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Blackwood reached down and yanked him up onto the saddle in front of him. Though the boy protested loudly, screaming about being kidnapped and murdered and such, he didn’t put up much of a fight.
Blackwood carried him away and Ashmont followed, and a lot of boys as well, shouting as they ran after them. But the horses picked up speed, and after a time the boys gave up. When he decided it was safe, Blackwood slowed and said, “Well played, Jonesy. Now show us the way.”
Something tickled Ripley’s nose.
He opened his eyes.
Flowers bobbed against his face in time to the chaise’s jolting.
They were attached to a hat. A lady’s hat.
He came abruptly awake to discover Ashmont’s future duchess in his arms. In spite of the jouncing chaise, she, too, had fallen asleep: deeply, judging by the steady rise and fall of her bosom.
Hardly surprising, he told himself, given the brandy, the day’s events, and the likelihood she hadn’t slept much the previous night, although for reasons altogether different from his.
Hardly surprising, either, for his arm to work itself around her shoulders. He’d been asleep, or dozing at the very least. A warm female body had settled close to his. Bringing it closer was instinctive.
Other instincts came into play now, and he was getting ideas in his head and elsewhere that would be all well and good in other circumstances. At present they were deuced inconvenient.
Still, he hated to wake her.
He remained as he was and looked out of the window. To keep his thoughts from wandering where they could only annoy him, he dragged into the front of his mind her curious System.
Instead of arranging books in the usual way—alphabetically or by size—she organized by subject, under broad headings like History, Philosophy, and Fine Arts. Within these broad categories were more specific ones. The last thing he remembered was her describing the difficulty of deciding whether one ought to break up into categories sets of books from a single collection, like that of Diane de Poitiers, for instance.
As he considered the pros and cons, bits and parts of a dream intruded: a woman falling off library steps into his arms . . . he, running madly through London streets, chasing a bridal dress that flew above his head like a kite . . . books tumbling out of windows as he ran.
His mind veering from books to dreams, he registered little of the view from the window until the chaise slowed and stopped. He blinked and took in the scene.
Richmond Bridge stretched ahead. They’d reached the tollgate.
His travel companion stirred, and tipped her head back to look at him. Her eyes widened and she jerked away.
“Too late to be shy now,” he said. “We’ve slept together.”
Olympia was sure she’d drooled on his neckcloth and developed sleep creases in her now-red face from pressing it into his lapel.
She had fallen asleep on one of Their Dis-Graces, and not the one she was supposed to marry. Furthermore, she had been far too comfortable tucked against his hard chest, with his muscled arm about her.
It was a very good thing no man had tried to lead her astray all these years, because it seemed as though she was all too likely to go.
She said, “I should not boast of it, if I were you. You’re hardly my first. Clarence would scream and scream during thunderstorms until he was allowed to crawl into bed with me.”
“Now I’ll know what to do the next time a thunderstorm strikes,” he said. “Your hat’s crooked.”
She turned to the window, but the scratched glass offered more of Richmond and less of her own reflection at present.
“I can’t see,” she said. She turned back to him. “Please straighten it. My aunt will be curious how I came to be dressed this way as it is. I’d prefer not to appear disheveled.”
“You’ll arrive with a dirty wedding dress and veil wrapped up in linen and a new large dog. I doubt she’ll fuss over a trifle like a crooked hat.”
“Aunt Delia is extremely fashionable,” she said. “She’ll fuss a great deal more about the crooked hat than anything else.”
He tugged the hat to one side. He stared at her face for a time, frowning, while she resisted the urge to look away, or shake him. Then he tried the other way. After repeating the procedure five times, he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“I don’t think it matters,” he said. “In any case, you can’t possibly look a fraction as disheveled and mad as you did in your wedding dress.”
The chaise passed through the tollgate. From this point on she’d have to pay attention. The postilion would need specific instructions to her aunt’s villa.
She relayed the directions through Ripley. They were simple enough, and the distance wasn’t great.
It was only after the chaise crossed the bridge that she remembered she hadn’t yet composed her explanation. She swore under her breath.
“Now what?” he said.
“That wasn’t meant to be heard,” she said.
“I have exceptionally keen hearing on occasion,” he said. “That is to say, when I’m paying attention. With you, a man must pay attention at all times. Had Ashmont paid sharper attention, for example, you wouldn’t have run away. Had I paid sharper attention, you wouldn’t have fallen out of the boat. But I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll keep you under close scrutiny until I’ve deposited you safely with your aunt.”
Ripley’s close scrutiny was a dangerous article. He’d said things and looked at her in ways other men didn’t, and the combination had started to make her think she wasn’t altogether the young woman she’d always believed she was. She knew rakes were dangerous but she hadn’t understood how subtle the danger could be. Her ideas about a great many subjects were threatening revolution. It was a good thing Aunt Delia was only a short distance away.
Yes, right. Focus on Aunt Delia. Not him.
“I don’t know what to tell her,” she said. “Nothing I compose sounds rational.” At present, her idea about being bought for breeding, which had appeared so compelling when she was drunk, now struck her as ludicrous. And in her drunken idiocy, she had prattled about the subject to Ripley, of all people!
“If I were you, I wouldn’t explain,” he said.
“No, you mean if I were you,” she said. “Men, especially of high rank, do as they please, and the rest of the world can like it or lump it.”
“You’re a woman of high rank,” he said. “You can do as you please.”
“Not unless I’m willing to sacrifice my reputation. Which I admit, I’ve already done.”
“That can be mended,” he said. “Do you know, I think it’s a good thing we’ve had a little time together because you are in dire want of schooling.”
“Indeed, what I desperately need is schooling in—in whatever it is you’re so expert in. How to be disreputable. Do you know, I believe even I can deduce how to do that.”
“I believe you’ve already embarked on that path,” he said. “Let us cast our minds over the last few hours, Lady Olympia, and—”
“I told you it was easy,” she said. “Even I can do it.” A little more time with him, and she’d be an expert.
“I wouldn’t dream of arguing,” he said. “Disreputability wants little effort and that little mainly pleasurable, which is one of its charms. But as to you—and if you would be so good as to let me say my little bit without interruption—”
“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.”
“Thank you. If I may be more specific: The schooling you need is how to manage the world about you.”
“Let me explain something to you,” she said. “One’s income can be managed, although this seems to be a feat beyond my parents’ abilities. A library can be managed. The world cannot. Only a duke—and one of Their Dis-Graces—would suppose otherwise.”
He dismissed this with a wave. “Picture the scene. You appear at the door, trailed by me and the dog, who, by the way, is clearly not a Sam. Do give a moment to relieving the animal of
that ridiculous name. Offer him something with dignity. Like . . . Cato. Cato will do.”
“Thank you for letting me choose the dog’s name.”
“You were too slow,” he said. “Now listen to me.”
“Have I a choice?”
“I have experience with situations that seem to require explanations,” he said. “Besides which, I have a sister.” His gaze shifted to the front window. “And we don’t have much time.”
He ordered the postilion to stop the chaise. “Wait,” he said, and climbed out.
She saw an alternative to waiting: running away. But that hadn’t worked so well before, though it had felt so very good, and absolutely right, at the time.
Running away looked good to her now, when she was quite sober—a clear sign she’d spent far too much time with this man.
She waited and watched through the chaise’s front window.
He went to the boot. Cato looked up eagerly at him. Ripley made a beckoning gesture and the dog sprang out. Ripley removed the large linen parcel, sent the dog back to his blanketed nest, climbed back into the carriage with the wedding corpse, and told the postilion to go on. The chaise rumbled into motion.
Ripley took off his gloves and began untying the parcel.
“I’m not wearing that,” she said.
“I beg you will give me some credit,” he said. “A very little will do. We need it for the scene.”
“I like my aunt,” she said. “I won’t let you make her the butt of one of your practical jokes.”
