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“What is it, my love?” asked Jerome, looking up from his paper. She passed the invitation across to him.

His eyebrows rose as he perused it. “‘You are cordially invited to the wedding of’—. Well, Rob got him to the sticking point after all.”

“It would seem so,” she said with a frown.

“You’re not happy, love?”

“I’m not sure that she is right for Rick,” she confessed. “I don’t think he is ready for marriage yet. They could both be miserable.”

“You never know. It might be the making of him.”

She sniffed skeptically. “Rick isn’t one to settle down, and she—” She cut herself off from saying anything uncharitable, but it burned inside her. Miss Woodrow struck her as not mature enough for Rick. As much as she adored her scapegrace brother, she privately thought he needed someone who would stabilize him. Miss Woodrow seemed too young and unformed to give him the ballast he needed. Unless he loved her, of course. She resolved to speak to him and ascertain his feelings on the matter.

However, the opportunity wasn’t afforded to her until the wedding breakfast, held at Layne House, which was rather too late. She watched him with Cecelia, trying to gauge his feelings, but he wasn’t giving anything away. He was so tall and lean and she so petite, they appeared as a rather odd couple to Ava’s way of thinking. Rick treated Cecelia with careful courtesy and Ava noticed how Cecelia’s eyes followed him with a kind of mournful longing when he moved away from her. This isn’t good!

Ava managed to corner him while his new wife was dancing and he was propping the wall with a glass of champagne.

“Are you happy?” she asked bluntly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked with his usual lazy smile, but she wasn’t fooled.

“You were forced into this. It’s not what you wanted. Did she trap you?”

Ricked stiffened and then his shoulders relaxed as he shifted position. “Of course not.”

“Rob told me you refused initially to do the right thing by her.”

His generous mouth tightened. Then he said quietly. “It wasn’t me, Ava. I’m not the one who ruined her.”

Ava stared up at him aghast. “They why—?”

“There was nothing else to be done!” he said tightly and swallowed the rest of his champagne. He pushed off the wall and wandered away in his characteristically loping stride.

She had no other chance to question him further, and she stood beside Jerome as they farewelled the couple who were leaving London for Cecelia’s Bedford Estate, where presumably they would remain until the scandal died down.

Meanwhile, her own battles, combatting the aftermath of Jerome’s trial, soon swamped Ava again.

The fight took its toll on Ava, a fact she kept from Jerome who, as far as she was concerned, had had enough to bear, and she was feeling rather low as a consequence, when she received a missive from Rey that threw her into a dilemma.

My Dear Ava,

I am reluctant to ask this of you, for I know the antipathy with which your husband regards me, but I am in flat despair and have no one but your fair self to whom I can turn for succor.

Would you grant me an hour of your time to unburden my soul?

If you are able, I would meet you at Grillon’s dining room at eight o’clock. Naturally, you should come veiled to protect your reputation.

Your friend always,

Reynard Fairbanks

Ava’s heart clenched in sympathy for her friend and she debated what to do. Tell Jerome and beg for permission? As a dutiful wife that was what she should do. No, a truly dutiful wife would ignore Rey’s request altogether. But everything in her rebelled at those two courses of action. While she had acquiesced to Jerome’s request to keep Rey at a distance, she still thought it unreasonable of him to ask her give up a friendship that meant so much to her, simply because he feared the gossip that would ensue.

Since his arrest and trial and its aftermath, she had a better understanding of why he might be more sensitive to what people might think or say than she had hitherto realized. But even so, she knew that only the direst of circumstances would have prompted Rey to request to speak to her. The notion of letting down the man who had risked life and limb for her on more than one occasion sat ill with her. She owed him a debt she could never repay, for if he hadn’t taken her to Ravenshaw, she feared that Jerome would have married the countess after all, and her life would have been ruined.

After wrestling with herself for an hour, she decided that she would keep the appointment and leave a note for Jerome telling him what she was doing. He had gone to Ascot for the races and wouldn’t be back until late. In all probability, she would be home before him in any case and could then explain her lapse in person, asking forgiveness after the fact. He would be angry, she was sure, but she was also confident she could placate him; after all, he did love her so.

Thoughts of how much her husband loved her threw her into a pleasant daydream for a while, and only when she looked at the clock did she realize she needed to dress to keep her appointment with Rey. So she scribbled a note to Jerome and left it on the mantle of his bedchamber, where she was confident he would see it when he returned, as he would wish to bathe and change when he reached home. She then rang for her maid, and also for the footman, whom she requested to find her a hackney carriage for half past seven.