She took up a volume. Romeo and Juliet. Perfect example. Had she not found the story troublesome? Two very young persons, who could hardly know their own minds, believed they’d found the love of a lifetime. As a consequence they killed themselves in the most stupid manner.
True, Olympia was nearly six and twenty, not fourteen, but her experience of men, in a nonbrotherly way, was approximately that of a fourteen-year-old.
She set down the Shakespeare and took up another. Don Quixote. Several editions of that fine example of living in a delusion. At the top of another pile lay The Castle of Otranto. Ripley’s cup of tea, she didn’t doubt. Gigantic helmets falling from the sky and killing people, various nonsupernatural parties trying to kill one another, damsels in distress . . .
She quickly set down the book and let her gaze roam over the collection.
That was when she saw it. Three large volumes, vellum. For a moment, all she could do was stare.
“Here,” she whispered. “Recueil des Romans des Chevaliers de la Table Ronde. Here. At Camberley Place, of all places.”
Reverently she turned pages. She’d read about this. It must be the set from the Duke of Devonshire’s library sale, nearly fifteen years ago. Lord Mends had tried and failed to get it.
Beautiful. Hundreds of illustrations, in gold and color, of the Tales of the Knights of the Round Table.
Ripley’s words intruded.
Didn’t you tell me you were a damsel in distress? I’m your knight in shining armor.
She shut the book, but she couldn’t shut out Ripley’s voice or what she felt when he was near her, when he touched her.
She walked to the window.
Though the garden on the east front was rather a wilderness, she saw Ripley clearly. He’d stopped halfway down one of the paths, and he was looking away from the house. While she watched, Cato ran up to him, sniffed about, and tried to lick his foot. Ripley gestured at him. The dog backed off a pace and sat down beside the invalid chair, as good as gold, or pretending to be. A moment later, Lady Charles followed Cato to her nephew’s side.
Olympia turned away from the window. Knights in shining armor belonged to the world of romances, a fairy-tale world. Lady Olympia Hightower had to live in the here and now. If she must remember voices, she’d do better to remember the voice of wisdom: Don’t underestimate Ashmont . . . when he wins your respect and love, you’ll be happy you married him.
That was the voice of experience, reality, practicality. That was the voice a sensible and practical girl ought to heed.
“I will,” Olympia said under her breath. “I will.” She returned to Lord Charles’s unrecorded books.
Ripley could still hear Olympia’s laughter in his head. He still felt the curves and warmth of her body. He heard her say, In that case, maybe you ought to be the one to marry me.
Well, he couldn’t, and it was pointless to suppose otherwise. She was Ashmont’s. Any other man might try to lure her away. But not Ripley, because he was the bloody best friend. Because it was too late.
He was sinking into black gloom when he heard “Woof!” and Cato bounded at him.
“Down!” Ripley said, before the dog could jump on him. But the dog only trotted round him, sniffing. He spent a good deal of time sniffing about Ripley’s lap . . . where Olympia had been. Then the dog tried to lick the injured foot. Ripley snapped his fingers. “Get off, you ridiculous beast.”
The dog sat, eyeing the foot.
“He wants to play,” came Ripley’s aunt’s voice from behind him. “But you’ve had your playing for the morning, it would seem.”
“Have I?”
She clasped her hands behind her back and walked a few paces away, then came back. “You had better not be taking advantage of that young lady under my roof.”
She’d seen or a servant had told tales. Ripley said nothing.
“I heard a commotion in the library,” she said. “I trust to your honor that the fooling about came to nothing.”
He didn’t wince. The fooling about had come, more or less, to nothing, and that was for the best.
“For God’s sake, Hugh, tell me whether I need to take the girl away.”
He wanted Olympia gone. No, that wasn’t true. He needed her gone.
The trouble was, she needed time away from everybody else—the family she was trying to rescue, yes, but Ashmont especially. She needed time to think and decide what was best and what was wise and what was right, not simply for her family but for her. No small challenge, trying to make things fit that didn’t want to fit.
Ripley knew this. He knew, too, that one could find no better place, when one needed to come to terms with life’s difficulties, than Camberley Place.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“Life is complicated.”
“Yes.”
“I saw it wasn’t simple, and it’s become clearer to me how not simple it is,” she said. “You—the three of you—” She broke off. “But never mind the other two. You’re the one here and you’re the one who needs to face matters. Some problems can’t be bought off, nephew. Some need to be dealt with.”
“Do they, really?” he said. “And what are you dealing with, hiding away here?”
She went still for a moment. Then she gave a short laugh. “Well done. Your sister tried it, but you’re sharper.”
“Than a serpent’s tooth?”
“You’ve never been ungrateful,” she said. “And you’ve never shied away from dueling with me. It’s been rather a while, and I think my wits grow dull from the lack of worthy opponents. Not so dull, though, that I can’t tell when I’m being deflected.”
“Your wits are never dull,” he said. “I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when Ashmont and Blackwood came.”
She shook her head. “Still deflecting. Very well. My girls are grown, managing their husbands and children. I’m not a girl anymore. I’m not a wife anymore. I’m not sure what I am. I have no direction, no purpose.”
“That’s why you’re still here?” he said. “You need a bloody purpose?”
“Do you propose I be like you, with no aim, no purpose in life other than amusing myself?”
“If it’s any comfort, Aunt, I’m not amused at the moment.”
“And you can’t run away.” She smiled. “What a pity.”
“And you’ve run away for three years.” He smiled. “What a pity.”
“No, dear, the pity is your losing the chance of a lifetime,” she said.
“This isn’t my chance,” he said.
“Because Ashmont got there first? Because he’s your friend?”
Ripley didn’t answer. His aunt had seen a great deal too much. She always did.
“I wonder how you’ll feel in a year’s time,” she said. “Or in five years’ time, seeing a happiness that could have been yours. I wonder how much comfort your honor will be to you then.”
Something in her tone made him think of his mother, and something she’d said about Aunt Julia, something surprising. A disappointment in love. His mind was in too much turmoil, though, and the vague memory roiled among other, more recent memories, and too many damn feelings. He was struggling to fish out the recollection—thinking about her was easier than thinking about himself, and he hated thinking anyway—when she turned her head toward the house, toward a sound she must have heard, which he hadn’t.