The anger returned, shooting Ophelia off the bed for several paces around the room before she said, “That barbarian Highlander, that’s why! The stupid man was supposed to agree that we wouldn’t suit for matrimony. It was supposed to be a mutual decision where neither of us would have suffered any consequences for it. Instead, he got all huffy over a little minor criticism and let it be known thathedidn’t findmeacceptable. Now everyone and their mother knows that he all but jilted me at the altar.”
“But you didn’t reach the altar,” Sabrina calmly pointed out.
That got her another glare that said clearly,Idiot, what difference does that make?but aloud Ophelia said, “You still don’t understand yet? I was to be congratulated for escaping a match made in hell. Instead I am the latest gossip making the rounds. Becausehebroke the engagement, everyone now thinks there must be something wrong with me. Why else wouldn’t he want me, after all?”
Sabrina sighed at that point. “I guess I don’t understand then. I could have sworn you had hoped he would break the engagement.”
“Nothim!My parents were supposed to end it, since they were the ones who got me into it.Hewas supposed to remain besotted until the end, no matter what I said to him. But he is too barbaric to realize the gentlemanly part he should have played. And now I don’t dare show myself until this dies down—or he rectifies it.”
Well, that finally explained the “hiding” part of Ophelia’s visit. Sabrina couldn’t imagine, though, how Duncan was supposed to rectify this situation for Ophelia, unless it was to offer some reason for breaking the engagement that would show her in a better light.
“What did you say to him that did cause him to reject you?”
“I told you, it was just a minor remark that he took undue offense over. I will admit it was rather thoughtless of me, but then I wasn’t thinking clearly when he showed up in that barbaric costume of his, which served to confirm in my mind that he was everything I’d feared he would be. If he had been dressed normally, I wouldn’t have been so shocked, and that first meeting would certainly have gone much differently.”
Sabrina had to agree with that possible outcome. Hadn’t she herself thought that surely the engaged couple would be very pleased to be engaged, once they met and got a good look at each other? But she also knew Ophelia well enough by now to realize she was stressing her own innocence a bit too much, and wondered why.
“So you’re going to stay with us until the gossip settles down?”
“Goodness, no, that might take forever. I do make a wonderful target for gossip, after all. No, we’re going to rectify this ourselves.”
Sabrina blinked. “We?”
“Yes.” Ophelia nodded. “It’s the least you can do, after I befriended you in London and helped with your launch there. You simply must help me with this now.”
“Well, certainly—if I can.”
“You can,” Ophelia assured her. ‘And you needn’t even do much. Just arrange a meeting is all.”
“A meeting with whom?”
“My ex-fiancé, of course. We’re going to get him to ask me to marry him again. Then it will all seem like a silly lovers’ tiff that caused the breakup, which will be quite acceptable and put an end to the gossip.”
Sixteen
“You just show up at the door.”
Truthfully, Sabrina was so appalled by Ophelia’s newest scheme, and in particular that the girl wanted to involve her in it, that she could barely put two thoughts together. And even Ophelia’s suggestions for how to go about it, she found highly distasteful.
“I didn’t receive an invitation, Ophelia, any more than you did,” Sabrina reminded the girl.
“But you’re a neighbor. Neighbors don’t need invitations to visit.”
“During a party they do.”
Ophelia waved a dismissive hand. “A minor point. And besides, you don’t really want to enter the house, where you might be overheard by one of the guests. No, no, you want to draw him outside where you can be assured of privacy when you speak to him.”
On the one hand, that sounded like something Sabrina would very much like to do, speak to Duncan MacTavish in private, that is. But on the other hand, she knew it was bad form,reallybad form, to come visiting your neighbor when you knew he was having a party—that you hadn’t been invited to. Beyond rude. Simplynotdone.
And the subject matter that she was to broach, well, that would be utterly embarrassing as well. She didn’t know the first thing about matchmaking, after all, which was pretty much what Ophelia was asking of her.
Besides, all things said and done, she liked Duncan. So did she really want to see him married to a woman like Ophelia who schemed and started rumors about people whether they were true or not? Liking him, and quite aware that she had no chance whatsoever to have him herself, then yes, she would like to see him marry someone as beautiful as Ophelia was, but hopefully someone with a bit more moral fortitude and honor than the London girl had.
So she didn’t really want to help Ophelia. However, she couldn’t refuse outright either, when Opheliahadbefriended her in London. She owed her some help in kind for that. But she did want one thing clarified first before she agreed to this latest scheme.
“Do youwantto marry him now, or is this only a means to end the gossip about you?”
Ophelia seemed surprised by the question. That she had to give it some thought before answering didn’t greatly reassure Sabrina, either.
