Then it was over, and he was drawing away.
“Well, then, what fellow wouldn’t want to come running back for more of that?” he said, with a crooked smile that made her heart ache. “Or, in my case, limping back. Go argue with your mother about your second wedding dress, and leave the rest of this to me. It’ll all come out right, I promise.”
As he made his way home, it occurred to the Duke of Ripley that it had been a very long time since anybody fussed and fretted about his wellbeing.
He remembered Olympia’s asking, on the way to Battersea Bridge, whether he had enough money for the watermen.
Well, she had brothers. A horde of them. Fussing came naturally to her. As did ordering males about. It would be a great thing if he spent the rest of his life being fussed over and disobeying orders.
It would be a great thing if his didn’t turn out to be a very short life.
Once home, he ordered a light dinner and wrote several notes, which he sent servants to deliver to his solicitors and others. He turned himself over to his valet, bathed, and shaved. He changed into undergarments, waistcoat, and trousers, and shrugged into a dressing gown.
He ate in his private apartment rather than the dining room, doing what justice he could to the brilliant meal Chardot had prepared for him on short notice. For the first time since his Spartan boyhood, Ripley had no appetite. However, he had to be practical and sensible. A man couldn’t think properly on an empty stomach. He needed to think and act carefully—a mode of behavior he wasn’t used to.
Still, no matter how much thinking he did or how carefully he acted, in a short while, he’d have to deal with a man who did neither.
Which meant that this might be one of the Duke of Ripley’s last meals, if not the last. Whether it was or it wasn’t, he’d do his best to appreciate it. That was the practical and sensible thing to do, if he wanted to avoid antagonizing the best chef in London.
He pictured Olympia sitting at his right hand at the dining table, and one of Chardot’s feasts spread out before them. He smiled and he ate, though he tasted nothing.
He returned to his dressing room, completed his toilette for the evening, chose his sturdiest walking stick, and went out.
Too late.
Thanks to Lady Charles’s harassing questions and his own disinclination to lay violent hands upon a woman, no matter how severe the provocation, it took Lord Frederick far too long to leave Camberley Place. When he did finally ride out through the gate, he might have had half a wish to ride back again and continue the dispute. This unusual—for him—indecisiveness could have contributed to his slow progress thereafter.
There was the rain, too.
It beat on him from time to time as he rode back to the inn where he’d paused this morning to make himself presentable, and it beat upon his carriage as it traveled back to London.
Nonetheless, he did return, and it was all for naught. By the time he reached Gonerby House, Ripley had been and gone. All Lord Frederick could do was say he’d stopped to make sure Lady Olympia had arrived safely. Then he was treated to the happy news and obliged to pretend he had no objections and required no apologies. It wasn’t, he’d told them with a smile, as though Ripley had stolen a lady from him.
He saw no way to mend matters now. Calling on Ashmont would be a waste of time. True, terrible things might happen. In Ashmont’s case, that was practically a foregone conclusion. Yet terrible things happened all the time. Men, even including Lord Frederick himself, made mistakes that changed their lives forever. Lady Charles had said it wasn’t up to him. Not that he agreed with her. But for the moment, vexed as he was, he felt disinclined to keep helping a young man who was determined to ruin his life. It was possible, in fact, that Lord Frederick ought to have kept out of it in the first place. Had he not interfered, his nephew might have forgotten the lady’s existence by the next day.
But she was perfect for him, Lord Frederick thought. She might have saved him.
Maybe Ashmont had gone too far to be saved.
And maybe Lord Frederick might as well have stayed at Camberley Place and let Lady Charles aggravate him. She at least wasn’t a drunken oaf of a nephew. Beyond question she was pleasanter to look at.
Not long before midnight, Ripley ran Ashmont to ground at Crockford’s.
It seemed like an age since Ripley had walked out of the gambling club in the small hours of morning. It seemed like an age since Ashmont had appointed him guardian of the wedding.
Not even three days.
He found Ashmont in the hazard room with Blackwood.
One glance told Ripley that, early as it was, Ashmont was three sheets in the wind.
So much for hoping to find him in a relatively rational state.
“Ripley, you dog! There you are at last!” Ashmont pushed away from the table and rose. “About bloody damned time. I’ve been bored witless.”
“Your Grace, your winnings,” the croupier said.
“Spread ’em round, spread ’em round,” Ashmont said. “Let the other fellows have a chance.”
Ashmont cheerfully followed Ripley into the corridor, Blackwood bringing up the rear.
When they were clear of the room, and not within eavesdropping range, Ripley said, “I’ve come to take you home.”
“Ha ha. Do I look as bad as that? But I’m well. Looks worse than it is. Only waiting, you know. Got Olympia back safe and sound? Or still with your aunt? Uncle Fred made a devil of a fuss. Said I wasn’t fit to see her.”
His skin was grey and drawn. His eyes were bloodshot, ringed with deep shadows.
“Not looking your best,” Ripley said. “A trifle fatigued, perhaps? Let’s go back to your house, where we can talk without shouting to be heard above everybody else.”
Behind Ashmont’s back, Blackwood lifted an eyebrow.
“My house?” Ashmont laughed. “Too early to put me to bed. Still on my legs, can’t you see? But what’s the news? Did she answer my letter? Did she send the answer with you?”
“She did,” Ripley said. “I thought, though, you’d rather read it in a less public place.”
Ashmont glanced about him, belatedly taking in the groups of men passing by, pretending not to be watching and trying to listen to Their Dis-Graces. When it came to gossip, men easily matched women.
“Oh, them,” he said, and his mood darkened abruptly, as often happened. “Damned right. Not here.”
He walked on unsteadily, Ripley on one side and Blackwood following. Ashmont went on talking as they made their way through the club. “Everybody laughing behind my back. Nobody dares say a word to my face. Think I’m deaf, dumb, and blind. As though I’d never hear about what they write in White’s betting book. Odds against me and in favor of guess who? No, don’t try. You’ll never guess. Mends. Do you believe it? Sixty if he’s a day. And everybody knows those aren’t his own teeth. The ones in his drooling mouth came off the fields of Waterloo, off some poor sod got himself killed defending King and country. That’s not a fraction of the entertainment. Foxe’s Morning Spectacle pillory me over half the paper, every day, and in the extra editions.”
“Must say, they’ve outdone themselves,” Blackwood said.
“No girl in her right mind would have me, they say,” Ashmont went on. “Satirical prints, with me as a drooling ogre, and Olympia running for her life. Not that they’ve the bollocks to print my initials, let alone my name. No ‘D of blank’ for them. It’s ‘an infamous peer,’ and ‘a notorious nobleman’ and a ‘titled libertine.’ As though I’d waste my time suing the smug blackguards. And last night—”
He broke off as a group of men passed nearby.
“Ripley, you had your own annoyances, I understand,” Blackwood said, before Ashmont could continue with his grievances. “A fuss of some kind at the White Lion.”
“Over a dog,” Ripley said. He outlined the excitement in Putney while they collected their hats and made their way out of the hubbub of Crockford’s and into the hubbub of St. Ja
mes’s Street.
Mist shrouded the street.
At the bottom of the stairs Ashmont stopped. “She went after the brute,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, he wouldn’t say, would he?” Ripley said. “She demanded the whip. And he gave it to her.”
His friends laughed.
“Knew she was well above the common run of females,” Ashmont said. “Obvious, once I spent five minutes with her. But I taught him a lesson.”
“The one I administered was insufficient?” Ripley said.
“The brute accosted us, ranting about the dog,” Blackwood said. “Now I see why he was so incensed. A girl got the better of him.”
“Made remarks about Olympia,” Ashmont said. “Couldn’t let ’em pass.”
“Thus the stinker,” Ripley said.
Ashmont touched his bruised eye. “No, that was later. Fell down some stairs. But I’m not the only one damaged in the cause of Olympia, I hear. Ankle, she wrote.” Unsteadily, he bent over to stare at Ripley’s ankle. The wrong one. Then he swayed upright again and eyed the walking stick.
“A sprain,” Ripley said. “No great matter, but the women made a fuss, and when I tried to get away . . . Ah, but it’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we find some quiet.”
London’s streets were noisy most of the time, and the St. James’s neighborhood, shortly before midnight, was no exception. Men on horseback, carriages rattling on their way to this rout or that ball, pedestrians talking loudly, to be heard above the clatter of hooves and wheels on the paving stones.
He was aware of passengers staring at them through the windows of passing vehicles. He was aware of men gathering at Crockford’s windows as well, anticipating some kind of excitement, as usually happened when Their Dis-Graces were in the vicinity. Before long, word would magically reach White’s, across the street, as it so often did, and the famous bow window would frame another sea of faces.
Raindrops began to fall, spitting here and there, casually, as though it were an afterthought.
Looking away from the windows, Ripley found Ashmont staring at him, eyes narrowed.
“What are you looking at?” Ashmont said.
“Bloody audience,” Ripley said.
Ashmont looked about. “Jeering and mocking behind my back. Think I don’t know.”
The rain came down harder.
“Let’s get a hackney,” Ripley said.
“Good idea,” Blackwood said. “The damn rain’s back.”
“To hell with them,” Ashmont said. “To hell with the rain. Let me have the letter.”
Yes, of course. Had to be now. “Now?” Ripley said. “You’re going to read Lady Olympia’s letter in the dark? In the rain? With all these idiots looking on and speculating what’s in it?”
“Can we at least get out of the wet?” Blackwood said. “And go somewhere we can get a drink? You’re not going to be reading love letters in the middle of the street, are you?”
Oh, but Ashmont would.
Ripley must have been mad to promise Olympia he’d deliver the letter, when there wasn’t the slightest assurance one could get Ashmont to read it in a rational state of mind—or even in private, like a normal person. “Get a hackney if you’re afraid of melting in a drizzle,” Ashmont said. “I want the letter.”
Of course. It had to be like this. A public street, in the rain, with an audience. Because that was the way Ashmont was. Unpredictable. Volcanic. Always so bloody damned exciting.
“Rain’s one thing,” Ripley said. “But I want to get out of the street, out of the uproar, and to a place where I’m not the night’s entertainment.”
“Give me the bloody letter!”
“Can we get out of the blasted rain?” Blackwood said.
“You get out of the rain,” Ashmont said. “Get a hackney. Give me the bloody, goddamned letter!”
“Christ. Give it to him, Ripley.”
Ripley withdrew Olympia’s letter from his coat and held it out to his friend. Ashmont took it and walked to the nearest lamppost. He unfolded the letter and read, squinting. Rain fell on the paper, blurring the lines of ink.
There weren’t many, not by Olympia’s standards, at any rate.
After what felt like an eternity, Ashmont looked up at Ripley. “Is this a joke?”
“I don’t know what’s in it,” Ripley said.
“You know,” Ashmont said, his voice low and hard. “You bloody well know.”
“I know it’s no joke. Very much not. She was upset when she wrote it.”
“Upset? Upset? That’s what you call it? And you had the bollocks to look me in the face and smile and tell stories, knowing—”
“I didn’t plan to deal with this in bloody St. James’s Street! I came to take you home and—”
“What the devil?” Blackwood said. He grabbed the note from Ashmont and read it. “For God’s sake. Ripley.”
“You bastard,” Ashmont said. “You swine. You traitorous, lying sack of shit! I trusted you.”
He launched himself at Ripley, knocking him back against the stone fence in front of Crockford’s.
Ripley bounded back and went for him.
Men started pouring out of the clubs.
Ashmont swung and Ripley dodged. Swearing, Ashmont tried to grab him by the throat. Ripley blocked him.
Before Ripley could throw him into the street, Blackwood pulled Ashmont away. “Not here, damn you both.”
Yes, here. Now. All Ripley knew was rage. It was all he could do not to tear Ashmont from Blackwood’s grip and pound him senseless.
“Here will do,” Ashmont snarled. “Here in the street, where everyone can see what a swinish, cheating, craven snake he is, my so-called friend.”
“Swinish! Who was the one too bloody drunk to go after his own—”
“Not here, blast you,” Blackwood said, keeping his voice low. “Do you want her name dragged through the mud, along with yours?”
That got through. Barely. Ripley made himself unclench his hands. Ashmont shook his head. “No, not here. You know where, then. And when. Dawn. Pistols for two and breakfast for one, Ripley. I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow. Putney Heath.”
“No, you won’t,” Blackwood said. “Pull yourself together. Ripley’s no saint. None of us are saints. You would have done the same.”
“To my friend?” Ashmont said.
Friend. No, that was over, dead. Deeds done that couldn’t be undone. Words uttered that couldn’t be unsaid: Cheating. Craven. Words and acts churning in a mad, consuming rage, blinding, mind-crushing. Yet she was there, too. Somewhere in the murderous turmoil was Olympia . . . the expression she’d worn before Ripley left her today. And somewhere in the roiling fury, he remembered he was at fault.
He’d debauched the woman Ashmont wanted to marry.
Only one thing, Ripley understood, would make it right between them. Only one, irrevocable thing. Olympia wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t. She was a woman.
Sorry, my dear girl.
To Blackwood, Ashmont said, “You’ll act for me.”
“I damned well won’t,” Blackwood said. “He’s my brother-in-law, remember? Alice would get wind of it. You know she would. And she’d kill me. As it is—but no. Find another way to settle this. I won’t stand by and watch you two shoot each other.”
“Then go to hell,” Ashmont said. “I’ll send someone to you, Ripley.”
“I supposed you would,” Ripley said. “But I won’t fight you tomorrow. I’m getting married.”
Ashmont’s head went back as though Ripley had hit him, as Ripley still wanted to do, in spite of everything, because his friend was a bloody damned fool and a wreck, and he needed to be knocked on his arse.
Ashmont started for him, but Blackwood pulled him back. “Leave it,” he said. “Use your head. They have to marry now. Quiet the scandal. Everybody saw them together, and you were too late. It’s over, my boy. Let it go.”
“No,” Ashmont said. “It
isn’t over.”
There was no way it could be over. What had happened was all too public. Ashmont’s pride couldn’t bear it. He wanted to kill Ripley, and he had good reason. Ripley had stolen the girl, cheated his friend, and made the friend a laughingstock.
Only one way to wipe the slate clean. Only one way Ashmont could hold his head up again.
Pistols at dawn.
“I know,” Ripley said. “But not until after tomorrow.” Leaning on his stick, he limped away, up to Piccadilly.
Behind him he heard Ashmont shout, “What are you lot looking at? Go to the devil!”
Chapter 16
The following day
The rain-streaked letter lay open on the Duke of Ashmont’s dressing table.
He had his hand wrapped about the stem of a wineglass. His fair hair, through which he’d dragged his fingers repeatedly, stood on end.
He read, for the tenth or twentieth time:
Dear Duke,
This is the letter I should have written the last time, had I not been too great a coward. The best way I can think of to put it right now is to put it plain: I cannot marry you.
I am so very sorry for treating you so unkindly and unfairly. It was wrong of me to promise I would marry you in the first place, when my heart wasn’t as fully yours as it ought to be. It was wrong again not to break off cleanly after I ran away. It is not your fault that I did not know my own heart. I never meant to give it to Ripley, and I know the last thing he wanted was to steal it from me, but it’s his now.
You deserve a responsible and dutiful lady who could live up to the honor you wish to bestow. Regrettably, my character is headstrong, ill-behaved, and selfish. I beg you not to blame Ripley for what has happened. He tried to keep your friendship first in his mind and heart. He tried to do what was right, but he came up against my unruly nature. He was the one I wanted to be with, and when he tried to get away, I prevented him.
A Duke in Shining Armor Page 26