“Aunt Delia is extremely fashionable,” she said. “She’ll fuss a great deal more about the crooked hat than anything else.”
He tugged the hat to one side. He stared at her face for a time, frowning, while she resisted the urge to look away, or shake him. Then he tried the other way. After repeating the procedure five times, he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“I don’t think it matters,” he said. “In any case, you can’t possibly look a fraction as disheveled and mad as you did in your wedding dress.”
The chaise passed through the tollgate. From this point on she’d have to pay attention. The postilion would need specific instructions to her aunt’s villa.
She relayed the directions through Ripley. They were simple enough, and the distance wasn’t great.
It was only after the chaise crossed the bridge that she remembered she hadn’t yet composed her explanation. She swore under her breath.
“Now what?” he said.
“That wasn’t meant to be heard,” she said.
“I have exceptionally keen hearing on occasion,” he said. “That is to say, when I’m paying attention. With you, a man must pay attention at all times. Had Ashmont paid sharper attention, for example, you wouldn’t have run away. Had I paid sharper attention, you wouldn’t have fallen out of the boat. But I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll keep you under close scrutiny until I’ve deposited you safely with your aunt.”
Ripley’s close scrutiny was a dangerous article. He’d said things and looked at her in ways other men didn’t, and the combination had started to make her think she wasn’t altogether the young woman she’d always believed she was. She knew rakes were dangerous but she hadn’t understood how subtle the danger could be. Her ideas about a great many subjects were threatening revolution. It was a good thing Aunt Delia was only a short distance away.
Yes, right. Focus on Aunt Delia. Not him.
“I don’t know what to tell her,” she said. “Nothing I compose sounds rational.” At present, her idea about being bought for breeding, which had appeared so compelling when she was drunk, now struck her as ludicrous. And in her drunken idiocy, she had prattled about the subject to Ripley, of all people!
“If I were you, I wouldn’t explain,” he said.
“No, you mean if I were you,” she said. “Men, especially of high rank, do as they please, and the rest of the world can like it or lump it.”
“You’re a woman of high rank,” he said. “You can do as you please.”
“Not unless I’m willing to sacrifice my reputation. Which I admit, I’ve already done.”
“That can be mended,” he said. “Do you know, I think it’s a good thing we’ve had a little time together because you are in dire want of schooling.”
“Indeed, what I desperately need is schooling in—in whatever it is you’re so expert in. How to be disreputable. Do you know, I believe even I can deduce how to do that.”
“I believe you’ve already embarked on that path,” he said. “Let us cast our minds over the last few hours, Lady Olympia, and—”
“I told you it was easy,” she said. “Even I can do it.” A little more time with him, and she’d be an expert.
“I wouldn’t dream of arguing,” he said. “Disreputability wants little effort and that little mainly pleasurable, which is one of its charms. But as to you—and if you would be so good as to let me say my little bit without interruption—”
“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.”
“Thank you. If I may be more specific: The schooling you need is how to manage the world about you.”
“Let me explain something to you,” she said. “One’s income can be managed, although this seems to be a feat beyond my parents’ abilities. A library can be managed. The world cannot. Only a duke—and one of Their Dis-Graces—would suppose otherwise.”
He dismissed this with a wave. “Picture the scene. You appear at the door, trailed by me and the dog, who, by the way, is clearly not a Sam. Do give a moment to relieving the animal of that ridiculous name. Offer him something with dignity. Like . . . Cato. Cato will do.”
“Thank you for letting me choose the dog’s name.”
“You were too slow,” he said. “Now listen to me.”
“Have I a choice?”
“I have experience with situations that seem to require explanations,” he said. “Besides which, I have a sister.” His gaze shifted to the front window. “And we don’t have much time.”
He ordered the postilion to stop the chaise. “Wait,” he said, and climbed out.
She saw an alternative to waiting: running away. But that hadn’t worked so well before, though it had felt so very good, and absolutely right, at the time.
Running away looked good to her now, when she was quite sober—a clear sign she’d spent far too much time with this man.
She waited and watched through the chaise’s front window.
He went to the boot. Cato looked up eagerly at him. Ripley made a beckoning gesture and the dog sprang out. Ripley removed the large linen parcel, sent the dog back to his blanketed nest, climbed back into the carriage with the wedding corpse, and told the postilion to go on. The chaise rumbled into motion.
Ripley took off his gloves and began untying the parcel.
“I’m not wearing that,” she said.
“I beg you will give me some credit,” he said. “A very little will do. We need it for the scene.”
“I like my aunt,” she said. “I won’t let you make her the butt of one of your practical jokes.”
“It isn’t a prank,” he said. “It’s a scene. A sort of dumb show-what-you-call-it.”
“I have no idea what you call it.”
“Like charades,” he said. “But the other thing.”
“A tableau?”
“That one. Wait.”
She watched him undo the parcel, his long fingers so adept and graceful. She remembered those fingers in her hair.
She turned her gaze away, and her obnoxious mind promptly conjured a scene. More than a year ago it had happened. Maybe two years or more: Lady Nunsthorpe’s ball. Known ironically as the Nun, according to Stephen, her ladyship clearly liked to live dangerously, for she’d invited all three of Their Dis-Graces. During their dance, his hostess had been doing her best to seduce Ripley—not that Olympia supposed this demanded much effort. But she hadn’t been able to look away. He’d moved with the power and grace of a thoroughbred, and she’d wondered what it felt like to dance with him.
The man standing in the basin had looked like a thoroughbred—splendidly proportioned, powerfully built. They could also be temperamental and dangerous, as her father had discovered at great expense.
Not that Papa ever learned from experience. She hoped she didn’t take after him in that regard. But she’d never been tested before. Never been tempted . . .
Ripley’s voice called her mind back from the treacherous place it was heading for.
“As I said before, you’ll appear on your aunt’s doorstep with your entourage,” he said. “This will comprise one canine and one disreputable duke, who will be carrying the wedding dress and veil.”