So his tone was only mildly revealing of his dislike when he told her plainly, “Lass, if I was the barbarian you keep alluding tae, we wouldna have been engaged again, even if this whole bluidy gathering had witnessed me in your bedroom that night. I wouldna have given a single thought tae yer reputation, you ken?”
“But you were responsible!” she reminded him, even as her cheeks pinkened over his frankness.
“And your point being? Or do barbarians suddenly have a care for responsibility?”
“Oh, very well, so youaren’ta barbarian,” she replied testily.
“Amazing day, I think I’m actually going to faint,” Raphael interjected with a snide chuckle. “The ice queen has made a retraction.”
Ophelia turned to give him a withering look, but noticed Mavis instead. Her gasp was audible. And she completely forgot about the threesome at the bottom of the stairs as she hurried down the last few steps and across the hall to her old friend’s side.
“Mavis, Iknewyou would come before it’s too late. I knew you couldn’t overlook our years of friendship. Youhaveto forgive me. You can’t let me suffer for the rest of my life over a few paltry words that youknowI didn’t mean.”
Duncan rolled his eyes over her description of what it would be like to be married to him. They had followed Ophelia to Mavis’s side, in time to hear her beseeching speech. He might have remarked on that “suffer” part, if Mavis weren’t looking quite confused now.
Her confusion was understandable, though, when she asked,“Beforeit’s too late?”
She was looking at Sabrina for confirmation. Sabrina smiled at her and nodded. You could almost see the weight leave the girl’s shoulders and then the very second that Mavis realized that she held the winning hand again, and that her nemesis was there for her to play it on.
Ophelia didn’t miss the implications in that question either. “You thought we were already married? So you came here to gloat instead?”
“Is my name Ophelia?” Mavis shot back. “Gloating is what you do so well, my dear, not I.”
Ophelia stiffened. It was obvious that she would have returned the insult in kind, but she didn’t dare to do so. It took her a moment, though, to gain enough control to keep her spiteful tongue leashed for once. She was still under the assumption, after all, that she needed Mavis’s cooperation, and she wouldn’t get it if she lambasted the girl in her typical fashion.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“As you’ve surmised, I thought that the wedding had already taken place. It’s logical then, that I might come by to wish the happy couple well, isn’t it?”
Ophelia all but snorted. “Happy? When we despise each other?”
Mavis pretended incredulity. ‘You mean there’s actually a man alive who hasn’t dropped at your feet in adulation? I’m shocked, indeed I am.”
Ophelia’s lips tightened and her voice lowered to a confiding whisper that she thought would reach only Mavis. “He’s not English,” she said, as if that were the only possible explanation there could be.
“Lucky him, if that’s what it takes to not be blinded by you.”
“Takes much less than that,’ Raphael interjected with a grin.
Ophelia, reminded that she wasn’t alone, turned a glare on him and said, “Do you mind? I’m having a private conversation here.”
“Don’t mind a’tall, dear girl,” Raphael rejoined. “But that don’t mean I’m leaving. No, no, wouldn’t miss this for the world, I do assure you.”
“Miss what?” Ophelia snapped at him. “Seeing me grovel? Do you all detest me that much?”
Not one reply was forthcoming to deny it, which was probably why Ophelia’s cheeks blossomed just then with bright color. She would have left them there then. It was apparent that she wanted to run. But she couldn’t leave Mavis yet if there was the slightest chance that she could turn the girl back to her favor.
To that end, she tried to ignore the three interlopers, as she saw them, and faced Mavis again. But Mavis was giving her a curious look now, and she wasn’t long in revealing the reason for it.
“Two men, Ophelia?” she said, feigning incredulity. “And neither of them smitten by your glorious self? Does that not give you a clue?”
“Whatareyou talking about now?” Ophelia demanded impatiently.
“That maybe it’s not them? That maybe it’s you? You’ve been slipping up, Pheli,” Mavis said, using the childhood name that Ophelia had long ago forbidden her friends to use anymore. “You’ve been revealing your real self much sooner these days, before you have a chance to fool anyone new you meet with your pretenses. People simply aren’t as blind as you think they are. Some are even seeing quite clearly that there’s nothing but blackened, bone-chilling ice beneath the pretty surface you present to the world.”
That last disparaging remark actually provoked a gasp out of Ophelia. She still couldn’t leave, though, much as she might want to.
Duncan was beginning to feel a bit uneasy himself. From what he was hearing, he would have to surmise that Mavis would never help. Ophelia must be coming to that conclusion herself. If he didn’t have Sabrina’s assurance of why Mavis was there, this conversation between the two lasses would be the last nail for him.
