Page 5 of Snowbound with the Scoundrel
“—but it was on everybody’s lips.I was at school with Norwood, you know.”He shook his head, smiling softly.“Capital fellow.Absolutely capital.I daresay your sister is going to be well-pleased with him.”
“Thank you.I’m sure she—ugh.” Clarissa rubbed her temple.What was shedoing?This was not a normal conversation, and Rupert Dupree was the most despicable man she knew.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself of that fact?
Clenching her jaw, Clarissa began again.“I mentioned that I have not been doing so well.My troubles began around two years ago when I received a great blow to my reputation.”
His face fell.“How awful.I suppose that explains why I hadn’t heard anything about it.You see, two years ago is right around the time I left for the Continent.”
Did he truly think he could play dumb?That she would let him off so easily?Not a chance!“Indeed, the incident which proved so damaging occurred on the eve of your departure.”
“Did it?”Confusion was a natural expression on Mr.Dupree’s face, one Clarissa took it that he wore with some frequency.“That’s quite the coincidence.”
Clarissa glared across the carriage.“No coincidence at all, Mr.Dupree, considering the catalyst to my downfall was you jilting me!”
Chapter3
Rupert 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!”
Rupertreallydid 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 himwhoorhow, 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:
