got into Lady Hayworth.”
    Sidney snorted at his jest and offered him a flask.
    “Bit early for whiskey, inn’t it?” Gable said, but took it anyway. He swallowed a mouthful and handed the flask back to his friend. “Give me a moment, would you?” he murmured.
    Sid nodded with a pensive smile and walked away.
    Apologize… Gable found himself brooding on Katrina’s advice. After all, she had taken his. Maybe you’re the one who should listen this time, his brain suggested. But what was the point?
    He blew out a restless exhalation and stared down at the grass, then gave in to the pacing in spite of himself.
    What do I do, what do I do?
    He knew he was in the wrong. And if you knew something was wrong, you ought not to do it in the first place, he reasoned, but if you did it anyway, then you had no right to try to weasel out of the consequences afterward by saying you were sorry. You took your just comeuppance like a man. That much was clear.
    But was his refusal to apologize really down to honor, or was this just his pride talking?
    He looked over at Lord Hayworth, who was likewise pacing back and forth on the other side of the field, a middle-aged man with his gray-haired, paunch-bellied friends around him. The lot of them could be found chasing skirts on any given night, as though they were still Gable’s age—under thirty, instead of over sixty.
    Is that how we end up, too? he wondered. Netherford and Sidney and me and all the rest?
    Because if that was his fate, Gable wasn’t sure he really cared about surviving today. It all seemed so petty and pointless.
    “Nothing new to report,” Netherford said as he returned, his dark, fiery eyes looking even blacker than usual. “Twenty paces, fire at the same time, as you requested, rather than by turns. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
    Gable looked at his friend for a moment.
    “Tell Hayworth I want to talk to him first,” he said abruptly.
    Both his fellow rakehells