Page 16 of Miss Davis and the Spare (Dazzling Debutantes #3)

Chapter Fifteen

“We shall flip a coin to see which of us pursues the delectable widow, shall we?”

July 1815, Brendan Ridley to Peregrine, on his twentieth birthday.

* * *

P erry walked to the staircase and slumped down onto the third step, his knees refusing to function as he landed heavily.

“Gone?”

“She left midmorning”—Richard checked his pocket watch—“approximately nine and a half hours ago. I am afraid you have missed her.”

“Gone where?”

“Home. To Rose Ash Manor.”

Perry dropped his head into his hands as the last vestiges of his optimism shriveled and died. “She was meant to stay. To find another young man.”

“Was that the plan? I venture that your understanding of the young woman is flawed.”

Perry had known better. He had always known better. Had he truly believed that fierce, loyal Emma would quietly accept his calculated cruelty and then seek out another suitor? If he was honest, the notion had never rung true. He had not wanted her to find another man. He had wanted to be her man.

The truth was a bitter draft. His entire scheme had been a flawed computation of imagined reactions and warped logic meant to ease his own conscience. In truth, nothing he had done made any sense. He had acted like a man haunted—driven by demons—and in doing so, had destroyed the only good thing to happen to him in years.

If the goal had been to drive her into someone else’s arms, why the devil had he humiliated her in public? At a ball held in her honor? What, precisely, had been the plan? To cut her so deeply that some gentleman in attendance—or worse, one who heard the tale secondhand—would inexplicably fall in love with her on the spot?

“Oh, my God. What have I done?”

“Plenty, by my count,” Richard said darkly. “But this is not the venue for such a discussion. You will accompany me to my study. Now.”

It was not a request. The tone was pure command. Perry had never heard his brother speak to him that way before. It sent a chill down his spine.

With a sickening sense of finality, Perry feared the moment he had always dreaded had finally arrived. His brother would sever ties with him—just as their grandfather once had. The weight of that possibility crushed the breath in his chest. The only faint hope he clung to now was that Halmesbury might help him untangle this wreckage. If it was not already too late.

Perry followed Richard down the corridor and sank into his customary armchair, left of the fireplace. He slumped, staring at the polished toes of his Hessians as if they held the answer to his undoing.

Emma was gone. And now, it seemed, he might lose Richard as well.

The silence in the study was thick. Stifling. As if time itself were suspended, waiting to see which way the sword would fall.

“I have been trying to speak with you for several days,” Richard began, his tone clipped and low. “I saw you depart Emma’s room the other morning. I prayed it signaled the beginning of something meaningful. But then I watched you, across the ballroom, give her what looked very much like the cut direct—while parading that merry ace of spades on your arm.”

Perry flinched.

“She is an innocent girl. And I must admit to my deep disappointment—no, fury—at the idea that you might have ruined her and then broken her heart in such a public and deliberate fashion.”

“I did not ruin her.”

Richard’s eyes narrowed in skepticism. One brow lifted, emerald eyes glinting with barely restrained ire.

“We kissed,” Perry clarified, more forcefully. “But her virtue is intact. I swear it.”

A tense silence followed. Richard studied him as if weighing the truth for cracks.

“Why?” he asked finally.

“I could not do it to her,” Perry rasped, the truth tumbling out. “I am a second son with no prospects. I have nothing of worth to offer her. But she … she is a revelation. She deserves a man who can build a life for her. A husband who can give her everything. And I—” He broke off, swallowing hard. “I have only ruin in my wake.”

Richard sat very still.

“I see,” he said, but there was no judgment in his voice now—only something quiet. Something akin to sadness.

They sat in silence while Perry tried to gauge his brother’s mood. Did the fact that Emma still possessed her virtue ease Richard’s anger? Might he somehow emerge from this evening still welcome in this household? Still a brother who mattered?

The earl cleared his throat, and to Perry’s immense relief, the thundercloud in his countenance began to lift.

“Then it is time we had a proper talk. Halmesbury took me to task for failing to speak with you—about our past. About your youth. He believes my negligence played some part in what happened between you and Emma.”

Perry shook his head. “No, Richard. This is not your fault. I am responsible for my own mistakes.”

“I do not deny that,” Richard replied gently. “But I believe Philip meant something more nuanced. I have shared some of our experiences with him. About the Earl?—”

“Of Satan,” Perry murmured bitterly.

Richard’s mouth twisted. “Yes. Quite. I told him about the women he placed in my bed when I was twelve. The revels. His illness. The madness. The mercury. I also told him about how he kept you shut away—no schooling, no family, no escape. Just spiteful tutors and his own warped attempts to mold you into his image.”

Perry’s head jerked up. “Wait—what do you mean, no family? What family?”

Richard paused, brows knitting. “You did not know?”

“Know what?”

“Our grandfather tried to take you from Saunton Park when you were fourteen. He was appalled by what he saw when he visited you. Said it should have been a celebration—a young man’s passage into manhood—but instead he found you thin, quiet, and clearly in distress. He demanded Father release you to him, but as a peer, Father was untouchable. Grandfather tried for years to gain access to you.”

Perry’s heart thudded in his chest. “How do you know this?”

“He came to see me at Oxford. Just before he died. He explained everything and asked me to look after you. He made me promise, Perry. That once Father passed, I would ensure you had the safe home you deserved.”

A trembling hand covered Perry’s face. “He did not abandon me?”

Richard leaned forward, his expression gentle. “Abandon you?”

“I thought he had. That last time I saw him … I was desperate. Father was—pressing. Trying to turn me into some grotesque version of a gentleman. I begged Grandfather to take me with him. He said he would try. Then he vanished. When I was sixteen, I asked Father what had happened. He told me Grandfather had died.”

Richard sat back with a pained look. “I am so sorry, Perry. I should have done more. I was so focused on escaping my own torment that I forgot I had a little brother left behind. I should have come home. But after the … incident with the women in my bed?—”

“When you hid in the guest rooms for a week?”

Richard nodded. “After that, I could not bear the thought of going back. So I stayed with the Ridleys. Their father was happy to host an heir to an earldom, and I let him. But if anyone abandoned you … it was me.”

Perry stared down at his boots, reluctant but compelled to speak the words that had clung to him for years. “You saved me, Richard. When Father died, and you took over—you gave me the one thing I had never had. The ability to choose my life. Leaving for school …” He broke off, overcome.

Richard swallowed. “I am glad to hear that. I only wish I had known all this sooner.”

Perry rubbed discreetly at his eyes. “Would we have been ready for this conversation before now? I think … it took Sophia, and your choices, to bring us here. Without them, I do not believe I could have spoken of it.”

Richard nodded thoughtfully. “No, I was not in any position to help until I met Sophia. But, Perry …”

Perry froze, not daring to move lest his brother ask the question he dreaded.

“Is there more to this recent behavior? I understand your pain over Grandfather, but … this performance at the ball, the dramatics—it feels like something deeper is troubling you.”

Perry dropped his head, the heat rising furiously in his face. He knew he was crimson from ear to collar, and he hated how telling the reaction was.

“I do not know what you mean,” he muttered into his wrinkled cravat.

Just then, his stomach betrayed him with a loud, accusatory growl.

Richard blinked. “Have you eaten today?”

Perry shook his head, still staring resolutely at the floor.

“Then we shall find you something to eat before we address this mysterious nothing that causes you to blush like a lad caught kissing the vicar’s daughter.”

Despite himself, Perry huffed a quiet laugh and rose to follow his brother. He could not yet meet Richard’s eyes, but he took comfort in the shared silence as they walked toward the kitchens. Whatever came next, they would face it as brothers.

* * *

Emma and Betty shared a room at a quality coaching inn, recommended by the earl to the coachman of the lead carriage. Richard had insisted that Betty act as chaperon for the journey, and Emma had agreed to have her maid share the room—both for propriety and the added security. A woman staying alone at an inn could attract unwanted attention, and this way, they would both be safe.

It had nothing to do with her need for distraction.

Having a plan gave her a small sense of peace. They were making excellent time, with fine weather and smooth roads easing their return to the countryside. The rhythm of travel, the familiar sights of hedgerows and rolling fields, provided solace to her bruised heart. Yet when left too long to her thoughts, her mind drifted in unwelcome directions—imagining Perry in the widow’s arms. Lady Slight, arching and sighing where Emma might have been. Perry pressing kisses over alabaster skin that was not her own. His hands, his mouth … giving to someone else what she had only just begun to discover.

She sighed, eyes closed as Betty brushed out her hair, the bristles pulling gently through her curls to ready them for bed. It was not her place. Not anymore. And she must stop thinking of it as though it had been. Perry did not belong to her. He belonged to no woman. Least of all to a country girl with modest means, a modest dowry, and dreams that had overreached their limits.

Emma bit her lip. Would she ever look at another man and feel something again? Perry had been her first stirrings of real interest. Yes, he was handsome—extraordinarily so—but it was more than his striking features or his easy charm. He had made her laugh. Challenged her mind. Shown her how to relax and enjoy the moment. And somehow, in the short time they had spent together, he had seen her. Not just the awkward girl in borrowed gowns, but the woman beneath who ached to be understood.

He had been good for her. Until he was not.

What was he doing now? Her heart winced to think of it. Most likely … wrapped up in someone else’s arms, lips on someone else’s skin. She clenched her jaw. Enough.

When she finally climbed into bed, she stretched long across the mattress, grateful for a full day in the carriage if only for the fatigue it brought to her limbs. Sleep, however, might not come easily. Not with her thoughts so quick to wander back to London … back to him.

There was to be an assembly in Rose Ash at the end of July. Perhaps she might attend. It could do no harm to meet a few local gentlemen. If nothing else, it would be a distraction. And who knew? She might one day find someone honest and kind, someone who could challenge her mind and win her heart. Someone new.

Her pride might be bruised, but her future remained intact. And perhaps, somewhere out there, there was a gentleman who would one day share her love for the country, and estate matters, and the simple, contented life she had once imagined for herself.

She smiled faintly, pulling the covers up to her chin. Yes. One day, she would stop comparing every man to the London bachelor who had stolen her heart like a thief in the night. But not tonight.

Tonight, she simply missed him.