He had a point, which needled. Hugh hated when annoying people had valid points. Still, if the surgeon had any sense, he’d shut the bloody hell up.

“Just don’t go for the head,” the surgeon said with a shudder. “No one wants that, and I’m not just talking about the poor sod who’s taken the bullet. There’ll be brains everywhere, faces shot open. Shoots the funeral straight to hell.”

“This is your choice of surgeon?” Marcus asked.

Hugh jerked his head toward Dunwoody. “He found him.”

“I’m a barber,” the surgeon said defensively.

Marcus shook his head and walked back to Daniel.

“Gentlemen at your ready!”

Hugh wasn’t sure who had called out the order. Someone who’d found out about the duel and wanted bragging rights, most probably. There weren’t many sentences in London more coveted than “I saw it myself.”

“Take aim!”

Hugh lifted his arm and aimed. Three inches to the right of Daniel’s shoulder.

“One!”

Good God, he’d forgot about the counting.

“Two!”

His chest clenched. The counting. The yelling. It was the one time that numbers became the enemy. His father’s voice, hoarse in his triumph, and Hugh, trying not to hear . . .

“Three!”

Hugh flinched.

And he pulled the trigger.

“Yaaaaooooowwwww!”

Hugh looked at Daniel in surprise.

“Bloody hell, you shot me!” Daniel yelled. He clutched his shoulder, his rumpled white shirt already oozing with red.

“What?” Hugh said to himself. “No.” He’d aimed to the side. Not far to the side, but he was a good shot, an excellent shot.

“Oh, Christ,” the surgeon muttered, and he took off along the side of the field at a run.

“You shot him,” Dunwoody gasped. “Why’d you do that?”

Hugh had no words. Daniel was hurt, perhaps even mortally, and he’d done it. He had done it. No one had forced him. And even now, as Daniel raised his bloody arm—his literally bloody arm—

Hugh screamed as he felt his leg tearing into pieces.

Why had he thought he’d hear the shot before he felt it? He knew how it worked. If Sir Isaac Newton was correct, sound traveled at a rate of 979 feet per second. Hugh was standing about twenty yards from Daniel, which meant that the bullet would have had to travel . . .

He thought. And thought.

He couldn’t work out the answer.

“Hugh! Hugh!” came Dunwoody’s frantic voice. “Hugh, are you all right?”

Hugh looked up at Charles Dunwoody’s blurry face. If he was looking up, then he must be on the ground. He blinked, trying to set his world back into focus. Was he still drunk? He’d had a staggering amount of alcohol the night before, both before and after the altercation with Daniel.

No, he wasn’t drunk. At least not very much. He had been shot. Or at least, he thought he’d been shot. It had felt as if he’d taken a bullet, but it didn’t really hurt so much any longer. Still, it would explain why he was lying on the ground.