solution was to steer clear of respectable women. The other sort were in plentiful supply.
“There’s a rulebook for ladies a thousand pages thick, was it written down,” Keeffe said. “And she breaks ’em. Lots of people got their knives out for her to begin with. Today—everything that happened—they’ll twist it and blow it up so big none of us’ll recognize it. And what’s she to do? Run away back to Lord and Lady Chelsfield? Leave her family to face the jokes and insults? And all the while them knowing what’s going on behind their backs is worse than what’s said to their faces.” Keeffe shook his head. “That’s what worries me. I don’t know how to mend it.”
There was only one way. It hardly bore thinking of, but honor demanded Ashmont think it anyway.
“You see to mending yourself,” he said. “You did it once. This is a trifle by comparison. Leave the rest to me.”
The shrewd brown face cracked into a smile.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ashmont said.
The Duke of Ashmont didn’t mend things. He broke them. All the world believed it, and the world wasn’t wrong.
Keeffe let out a short cackle, wincing as he did so. “With respect, Your Grace, I’ll wager you don’t.”
Cassandra returned to the private dining parlor, ordered writing materials, and sent a note to Mrs. Nisbett, briefly explaining what had happened. A mangled tale would soon reach the lady if it hadn’t already, and Cassandra didn’t want her to worry. Word would reach London, too, but with any luck, her family wouldn’t hear until tomorrow.
By tomorrow she’d be ruined.
“One thing at a time,” she told herself.
She did not write to her parents. She still cherished a frail hope of salvaging the situation, or at least minimizing the damage, and didn’t want to cause more upset than absolutely necessary.
She wanted strong drink. She ordered tea.
A servant brought it in wondrously short order, considering how many travelers came and went from the inn. The Dis-Graces effect?
When she’d left the coffee room earlier, a group of coach passengers swarmed in, claiming all the tables except the one where Humphrey Morris was sitting. That was Their Dis-Graces’ place. When any of them were in the neighborhood, their chosen table was barred to other customers.
The three dukes were gods here. It didn’t matter who or what Ripley, Blackwood, and Ashmont broke. It didn’t matter what outrages they committed. They were dukes. They threw their money about. Money was their holy dispensation for all manner of bad behavior.
She shrugged. That was the way of the world—and hadn’t she acted promptly to take advantage? Ashmont had barely to lift an eyebrow to get whatever he wanted, without argument or delay or any of the other obstacles she’d face without him.
She’d seen Keeffe transported to the White Lion more gently and in a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise. All the inn had hurried to accommodate them. Other customers had to give up their private spaces because Ashmont required them. Having him about was like having a magic wand.
The door flew open.
Gods didn’t knock, did they?
There he stood, with his sun-gold hair and sky-blue eyes, in all his bruised, dirty, and dim-witted glory, like some drunken Apollo who’d fallen out of his chariot.
Beautiful, godlike, and hopeless.
He was a great, tragic waste—of looks, position, everything.
Once upon a time . . .
Remember you now. Camberley Place. You and Lady Alice and all the other little girls. The cousins.
Yes, dozens of Pomfret and Ancaster cousins and their friends. She was only one little girl among many, while to her he’d been the sun and the moon and the stars.
She remembered too well, the scenes breaking out of the mental trunk in which she’d locked them years ago. They crowded into her mind, all the way to the first time, the night before he and the other boys left for school, when he’d pointed out the constellations. The next time, a year later, she’d had a good look at him, in daylight. He’d miraculously appeared at one of the many bad moments of her youth, stepping out from the crowd of boys, so utterly unlike the others. He was a golden being, the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen: the fair, fair hair that curled in soft ringlets and the bluest eyes in all the world . . . and the face, too impossibly perfect. Like an angel’s.
This angel had taken her side, bringing Blackwood and Ripley with him. He’d even fought a monster,