A Duke in Shining Armor

Two days ago he hadn’t realized. All while he’d pursued her and tried to get her back to the wedding, Ripley had told himself that she was perfect for Ashmont.

Blind, blind, blind.

“It’s only this way with me,” he said.

Just as it’s only this way with you.

The realization was simply there, where it hadn’t been moments ago. He’d thought at first that what he’d felt for her was simple, if powerful, lust, the result of too long a time of celibacy. He’d realized, but not until yesterday, that it wasn’t simple at all. Now there wasn’t the smallest question in his mind. It had to be her. Nobody else, ever.

“I promise to make up for those lost years,” he went on. “Would much rather start now, making up for lost opportunities. The trouble is, I’ve already started when it’s not a good time.”

Could there be a worse time? Not much more than forty-eight hours after she was supposed to marry his best friend—to whom she was still, technically, engaged. Who was going to hate him. And try his best to kill him. And whom nobody would blame for doing so.

No time to fret about that now. One thing at a time.

Look after Olympia first. “I’m going to get up,” he said. “Some things to attend to. But you stay.”

She murmured an answer he took to be affirmative.

Gently he released her and sat up. He felt shaky. Had he eaten anything this morning? He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter.

He stood, and was surprised at the twinge, until he remembered the bad ankle. Still, it was only a twinge. He found a handkerchief and quickly cleaned himself. He saw no blood. Nothing obvious, at any rate, in the firelight on a gloomy day. He’d been too impatient—really, a schoolboy would have shown more consideration. Still, he hadn’t hurt her as much as he’d feared. She hadn’t screamed or wept. That was good. Mindlessly he pulled up his trousers and tucked in his shirt. He buttoned the trousers.

“Stay here for a minute,” he said. “I’ll be back straightaway.”

He grabbed a small pitcher from the collection of utensils on the mantel and went out.

It was still raining, though less fiercely than before. Not that it mattered. As it was, he had to cover only a short distance to the river, and trees sheltered most of the way. He filled the pitcher and limped back to the fishing house.

When he opened the door, she still lay where he’d left her. She was staring at the ceiling, but her gaze quickly shifted to him.

“No time to clean up properly,” he said. “But there are some linens—it looks as though Alice camped here recently—and the water’s clean.” While he talked, he set the pitcher down within easy reach. He collected a few cloths from the basket of linens and lay them over the top of the pitcher.

She sat up, blushing, and the blush spread all over her neck and down, over her breasts. Swallowing a groan, he reached over her to retrieve the spectacles from the window ledge. He gave them to her, then busied himself with putting out the fire while his mind reviewed the perfection of her skin and the way she was round in all the right places.

What a miracle it was that nobody had caught her ages ago.

I’m boring and pedantic, she’d told him.

That was completely wrong, but he was glad that everybody had believed it. And he supposed he was glad it had taken him so long to discover she wasn’t like the other respectable girls. Now at least he was old enough to appreciate how special she was.

But it would have helped if it hadn’t taken him quite so long.

He turned back to her. She was pulling the tapes of her chemise closed. She tied them and started to reassemble her corset.

“I’d better help,” he said.

She slid off the cot and stood. “It’s easier standing up,” she said. “Although I doubt it makes any difference to you. Even my maid can’t get my corset undone as quickly as you did.”

“Practice,” he said. “Though I’m better at getting them off than on.” Not that one needed to get corsets off so very often. Furtive couplings rarely involved much undressing, and he’d always rather liked furtive couplings. For the danger. “At any rate, I can do it more easily than you can.”

He had only loosened the corset string enough to get at her breasts, and so it was mainly a matter of tightening it again and tying it. He picked up her dress and helped her into it.

He looked at the long parade of buttons and remembered her unbuttoning them, and the look she’d given him when she’d finished, and he wanted to pull the dress off again and throw it down and toss her back onto the cot.

But no.

Death awaited.

Not certain death, but it was a definite and well-earned possibility.

“You do the top,” he said. “I’ll do the bottom.”

He knelt and started buttoning.

Her knees, very much to Olympia’s surprise, managed to hold her upright.

Her breathing had returned to something like normal.

As to the rest of her, she’d never be the same.

No wonder Mama had been so inarticulate.

She looked down at his dark head. She wanted to drag her fingers through his hair and kneel on the floor with him and kiss him and . . .

. . . make him do it again. And again.

You have to marry me now, he’d said.

Well, of course. She could hardly go back to . . .

“Ashmont,” she said.

“Wrong name,” Ripley said, looking up. “It’s the shock. Got you confused. I’m Ripley. The other Dis-Grace. The one you’re going to marry. And no bolting this time.”

“No, I mean that Ashmont—”

“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.”