“I didn’t mention him,” she said.
“I know he’s in the back of your mind. Another practical solution, in case the ducal one doesn’t work out.”
“I do not understand why you keep bringing up Lord Mends,” she said.
“I’ve seen him with you. The way he looks at you. It’s disgusting, at his age.” More than once in the past, Ripley had wanted to cross a ballroom, pick the fellow up, and put him out on the street, far away from her.
He realized now that, had Mends been a younger man, Ripley might have done something like it, but more violently. Why hadn’t he ever crossed a ballroom to her? Had he assumed she’d always be there, waiting, until he was good and ready for a respectable girl?
He’d waited too long, and Ashmont had got there first, and there was nothing to be done.
“He’s besotted with my cataloguing theories and the prospect of putting his library in order for free,” she was saying.
“What you don’t know about men would fill a library,” he said. “Promise me you won’t marry him. If I hear of such an atrocity in the works—”
“I trust I won’t have to resort to Lord Mends, though I make no promises,” she said. “At this point, it would be amazing if he still wanted me.”
“It wouldn’t be amazing at all.”
Not that Ripley would ever let it happen. She would never have to resort to Mends or anybody else.
“If you say so. But first things first. Since you are too honorable, I shall make Ashmont marry me. In my letter, I did say he might consider himself released from our engagement but—”
“He won’t.” Curse him.
“I believe you’re right,” she said. “I was about to say that I believe he’s too possessive and obstinate to give up. However, if it turns out he’s entertaining doubts, I believe I can bring him round. Now that you’ve given me so much useful information about men, I have specific ideas as to how to go about it.”
Yes, indeed. Ripley had given her heaps of ideas, curse him, too.
“He won’t entertain doubts,” he said tightly. “You don’t understand at all. The night before the wedding? Ashmont could talk about nothing but you and getting married. Nobody else could get a word in edgeways. I’ve never seen him like that before, about a woman.”
Her eyes, grey now, filled. She blinked hard. “Then it puzzles me,” she said, her voice choked, “why he’d get so drunk on his wedding day.”
Not to mention the night before.
“Maybe he was nervous,” Ripley said. “Maybe you weren’t the only one. But he wasn’t the one who bolted, was he?”
She looked for a moment as though he’d struck her. He wished she’d strike him, preferably with one of the massive tomes near at hand.
Then her eyes sparked. She lifted her chin and said, “What had he to lose? When a woman weds, she becomes her husband’s property. She’s under his control. He has all the power. If he makes her wretched, what recourse has she? But Ashmont? You? Blackwood? A different story altogether. You three can go on doing what you did before you were wed, and no one will turn a hair. Marriage makes virtually no difference to men. For women, it can be the end of the world.”
Power and control. Ripley knew what it was like to be the one who had neither. He knew what it was like to be at the mercy of an unpredictable man. For women, it was worse by far.
But Ashmont wasn’t remotely like the late, mad, sixth Duke of Ripley.
“You’ll be a duchess,” Ripley said. “Dammit, Olympia, you can manage Ashmont. If you can make me forget my loyalties, do you imagine you can’t do as you like with him?”
“But I don’t—” She broke off, her brow knitting. Then she adjusted her spectacles. “You have a point.”
“I should hope so.”
“If you can lose control so easily, he can, too,” she said. “More easily, I suspect, since all I’ve observed tells me he’s quick to anger and fight, and the smallest thing will set him off. The quantity of alcohol he consumes may have something to do with that. Well, we’ll see. I shall look for ways to channel his energies in more positive directions.” She nodded. “Yes, that’s promising. I knew there was a bright side. There always is.” She beamed at him. “Thank you, Ripley.”
He realized he was clutching the handles of the mechanical chair so tightly that the wheels were fighting the rod locking them. He loosened his grip.
“My pleasure,” he said. “So glad I could be of service. I’ll leave you to your books. I believe I’ll take a roll through the garden.”
Olympia kept up the smile while she moved to the door to open it for him. She kept smiling while he maneuvered the chair out of the library and onto the graveled walkway. She closed the door.
Then and only then did her smile fade. Then and only then did her throat close up and her mouth tremble and her eyes fill. This time she let the tears fall. Not for long, though.
“Don’t be maudlin,” she told herself. She found her handkerchief and dried her eyes.
Self-pity was out of the question. She had no illusions when it came to men. She’d always known—after the first few Seasons, at any rate—that her marriage, if she could somehow get one, would not be a romantic one.
Even while knowing the odds were against her, she’d tried a moment ago for something more than a practical business arrangement. At least she’d tried.
But Ripley was right: Men cuckolded other men all the time, and Society shrugged, usually laughing at the cuckold.
Stealing one’s best friend’s affianced bride, though, was another kettle of fish. Dishonorable. At least as bad as cheating at cards.
Furthermore, she didn’t want to be the one who destroyed a lifelong friendship, one of the two true friendships Ashmont had. She didn’t wish him ill. She didn’t want to hurt him.
But he wasn’t the one who bolted, was he?
She winced. She had run away. She’d acted unkindly. She was ashamed.
All the same, she couldn’t make herself stop hoping for a different ending to her story.
“You ought to know better,” she muttered. “You know what this is: You’ve become infatuated with a rake.” The way thousands of other women did. Even clever ones. People wrote books and plays about it. They’d done so for centuries. She didn’t doubt explorers would find hieroglyphs in Egypt telling the same story.
Very well. She’d succumbed. She’d simply have to un-succumb. She had one tried-and-true way to cope with life’s setbacks.
She squared her shoulders and moved to the heap of books. She began to sort. History here. Philosophy here. Ah, and here was the dramatic poetry, Congreve and Dekker and Middleton and Schiller and Sheridan. And Shakespeare, of course, who had written of what she felt, as he’d written of the infinite variety of human feelings and behavior.