be at Christ Church then.’ He couldn’t help a chuckle, even as he wondered why in God’s name he had any right to be cheerful, not with death by duel on his menu this week. No doubt about it: In the past few months, he had gone through more emotions than Edmund Keene on the Drury Lane stage. ‘The choir has asked me to join them in Christmas carols.’
‘I didn’t know you sang,’ she said.
‘I didn’t either, Teddy,’ he told her, and kissed her lips this time, something he had wanted to do for the past eleven years. ‘There’s a lot I didn’t know, before I ran away to the United States.’
She smiled at that, touched his cheek for a too brief moment with the palm of her hand, and left the printing shop. He watched her hurry away, looking right and left, maybe hoping no one had seen her. Usually a bustling, busy thoroughfare, Bay Street was surprisingly empty. He chalked it up to an unexpected blessing.
‘Well, now, Mr Osgood N. Hollinsworth,’ he began, turning back to face the printer, ‘since you seem confidently sanguine that I should challenge a poor specimen of manhood to a duel, do you have any idea how I can survive it and live happily ever after with the woman I love?’
‘Not one single idea,’ Hollinsworth assured him cheerfully. ‘I have found in life that it’s often best to make up things as I go along.’
‘I wish I found that reassuring,’ Jem replied. ‘Where away?’
‘The residence of Mr William Tullidge, Esquire,’ Hollinsworth replied. ‘You have a date with destiny.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t look so cheerful,’ Jem groused.
‘Have faith, Captain. Didn’t you just say that?’
‘I did,’ Jem replied, his mind resolved. ‘Lead on, sir. What could possibly go wrong?’
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