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“Suffice it to say that I am no more worthy of Miss Deborah Watson than I was of her sister.”

“You have made no move to secure her affections?”

“Good God, no!”

“Why not?” protested Ava, clasping his hand.

He looked at her with a kind of helpless agony. “Because she is an angel, and I am the devil. I have nothing to offer her. Nothing.”

Ava shook her head and said softly, “That isn’t true.”

“It is,” he said quietly and with such conviction Ava was silenced. She squeezed his hand and stifled a yawn.

“Finish your dinner and go to bed,” he said roughly. “You’re all done in, and it won’t do for you to arrive on Ravenshaw’s doorstep looking like a death’s head.”

She slapped him playfully. “How unflattering.”

He smiled, took her hand, and kissed it. “If Ravenshaw has any sense, he’ll marry you in a heartbeat,” he said. They resumed their meal and Rey sent her to bed, just as a loud crack of thunder rent the air, accompanied by a brilliant flash of lightning and followed by the teeming sound of rain on the roof and pavement. Wind rattled the widows and lashed the rain against the panes.

“We arrived just in time,” he said with satisfaction, settling into an armchair with a glass of whisky. “Sleep well, my sweet. We will leave early in the morning when this has cleared. I’ll have you safely to Ravenshaw before ten o’clock!”

She kissed his cheek. “I can’t thank you enough, you know. I really am grateful. You’re the best of good friends, Rey.”

“Nonsense!” he said roughly. “Get your beauty sleep,” echoing what he had said earlier. “You want to look your best for him tomorrow, don’t you?”

She smiled and left him, climbing the stairs to her room, carrying her cloak and veil.

*

Rey settled into his chair, his booted feet stretched to the fire, whisky in hand, and reached for the book he was reading: Les Liaisons Dangereuses. But for a few moments he sat staring into the fire, his mind absorbed by the topic of Miss Deborah Watson. The usual sweet heartache he experienced when he thought of her engulfed him. He had hoped that it would lessen with time, but the opposite seemed to be true. And she was as far beyond his reach as she had ever been.

He had told no one, until Ava dragged it out of him, how he felt. And he was by no means sure that telling her was a good thing. Not because he didn’t trust her not to tattle—she had given her word, and he believed her—but because saying it out loud made it just that bit more real and painful. He rubbed his chest absently. It hurt, damn it!

He swallowed the ache in his throat and swirled the glass of whisky. Well, he couldn’t have his happily ever after, but Ava could. He lifted the glass in silent toast and swallowed. The fiery liquid soothed his tight throat and spread a warm glow through his stomach. He reached for his book and opened to the page he was up to, determined to push the thoughts and feelings back where they belonged: under lock and key.

Absorbed in the book, he read for several hours, half aware of the pouring rain, and glad to be warm and dry.

Close to midnight, the sounds of an arrival made him look up from his book. Poor devils, arriving in this downpour! He returned to his book and had just turned another page when the door to the parlor was flung open and a voice he had been dreading hearing said menacingly, “Where the bloody hell is she, you blackguard? By God, I’ll kill you!”

Rey looked around at the Duke of Troubridge, who stood in the doorway fuming. His hat and coat were liberally sprinkled with raindrops, but it was obvious he had traveled by coach, for he wasn’t soaked to the skin.

Putting the book aside, he rose in a leisurely fashion which disguised—he hoped—both the fact that his senses were on high alert and his very real discomfort with this situation. He was fully alive to the fact that Troubridge had every right to be annoyed with him. But the duke was also laboring under a load of misapprehensions. He just hoped he had enough time to explain and that the damned man would listen. He was not sanguine about either hope.

Troubridge stepped into the room and raised a pistol in his direction, which made Lannister bristle with annoyance. He tightened his lips, and was about to say something cutting, which would likely inflame Troubridge further, when his wife, Sarah, stepped around her spouse, shutting the door behind her on the interested staff standing gaping in the corridor, and laid a hand on the arm with the raised pistol.

“Robert, don’t!” she scolded gently.

Lannister’s heart softened at the sight of her. Sarah was a tall, elegant brunette, with chestnut hair and gray eyes. As he’d confessed to Ava, he’d developed a serious tendre for her two years ago, but it had mellowed now into affection.

Troubridge turned his head to look at her and the two exchanged a silent communication. That sent a stab of envy through Rey’s chest, sharp enough to stop his breath. That! That is what I want! That kind of mutual understanding. He swallowed the raw ache in his throat and blinked eyes that suddenly stung. For a moment, a pair of lustrous blue eyes in a perfect face swam in his internal vision before he repressed the picture viciously. She is not for me. My perfect angel.

Troubridge lowered the pistol reluctantly and said slightly more mildly, “Where is she?”

Rey toyed with the idea of making a disingenuous quip and decided against it. “Upstairs asleep, in her own room. And before you hare off on a tangent, I suggest you listen to my explanation of why I am here.”

Troubridge’s hand tightened visibly on the pistol which he kept pointed to the ground, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “Go on.”

“You no doubt assumed I was eloping with your sister to Gretna?”