Several hours had passedby the time Aubrey returned to Rhiannon in the drawing room of Whit’s town house, where she was seated with her mother. The dowager Duchess of Whitby gazed at him with obvious alarm from behind her gold-rimmed spectacles as he and Whit crossed the threshold.
“Your Grace, what has happened?”
“The settling of a score,” he said wryly, casting a glance in his friend’s direction.
The blows he had received had been earned, and Aubrey knew it. Moreover, Whit’s reaction was no less than what his own would have been had he a sister and Whit had seduced her. What Aubrey had done was wrong. He ought to have asked for Rhiannon’s hand from the moment he had pulled her from naughty charades. He should have carried her away to Villiers House, and they could have eloped and avoided all this blasted strife.
But he hadn’t carried her away, and neither had they eloped. Instead, their path to love had been long and winding and fraught with miscommunication and his own obstinacy and idiocy.
“What manner of score?” the dowager wanted to know, sounding scandalized as she glanced from Rhiannon to her son. “I had no notion Richford was such a ruffian.”
Aubrey chuckled and then grimaced when pain radiated from his split lip. It amused him that having a thoroughly beatenface would renderhimthe ruffian, but he was in no condition to argue. He was about to have the most important conversation of his life.
Preferably without an audience.
“Your son is the ruffian,” Rhiannon said, pinning Whit with a scolding glare. “He attacked Richford and is the source of all his injuries.”
“Not without provocation,” Whit pointed out. “It’s hardly my fault he refused to defend himself.”
“My actions were indefensible,” Aubrey said grimly, hoping not to have to repeat his transgressions before the dowager.
Once had been quite enough.
Now, all he wanted was some time alone with Rhiannon. Supposing he could persuade Whit and the dowager to grant him that.
“I shan’t argue with you on that count,” Whit said.
The dowager was still frowning at Aubrey. “I do hope your face will clear up before the wedding. It wouldn’t do for my Rhiannon to have a groom who looked better suited to prizefighting than being an honorable gentleman.”
He glanced at Rhiannon, warmth stealing into his heart, and this time, he allowed it. He didn’t force it away or try to tamp it down. He didn’t tell himself that feeling was mere lust. He knew what it was.
Love.
“You’ve spoken with your mother, then?” he asked her quietly.
She had risen from the settee and came to his side now, the symbolism of her action not lost upon him. “I have. Mater knows that Lord Carnis was trying to force me into marrying him against my will.”
“Poorly done of him,” the dowager said, shaking her head in disgust. “I never thought the earl to be so ill-mannered. Tothink that I once had the most enlivening discussion with him concerning taxidermy sparrows.”
That certainly explained rather a lot about the fellow, Aubrey thought.
But he kept that to himself, instead turning to Whit. “May I be granted an audience with your sister?”
Whit’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know if that is wise, given the circumstances.”
“I think it’s rather too late to fret over me being ruined,” Rhiannon told her brother softly.
Which was hardly pleading the case for them.
“Yes, Richford has already managed that, has he not?” Whit asked pointedly.
He deserved his friend’s ire, and he knew it would take time to fully regain Whit’s trust. Rhiannon’s, too. But he was committed to making amends. To doing better. He would prove himself to them both.
“I intend to rectify the matter at once,” he said. “I promise to observe propriety. You have my word as a gentleman that nothing improper will occur.”
Rhys was silent for longer than Aubrey liked before looking to the dowager. “Mater, what say you? Shall we allow Richford to propose in privacy?”
“Well,someonehad better propose to her,” the dowager said primly. “I do believe she’s increasing.”
