A Duke in Shining Armor

He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Pretty and shapely.

Right. That was why she had to fight the men off with a stick. Never.

Seven years. One offer, from an elderly scholar.

Pretty and shapely.

But only look at who said so: the Duke of Ripley, a famous libertine and ne’er-do-well. And here she was, going hot and fluttery, when everybody knew rakes were completely undiscriminating.

“What he won’t want you for is your mind,” Ripley said. “He won’t realize you have one, and that’s probably for the best. He’ll think he’s the clever one, and you can wrap him about your finger.”

Lady Charles smiled. “Of that I haven’t the slightest doubt. Listen to my nephew, Lady Olympia. He knows whereof he speaks.”

Olympia gazed at His Grace, who half reclined on the sofa, like a pasha in the harem. Instead of a hookah, he held a glass of wine in his hand. He was swirling it, his dark head bent as he peered into it, as though he read her future there.

The thought came into her mind, and then it was too late, because she couldn’t un-think it:

Ashmont isn’t the one I want to wrap about my finger.

And that was when she realized, finally, how much trouble she was in.

The lady balked because you didn’t woo her thoroughly. All I did was try to persuade her to come back. When she wouldn’t, what else could I do but make sure she didn’t get into trouble?

That, or something like it, summed up what Ripley had intended to tell his friend. He had a good deal of advice to supply as well, on the care and handling of Lady Olympia Hightower, though it would be no small labor, getting Ashmont to sit still long enough to pay attention.

First, he’d want to punch Ripley in the face.

Then Ashmont would want to sweep the bride off her feet.

The two likelihoods still held.

The trouble was, Ripley wasn’t going to get to Ashmont ahead of time.

The trouble was, here was the intended bride, dressed fetchingly if not quite as dashingly as before. She wore a blue dress Ripley supposed had belonged to Georgiana or one of his other cousins, or perhaps even Alice. Not Aunt Julia’s, though. These days her wardrobe ran to dull greys and browns and boasted little in the way of ornament.

This evening, Lady Olympia was as prettily ornamented as one of his French cook’s fine pastries.

Though her neck and shoulders weren’t bare, they might as well be, because the embroidered lace chemisette, being nearly transparent, could not hide the smoothness of her fine shoulders and the soft swell of her breasts above the dress’s neckline. The maid had put her hair up in a fashionable style, with braided loops along the sides of her head and large twirls of hair on top, and ribbons twining through.

Ripley was a man. This meant that, even while he was trying to decide what could be done about Ashmont, he was thinking in greater detail about the process of undoing ribbons and letting the soft, thick, brown hair fall about her shoulders, and undoing the rest of her ensemble, bit by bit. He tried staring into his wine, as though an oracle lived there, but he was aware of her all the same.

He should never have had a taste, because a taste was never enough. He was a man always greedy for pleasure—of the table, of bed, of everything—and he was too much in the habit of getting what he wanted and too little in the habit of resisting temptation.

He reminded himself that this wasn’t the usual temptation. He wasn’t competing with Ashmont for an actress, ballet dancer, courtesan, or merry widow. Ripley wasn’t allowed to compete this time—and this wasn’t one of those tedious social rules he had no compunction about breaking. Ashmont was his friend and she was Ashmont’s betrothed. Heaps of legal documents had been signed. Half the world had been invited to the wedding.

And Ashmont wanted to marry her. He’d made that more than clear.

He’d simply failed to persuade the bride she wanted to marry him.

“Ripley?” His aunt’s voice jolted him back to the moment. “If you have no further marital advice for Lady Olympia, perhaps you’ll turn your mind to preventing mayhem if your partners in crime come roaring to the house in the small hours of morning.”

“You don’t allow mayhem,” he said.

“This is an exceptional circumstance,” she said. “You’ve never made off with one of your friends’ brides before.”

“To be strictly accurate, I made off with the duke,” Lady Olympia said.

“I went willingly,” he said.

“No, you didn’t,” she said.

“Not at first,” he said. “But you won me over by degrees.”

He watched her color rise. She’d blushed before, when he mentioned her figure, and then of course he’d had to emphasize her shapeliness, in order to watch the blush deepen.

Well, what was he to do? She was pretty and shapely and she tasted good, and when sainthood was mentioned, his name would not come up.

“Ashmont will have to understand that,” he said. “You ladies make much ado about nothing. It’s quite simple: If he and Blackwood turn up in the middle of the night, the servants are not to let them in but to come and get me. If my friends grow obstreperous in the meantime, set the dogs on them.” His aunt might have given up on house pets, but every estate had men and dogs guarding the property. “Either way, I’ll deal with them, as I’ve done a thousand times before. And, Auntie, if you don’t mind being roused from your bed, you might glare at them as you do so beautifully.”

“And I’m to do what?” Lady Olympia said. “Cower in my room?”

“Read a book,” he said.

The look she sent him over her spectacles! It made a man want to pick her up and—

And nothing.

This was very bad. He’d better deal with Ashmont very soon.

“And speaking of dogs,” he went on, “Ashmont knows th

e house. In the event he proves sneakier than one expects, you might want Cato with you this night.”

“Cato!” she said. “For all we know, he’ll welcome intruders and lick their faces. We’ve no indication he’s a guard dog.”

“He’s a hunter,” Ripley said. “You saved him from a shocking beating. He’ll protect you.”

Even from me.

Not that he’d do anything improper. Out of the question. She was Ashmont’s betrothed. She was an innocent. There existed a few rules even Ripley didn’t break. And so he would not make up excuses to check on her after she’d gone to bed.

Yes, he would very much like to see her in her nightdress. And out of her nightdress.

And what a bloody waste of fantasy!

No wonder he and his friends kept away from virgins and respectable matrons. Can’t do this. Can’t do that.

“I won’t have that dog in the house until I know I can trust him,” Lady Olympia said. “He should have come when called. We should not have had to chase him. If he’d behaved as he ought, you wouldn’t have stepped into a rabbit hole. He’ll remain in the stables or wherever they’ve put him until—” She broke off, frowning.

“Aye, there’s the rub,” Ripley said. “Until Ashmont comes and carries you off? Or your parents?”

“Nonsense,” said Aunt Julia. “Lady Olympia will remain here for as long as she likes. I’ve written to promise her parents I’ll look after her, and I shall. She’ll be perfectly safe, and nobody will carry off anybody. You, meanwhile, will manage your fool friends. Tomorrow we’ll see about the dog. Lady Olympia, you need more rest than you think you do. Let’s make an early night of it. If those two ridiculous men arrive this night, I’d rather be upstairs, where I can prepare myself for the encounter. With boiling oil, if necessary.”

Once more she took Ashmont’s bride away.

All for the best, Ripley told himself. He was doing too much thinking and he couldn’t keep his waste-of-time thoughts in order. There was nobody nearby to cure the celibacy that made them so difficult to subdue, and he was incapable of going out to find a cure.