“That will be easier said than done.”
“Then—” She half turned, then stopped. “May I confess one more thing?”
His gaze drifted over her becoming silhouette. “Of course.”
“I know I shouldn’t have done it, but Sir Oliver became rather persistent and I panicked. Not because I dreaded having to kiss him. He’s rather handsome if one is drawn to brooding self-indulgent men, which I am not. But I panicked because I was afraid of having to face you after I came home late and in a different carriage. And—” She trailed off, leaving him in suspense.
“And?” James gestured with his hand.
“And in order to discourage him, I said that you would challenge him to a duel if you knew what he was doing and that everyone knew what an expert shot you had been in the infantry.” She paused to catch her breath. “I had no right to say that, but I did. I’ll understand if you dismiss me.”
She curtsied and rushed from the room before James could comment or even sort out what she had said.
Dismiss her? Not after tonight. Not ever, if he had the last word in the matter. He didn’t know what part she would play in his future, but he wasn’t about to lose her because she had bragged of his skill in order to defend herself against a persistent jackass.
Fight a duel in her honor? He was furious enough at the bastard who’d upset her to tear him apart with his bare hands.
But fight a duel?
Everyone knew what an expert shot you had been in the infantry.
But only four people knew that James could no longer hold a gun steadily enough in his right hand to shoot with any accuracy at a phaeton, let alone at an opponent on a dueling field. Carstairs, his physician, Wendover, and his commanding officer.
James would disgrace himself in a duel. He would be forced to forfeit or be killed. But he would defend Ivy no matter what the personal cost.
He just didn’t know how.
Chapter 18
Rosemary felt guilty that she had applied for a position outside the house—who would care for Lilac if she was left alone at Fenwick? Ivy held the family together and Rosemary supported her efforts as best she could. Poor Lilac still believed that her childhood friend would return to marry her. Rosemary could no longer even remember his name. He had gone off to school and allegedly from there to war. His parents had died in the interim.
Rosemary wandered through the house, tired from helping the servants restore order to the great hall. No one could recall the last time a birthday had been celebrated in style, and despite the fact that Oliver reminded Rosemary of a fox in a henhouse, she had enjoyed setting a good table, surrounded by young ne’er-do-wells who knew how to laugh, if nothing else.
Cheer. Warmth. Laughter.
How long it had been since Fenwick had known a revel?
Oliver and his friends had departed in an excess of high spirits and promises to return. Rosemary had been waiting for the house to settle before she sat down to write into the night.
Now she mounted the stairs, not bothering with a candle. She knew her way in the dark. Everyone had already retired for the night. Perhaps she would go to her mother’s room for inspiration.
But someone in the house appeared to have had the same idea. She entered her mother’s musty bedchamber without making a sound at the exact moment that a figure disappeared into a panel inside the fireplace.
“Rue?” she whispered before she noticed the gray frock coat and notebook that had been placed on a stool by the wall.
She wished now for a candle to read what Sir Oliver had written in his notebook. Perhaps another of his idiotic poems to commemorate tonight’s party.
Why had he pretended to leave and then returned? He was already acting as if he were the master of the manor, and as far as Rosemary knew, Ivy hadn’t accepted a proposal.
“Dammit,” he muttered, banging something—his head, she hoped—against the wall. “Where the hell did I put my tinderbox?”
Rosemary rushed forward, pressed her hands against the panel, and said into the airless void, “Perhaps you left it under your coat. Why don’t you have a little think in the dark to refresh your memory?”
His face popped into view as the panel started to close. “What the blazes are you doing, woman?”
“I should be asking you that.”
“How am I supposed to see in the dark?”
The panel slowly ground back into place. “You’re a writer,” she said, looking down at his shadowy form. “Use your imagination.”
“How—”
She backed away from the fireplace and sat on the edge of the bed. An hour in the passage might teach him not to assume he could act as lord of the manor without permission. After several minutes she curled up on her mother’s coverlet, wishing she hadn’t drunk that last glass of wine. Spirits made her drowsy, drained her of the energy to write.