“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.
Ripley turned his chair to face that way, expecting Olympia.
But it was only one of the footmen, hurrying to his mistress.
Her ladyship was wanted at the house, he said. Lord Frederick Beckingham had come.
His lordship had been quickly ushered into the drawing room and Lady Olympia summoned to join them.
The greetings had been cordial enough, though postures were tense.
While Ripley could understand Olympia’s stiffness in the presence of her betrothed’s uncle, and while Ripley himself wasn’t entirely at ease, thanks to a decrepit conscience that decided now was the time to grow lively, the odd manner of the other two baffled him.
“I apologize for arriving without notice,” Lord Frederick was saying, “and worse, coming to you in all my travel dust. But my nephew was in so great a state of agitation that I thought it best to waste no time. He is, in fact, so greatly agitated that I advised him to write instead of bursting upon you again, and to let me be his emissary.”
In short, Uncle Fred had advised Ashmont to stay out of it and let his lordship do the talking. This was by no means a bad plan. Uncle Fred was a skilled courtier who somehow contrived to make himself equally welcome in both the King’s company and that of the King’s archenemy, his sister-in-law the Duchess of Kent. The mother of the Princess Victoria, present heir to the throne, loathed His Majesty. The feeling was mutual.
“Agitated?” said Aunt Julia. “Is that what you call it? What I saw yesterday was that Lucius had been drinking beyond what is good for him, as has seemed to be the case for some time now. He’d been in a fight—another pernicious habit—which I’ve little doubt he started, because he always does. And it is a laugh, I admit, your speaking of the dust of travel, knowing you’ve scarcely a speck upon you . . .”
She paused to give Lord Frederick a quick survey, and his blue eyes lit—but with anger or amusement or another emotion, Ripley couldn’t tell.
“Naturally you had your valet with you,” his aunt continued. “And you made sure to pause for a freshening up before driving the last mile or two.” She took a seat, on the hardest chair in the room, and invited her guest to sit. Lord Frederick only moved to the fireplace, and stood with his back to it, as though this were the dead of winter and he needed his backside warmed.
Lady Olympia remained standing, too, near a window farthest from the others. Ripley wondered whether she’d try to escape by that method again.
“I wish I could say the same for your nephew,” Aunt Julia went on. “Regrettably, he arrived in a state beyond disgusting, and which must be an insult to any lady, and most especially his affianced bride.”
“Yes, well, that’s one of the reasons I advised him to stay in London,” Lord Frederick
said, his usual imperturbable self but for the odd light in his eye. “Lucius truly was agitated, though, greatly so. The word I left out, I believe, was disgusting.”
The footman Joseph entered, bearing the tray of refreshments Aunt Julia had ordered while returning to the house.
Nobody said anything until the footman had gone out.
Olympia sipped and set her glass down on the table nearby.
Lord Frederick took a surprisingly long swallow. But then, he’d been traveling for several hours, the day was warm, and he was bound to be thirsty.
Aunt Julia, too, took more than her usual sip.
The thing Ripley had been trying to remember niggled in his mind, but it hung out of reach.
“Very nice,” Lord Frederick said, nodding at his glass. “You always did keep a good cellar at Camberley Place as well as in London. But you have not been much in London of late.”
“I haven’t been to Town at all,” Aunt Julia said. “I’m thinking of changing my ways, however.”
A muscle in Uncle Fred’s jaw twitched. He set his glass on the nearest table and said. “As fine a beverage as it is, Lady Charles, I must remember my mission. The urgent business that brings me here demands I keep my wits about me. I am charged with giving Lady Olympia a letter from my nephew.”
From the interior of his far-from-travel-stained coat, Lord Frederick withdrew a surprisingly thick letter. Surprising in that, having come from Ashmont, it contained more than a single sheet of paper.
“With your permission, Lady Charles?” said Uncle Fred. “Or did you wish to read it first?”
“Certainly not. I am not Lady Olympia’s mother. In any event, she is of age, and the letter is from her betrothed.”
Lord Frederick nodded. He crossed to Lady Olympia. “I am to give this to you with the deepest apologies. Ashmont would have come himself had I not advised against it. He regrets making an exceedingly poor impression upon Lady Charles.” He bowed in Aunt Julia’s direction. “He did agree with me, eventually, that the best way to overcome the unfortunate impression was to resolve to respect a lady’s sensibilities and not show himself until he’s fit to be seen. In the meantime, he wishes to leave you in no doubt whatsoever about his feelings.”