“He’s not going to be pleased about this development, no.”
She hadn’t thought this through properly. She hadn’t thought at all. Now she remembered. All the fights. The duels. One in which, apparently, Ashmont had nearly had his ear blown off. It might have been his head. But now . . . What had Ripley said, the other day, in the garden? Something about a lovers’ romp, and since I’m the only one in your vicinity, I’m the one he’ll call out.
She was still engaged to Ashmont. Thanks to cowardice, she hadn’t broken it off. A short time ago she’d lost her virginity to his best friend. She wanted to dash her head against the wall. So stupid. So reckless. She wasn’t even drunk! What was wrong with her?
She said calmly, “You’re his friend. Ashmont won’t call you out. He can’t.”
“Right. Nothing to worry about. I’ll punch him in the face and he’ll punch back and then he can’t be the injured party. I’m not sure that plan will work now.”
“In that case, I’d better be the one to tell him,” she said. “He can’t call me out.”
Ripley returned to buttoning. “You can tell him whatever you like. It won’t make any difference. He’s my friend and I’ve betrayed his trust. Oh, and there’s the humiliation, too.”
“I betrayed him,” she said. “I didn’t break off with him as I ought to have done. I hedged my bets.”
“You did nothing of the kind.”
“I did. I left it to him, knowing he’s too stubborn to let me go.”
He was halfway up the skirt. “You’re a woman,” he said. “You don’t have the luxury of doing the decent thing or the honorable thing. As you pointed out a little while ago in the library, marriage is different for women than for men. You did the intelligent thing.”
“The practical and sensible thing,” she said.
“That, too. Since you couldn’t be sure you’d get through my thick skull, you very wisely decided not to burn your bridges. Also, I’ll wager anything you were too subtle and tactful in that letter. You didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I don’t understand why people are so shy about hurting his feelings. Must have something to do with the lost puppy look he gets. I can’t manage it. Tried. Look like a gargoyle.” He’d reached the waist of her dress.
“I wanted to be kind,” she said. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“Kind.” Ripley stood. “He isn’t that fragile, and yes, it was.” He found the belt and gave it to her.
She quickly wrapped it about her waist and closed it. “It’s very good of you to defend me. That bodes well for a marriage. Still, it doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t fragile or whose fault it was. You don’t know how hard I’ve tried. To do what was right. To be a good girl. To be pleasing.”
“Yes, well, you’re not a good girl,” he said.
She sucked in her breath.
“Good girls don’t get drunk and run away on their wedding day,” he went on. “Good girls don’t take off their clothes in front of wicked men. Good girls don’t taunt those men into tumbling them. Good girls don’t make the men wish they’d thought to do it years ago. Good girls are boring. You won the awards for boring because you were trying to be a good girl. You’re not. You’re a bad girl, and if you’d been a boy, you might have been one of my best friends. I’m glad you’re not a boy. Now, can we stop talking and thinking and get out of here? We haven’t a minute to lose.”
Meanwhile in the drawing room of Camberley Place
Lord Frederick stood at the window, looking out. “The storm’s let up. They ought to be back by now.” He turned back to Lady Charles. “I don’t like this.”
She refilled her glass. “It isn’t up to you.”
“It has to be up to somebody.”
“Ashmont isn’t a child. It’s time he took responsibility for his life. You can’t protect him forever.”
“And you?” he said. “You kept Ashmont’s fiancée from him when he came here.”
“I did nothing of the sort. She wasn’t here at the time.”
“You didn’t tell him the whole truth. Whom were you protecting?”
“Olympia. From marrying the wrong man. Because the right one was too slow-witted to see what was under his nose.”
There was a short, taut pause. Something passed between them. Unseen, unspoken. But felt.
Neither of them acknowledged it. They were both old hands at concealment.
If something flickered in her ladyship’s eyes, it might have been a trick of the light. If a faint red tinged his lordship’s cheekbones, it was from the same cause.
He said, coolly enough, “And you thought you’d give him a little time, and he’d come to his senses.”
“Yes.”
“And what if it takes years?”
The words as it did me might have hung in the short silence. Or maybe not.
Lady Charles laughed and said, “Until it’s too late? In that case, I shall comfort myself with the knowledge that I tried.”
“You put your oar in, you mean.”
If only someone had done so then . . .
“Habit,” she said. “I’ve been doing it for most of his life. You and I have that much in common.”
“Yes, and I’m too old to break the habit now,” he said. “This is the last, best chance that wretched nephew of mine has. I won’t see him make the same mistake . . . so many others do.”
“If he doesn’t make mistakes, how will he learn?”
“That’s a chance I’m not going to take. I’ve waited long enough, I think. For all I know, they’ve gone.”
“Why would they go?” she said. “All they’ve done is take shelter from the storm, separately or individually. You’re jumping to conclusions. That isn’t like you.”
“You don’t know what I’m like,” he said. “But we both know what Ripley’s like. And I have a good idea what he’s going to do.”
What I should have done when I had the chance.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re too late to change anything. You were too late before you came.”
“We’ll see.” He bowed. “I bid you good day, my lady.”
She didn’t curtsey in turn but moved swiftly to the doorway and stood, blocking his way. She smiled. “Ah, no, not quite yet, sir.”
“Woof!” said Cato, behind her.
Chapter 15
As they made their way to the stables, Ripley was more aware of the infernal ankle than he had leisure to be. He was cursing it in his mind when he saw Olympia move off the path and pick up a stout branch.
She held it out to him. “Walking stick,” she said. “Use it.”
“I don’t need a bloody crutch.”
“Is it possible, or do I ask too much, for you to set aside your manly pride for a moment and approach the matter in a calm and logical fashion?”
“I’m perfectly calm,” he lied.