That made no sense and he didn’t care.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want to understand. It doesn’t signify at all to me what you do. But I thank you for the lesson.” She turned toward him in a storm of swooshing skirts. “If I get another chance with Ashmont, I’ll know better than to take any notice of anything he does. I shall live a life of the mind, which is more than acceptable and worlds less aggravating than trying to communicate with any of you.”
He grasped her arm. He was vaguely aware of Cato growling, but that was merely background noise to the foreground cacophony in his head. “I have to go away because—”
“I don’t care.”
“Because,” he said.
Because there she was, irate and smelling of rain and woodland and fresh things, her arm warm under his hand. She’d kept him up all night, and the too-brief taste of her still haunted him. He was a reckless blockhead, but that was who he was. And here she was. And they were alone. And he wanted.
That was as much as he knew, really, as he pulled her into his arms, muttering, “Because this.”
He kissed her. And at the first touch of his lips to hers, the desire he’d been battling for what felt like eons won.
He kissed her in the way of a man who wants what he can’t have and has to have it anyway, the way of a man who knows only when he’s got it and needs to know nothing else. And with the first taste and feel of her mouth and the way her body felt, crushed to his, all the feelings that had been crashing this way and that, all wrong, turned right.
And when she grasped his shoulders and held on, something inside him, some taut part of himself, which seemed to have been waiting eternally, surrendered.
He cupped the back of her head, and kissed her more urgently, persuading. Stay, he urged with his mouth. With a sound like a sigh, she gave way, and the world tilted right again. Her lips parted to him and her body melted against his, and the warmth of it and the wave of turbulent pleasure made him stagger, his bad leg wobbling dangerously.
He didn’t care about his foot or about pain or anything but her. He held her, and drank in the taste and feel of her as he sank backward, falling, until his back struck something hard and rough.
Up or down, it didn’t matter, because this was what mattered: the shape of her and the way she fit against him and the wondrous rush of feeling. And above all the power of a kiss, ever-deepening as she followed his lead.
Ah, she did that well. She learned quickly, and demanded in the same way he did, until the first, pleasurable warmth swelled into a dark heat, burning up what little reasoning power remained in his brain.
Sensations, emotions, on the other hand, he had in plenty. They swamped the inner voice trying to remind him who she was and what was right and what was wrong. He dragged his hands down over her perfect shoulders and down her straight back to the fine curve of her bottom. That felt good. Perfect. He pulled her hard against his groin. That was better.
But she gasped and broke the kiss and wriggled. The spell broke, and he had no choice but to ease his strangling grip. Though this made only the smallest distance between them, it was enough. The world came back and his powers of thought returned, and his brain demanded to know what he was about. Had he lost his mind at last? Was he dead drunk? Concussed?
It didn’t matter how much he wanted her. It didn’t matter if she haunted his dreams and wouldn’t let him sleep. It didn’t matter if she charmed and intrigued him and he hated Ashmont for being the first to stop watching from a distance.
Still, Ripley didn’t release her completely. If she’d pulled away more forcefully, he would have let her go—he hoped he would, at any rate—but she didn’t. She only stood in the circle of his arms, looking up at him, spectacles askew.
“All right,” she said, her voice thick. “Well.” She shook her head. “But no.” She pushed at him. Then he had no excuse not to let go. She stepped back, straightened her posture, straightened her dress, and adjusted her spectacles. “That was . . . educational.”
Educational. Oh, it most assuredly was.
She, an innocent. She, his best friend’s betrothed.
Ripley pushed away from the tree that had propped him up. He swore. He tore off his hat and hit the tree with it. He swore and swore until the space about him ought to have turned blue and the trees ought to have shriveled up. As it was, birds flew up from the branches and squirrels scolded and small, panicked creatures raced through the undergrowth.
“Ripley, for heaven’s sake!”
He heard her, but his mind shouted more loudly.
Ashmont was his best friend. Since boyhood, since those miserable early days at Eton. They’d always stood up for one another, the three of them.
And Ripley . . .
He kicked the tree—with his left foot, not the damaged one, though that was pure luck because he wasn’t thinking. But the jolt unbalanced him, and down he went.
Meanwhile at Camberley Place
“London?” Ashmont repeated.
He and Blackwood stood in Lady Charles Ancaster’s drawing room. Ashmont sported a black eye. Neither gentleman’s appearance was elegant. They appeared to have been run over by market wagons and, possibly, a herd of cattle.
“So it would seem,” her ladyship said. She held out the note Ripley had left for her.
Ashmont took it and read, “‘Gone to London. R.’” He turned the note over. The other side was blank. “That’s all?”
“He deemed it sufficient,” she said.
Blackwood and Ashmont nodded. They rarely explained themselves, either.
It did not occur to them that Lady Charles, too, might leave a great deal unsaid, including highly pertinent information.
“London,” Ashmont said. “We thought so, didn’t we? Gone back to London, we said. Wild-goose chase. But then all the clues, you know.”
“He did come here,” Blackwood said. “Didn’t go straight back to London. We weren’t wrong.”
“When you didn’t appear last evening, we all assumed you’d remained in Town,” Lady Charles said. “What a comedy of errors this has turned out to be.”
“Dash it, did he think we wouldn’t give chase?” Ashmont said. “Didn’t he mean for us to do it?”
“On the contrary, we had been expecting you,” Lady Charles said. “In fact, I should have thought you’d arrive before my nephew did or soon thereafter. His journey turned out more complicated than anticipated.”
“Ours, too,” Blackwood said, glancing at Ashmont. “We had an annoyance in Putney. Riot Act read. That sort of thing.”
“Indeed,” Lady Charles said. She put up her glass and studied his eye. “The bruise looks recent.”
“That happened after the . . . erm . . . misunderstanding,” Blackwood said. “He fell down some stairs.”