This evening, Lady Olympia was as prettily ornamented as one of his French cook’s fine pastries.
Though her neck and shoulders weren’t bare, they might as well be, because the embroidered lace chemisette, being nearly transparent, could not hide the smoothness of her fine shoulders and the soft swell of her breasts above the dress’s neckline. The maid had put her hair up in a fashionable style, with braided loops along the sides of her head and large twirls of hair on top, and ribbons twining through.
Ripley was a man. This meant that, even while he was trying to decide what could be done about Ashmont, he was thinking in greater detail about the process of undoing ribbons and letting the soft, thick, brown hair fall about her shoulders, and undoing the rest of her ensemble, bit by bit. He tried staring into his wine, as though an oracle lived there, but he was aware of her all the same.
He should never have had a taste, because a taste was never enough. He was a man always greedy for pleasure—of the table, of bed, of everything—and he was too much in the habit of getting what he wanted and too little in the habit of resisting temptation.
He reminded himself that this wasn’t the usual temptation. He wasn’t competing with Ashmont for an actress, ballet dancer, courtesan, or merry widow. Ripley wasn’t allowed to compete this time—and this wasn’t one of those tedious social rules he had no compunction about breaking. Ashmont was his friend and she was Ashmont’s betrothed. Heaps of legal documents had been signed. Half the world had been invited to the wedding.
And Ashmont wanted to marry her. He’d made that more than clear.
He’d simply failed to persuade the bride she wanted to marry him.
“Ripley?” His aunt’s voice jolted him back to the moment. “If you have no further marital advice for Lady Olympia, perhaps you’ll turn your mind to preventing mayhem if your partners in crime come roaring to the house in the small hours of morning.”
“You don’t allow mayhem,” he said.
“This is an exceptional circumstance,” she said. “You’ve never made off with one of your friends’ brides before.”
“To be strictly accurate, I made off with the duke,” Lady Olympia said.
“I went willingly,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” she said.
“Not at first,” he said. “But you won me over by degrees.”
He watched her color rise. She’d blushed before, when he mentioned her figure, and then of course he’d had to emphasize her shapeliness, in order to watch the blush deepen.
Well, what was he to do? She was pretty and shapely and she tasted good, and when sainthood was mentioned, his name would not come up.
“Ashmont will have to understand that,” he said. “You ladies make much ado about nothing. It’s quite simple: If he and Blackwood turn up in the middle of the night, the servants are not to let them in but to come and get me. If my friends grow obstreperous in the meantime, set the dogs on them.” His aunt might have given up on house pets, but every estate had men and dogs guarding the property. “Either way, I’ll deal with them, as I’ve done a thousand times before. And, Auntie, if you don’t mind being roused from your bed, you might glare at them as you do so beautifully.”
“And I’m to do what?” Lady Olympia said. “Cower in my room?”
“Read a book,” he said.
The look she sent him over her spectacles! It made a man want to pick her up and—
And nothing.
This was very bad. He’d better deal with Ashmont very soon.
“And speaking of dogs,” he went on, “Ashmont knows the house. In the event he proves sneakier than one expects, you might want Cato with you this night.”
“Cato!” she said. “For all we know, he’ll welcome intruders and lick their faces. We’ve no indication he’s a guard dog.”
“He’s a hunter,” Ripley said. “You saved him from a shocking beating. He’ll protect you.”
Even from me.
Not that he’d do anything improper. Out of the question. She was Ashmont’s betrothed. She was an innocent. There existed a few rules even Ripley didn’t break. And so he would not make up excuses to check on her after she’d gone to bed.
Yes, he would very much like to see her in her nightdress. And out of her nightdress.
And what a bloody waste of fantasy!
No wonder he and his friends kept away from virgins and respectable matrons. Can’t do this. Can’t do that.
“I won’t have that dog in the house until I know I can trust him,” Lady Olympia said. “He should have come when called. We should not have had to chase him. If he’d behaved as he ought, you wouldn’t have stepped into a rabbit hole. He’ll remain in the stables or wherever they’ve put him until—” She broke off, frowning.
“Aye, there’s the rub,” Ripley said. “Until Ashmont comes and carries you off? Or your parents?”
“Nonsense,” said Aunt Julia. “Lady Olympia will remain here for as long as she likes. I’ve written to promise her parents I’ll look after her, and I shall. She’ll be perfectly safe, and nobody will carry off anybody. You, meanwhile, will manage your fool friends. Tomorrow we’ll see about the dog. Lady Olympia, you need more rest than you think you do. Let’s make an early night of it. If those two ridiculous men arrive this night, I’d rather be upstairs, where I can prepare myself for the encounter. With boiling oil, if necessary.”
Once more she took Ashmont’s bride away.
All for the best, Ripley told himself. He was doing too much thinking and he couldn’t keep his waste-of-time thoughts in order. There was nobody nearby to cure the celibacy that made them so difficult to subdue, and he was incapable of going out to find a cure.
He glared at his damaged foot. How many days would this cost him?
And how was he to get through them without losing his mind?
The following morning
“He can’t ride to London!” Olympia said. “He should not have come this far. He was not to put any weight on his foot. Everybody knew that!”
She had gone down to breakfast rather earlier than she was accustomed to, on account of being woken by a bad dream. In it, Ashmont had been pounding at the door, and Ripley and Cato had leapt through a window to knock him down. But while Ashmont and Ripley were fighting, Bullard had caught hold of the dog, and started whipping him.
Her conscience plaguing her about abandoning Cato in a strange place, she’d been unable to go back to sleep. Instead she’d made a quick breakfast before hurrying to the stables, where a groom informed her that His Grace had ridden out “a short while ago.” He was headed to London.
“I’m sorry, your ladyship, but we didn’t know His Grace wasn’t to go,” the groom said. “Even if we did, we’d have a job trying to stop His Grace doing what he wanted to do.”