After dinner, Lady Charles and her guests adjourned to the library.
As soon as the servants had settled His Grace upon a sofa, finished fussing about this and that, and gone out, Lady Charles rounded on her nephew.
“Did you have any sort of plan?” she demanded. “Or did you come here expecting me to sort everything out?”
“It’s complicated,” Ripley said.
“Lady Olympia has told me—not everything, knowing you—but the relevant portions,” said his aunt.
Face hot, Olympia left her chair and went to examine a set of books at eye level. Not that she saw what they were. She was too busy telling herself that Lady Charles couldn’t possibly have imagined a naked duke scene as one of the parts of the journey her guest had failed to mention.
“My plan was to leave Lady Olympia safely with you and Alice,” Ripley said. “I would then return to London and encourage Ashmont to try again.”
“Really?” said Lady Charles. “Why would you suppose he’d remain quietly in London? That isn’t like him at all. It’s far more likely he’s hunting you down.”
“That’s the complicated part,” Ripley said. “He was already half-seas over when Lady Olympia and I set out. When he didn’t catch up with us in Putney, I gambled that he’d kept drinking, and Blackwood would put him to bed, as we always do. Since Ashmont hasn’t turned up yet, the odds seem to be in favor of that theory. Still, if he does turn up now, I’ll deal with him. You may leave it to me.”
Olympia turned away from the books. “Leave it to you! I’m the one who ran away. If he does come—which I very much doubt—I ought to be the one to deal with him.”
“Not a bad idea. When he comes, attack first and make him defend himself,” Ripley said.
“If he comes,” she said.
“He’ll come,” Ripley said. “I merely laid odds he wouldn’t arrive today. Still, we might allow for the possibility, remote as it is, of Blackwood sobering him up. In that case, and if Blackwood’s with him, helping him put two and two together, he’ll find us soon enough. We didn’t exactly pass unnoticed. The problem is, I should have preferred to talk to him before he came here to carry off his bride.”
“Since that is not going to happen, you’d better make an alternate plan,” Lady Charles said. “If, for instance, those two scoundrels turn up at three o’clock in the morning.”
“You assume he wants to carry me off,” Olympia said. “If I were he, I’d come only to tell me good riddance. Actually, I wouldn’t bother to come at all.”
“He’ll come,” the aunt said with the same unshakable certainty as Ripley.
“It’s only a matter of when,” Ripley said. “You may have six brothers, Lady Olympia, but that doesn’t make you an expert on Ashmont. He’s competitive to an extreme. As well as used to having his own way and getting what he wants.”
“And which of you isn’t?” Olympia said. “What male isn’t? What about his masculine pride? I deserted him. In front of everybody.”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” he said. “You’re a woman. His woman. His pride will tell him to vanquish whatever made you run away. What you need to keep in mind is, he can’t resist a challenge.”
Remembering what Lady Charles had said, Olympia looked from her hostess to him. “A challenge.”
“Ashmont’s always had it too easy with women,” Lady Charles said. “This may have something to do with the kinds of women with whom he associates. But the fact remains.”
“And so my appeal is that I’m difficult,” Olympia said.
“And different,” Ripley said. “You’re nothing like what we’re used to.”
“Different and difficult,” she said.
“Exactly.”
Such irony, she thought. Being different and difficult was what had got her banished to the Wallflower, Chaperon, and Elderly Department. If only she’d known these qualities appealed to rakes—but no, it wouldn’t have made any difference, because good girls kept their distance from men like Their Dis-Graces.
“It isn’t exact at all,” Lady Charles said. “Ashmont’s a man. The first thing he notices is not her personality.”
“Oh, that goes without saying,” Ripley said.
Olympia couldn’t think of what else men noticed first, apart from looks, which was perfectly obvious. Since they failed to notice hers, she clearly wasn’t up to par. “No, it doesn’t,” she said.
Ripley rolled his eyes. “Use your head—the one with the big brain inside. If you weren’t pretty and shapely, he wouldn’t have courted you, challenge or no challenge.”
He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Pretty and shapely.
Right. That was why she had to fight the men off with a stick. Never.
Seven years. One offer, from an elderly scholar.
Pretty and shapely.
But only look at who said so: the Duke of Ripley, a famous libertine and ne’er-do-well. And here she was, going hot and fluttery, when everybody knew rakes were completely undiscriminating.
“What he won’t want you for is your mind,” Ripley said. “He won’t realize you have one, and that’s probably for the best. He’ll think he’s the clever one, and you can wrap him about your finger.”
Lady Charles smiled. “Of that I haven’t the slightest doubt. Listen to my nephew, Lady Olympia. He knows whereof he speaks.”
Olympia gazed at His Grace, who half reclined on the sofa, like a pasha in the harem. Instead of a hookah, he held a glass of wine in his hand. He was swirling it, his dark head bent as he peered into it, as though he read her future there.
The thought came into her mind, and then it was too late, because she couldn’t un-think it:
Ashmont isn’t the one I want to wrap about my finger.
And that was when she realized, finally, how much trouble she was in.
The lady balked because you didn’t woo her thoroughly. All I did was try to persuade her to come back. When she wouldn’t, what else could I do but make sure she didn’t get into trouble?
That, or something like it, summed up what Ripley had intended to tell his friend. He had a good deal of advice to supply as well, on the care and handling of Lady Olympia Hightower, though it would be no small labor, getting Ashmont to sit still long enough to pay attention.
First, he’d want to punch Ripley in the face.
Then Ashmont would want to sweep the bride off her feet.
The two likelihoods still held.
The trouble was, Ripley wasn’t going to get to Ashmont ahead of time.
The trouble was, here was the intended bride, dressed fetchingly if not quite as dashingly as before. She wore a blue dress Ripley supposed had belonged to Georgiana or one of his other cousins, or perhaps even Alice. Not Aunt Julia’s, though. These days her wardrobe ran to dull greys and browns and boasted little in the way of ornament.