“Right,” she said. “Will you try to use some part of your grossly underworked brain and employ a dash of common sense? You’ve injured your foot.”
“It got a jolt, I daresay, when I fell on my face,” he said. He couldn’t have done more than wrench the ankle. It oughtn’t to be making such a fuss.
“I daresay,” she said. “Now, keep still, hold your tongue, and let me look. No, never mind. I know it’s too much to tell you to hold your tongue. But you must keep still. The idea is to not make it worse.”
He could hear the you dolt she was thinking.
She was right. Had their situations been reversed, he’d have roared at her to keep still. The trouble was, he could hear a faint inner voice telling him he’d done real damage, and that voice was trying to throw him into a panic.
He told himself not to be a baby. He wasn’t dead. No signs of blood anywhere. He was simply incapacitated. Somewhat. For the moment.
And not in the least worried.
“Look at my gloves,” he said, holding out his hands. “Just look at them.”
“You hate them anyway,” she said.
“It’s the principle, dammit.” He supposed his face was dirtier than the gloves, but it had never been very pretty, and so, no great loss there. “And it’s deuced undignified, falling on my face in a farmer’s field.”
“Yes, more dignified to fall on your face at a party because you’re inebriated,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said. “Drunk, you don’t know you’re undignified. Equally important, you feel no pain.”
“Men,” she said. She moved to his feet. “The right one?”
“Yes, nursey.”
“On second thought, maybe I’ll shoot you and put you out of your misery.”
“Sadly, we have no weapons,” he said. “I should have thought of that in Putney. Traveling without firearms is—oh.”
She had grasped his foot. Gently.
All the same . . . not pain, exactly. More like . . . excitement.
Well, he was a man, and when a woman touched a man, he was likely to get excited, whether he needed to or not.
“Tell me when it hurts,” she said. Carefully she moved his foot to the right, to the left, and in a circular motion, as she must have learned to do ages ago, having so many brothers and, as far as he could make out, loving but inattentive parents.
Perhaps he let out a small yelp.
His face heated. “It isn’t broken,” he said quickly. “I’d know.” He wouldn’t allow anything to be broken. “But it’s sweet of you to fuss.”
“I am greatly tempted to drop it. Hard. On a rock.”
“Too bad. Only mud and cow shit hereabouts.” He glanced about him. “Possibly sheep shit, too. Can’t say. I’m no agrarian.”
She rose and set her hands on her hips and looked at him. “I can’t leave you here, great as the temptation is.”
“Actually, you could. The postilion knows the way.”
He was perfectly capable of getting up, Ripley told himself. He would not have to crawl back to the chaise. He could move on one foot, more or less. He simply needed to stop whimpering to himself about a dash of excruciating pain.
He’d been in worse fixes than this. He’d been more badly damaged in fights and reckless riding episodes.
But at all those times he’d been drunk.
Never mind. Drunk or sober, he didn’t have time to play the invalid.
He had to get back to London forthwith. He had to advise Ashmont and goad him if necessary. Ripley had to make sure no duels happened and nobody got maimed or killed over the wedding fiasco. Above all, he needed to get away from her and get an unrespectable woman into bed. Quickly.
“It’s the shoes’ fault,” he said. “Can’t go tromping about fields in go-to-wedding shoes.”
Little more than slippers, formal shoes didn’t protect a fellow’s feet against wet, let alone stepping into rabbit holes. But one couldn’t get proper boots in short order in Putney or anywhere else. The inn servants had dried out and cleaned his wedding footwear as best they could.
“I’d better help you up,” she said. “You must not put any weight on the right foot.”
“I know that,” he said. “Go back and tell the postilion you’ll mind the horses, and send him to me.”
“I could drag you back to the carriage by your good foot,” she said.
“And spoil this beautiful coat, you insensitive female? Get the postilion.”
She glanced back over her shoulder toward the post chaise. “He’s still fussing with something. I wonder what frightened the off horse.”
“The postboy let his attention wander,” he said. “That or drunkenness is the usual reason for losing control of post horses. It’s not as though the creatures have any spirit left in them. Will you kindly get him?”
“He’s smaller than I am,” she said.
“He’s wirier. Just. Get. Him.”
She smiled down at him. “No. I like seeing you somewhat helpless.”
He smiled back at her. He liked seeing her standing above him, hands on her hips. Liked it very much. Wounded as he was, he’d have hooked his good leg about her ankle and brought her down on top of him . . . if she hadn’t belonged to his stupid friend.
She planted her feet hip-width apart and held out her hand.
“If you try to help me up, you’ll fall over,” he said.
“Do try to think rationally,” she said. “It’s the same as using a chair or a tree stump. I’ll provide support, so you won’t put any weight on the foot.”
“You can’t take my weight,” he said.
“That’s what they all say.”
“I can get up on my own,” he said. “It’s the going forward part that’s going to be awkward. Will you get the postilion?”
“How I should like to knock you unconscious with a rock and drag you by one foot,” she said. “Or an arm. Or your ears. But that could take a while.” She looked up at the darkening sky. Her spectacles lost their sparkle, mirroring the gloomy view overhead. “And it looks like rain. Again.”
He laughed. In spite of throbbing and dirt in his mouth and another set of ruined clothing.
Giving himself a push with one hand, and taking his weight onto his left foot, he propelled himself upright. Then he was glad indeed to have her handsome shoulders for support, because even the small amount of pressure on his right foot hurt like blazes. He managed not to do more than grunt, but he couldn’t help grimacing.
“Use me like a crutch,” she said. “It’s all right. I’m not fragile. Quite strong, in fact, thanks to dragging library steps about and hauling books up and down—and some of them as heavy as a cow, thanks to the gilt.”
She was stronger than he would have thought, in more ways than one. All the same, he hated making a crutch of her. He did it, though. No choice: one hop forward at a time on his left leg, with her as support for the right. Even so, he couldn’t keep the right foot fully clear of the ground, and every time it made contact, pain vibrated from his ankle.
But the common sense part of his brain told him that if he tried to get back to the carriage on his own, on this uneven ground, he’d land on his face. And end up crawling. He doubted it was much more fun to crawl with a throbbing foot as to walk.
And so, wrapped tightly together, they inched along the uneven ground. As they moved, her breast pressed against his arm and her hip against his upper thigh. The attendant sensations traveled easily to his groin, distracting him from the pain and thoughts like, Now what do we do?
Only another five miles or so to the house, he told himself. It wasn’t going to be the most pleasurable experience, jolting along the rough country road of the last stretch, but he’d survive.
And then?
He’d think about and thens when the time came.
At long last, they reached the road, and he dared to look up from the ground ahead he needed to cover.
The lurcher stood in the chaise’s open door.
“Woof!” he said.
Olympia caught the look in the dog’s eye in the nick of time.
As Cato vaulted from the carriage, she hauled Ripley out of the way.
The dog failed, by a very narrow margin, to bowl them over. One would have thought he’d be fatigued after his chase. Instead he was excited and apparently quite proud of himself.
“Sit,” Olympia ordered, and the dog sat, tail thumping.
“Where on earth did I get the idea you were well trained?” she said.
“Woof!”
“And silent?”
“Woof!”
She looked up at Ripley, whose face seemed paler than before.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “But I saw in his eyes the urge to pounce on a human, and I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t you he chose to greet overenthusiastically.”
“I saw it, too, the trickster, acting so meek and mild before,” he said.
“I don’t doubt he behaved so well before because he was cowed and shocked,” she said. “But he’s a dog, and seems to have forgotten. That tells me Bullard didn’t have him for long. He’d be much more timid otherwise.”
“Instead, he’s reverted to his natural, obnoxiously exuberant personality,” Ripley said.
After they’d contemplated the cheerfully innocent-looking Cato for a moment, he said, “You’re tougher than you look.”
“All those tomes, as I told you,” she said.
She summoned the postilion. Pale and stammering, he apologized. He’d let his attention wander, as Ripley had said, and reacted too late as a consequence.
To his credit, the duke accepted the apology without berating the fellow further. It wasn’t the postilion’s fault, certainly, that Cato had decided to go hunting.
Then Olympia focused everybody’s attention on getting her injured companion into the carriage. The process was awkward—a post chaise wasn’t the roomiest vehicle—and it took a while to get him settled.
She doubted the result was very comfortable. He had to sit sideways, wedged into a corner. Propped up on the linen parcels, his injured foot rested awkwardly upon her knee.
“Your knee is going to ache after half a mile,” he said.
“That’s nothing to what your ankle will feel like,” she said. “But we’ll go at an easy pace.”
“We’ll go like the devil,” he said. “The faster we get there, the better.”
“You’ll be screaming like a girl.”
“I’m not a child. A bruised foot will not have me puking and shrieking.”
“Grown men are worse than boys when it comes to pain,” she said. “And if that ankle’s as bad as I suspect—and we unequipped with strong spirits or even vinaigrette—”
“Vinaigrette! As though I were a swooning debutante!”
“Ah, there’s a picture,” she said. “The wicked Duke of Ripley swooning. But since I’ve nothing to revive you with, I must urge you to be brave. And if you must be sick—”
“As though I’d vomit on account of a few bruises.”
“If you must be sick, do it out of the window.”
Before the duke could retort, she told the postilion to keep the horses to a walk. She used the voice she normally employed when her brothers needed discipline. With Ripley, obviously, one must Dominate or Be Dominated.
The postilion appeared to listen to both of them, but he did not “spring ’em,” as His Grace demanded.
Her mind at ease on that count, Olympia concentrated on keeping Ripley distracted from the acute discomfort she knew he was hiding. He did it well, but she was watching, and she noticed the way his mouth tightened when they traveled over bumpier sections of the road.
After they’d covered about a mile, he shifted position, as though he meant to put his foot down.
“You’d better keep it upraised,” she said. “I realize it’s an awkward position.”
The seat held two people, with no room to spare, and his legs were long.
“It shouldn’t rest on your knee,” he said. “It’s too heavy.”
“I’ve layers of clothing to cushion my knee,” she said. “But you might feel more comfortable if we take the shoe off.”
“After the foot’s been in a rabbit hole, in a farmer’s wet field?”
“I have six brothers,” she said. “My stomach is strong.”
He gave a chuckle, a pained one, but that was enough. She’d amused him. He let her take the shoe off.
This was not as easy as it might have been. His swelling foot told her he’d either sprained the ankle or bruised it quite badly. Luckily, the shoes were soft, thin leather, not practical for tramping in fields but easier to get off than boots.
Though his stockinged foot smelled only of wet earth, she recoiled as though it had been a rotting carcass and held her nose and pretended to gag and carried on as though she would swoon. He thought this was hilarious.
Males never did grow up. Not that this was always a problem. There were positive aspects of men being such simple creatures.
To look on the bright side, she wouldn’t have much trouble keeping him entertained for the remaining few miles of their journey.
And that was very much for the best, because she needed to keep herself distracted, too. The intimacy of holding his large, stockinged foot upon her knee was almost painful.
A short time later
The duke had told Olympia that Camberley Place was a ramshackle old house.
She had pictured an old manor house set in a rustic landscape. The word ramshackle had conjured images of later additions tacked on, creating a rambling, picturesque structure.
She was completely wrong.
Camberley Place was an immense house dating to Tudor times. From the outside it didn’t seem to have changed much since then.
Originally, though, it must have formed a quadrangle around the courtyard. The present structure opened into a pleasing U-shape, and it was delightfully, excessively decorated in terra-cotta and an abundance of painted glass.
While they weren’t expected or invited, he was, after all, the master. The gatekeeper had ushered them in without hesitation or any hemming and hawing about the family not being at home.
By the time the post chaise drove into the courtyard, people—servants, it looked like—had clustered at the windows. A moment later, a tall, thin man, whose authoritative bearing told her he was the house steward, emerged from the entrance. His minions trailed behind him.
The house steward, whose name turned out to be Tewkes, behaved in the way any self-respecting chief of household staff ought to do: He didn’t turn a hair at finding a common, dirty post chaise in the grand, ancient courtyard, but took it completely in his stride, without so much as an eyebrow twitch.
Then, when the servants ran up to open the carriage doors, and everybody got a glimpse of who was inside, there was a lot of bowing and scraping and underlings being ordered about.
When the footmen helped Ripley out of the post chaise, his jaw tightened and his face whitened a shade. While Olympia was sure he hadn’t broken his ankle, she knew a sprained or wrenched ankle could be extremely painful, especially at first.
Luckily, Camberley Place had been built on level ground. He didn’t have to climb a single step to go inside.
Leaving Tewkes to deal with the dog, the postilion, bridal corpses, discarded shoe, and everything else, Olympia followed Ripley and the two strong footmen he leaned on into a cavernous Great Hall. There she found the expected heavy oak paneling and arrangements of armaments on the walls. But she could admire these antiquities later, she told herself.
At present, she needed to prevent his worsening the injury.
At least he hadn’t objected to the footmen helping him. The road, especially the last bit, before they reached the carriage drive, had been especially rough.
She wondered where to put him. Their hostess had not yet appeared.
She told herself not to panic. Since the ladies weren’t expecting comp
any, they might be anywhere. Visiting neighbors, for instance.
One thing at a time.
“Where to now?” she said.
“Library,” Ripley said.
It wasn’t the nearest room, but he insisted, without explaining. Not that he explained much of anything—such as letting anybody know why he couldn’t walk on his own and wore only one shoe.
Beneath his ducal dignity to explain, of course. Everybody about him must try to assemble clues and work things out as best they could.
But she wasn’t a duke, and she saw no point in letting the staff whisper and conjecture instead of knowing precisely what they were dealing with.
By the time the footmen had planted him on a sofa and propped up his foot on a cushion, Tewkes had returned.
To the steward she said, “His Grace appears to have sprained his ankle.”
“Bruised,” Ripley said.
“We’ll see,” she said as she bent to examine it. “But since I didn’t shoot you in the foot or drop a large rock on it, and nobody here knows me, I’d rather not be under suspicion.”
“Hardly the sort of thing to upset anybody here,” he said. “Amuse them, rather.” He looked up at the house steward. “Whether her ladyship did or didn’t use violence against me, I need a restorative, Tewkes. Brandy. Large.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And ice,” she said. “As soon as possible. Though it doesn’t seem grossly swollen, it’s certainly not as it should be. At best, the bruising is severe, and the quicker we deal with it, the better. I shall want bandages, as well. And vinegar. And a maidservant to assist me.”
“And a physician, my lady?” Tewkes said.
“No quacks,” Ripley said. “I only banged my ankle. I don’t need any bones set and I won’t be bled and purged for a little mishap in a rabbit hole. All I want now is a large glass of brandy.”
Tewkes went out.
Olympia rose. “Where is your aunt?” she said.
“Somewhere about,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“She hasn’t left Camberley Place in three years,” he said. “She hasn’t been socially inclined since Uncle Charles died. She’ll be somewhere about, but somewhere covers a considerable territory. We may have a wait before she appears.”