Lady in Rags

Chapter Seven: For the Best

Neil Armiger followed Lady Duvalle to her library, irritated by her imperious manner, and irritated further still that she intimidated him.

"It is very late," he fumbled, "and perhaps now that you have your granddaughter and the physician here, I should leave. I have played my part."

"You have not finished it." Duvalle gave him a very cold, calculating smile. She stood by her globe, idly spinning it. "Tell me, Mr Armiger, did my servants stable your horse when you arrived?"

The change of topic caught him off guard, and he answered automatically.

"I did not ride here. I walked."

"Oh?" Lady Duvalle raised her fine black brows and left the globe to crook aside the curtains. "Carrying Verity in your arms, I suppose, and on a night like this too."

Too late, Neil saw the trap she had set for him. He shrugged, and tried to back out of it.

"I could not leave her lying there."

"But nor were you bound to go looking in the first place." Lady Duvalle let the curtain fall and returned to the globe, hardly bothering to glance at him. "Mr Armiger, it seems to me that you care very greatly for my granddaughter. More than a stranger should."

"I have met her three times in my life. Two of those times, we hardly said more than a handful of words to each other. It would not be right to say I care for her."

"But you do, or you would not have tramped through the snow to find her, and then carried her here, in your arms."

"Any good man would have done so."

"You are not a good man."

Exhausted, and chilled to the bone, despite the warm fire, Neil had neither the energy nor the patience to match wits with Lady Duvalle tonight. He flushed, abandoned diplomacy, and snapped:

"Lady Duvalle, I have told you before that I shall not be blackmailed into marrying your granddaughter. Do not try it! Frankly, I resent that you see your granddaughter as nothing more than the bait to tie my name and wealth to your family. Nothing more than that. What a callous woman you are."

"You resent that, and not that I see you as nothing more than wealth and a name?" Duvalle smiled ironically. "You do care for her, I can see that."

"I pity her. I pity her because she's a good woman, and she's surrounded by bad people."

Duvalle's face fell slightly. "I'm not the monster you imagine, Mr Armiger."

"The trouble is that you can't see what kind of a monster you are." His moment of anger passed quickly, and he was back to his usual cold manner. He door a deep breath, and turned the fire. "A monster like you thinks it's only my idea of marriage that matters. A monster like you wouldn't consider that Verity, too, has to agree to a marriage, and that she will not. She does not love me."

"She needs you." The words were harsh, the voice rasping. Lady Duvalle's mask was also slipping – or she was pretending it was. "Even if this Mr Harlan survives his injuries, even if he admits to raping her, she will forever be a murderess in the eyes of the village. And what honour do they think she was defending? You've already taken that, Mr Armiger. You could have spent the night reading bible verses to each other, but in the eyes of the village that girl was a whore the moment she walked into your house that night. Whores have no honour to defend. She will be shunned, abandoned. I doubt even her father will care to defend her. I could house her, but under my roof she would die a bitter spinster, a social leper, her honour still tarred. You took her honour from her, Mr Armiger, and you are the only person who can return it."