“I have many interesting sides,” he said. “In fact, I’m a fascinating fellow.”
He was turning out to be more fascinating than was good for her.
“I suppose you must be, to have got away with so much for so long,” she said.
“A thriving dukedom helps,” he said. “And a good mind for finance if not for high intellectual realms.”
“I’ve often thought it would have been a good thing,” she said slowly, “if Papa had a mind for finance. Yet in fairness to him, he’s a doting husband and a kind and loving parent. There are worse things in life, much worse kinds of families.”
“So there are,” he said.
She caught a hint of something—a shift of mood, an emotion? Or maybe it was merely a pause before he went on, “But your library labors continue to intrigue me. You mentioned books being sold, yet you seem to have plenty to do.” He settled back in the seat and stretched out his long legs. “Why do I suspect that’s an exciting tale?”
“To me it is,” she said. “Rather too exciting at times.” So many narrow escapes from calamity. “To you, an altogether different matter.”
“I’m a fellow of unplumbed depths,” he said. “You must have realized that by now. I’ve astonished you more than once in our short acquaintance. I want to hear about the books.”
“To help you sleep?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter? We’ve hours to while away.”
Fifteen miles later
Indeed, Ashmont would have his hands full.
Lady Olympia Hightower was bookish, beyond question. But she was nothing like what bookish meant to Ripley. True, she seemed to have memorized most of the major book sales of the past twenty years, and she tended to forget her audience and slip into bibliophile jargon. But it wasn’t merely collecting to her. Her relationship to the books was passionate. And the passion drove her to . . .
“Wickedness,” he said. “You are a wicked, manipulative daughter.”
“Some people need to be saved from themselves,” she said. “Papa is truly good-hearted. He doesn’t mean to destroy his precious inheritance.”
Her paternal great-grandfather had bought the bulk of the collection. The present Earl of Gonerby, on the other hand, knew as much about a Grolier binding as the dog did. Before Lady Olympia was old enough to understand the collection’s value, several precious items went for the sorts of prices Uncle Charles had paid occasionally.
“It would have been more wicked to educate him,” she said. “He would have decimated the library in no time. He wouldn’t go there merely when he needed ready money quickly. It would be a wholesale slaughter.”
Unlike so many other debts, debts of honor—gambling debts, mainly—must be paid promptly. The library had been Gonerby’s way to get hard cash in a hurry.
“Thanks to his lack of interest as well as knowledge, I’ve been able to save many important works,” she said. “For instance, the Mazarin Bible printed by Gutenberg and Fust circa 1450—the first production with movable types!”
Her voice throbbed with excitement. The glow in her face was nearly blinding.
“Ashmont will buy it for you,” he said. And would receive in reward, beyond a doubt, a fine romp in bed or elsewhere.
Or Ripley could buy it as a wedding present and she would look at him with lustful blue-green-grey eyes and make Ashmont jealous of him, for once.
Do Luscious Lucius good, too.
“He will not get it for a farthing under two thousand pounds, if I have anything to say about it,” she said. “Lord Mends would give a vital organ for it.”
“Which organ, I wonder? If I’m thinking of the correct fellow—elderly, pear-shaped, and pedantic—wears wigs. That him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Not the freshest organs, I’d say,” he said.
She drew her spectacles down slightly. Over them, she directed a look at him that reminded him of a tutor he’d once had.
“You’re adorable when you look like that,” he said. “Be sure to use it on Ashmont. He’ll eat out of your hand.”
She adjusted the spectacles and looked away. “You are simply bursting with marital advice,” she said.
“I find this situation inspiring.”
She gave a little huff, also charming.
“The important thing is, my father knows nothing about rare books,” she said. “He simply snatches whichever impressive-looking one is handiest. Covered in gilt, for instance. We own quite a few of those. Costly books, but not rare. Too many copies printed, for instance. That sort of thing. When I can get them cheap, I buy them and put them on the shelves at his eye level.”
He pictured her furtively adding garish books to the shelves. The picture was delicious. He laughed.
“Yes, I’m a liar and I cheat my own father,” she said. “Only you would find that admirable.”
“Ashmont will like it, too,” he said. “I realize you agreed to marry him for mercenary reasons. With your family’s strong encouragement.” Add to that Lord Frederick manipulating behind the scenes, and what chance had she had? “All the same, he’s not a bad fellow at heart or difficult to manage, if you know his quirks.”
“What’s happened is nobody’s fault,” she said. “No one forced me to consent. Nobody locked me in a dungeon and fed me stale bread and water. They were merely . . . excessively enthusiastic. In short, I knew what I was doing.” She frowned down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap. “Or so I thought.”
“Thing is, you’re no more capable of marrying a tame fellow than my sister was. Speaking of Alice, I do believe we’ll arrive before sundown, after all. We’ve made surprisingly good time, in spite of—”
He broke off as the offside horse reared, as though it meant to fly up into the nearby trees. The chaise gave an almighty jolt, throwing Lady Olympia forward. Ripley grabbed her before her head hit the front of the vehicle, and pulled her back.
“Plague take the fellow, how could he let—dammit to hell! Now the dog’s off.”
Olympia had been looking at him, and it was only out of the corner of her eye that she’d discerned the off horse shy at something. That set off a small earthquake, propelling her from the seat—and in the same instant, practically, Ripley pulled her back and half onto his lap. Hastily she wriggled off and into her place.
She couldn’t tell what was going on, only that the postilion was struggling to bring the horses to order, and the chaise was slowing.
“What was it?” she said.
“I couldn’t see,” he said. “A bird. A squirrel. A rabbit. And the damn dog’s gone after it. Cato!”
She turned her gaze to the boot. Empty.
Looking to the left, she saw, through an opening in the low hedges, the dog dart across a field. Above the clumps of trees dotting the field here and there, mounds of grey clouds moved restlessly.
Even before the chaise had fully stopped, Ripley wrestled the door open. He stepped down from the vehicle and marched to the edge of the road. “Cato!” he called.
Caught up in the chase, the dog kept running.
Olympia alit from the chaise and trotted to Ripley’s side.
“He doesn’t know his name,” she said.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll call him Sam.” Ripley put his fingers to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle.
The dog went on running, growing smaller and smaller as he raced across the field toward the trees beyond. He soared over a fence.
“Single-minded,” Ripley said. “You wait here.” He started across the field.
She jumped down from the post chaise. “I have no intention of waiting,” she said. “He’s my dog and my responsibility.”
“Ten minutes,” he said, walking briskly. “I’m not chasing him for hours. I give him ten minutes to come to his senses. Then we get back into the carriage and go on our way.” He glanced back. “Postboy’s fooling with the leading rein, but the horses look to be all right and nothing seems to be broken. Ten minute
s. No more. Then Cato may go to the devil.”
She nodded. She hated to think of the dog running happily after its prey, then wandering through the night in an unfamiliar neighborhood, where vile men like Bullard could get hold of him. But if Cato had run away, that was that. They needed to reach Camberley Place before nightfall.
Ripley stomped on. “That is Satan’s own dog. Did you see him leap?”
“I nearly expected to see him sprout wings,” she said.
“There he is, and whatever else he is, he must be part greyhound.”
Olympia looked where he pointed. The dog’s chase had brought him somewhat nearer, but he was still in pursuit. Whatever the creature was, it was good at eluding predators. Cato was prodigious fast. In a straight run, he’d have caught his prey, but it ran erratically.
Ripley whistled again. The dog ignored him.
“He’s having too much fun,” she said.
“We’ll have to break his concentration,” Ripley said. He started into the field. “You go that way.” He gestured to his left. “Make a lot of noise and wave your hands. Try to get his attention. I’ll go the other way. With luck, we’ll get him between us, and he’ll want to play with us instead.”
He walked briskly while he talked, and Olympia hurried to keep up.
“Cato!” she called “Time for dinner!”
“He just ate dinner!” Ripley shouted back.
When they’d stopped a few miles back, to change horses and postboys, Ripley had fed the dog, saying he looked famished.
As though dogs didn’t always look famished.
“He’s a dog,” she said. “He won’t remember.”
“Dinner!” Ripley shouted. “Rabbits. Delicious rabbits!”
“Squirrels!” she called. “Foxes!”
“Badgers! Weasels! Beef, thick and bloody, the way you like it!”
They went on calling, and the lurcher went on running, in zigzags and in circles, sometimes coming nearer to them, and other times dashing farther away.
She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled. The dog paused and looked toward her.
She heard Ripley shout, and turned in time to see him fall forward to the ground.
The Swan at Battersea Bridge, with its constant comings and goings, turned out to be the wise choice for waiting for information. Since various delays had cost time, the two dukes estimated they were about two hours behind their prey. This was sufficient, it turned out, for word of the Duke of Ripley’s activities at the White Lion in Putney to travel, via watermen and others, back to them.
As they were about to set out, however, the boy Jonesy disappeared. Trying to track him down delayed their departure.
Street boys were useful, and clever ones like Jonesy could save a duke a lot of boring time questioning people when he could be in a tavern, drinking.
But Jonesy had vanished, and as usual, everybody “didn’t know nuffink,” and Blackwood and Ashmont set out on their own for the White Lion in Putney.
There they heard a great deal. Putney was abuzz with recent events, and the locals couldn’t wait to tell their versions of the story.
What people were less helpful about was Ripley’s destination.
“Plague take ’em, didn’t anybody watch which way they went?” Ashmont demanded while the innkeeper and his wife debated whether the post chaise was headed to London or to Twickenham or another place entirely.
“Well, he’s clever, you know, Your Grace, and it’d be like His Grace, wouldn’t it, to seem to be going one way when he means to go another,” said the landlord.
“He said Twickenham,” said his wife. “Only a short journey out of the way, if he was going back to London. Whyn’t he say Doncaster or Brighton if he meant to send them on a proper wild-goose chase?”
“I wonder if Twickenham is a clue,” Blackwood said. “Otherwise, I can’t think—”
“How the devil is one to think, famished and dying of thirst?” Ashmont said. “We should have eaten before, in Chelsea, instead of looking for that wretched boy.”
“Some local authority harassed him, no doubt, and he took off,” Blackwood said. “Or he found another pigeon to pluck. How much did we give him, altogether, I wonder? Maybe he’s gone to buy himself a thoroughbred to race at Goodwood.”
“To hell with the little ingrate,” Ashmont said. Turning to the innkeeper, he said, “Give us the Sun or the Star or one of them to sit in without yokels bothering us, and something to eat and drink. As quickly as you can—in case anybody has anything intelligent to say before next Wednesday about that scurvy, bride-stealing, thinks-he’s-so-clever, so-called friend.”
They adjourned to the private parlor called the Sun, where they assuaged their hunger and thirst if not Ashmont’s frustration.
“Do you think he’s gone back to London?” Ashmont said, after his tankard had been refilled for the third time.
“Yes,” Blackwood said. “At any rate, it’s what I’d do. Take her out of Town for a while, give everybody time to get into an uproar, then circle back and sneak her home.”
“It’s what I’d do, too.” Ashmont frowned. “I don’t understand why she went.”
“I don’t know,” Blackwood said. “She doesn’t seem the sort—that is, it’s the kind of thing I’d expect from Alice, actually. And I did, too. Right up until the minister said we were man and wife, I was ready to find out it was all a joke, or hear her raise an objection—you know, when the minister asks if anybody knows any reason you shouldn’t be shackled? There I was, waiting for her to say, ‘I have a good reason. He’s an idiot. Will that do?’ In that way she does. And then—but she didn’t.” He shrugged.
After a moment, Ashmont said, “I think Olympia bolted.”
“Well, why not?” Blackwood said.
“I don’t know,” Ashmont said. “But it’s deuced aggravating.”
“We are not matrimonial prizes,” Blackwood said.
“That’s what Uncle Fred said. He was right, too, curse him. I had to use the library on her. And even then I had to do a devil of a lot of talking.”
“Well, then.”
Ashmont slammed his tankard on the table, sloshing ale. “But Ripley didn’t. He didn’t do all the work. And now . . .” He considered. “No, wait. I told him to look after things. If she did bolt, and this wasn’t his joke, he’s looking after her. He’d better be looking after her. Because she’s the one. I found her.”
“It isn’t as though she wasn’t in plain sight, year after year.”
“But we didn’t see. Least I didn’t. But then I did. And I wooed. So I get her. Not Ripley. If she bolted . . .” His jaw set. “Then I’ll simply have to mend whatever it is needs mending and—and bring her round.”
“You’ll do it,” Blackwood said.
“Need to find her first. What do you think? London?”
“I do think it’s London,” Blackwood said. “Very likely Gonerby House.”
“Not the wedding house, then?” Ashmont said. “But no, probably not. Damned shame they had to have it in Kensington. Would have been harder for her to bolt from Gonerby House. Maybe I should have waited for the renovations to be done.”
“You would have waited a year, maybe two. Because I promise you, they won’t be done in less than a twelvemonth.”
Ashmont shook his head. “No, why wait? Found her. Wooed her. She said yes. No point in—now what?”
The innkeeper’s wife had entered the parlor. “It’s Twickenham, Your Grace. The postboy’s back and he says they changed at Twickenham. And they were going on to Guildford.”
Ashmont looked at Blackwood. “What the devil?”
“Guildford,” Blackwood repeated blankly. Then, “He’s taking her to Camberley Place. To Alice.” He laughed. “This should be interesting.”
Ashmont bolted up from his chair. “Curse him. Now I’ve got to chase the numskull to Guildford.”
“Yes, and pry Lady Olympia away from my duchess and her aunt. That’ll be fun, that will
.”
But Ashmont was already storming out, demanding his horse.
Moments later, as he was about to swing up into the saddle, a red-faced man ran out into the inn yard, yelling about a stolen dog.
Ashmont didn’t care about the dog or anything the fellow had to say about the Duke of Ripley. He wasn’t in the best mood, and he wanted to be off. But the man made an unpleasant observation about the lady who’d been with Ripley.
There was another delay while Ashmont tried to kill him.
Chapter 8
Ripley saw stars, then, as he opened his eyes, mud under his face.
He struggled to rise, and pain shot up his right leg.
He swore.
A cry made him lift his head, and he watched Lady Olympia run across the field to him, skirts flying, black lace fluttering.
With more effort than it should have taken, and sharp protests from his right side, he rolled over and pushed himself up into a sitting position.
His right foot throbbed, and that side of his body ached and stung in sympathy. Not pleasant. Not convenient. But not likely to kill him, either.
It’s nothing, he told himself. Get up.
She crouched by his side. “Don’t move,” she said.
“I damned well will,” he said. “In a moment. As soon as the stars stop whirling about my head. Stepped into a rabbit hole, is all. Probably belonging to the one leading Cato a merry chase.” He put his weight on one arm and tried to get up. His leg wobbled and pain arced upward.
She set a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”
Hearing the Voice of Command, he stilled, instinctively. Then he laughed at himself. So ridiculous. He’d heard her sharp whistle—pitched precisely to summon boys and dogs—and like any boy or dog, he’d stopped short and turned to her.
And tripped. And fallen on his face. In a muddy field.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Fell down wrong.”
“Do not move,” she said. “Let me look.”
“Nothing’s broken,” he said, more for his own benefit than hers. He would not allow any fractures. He hadn’t time. “But my hat’s over there, in the cow dung and—” He tried to rise, and won himself a pain parade up his leg. He sucked in air and let it out. “Damn.”
A Duke in Shining Armor Page 13
