Christ, Pamela was sputtering. The rain lashed against the windowpane, mocking him.
“Yes. I intend to marry her.” Trevor paused, then sighed. “Imustmarry her.”
“You must, you say.” Understanding dawned on his sister’s countenance. She’d been still, hovering at the threshold, but she was a flurry of movement now, the blue muslin of her gown frothing as she began to pace the length of the chamber. “What have you done this time?”
Everything but ravish his ward in the music room.
Pamela gave him no quarter. She marched toward him, holding his stare, daring him to speak the awful truth aloud. His ears went hot. He wouldn’t do it.
“I have compromised her,” he said instead, retreating from her outrage. He moved away from the window and stalked toward the hearth, where the evidence of her last vexation with him remained in the form of a black ink stain on the bricks. The fire crackled, the flames licking low. There was no reprieve to be had within its red-orange depths. He turned back to Pamela. “Quite beyond repair.”
His sister’s shoulders sagged, defeat overtaking her. “It has only been three days since the last incident.”
“Four,” he muttered, wondering if she would throw a different object into the fireplace this time.
It had been four days since he’d last touched Virtue. Which had obviously been far too many days. He’d fallen upon her like a starving man given his first meal in a decade.
“Youpromised.” The last word was issued as an irate hiss. “You swore you would keep your distance from her.”
“Apparently, I’m no better at keeping my word than our father was.”
It was an unpleasant discovery to make about himself, that he was not so very different from his sire. He had liked to believe he possessed nothing in common with the coldhearted, conscienceless villain who had fathered him. How lowering it was to realize he had been wrong. But whereas their father had compromised their mother to seize her dowry, Trevor had compromised Virtue for no reason other than his own desperate need to pleasure her.
“Your lack of control is appalling,” Pamela said coolly. “Truly, Ridgely. Could you not have found one of your lightskirts and dallied with her instead?”
He could have. Should have.Wouldhave. However, no one else was Virtue, and that was fast becoming the crux of the matter. He didn’t want anyone but her. No one else would do. But how to explain that to his sister when Trevor himself didn’t quite understand the ramifications of such a revelation? The profound realization was astonishing, really.
He’d never been so moved by a woman before; he wasn’t certain he liked it.
“I am a scoundrel,” he admitted easily to his sister. “It is one of the reasons, I dare say, why my own family reviles me.”
“We do not revile you.”
“Mother does,” he pointed out.
“Mother reviles everyone,” Pamela countered.
And not incorrectly.
He raised a brow. “I challenge you to find someone she reviles more than I.”
“Why are we speaking of our mother when the subject at hand is your egregious conduct?” His sister sighed and shook her head. “Tongues will wag quite furiously. Everyone will assume you have ruined Lady Virtue.”
“Let them wag.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t give a damn about gossip. I never have.”
“ButIdo. Of course, you have not thought of the effect this news will have upon Lady Virtue or myself. I have been acting as her chaperone, and I have failed quite abysmally at the task of keeping her safe from you. She will be scorned in polite society if there is the slightest whiff of scandal.”
His sister’s assessment stung. And partially because she was right. He hadn’t given thought to what would happen for Virtue and Pamela.
“She will be a duchess,” he said. “Surely that will ameliorate the pain of having to marry a rogue. As for you, no one will find fault with you for the match. You have performed your duty as chaperone well, and you’re a paragon of virtue. Everyone will have no doubt I am to blame.”
Which he was.
Color flared in his sister’s cheeks. “I do try, but I am far from perfect. I fear I have been remiss in my duties.”
He disliked the guilt in Pamela’s voice. “You have hardly been remiss. I am at fault. Not you.”
“Nonetheless, it shall reflect on me.”
