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Chapter Five
“It’s all right! I’m her sister.”
Ro blinked awake, lifted his head from the pillow and looked over his shoulder-more by instinct than intention-to the door of Lydia’s room.
Just as it swung open and a lady with wild, frizzy red hair swept in.
And stopped, jaw dropping, eyes popping.
Then she made a strangled sound, eventually managed, “Ro?” in accents of utter disbelief.
Then her eyes shifted to Ro’s left. And widened even further. “Lydia!”
That came out as a high-pitched squeak.
Ro groaned and closed his eyes. “Go away, Tabitha.”
Lydia struggled up from beneath his arm. “Tab? Good Lord!” On her elbow, clutching the covers to her chest, she stared at her sister. “How…?”
Then she stared past her. “Oh God! For heaven’s sake, Tab-go away and close the door.”
Tabitha, whose expression had been blank for several seconds, blinked, then gri
Turning, she went back out of the door-joining the older couple hovering in the corridor.
The door shut.
Ro turned over and slumped back on the pillows. He didn’t bother groaning. “That was your parents, wasn’t it-the pair behind Tabitha?”
Lydia nodded. She stared at the door, still stu
“You left a note, I take it?” His tone was resigned.
“Just to tell Tab not to worry. I told her I would stop at an i
“Since when has Tab ever listened to orders-yours or anyone else’s?” Ro swung his legs out from beneath the covers and sat up.
Still stu
Pulling up his trousers, Ro shrugged. He fastened them, then reached for his shirt. His brain was functioning again; it might well be that Tabitha had done him a service. He could settle everything immediately without having to travel to Wiltshire first.
Regretfully, he would have to face the senior Makepeaces without a cravat; tying one would take too long. He’d shrugged on his waistcoat, stepped into his shoes, and reached for his coat before Lydia realized.
She frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed to go down and speak with your father. Probably your mother as well.”
“What?” In a mad scramble, Lydia came off the bed. “Don’t be silly. What are you going to say?” She swiped up her chemise and dragged it over her head.
Settling his coat, he frowned back. “What do you think I’m going to say? They just saw us in bed together, and with our clothes strewn between the door and the bed, they wouldn’t have had to wonder all that hard to deduce what we’d been doing there.”
“But-” Lydia broke off to wrestle her gown down over her head. “I’ll speak with them-it’s nothing to do with-”
Ro wasn’t where he’d been. Turning, she saw him going through the door. “Ro! Come back here!”
She nearly tripped on her way to the door. She opened it a crack and shouted, “I forbid you to speak to them!”
A hand flattened on the outside of the door and Tabitha appeared. “Much good that will do-he’s already on his way down.” She pushed through the door, forcing Lydia back.
“Oh, thank God-Tab, help me with this.” Lydia’s gown had got tangled, hems tucked through the bodice, skirts wrenched the wrong way, sleeves inside out. “I have to get dressed and get down there before he does something stupid.”
Tabitha regarded her for a moment, then walked to the bed, sat on it, bounced once, then let herself fall back. She stared at the canopy. “I’ve never known Ro to do anything stupid.” Turning her head, she looked at Lydia. “Why do you think he’s going to change and do something stupid now?”
Lydia hissed. “Because he’s an honorable man-and the idiot is going down there to offer for my hand.”
Tabitha nodded. “I expect he is. But why is that stupid?”
“Because he doesn’t love me! He’s only doing it because he feels honor-bound, now Mama and Papa caught us together.”
Tabitha gri
“No-what?” Lydia couldn’t believe how impossible her gown was being; the more she tugged, the worse it got, as if it had a mind of its own.
“She said, ‘Well, dear me-and with Lord Gerrard, too. I always wondered when she’d get to it.’”
Lydia snorted. “You’re making that up.”
“I swear on her grave. Anyway, you know that’s exactly the sort of thing Mama would say.”
Lydia didn’t bother denying it; aside from herself, her entire family were eccentric beyond belief. Somehow they got away with it; she’d always suspected because the rest of the ton found them rather frighteningly amusing. “Tab-for the Lord’s sake get off that bed and come and help me! I have to get down there and save him! You know what he’s like-once he makes an offer, he’ll get stubborn and difficult, and refusing him will be impossible.”
Shifting onto her side, Tabitha propped on one elbow and frowned at her. “Why do you want to refuse him? You’ve always been in love with him-everyone knows that-even, obviously, Mama. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
With her gown finally straight and the skirts shaken down, Lydia stared at Tabitha, then glared. “That’s immaterial. I might be in love with him, but he’s not in love with me-and that’s what counts.”
“Don’t be silly-he’s as much in love with you as you are with him. He always has been.”
Lydia growled.
“No-it’s true. The year I made my come-out, when you were having your second Season, I used to see him at balls-but he took great care that you never did. He saw you though, and truly, just one look at his face, and even you would have known.” Tabitha grimaced. “If you must know, that’s why I took up with Addison-because I thought that any day Ro would surrender and speak for you, and of course you’d accept him, and then you two would have each other…I wanted someone of my own.”
Lydia had stopped frantically tugging at her bodice to stare at Tabitha. “You encouraged Addison because you knew I was in love with Ro, and he was in love with me?”
Tabitha nodded. “But then Ro slunk away and didn’t speak, and you know what happened with Addison.” She looked up and met Lydia’s eyes. “Incidentally, did you find my letter?”
Lydia jerked her chin toward her bag. “It’s in there.” She’d wrestled the bodice and back of her gown into place, and got her arms down through the sleeves, but the laces defeated her-Ro had pulled them completely out of the eyelets. “Tab-please come and help me with this gown.”
Tabitha frowned. “You’re not listening to me, are you? You don’t believe he’s in love with you. I can’t see why you imagine he’s down there talking to Papa otherwise.”
“Because he’s Ro, and that’s exactly what he would do!” Exasperated, Lydia stamped her foot. “He thinks he’s ruined me, or some such twaddle, so-”
Tabitha snorted. “Lydia-we’re talking about Ro-Rogue-Gerrard. You do know why he’s called that, don’t you? It’s not because he does sweet, roguish things, but because ‘rogue’ signifies a being beyond control. Uncontrollable. Ro does what he wants and always has. No one and nothing gets in his way. If he wants something, he’ll have it, and as he certainly wants you-”
“Nonsense. He wants to do the right thing, but I have a say in this, and I won’t have it.”
Tabitha shook her head. “He’s not going to let you get away this time. Especially now he knows you love him.”
Lydia gritted her teeth and tried to thread her laces behind her back. “He doesn’t love me, and he certainly doesn’t know I love him.”
Tabitha stared at her, then looked at the rumpled, severely disarranged bed, then back at her. “Lydia-he knows. Of course he knows.”