“Why do I get the appalling feeling that you found her in bed?”
“It wasna that bad, though it might as well have been. She was in her underthings, petticoats and the like. I barely noticed—” Raphael’s snort caused a pause, then the insistence, “I swear tae you, I was tae angry to really see her, and even when I did take notice, how revealing is a womon’s underthings, eh? No‘ much bluidy different than some evening gowns I’ve seen. ’Tis nae more’n the fact they be ‘underthings’ that make them inappropriate for the male eye tae behold.”
“Yes, yes, semantics,” Raphael said impatiently. “Get to the meat of your story.”
“I’m nae telling you a story, mon, merely what happened tae cause me tae compromise the lass, e’en though I didna get anywhere near her.”
“Oh, Gawd, is that what happened? You let her bamboozle you into marrying her simply because you mischanced to see her in her underwear? Have you no sense a’tall to realize that no bloody harm was done by it, because she’d never mention it to anyone? I cannot believe she managed to hook you by one of the oldest tricks—”
“You might try shutting up long enough tae hear that’s no‘ what happened,” Duncan cut in. “She was as horrified and angry as I was over the outcome. I wish I could put the blame on her, but I canna.”
“Don’t believe it for a minute,” Raphael scoffed. “Of course she would pretend outrage. Gloating wouldn’t have gone over well, would have in fact told you plainly that you’d fallen into her trap.”
Duncan frowned, trying to remember more of what had occurred in those few minutes he had spent with Ophelia in her room. Mostly, all he could remember was how angry he’d been, which was nothing compared to how angry he’d been when he stormed out of there and went off to get drunk.
He had banged on the door loud enough that she was annoyed when she finally yanked it open and snapped, “What!?” before she even saw who was standing there. She’d then showed surprise that it was he, then immediately after that, worry that someone might see him there. She had in fact told him to go away and had even closed the door on him.
Fool that he was, instead of realizing that that simply was not a good time to confront her, he’d defied that closed door and entered her room, shutting the door behind him. She had come to the door with a robe held in front of her, had tossed it aside afterward, thinking she was alone again. Still, it didn’t occur to him how inappropriate it was for him to be in her room when she was only half dressed. His anger had brought him there, and his anger was clouding his mind to what should have been clear danger signals.
What he did recognize was the very second she mistook his reason for being there. If he wasn’t noticing that she was barely dressed, and he didn’t really notice that yet, she apparently wasn’t noticing his anger.
She gave him a coy look and said in a chiding tone, “This could have waited until tomorrow, but I understand impatience well enough. Do be quick about it, though, before one of the other girls I share this room with decides to make an early night of it, too, as I have. I’ll even make it easy for you. My answer is yes.”
“ ‘Yes’ is no’ the answer I’m here for,” Duncan growled at her.
She frowned, then jumped to a different conclusion. “It’s not? Don’t tell me you’re here for yet another apology first? Honestly, I don’t know how else to say I’m sorry for our unfortunate first meeting. There, I’ve even said it again. Now can we get on with making amends and—”
“Nae, all I’m wanting tae hear from you, lass, is what you did or said tae upset Sabrina so much that she was in tears from it.”
“Sabrina?” she gasped, then became furious herself. “You’re here to question me about Sabrina? Just get out! I have nothing to say about that horrid girl.”
“You’ll be telling me—”
“What? How she insulted me? How she upset me so much that I came up here to lament it in private before anyone noticed my tears? She’s upset? If she’s upset, it’s because she’s sorry she was so nasty to me. There’s your answer. Now—”
That was when the door opened again. And the young lady standing there, shocked at first, then embarrassed, and finally with a chuckle, apologized for intruding and closed the door again on them.
The appalling outcome still didn’t penetrate Duncan immediately, not until he heard Ophelia shriek, “Now look what you’ve done! You couldn’t just leave when I told you to, no, now you’ve utterly compromised me so that we have to marry. Of all people to show up here, it had to be her. I don’t believe it! My worst enemy.”
“There’s nae way—”
“Don’t even think of not fixing this, Duncan MacTavish. You can try to convince Mavis to say nothing of what she just saw, but she’ll never agree. And even if she did agree, she’d be lying. She despises me. Didn’t you see the delighted gleam in her eye, that she now has the means to ruin me? Our engagement will have to be announced immediately.”
Much as he would like to think it was all a plot that he could somehow get out of, he had brought it all on himself by his own impatience. He could have waited until the morning to confront her. He could have got the hell out of there as soon as he realized she’d been preparing herself for bed. He could have gone after her enemy and at least made an effort to assure her silence, instead of believing Ophelia that nothing would silence the girl, because he didn’t doubt for a second that Ophelia did indeed have such enemies who would love to see her ruined. Instead he had gone off to try to wipe the whole appalling situation from his mind with drink, and had succeeded so well that he still only had a vague recollection of both of his grandfathers in his room telling him that he would be marrying Ophelia Reid after all.
As for what Raphael was trying to insinuate, he had to set him straight. “You dinna ken, mon, she had nae prior warning that I would be seeking her oout, so there is nae way she could’ve planned any trap. It wasna her doing, o‘ that I am positive. I brought the whole thing on m’self wi’ my temper and impatience, and so being, I canna let her face ruination o’er it, when I am ultimately tae blame. I couldna live wi‘ m’self if I did that.”
“Damn, you would have to have honor above and beyond, wouldn’t you?” Raphael said in a mildly disgusted tone, but finally he did take himself off.
Chapter Thirty-four
Sabrina stared out her bedroom window at the coach sitting in front of the manor. She wasn’t really surprised that she cried each time she saw it there. Not much, just a few more tears to add to all the others she had shed over the last days. And the coach still came every day and waited several hours before it returned to Summers Glade, even though the driver had been told not to bother.
The party hadn’t wound down apparently, was going to continue right up to the wedding, which had been scheduled for the middle of next week. Supposedly Neville felt that since he already had a house full of guests, why bother sending out invitations to a wedding when they could just have it while they already had the guests for it?
That was the prevailing thought in the neighborhood, of those gossiping about it. Sabrina didn’t hear any of this firsthand, but her aunts kept her apprised, since they were still receiving visitors even if she wasn’t. She in fact kept to her room, refusing to leave it. She wouldn’t come down to speak with Duncan when he showed up the day after The Announcement. She wouldn’t see him yesterday either, when he came again. And she certainly refused to receive Ophelia when she came to visit, and no doubt gloat, later in the afternoon.
But after three days of tears and misery, and agonizing over what could have happened to so thoroughly topple her brief happiness, Sabrina had reached a point of being numb. This was a blessing of sorts. Dead feelings didn’t hurt. She supposed eventually she would manage to put it all behind her and get back to being herself, to just acknowledge the heartache occasionally with a sigh. But right now, the numbness at least let her come out of hiding.
It was rotten timing, however, that her first foray downstairs should l
ead her to the drawing room where she expected to find at least one of her aunts. She found Ophelia there instead, alone, having just been let in by the maid, who’d gone off to let someone know she was there.
Incredibly, Sabrina felt nothing, not even dread that common courtesy demanded she at least acknowledge Ophelia. Her numbness was holding up splendidly.
“Feeling better?” Ophelia asked with feigned concern when she saw her standing there in the doorway.
“Better?”
“When I came to call yesterday, Lady Alice said you were under the weather and had taken to your bed. I would have visited you in your room, offered to even, but she was sure you were sleeping.”
“Oh, that,” Sabrina replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Nothing that a bit of rest didn’t fix up. And what brings you to our door? Isn’t the party still in progress at Summers Glade?”
“Yes indeed, though the amount of guests have thinned out considerably,” Ophelia said with a touch of annoyance. “I suppose a lot of the other ladies felt they would be wasting their time to stay any longer.”
Sabrina wasn’t surprised. Most of the young women who had been invited were on the marriage block this Season, and with the bachelor they had come there to win now taken, they would need to get on with the search, which would take them back to London and the round of parties there.
An uncomfortable silence followed. This stilted courtesy just didn’t go over well after such bilious feelings had been raised at their last meeting. Neither of them liked each other. That had been made abundantly clear.
Ophelia broke the silence with a long sigh. “I’d like to apologize,” she said with a slight blush and a lowering of her eyes. “I realize I was a bit spiteful the other night at the party, and that’s what caused you to, well, to lose your temper with me. I’d like to explain why—”
“Don’t bother,” Sabrina interrupted blandly. “It really doesn’t matter.”
“Perhaps not to you, but I have been regretting the harsh words that passed between us,” Ophelia insisted. “We are friends, after all.”
Sabrina might have snorted if she weren’t protected by her numbness. But in point of fact, they had never been friends of any sort.
Ophelia had introduced Sabrina to her own acquaintances, but what choice did she have when Sabrina had been a guest in her house? None. Ophelia had done so grudgingly, Sabrina realized now, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. And the only time she had called upon their supposed “friendship” was when she had wanted something from Sabrina and felt it owed to her.
But Ophelia, typically, ignored Sabrina’s lack of interest and got on with what she intended to say. “You see, I wasn’t as confident as I pretended to be that night. I don’t know why—actually, it was probably that Duncan’s campaign to try to make me jealous was working. But whatever the reason, I was starting to have doubts, and that made me a bit cross, which unfortunately I took out on you. I’m not used to doubting myself, after all, and then to find how silly it was of me to do so. I should have known better. Why, just after that was when he gave up the pretense himself and we got engaged again.”
That particular remark caused a definite crack in Sabrina’s numbness, fust after? Before he happened upon Sabrina on the road?
“When was this?” she asked.
“What does it matter—?”
“When!?”
Ophelia blinked at the sharpness of Sabrina’s tone, but after a moment of thought, replied, “Why, right after you left. I was upset and retired. Duncan must have seen me go upstairs, because he followed and insisted—insisted, mind you— that we get engaged again. So forceful, those Scots. I suppose he simply couldn’t stand the pretense anymore, but more likely he ran out of patience. The sooner we get engaged again, the sooner we can marry, was probably what he had finally come to realize. And he’s so passionate,” she added with a slight blush. “I have the feeling he would have bedded me right then and there if we weren’t interrupted.”
Sabrina had to sit down after hearing that. The shock she was experiencing was as bad as the morning when she’d found out about The Announcement—actually, it was worse. If Ophelia could be believed, then Duncan’s passions had been aroused by her, and unable to satisfy them due to an interruption, he’d then found Sabrina alone, before his passion had abated, and took advantage of the convenience that gave him. It had had nothing to do with her personally. As dark as it was in that coach that night, he could easily have pretended to himself that she was the one he really wanted.
Unfortunately, all things considered, Sabrina did believe Ophelia. If she were a little prettier, or Ophelia a little less so, then she might have had doubts. But she couldn’t deceive herself on this particular point. Ophelia would win hands down as a matter of choice for any man.
The question was, could she blame Duncan for taking what she so freely gave, when he was already engaged to another? Wouldn’t any man do as he had done? No, she couldn’t blame him. Besides, she still loved him. She wished she didn’t, but that was something that just wouldn’t go away. Not that whether she blamed him was going to make a difference to anything. He was still going to marry Ophelia. Her heart was still going to break a little bit more the day he did.
Ophelia was going on as if her words hadn’t caused any damage. “I’m so glad we got this straightened out and are friends again. Edith and Jane have deserted me, you know. They’ve promised to return for the wedding next week, but I really doubt they will find the time once they get back into the London whirl—I know I wouldn’t. But without them there, it’s so boring. You really must come again to Summers Glade, Sabrina, if just to keep me company.”
Fortunately, Sabrina was saved from having to explain why that was out of the question when Alice finally arrived, took one look at her pale, drawn expression, and ushered her off to bed again, as if that really was where she had spent the last three days.
“Relapse” and “Shouldn’t have come down yet” were muttered by Alice for Ophelia’s benefit, not that Sabrina needed an excuse to head back to her room. Ophelia could think whatever she liked, as far as she was concerned. But hopefully the London girl had said all she had wanted to say and wouldn’t come calling again.
Chapter Thirty-five
Ophelia was working herself into a snit on the short ride back to Summers Glade. She had accomplished what she’d wanted to, got that silly business of apologizing out of the way, so that things could be back to normal with Sabrina. She hoped she had managed to succeed in at least that, because she really was getting bored at Summers Glade, and Sabrina could alleviate that quite nicely.
There simply weren’t enough of the London crowd left at the mansion to keep her amused. Duncan even ignored her, still in a huff, she supposed, because they’d had to get engaged again. Too bad for him. She hadn’t instigated his entrapment, he’d done that all on his own, though she couldn’t deny it had worked out wonderfully in her favor.
She never would have thought he’d do anything so rash, though, as to enter her bedchamber. That was so inappropriate, even if she hadn’t been half dressed. But she really had thought he was there to patch things up between them, so she could forgive him for his impetuosity. Then to find he was only there because of Sabrina. That was really the last straw, particularly after the country girl had shown her true colors earlier, that she wasn’t miss “sweet and smiles” after all, but could be quite a nasty little shrew.
But his mention of Sabrina had reminded Ophelia of her earlier conversation with her. And she’d recalled, specifically, having spoken of a situation that would lead to her being compromised, a false one, but regardless, the current one hadn’t been fabricated at all.
Ironically, she never would have thought of it, if not for that earlier mention. But having it recalled, she had then been trying to think how she could keep Duncan there after he was done with his rant, at least until one of the other girls showed up, when Mavis of all people opened the door. It
had been too perfect. Ophelia really couldn’t have planned it better if she had planned it herself. And she’d had to do nothing to accomplish it, which was even more ironic. Duncan had brought the whole thing down on his own head.
And it had been a simple matter, after he stormed off, to locate Lord Neville and point out to him the bare facts. He was old school. He didn’t need convincing that Duncan had compromised her beyond repair; that was plain enough.
He had made an effort to find Mavis, though, but fortunately, with no luck, so he’d been forced to make the announcement of his grandson’s engagement that very night.
Edith and Jane had left the next afternoon, just as many of the other young ladies had, along with their escorts. Ophelia actually had the bedroom that she’d been sharing with eight others to herself now.
Mavis had left that very night, which was why Lord Neville had been unable to find her. She no doubt didn’t want to take the chance that she would be browbeaten by the marquis or Duncan into keeping her mouth shut about what she’d seen, when she had no intention of keeping her mouth shut. Why else leave immediately, without even packing her bags? She’d simply collected her cousin who had escorted her there, called for their carriage, and left. But then Ophelia would have done the same thing if she had such a juicy morsel of gossip to share, so she understood perfectly.
Announcing the engagement, before that gossip could be passed around, totally deflated it. Lovers’ trysts would be snickered at but forgiven for an engaged couple, whereas it was complete ruination for the woman if there was no engagement involved. So Mavis had nothing to gain now by spreading the tale. She had no doubt thought she’d get some revenge out of it, but had instead helped Ophelia get what she wanted. It was too funny.