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Troubridge nodded slowly. “Though I’m mystified why you would do so via Newcastle.”

“That’s because we are not going to Gretna.”

“You blackguard!” Troubridge raised the pistol again.

“Robert!” Sarah said sharply.

Rey raised his hands placatingly. Part of him was enjoying torturing the poor man. God knows he deserves it! But he was aware that if he pushed Troubridge too far he could end up with a bullet in him, and he wasn’t sure that Troubridge wouldn’t make it fatal. Rey had no death wish, despite his private heartache. He had two daughters who needed him.

“I am escorting your sister to Ravenshaw,” he said. “And before you try to shoot me, I’m doing it because she was determined to go alone if I didn’t. Which would you prefer, that she make the journey alone on horseback—for that is what she threatened to do—or that I escort her?”

“Neither! Any decent man would have informed me of such a venture!”

“Yes, but as you’re at frequent pains to tell me, I’m not a decent man,” said Rey with a mock apologetic smile.

As if the sense of what he had said finally penetrated, Troubridge said, “Ravenshaw? Why the bloody hell—”

“Oh dear,” said Sarah, covering her mouth with one white kid-gloved hand. Her other hand tugged at Troubridge’s arm making him lower it again. “Rob, it’s Ravenshaw, it’s always been Ravenshaw!”

“I thought she’d outgrown that schoolgirl infatuation,” he said, clearly bewildered.

“I did too,” confessed Sarah, her brown creased. “Ava has got very good at dissembling. How could we all not have guessed?”

“Because she knew he,” Rey nodded at Troubridge, “wouldn’t approve.”

“You mean Ravenshaw has been carrying on a clandestine relationship with my sister under my nose?” Troubridge had changed color and he looked stricken.

Ravenshaw was a close friend of his. No wonder he looked sick. “No,” said Rey quickly. “Ravenshaw has done nothing wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Ava confided in me. She was heartbroken that Ravenshaw had offered for Isabella Mortimer.”

“And that’s what prompted this mad start?”

“Yes.”

Troubridge wiped his face with one hand and then uncocking the pistol, he set it down carefully on the table and said, “Give me some of that whisky and explain, because I don’t understand.”

Troubridge and Sarah sat down on the settle, and Rey filled a glass and passed it to the duke, who downed it in two swallows.

“Right, now tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Ravenshaw loves her.”

“You’re certain about that? How do you know?”

“Observation.” Rey filled his own glass. He also offered Sarah a glass of wine, which she accepted. “If you bothered to watch his eyes, he tracks her every movement when he thinks no one is observing him. He looks at her like a starving man looks at a meal he can’t have.” No need to tell Troubridge about that passionate kiss last year. No one but himself, Ava, and Ravenshaw knew about that.

“If that is true, why didn’t he tell me? Damn it, the man is my friend. I love him like a brother!”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him that. But for whatever reason, he obviously feels Ava would be better off with someone else. You know as well as I do that he’s been dead set against marriage for years. If you want my guess, I would say he feels unworthy of her for some reason, possibly to do with his past.”

“My God!” Troubridge sat up slowly. “That damned article in The Chronicle. Lady-killer . . .”

Rey nodded slowly. He looked down at his drink, took a sip, and went on, “When you told him Ava was engaged to Haldane, he offered for the Countess of Esberry—”

“He told us the night he fell asleep in Hyde Park that he was going to do that—”