Chapter 3

R upert blinked at Clarissa Weatherby in the cold, shadowy carriage.

He knew he wasn’t a clever sort of fellow.

But he really thought he would have remembered doing something like that.

“Come again?” he asked, tilting his head to the side and shaking it in hopes it might jar the memory loose in his brain.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember!” Miss Weatherby snapped, her brown eyes full of poison. “Not only did you jilt me, but you also sent copies of your letter to every major newspaper in Britain!”

Rupert really did not remember doing that. He did remember sending Clarissa a letter releasing her from the betrothal she clearly had not wanted.

Or, to put a finer point on it, the betrothal she had been railing against, at considerable volume, in the middle of Boroughbridge’s Crown Hotel.

“I don’t understand,” he began. “I did write you a note. But I didn’t send it to any papers.”

She was still glaring at him as if he’d just kicked a puppy. “Well, the papers somehow got a hold of it.”

He rubbed his temple, still struggling to wrap his brain around whatever was going on. “But I don’t see why that would ruin your reputation. I didn’t say a word against you.”

She huffed. “Not a word against me?” She reached for her valise and began unlatching the leather straps. “It happens that I keep a copy with me.” She leafed through the pages of a journal, pulling out a newspaper clipping. “Let’s see if this refreshes your memory.”

Grimacing, Rupert accepted the slip of paper. Perfect . Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, here he was, out of the frying pan and straight into the old fire.

The truth was, Rupert could read, but he was deuced slow at it. His brain was, how you say, skimble-skamble, and had this way of turning b’s into d’s, and p’s into q’s. Some people were all at sixes and sevens, but old Rupert? He was at sixes and nines, because he literally could not tell them apart. And don’t ask him who or how , at least, not in writing. Because he somehow managed to swap one for the other without any sort of warning.

At the ripe old age of eight and twenty, he knew what his most common bear traps were well enough that he could manage to pick his way— slowly —through a letter. Under the best of circumstances, that was.

With his heart hammering out a military tattoo and Clarissa Weatherby giving him the sort of look that had been known to turn a man to stone, this was not what you would call the best of circumstances.

Stay calm, Rupert . This wasn’t the first time he’d had to brazen his way through this situation, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Deep breath. You know what to do.

He made a show of squinting at the clipping in the dim carriage light, as if struggling to make out the tiny print.

After a moment, he glanced up. “I packed my spectacles in my trunk, which is up top. Could you read it to me?”

Clarissa’s gaze remained as frosty as the Yorkshire night. But she nodded, took the article from him, and began to read.

To the Editor:

I write to you today to make you aware of a situation that will be of the most material interest to your readers. You see, I have narrowly escaped a terrible predicament, and I know it to be a circumstance your faithful subscribers will be most keen to avoid:

Betrothal to one of the Weatherby sisters.

Who, one might reasonably ask, are the Weatherby sisters? To be sure, they do not possess the notoriety of a Beau Brummell or an Emma Hamilton.

But these four young women do have something in common with those two stalwarts of society: They have the finances of Brummell, and the morals of Mrs. Hamilton.

Would that the Weatherby sisters possessed the looks of either of these figures, but I can assure you—they do not.

As I mentioned, I recently found myself in the unfortunate circumstance of being betrothed by my father to the second oldest Weatherby sister, Clarissa. She is arguably the worst of the bunch (although please do not mistake me; they are all extremely bad.) Miss Clarissa Weatherby is a bluestocking and not the sort of bluestocking one admires for her intellect and high-minded thinking. She is as strident as she is shrill, the type who thinks herself smarter than every man in the room. She has nothing in the form of physical charms to recommend her. Such an undesirable creature should at least have the decency to bring to her prospective union a sizeable fortune, but, like her sisters, Miss Clarissa is destitute.

I am fortunate to have discovered the truth about these Weatherby Wallflowers before it was too late, and the parson had done his work. I now implore your readers toward vigilance, so that they might have the perspicacity to avoid these avaricious vituperators.

Your loyal servant,

Rupert Dupree

She looked up as if daring him to defend himself. Rupert’s mouth was hanging open. She’d said it was horrid, but it had somehow managed to be ten times worse than he’d imagined. “They didn’t actually print that?”

She glared at him down her nose. “Oh, but they did. In just about every paper in England. As I’m sure you intended!”

Panic fluttered in his stomach; maybe he would be the one to flash the hash. “I didn’t write that!”

She gave him a scowl that could’ve curdled milk. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I didn’t! It doesn’t even sound like me.” He raked a hand through his hair. “ So that they might have the perspicacity to avoid these avaricious vituperators ? I don’t even know what half those words mean!”

She paused, narrowing her eyes, and for a second, he thought he’d convinced her.

It was a good argument, after all, seeing as it happened to be the truth.

But then, she shook herself, and the poisonous glare snapped back into place. “A likely story, Mr. Dupree.”

He cast his eyes toward the carriage’s ceiling in despair. “Look, I can see why you hate me if you think I wrote that . But I didn’t know a blessed thing about it. Did you not receive my letter?”

Her lips tightened. “What letter? What are you talking about?”

Rupert leaned forward. “You should have received it with your mail around the same time I was to come to Boroughbridge.”

“I received nothing from you, Mr. Dupree,” she said, her voice cold.

He groaned. “I have no idea who wrote that letter or how it came to be in the papers. Although…”

The words died on his lips as he remembered. Because, as usual, he’d known what he wanted to say, but he’d needed help penning his letter. And the person who’d been on hand, the one he had turned to for help, had been William Ellison .

He should have known better than to trust one of his brother’s friends.

Rupert ran a hand over his face. “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve a fair idea who sabotaged me.”

Clarissa rolled her eyes. “Sabotaged you? Is that the best tale you can come up with?”

He ignored her barb. It wasn’t difficult to understand why she was furious, and what was she to think other than that he had been the one behind it? “I promise you this—I am going to make this right.”

Clarissa crossed her arms. It suddenly struck Rupert that she was trembling. Probably with rage, although now that he thought on it, she looked deuced cold. Her cloak was what you would call an autumn weight…

She glowered at him. “Just how do you propose to do that?”

He was still working that bit out, but he had a few ideas. “For starters, I’m going to— ugh !”

The words died on Rupert’s lips as the carriage jolted, jerked to a halt, and tilted precariously.

The sudden change in momentum sent Clarissa flying forward into Rupert’s seat.

He caught her by the shoulder before her face smashed into the thinly cushioned seatback. “Whoa, there. Are you all right?”

She did not need Rotten Rupert’s help. Flushing, Clarissa extricated herself and returned to her seat. “I’m fine. What’s happening?”

Outside the carriage, she could hear the driver and guard conferring. After a moment, the door opened, ushering in a blast of even colder air. “Apologies, miss, sir,” the driver said, touching the brim of his hat. “But one of the wheels has broken. Must’ve hit a rock or some such.”

Clarissa bit down a trace of panic. She was already freezing, already longing to reach the next waypoint where she could exchange her cold brick for a hot one. The last thing she needed was to be stuck out here in the cold. “What will you do?” she asked, pleased that her voice was steady in spite of the fear welling in her chest.

“We’ll ride ahead to the next village and fetch the wheelwright. It’s only about an hour on.”

An hour . That meant it would be another hour back, plus whatever time it took for the wheelwright to rouse himself, collect his tools, and repair the wheel.

Now, Clarissa was feeling more than a trace of panic. “Is there a farmhouse nearby where we could seek shelter?”

The coachman looked apologetic. “I’m afraid not. There’s nothing for miles.” He turned to Rupert. “We’re unhitching the horses now. You could go on with us, sir, if you don’t mind riding bareback.” He turned to Clarissa. “Apologies, miss, but we don’t have anything like a sidesaddle.”

The words that emerged from Clarissa’s mouth were, “That’s quite all right.” Because she prided herself on being stalwart and undaunted. She was self-reliant to a fault and didn’t have it in her to succumb to hysteria, even when she was honestly terrified that she was about to succumb to the cold.

“Kind of you to offer,” Rupert told the coachman, “but I don’t like the thought of Miss Weatherby being out here all alone. I’ll stay with her while we await your return.”

The coachman bowed. “As you like, sir. I’d best be getting on, then. Sooner we start, the sooner we finish and all that.”

“Of course,” Rupert answered. “Godspeed to you both.”

The coachman shut the door, and Clarissa once again found herself alone with Rupert Dupree.

She wanted to ask him about what he had said before they hit that rock—about his plan to make things right. But after the blast of cold air that had entered the carriage when the coachman opened the door, her lips weren’t working as well as they ought to have been.

Her brain wasn’t functioning very well, either. Her thoughts felt sluggish, which was the most alarming thing of all. Because she was Clarissa Weatherby. Her thoughts were never sluggish.

Wrapping her cloak more tightly about her shoulders, she uttered a silent prayer that she would make it through the night.