In his present state, this was exactly what he’d do.
Ripley gave Blackwood their patented What Do We Do Now? look.
“Bad luck,” Blackwood told Ashmont. “Bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
As he hauled the protesting Ashmont back into the corridor, he said over his shoulder to Ripley, “He put you in charge of wedding details. Do something.”
“The ring,” Ripley said. “The license. Ready money where required. Not the bride.”
“Do something,” Blackwood said.
Once more Ripley opened the door.
The library steps nearby held nobody. A sound drew his gaze to the windows. He saw a flurry of white. Ashmont’s intended was struggling with the window latch.
Ripley crossed the room in a few easy strides.
“Funny thing,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at a wedding?”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “You might give the blushing bride some help. The latch is stuck.”
He caught a whiff of brandy mingled with a flowery fragrance.
Though his brain wasn’t at its sharpest at the moment, he could sum up the situation easily enough: drunken bride at window with the aim of getting out.
There was a problem here.
“Why?” he said.
“How should I know why it’s stuck?” she said. “Do I look like a plumber to you? Or what-you-call-it. Glazier.” She nodded. “Window person.”
“Not being a window person, I may not be qualified to help with this sort of thing,” he said.
“Rise above yourself,” she said. “I’m the damsel in distress. And you—” She turned her head to look at him. She stared at the knot of his neckcloth, approximately at her eye level. Then her eyes narrowed and her gaze moved upward.
Behind the spectacles, her grey eyes were red-rimmed.
She’d been crying.
Obviously Ashmont had said or done something to upset her. Nothing new in that. His tongue often got well ahead of his brain. Not that any of them were gifted in the tact department.
“Plague take it,” she said. “You. You’re back.”
“Ah, you noticed.” He felt strangely pleased. But champagne usually had that effect, even in small doses.
“You’re over six feet tall,” she said, tipping her head back. “You’re standing right in front of me. I’m shortsighted, not blind. Even without my spectacles I could hardly fail to recognize you, even at a more distant . . . distance. Which I prefer you were. At.” She made a shooing motion. “Go away. I only want a breath of air. In . . . erm . . . Kensington Gardens.”
“In your wedding dress,” he said.
“I cannot take it off and put it back on again as though it were a cloak.” She spoke with the extreme patience more usually applied to infants of slow understanding. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s raining,” he said with matching patience.
She turned her head and peered at the window. Rain droplets made wriggly trails down the glass.
She gave him a grandiose wave of dismissal. “Never mind—if you’re going to fuss about every little thing.” She turned back to the latch and recommenced trying to strangle it. This time it surrendered.
She pushed open the window. “Adieu,” she said.
And climbed through, in a flutter of satin and lace.
Ripley stood for a moment, debating.
She wanted to go, and he deemed it unsporting to hold women against their will.
He could go back and tell Ashmont his bride was bolting.
He could go back and tell one of the men in her family.
She wasn’t Ripley’s problem.
She was Ashmont’s problem.
True, Ashmont had put Ripley in charge of the wedding. True, Ashmont had seemed unusually concerned about getting it right. And true, Ripley had promised to take care of things: hold on to the ring, supply coins as needed, make sure Ashmont did what he was supposed to do.
Retrieving the bride wasn’t in the agreement.
She oughtn’t to need retrieving.
Just because she’d been drunk and crying . . .
“Damn,” he said.
He climbed through the window.
Ripley spotted the cloud of white satin and lace an instant before she disappeared into a stand of tall shrubbery and trees.
He quickened his stride, glancing up at the house windows at the same time. No signs of anybody looking out. The wedding party had gathered on the other side of the house. That was all to the good. If he got her back speedily, they could patch up matters, and nobody the wiser.
A glance about him showed no sign of gardeners. The outdoor servants must be carousing with their fellows or taking shelter from the rain.
Ripley was aware of the rain, but it was no more than background. While conscious of its patter upon leaves and grass and footpaths, he concentrated on the bride, who moved at a smart pace, considering the miles of satin and lace and the ballooning sleeves and all the rest of it.
He didn’t shout, because she wasn’t running yet, at least not flat-out, and he didn’t want to scare her into running or startle her into doing something even more ridiculous, though at the moment he couldn’t guess what that could be.
She wasn’t dressed for athletic feats—not that women ever were—and the place was something of an obstacle course. Newland House’s gardens were thickly planted and mature. Some of the trees had waved their branches over Queen Anne. On slippery ground, wearing that rig, and more than a little inebriated, the bride was all too liable to get tangled in shrubbery or trip over her skirts or her own feet.
He was gaining steadily, in any event.
He was near enough to see her feet slide out from under her and her arms make windmills as she struggled for balance. He was a moment too late to catch her before she lost the battle and went down.
He grasped her under her arms and hauled her upright.
She twisted this way and that. Through several thousand layers of dress and undergarments, he felt her bottom make contact with his groin, which distracted him for a moment.
He was a man. Exceptional bottom, was his first thought.
Never mind, he told himself. Do the job and get her back.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Did I make a mistake? Did you want me to leave you lying in the mud?”
“You’re spoiling my sleeves!”
The rain beat down on his head.
His hat was in the house. He felt naked without it. More naked than if he were in fact naked.
He felt wet, too.
He let her go. “You’ve already spoiled the dress,” he said. “Mud streaks and grass stains up the back. Looks as though you’ve been having a lovers’ romp in the shrubbery. Well, that will give everybody something to get excited about. It will certainly excite Ashmont. And since I’m the only male in your vicinity, I’m the one he’ll call out. Then I’ll get to tend his dueling wounds. Again.”
“Punch him in the face,” she said. “He’ll hit back. Then he can’t call you out, not being an injured party.”
The long veil clung wetly to her head and shoulders. Her side curls were coming uncurled, and the headdress listed to one side.