A Duke in Shining Armor

She gazed at him accusingly. “She doesn’t like company, and you brought me here—”

“It isn’t quite like that,” he said.

“Then what is it like?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “My mother and sister seem to understand. Alice says she’s a ghost—”

“A what?”

“Figure of speech,” he said. “You’re not going to turn hysterical on me now, are you?”

“I might.” She sat in a nearby chair and folded her hands. “This day feels as though it’s gone on for weeks. I believe my nerves are wearing.” For a moment she’d envisioned a deathly ill or dying auntie, and having to leave this house and seek yet another refuge. In that moment, she’d wished she’d stood before the minister the way she’d promised to do.

Was it only this morning?

She wanted to put her head in her hands and weep, but she couldn’t. She had to see to Ripley’s injury first, before he did anything to make it worse. Males had an appalling tendency to worsen their injuries because of a mystical belief that, if they said nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong, and they could do what they wanted.

“Nothing to fret about,” he said. “Aunt Julia is a superior sort of relative.”

Before Olympia could ask any more questions, Tewkes returned, with two footmen, a sturdy maid named Mary, the brandy, and the various other items Olympia had requested.

“Tewkes,” Ripley said. “Where’s my aunt?”

“At the mausoleum, Your Grace. Joseph has gone to inform her of your arrival.”

“You heard him,” Ripley told Olympia. “At the mausoleum. I told you she was somewhere about.”

Well, then, Aunt Julia wasn’t better.

Still, this was Camberley Place, and even haunted, it remained the refuge Ripley remembered: household in order, servants going about their business calmly, and everything looking clean, neat, and well cared-for. The antithesis, in short, of the home in which he’d endured too much of his boyhood.

He watched Lady Olympia direct the servants to bring a small table to the sofa. There she had Mary set out strips of cloth and bowls, a bucket of ice, another of water, and a small pitcher of the vinegar she’d ordered.

She had them move her chair closer to his foot.

Then she sent all of the servants except Mary out of the room.

When the door had closed behind them, Ripley said, “You didn’t want a brace of footmen leaping to do your bidding?”

“Best not to let the men see you weep,” she said. “And do try to keep the screaming down. I don’t want them bursting in to the rescue and making things worse.”

A titter escaped Mary.

“Do not be alarmed,” he told the maid. “I shall sob quietly into my brandy.” He took a sip—and then nearly choked because Lady Olympia drew up his trouser leg, and her hand—her bare hand—touched his skin for an instant, and it was as though she’d applied an electrical machine. He didn’t leap from the sofa, but he must have twitched at least, because she looked up at him.

“Sorry,” she said. “Is it tender?”

“Erm. No. Just . . . nothing. Thought of something.”

“I shall do my best not to hurt you,” she said. “But I fear the area is going to be very sensitive.”

Several areas, actually.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve borne worse.”

He told himself to relax and enjoy it. By the looks of things, this was as close to womanly attention as he’d get this night, but as he saw her hand move to his garter, he said, “I can do that.”

“Really?” she said. “You know how to untie your own garters?”

“And pull up my own stockings,” he said.

And darn them, too, he could have added.

“Drink your brandy,” she said. “It’s better to leave this to me.”

“I’m not sure it’s proper,” he said. “Not that I remember what is and what isn’t.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said.

“Afraid!”

“I’ve done this any number of times. If it isn’t one of the brothers, it’s one of the cousins. Or their friends. You’re safer with me than with most doctors.”

“That I don’t doubt,” he said.

“Then be brave,” she said. “I’m going to untie the garter. Try not to cry.”

Gently, she untied the garter. His groin tightened.

She set the garter on the sofa. He stared at it and drank brandy.

She touched his stocking.

He swallowed a groan.

Slowly, gently, she peeled the stocking down his calf. The room grew hot and he tried to think of cold things. Like the mausoleum. And Ashmont. Yes, Ashmont, to whom she belonged. Ashmont, so cheerful, talking about getting married.

Slowly, gently, she drew the stocking down his foot.

Ripley’s heart beat faster, and it was no good trying to stop what was happening inside him. He was a man, and a woman had her naked hands on his naked skin. A woman was touching him, undressing him. This was what he knew. The rest—he, trying to reason with himself and not be a damned fool—the rest was noise, like the noise of the London streets.

He drank.

She slid the stocking off his foot and gave it to Mary, and he was aware of his breath, coming so hard, it seemed to whoosh like a wind through the library.

She, innocent that she was, hadn’t an inkling what she was doing to him.

He would have laughed if he could have mustered the breath for it.

She was so serious, concentrating fully on what she was doing.

He watched her work, her brow slightly furrowed above the spectacles, her lip caught between her teeth, as she made a mixture of ice water and vinegar. She soaked the cloth in it.

“It’s going to be cold,” she said. “Brace yourself.”

Cold, yes. He needed cold.

She wrapped the icy bandage about his ankle. And he nearly jumped off the sofa. And said a word even he knew one didn’t utter in front of women.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “But in a moment it’ll feel better.”

“Right,” he gritted out. Then it did feel better, in more ways than she knew. The cold shock worked wonderfully, numbing not only his foot but the frustrating sensations of a moment before.

With Mary helping, she continued her work, wetting more strips of cloth, and wrapping them about his foot. He told himself his suffering was his own fault. He should have insisted one of the menservants attend to him.

But Lady Olympia was so dictatorial that the reasonable thing to do hadn’t occurred to him.

And dictatorial, he told himself, was exactly what Ashmont needed.

And yes, maybe Ripley felt a qualm or two about a misspent life that had kept him away from such interesting girls. And yes, maybe he wouldn’t altogether mind being wrestled into order by a tyrannical female in spectacles.

But mainly what he felt was balked in every direction. Her ministrations had got him all excited, with no way of relieving the excitement. He hadn’t a prayer of dealing with his celibacy this night or of dealing with Ashmont. The chances of Ashmont running amok were very good. One could only hope he’d drunk himself unconscious before he could get into fights with members of her family.

Her voice dragged him out of the private hell he was constructing.