A Matchmaking Mismatch (Romance Retold #3)

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

R uth turned her head away from the bright light, vaguely aware of muffled voices which suddenly quieted. She shifted and winced, pain throbbing at her side.

“Ruthie.” Topher’s voice sounded nearby, and she tried to open her eyes, finding her lids strangely heavy.

She put a hand to her side and moaned lightly.

“Don’t touch it,” Topher said. “You were shot, you silly fool.”

She blinked again, more forcefully this time, wisps of elusive memory traveling through her thoughts: Oxley’s hand helping her grip a pistol. Walking ten paces as light traveled up the morning sky. A swan. A deafening shot.

Her eyes flew open. Topher’s blurry face looked down into hers and behind him—she blinked—Oxley.

Her heart thumped wildly, and she put a hand to her face. No glasses. She needed her glasses.

“Glasses.” Her voice croaked from misuse, and she cleared her throat.

“You don’t need your glasses, Ruth.”

She caught sight of them on the table beside the bed and made to reach for them. Topher took her hand and placed it back beside her.

“He knows, Ruth.”

Her vision was clearing, and as she looked at Oxley, she could see it in his face—in the wary, hard look in his eyes. He did know.

A great silence stretched on as she held Oxley’s gaze, until Topher’s voice cut through. “I think I will give you two some time to talk.” He rose from his chair and turned to Oxley, staring at him and saying nothing.

“You needn’t worry,” Oxley said with a hint of an annoyed smile.

Topher nodded and left the room.

Ruth tried to breathe evenly, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet Oxley’s gaze now. The game was up, and he held her future in his hands.

She knew the silliest desire to ask for a mirror—to have a moment to see to her appearance. This was the first time he was seeing her as a woman, and she could only imagine what she looked like.

But it didn’t matter. Why would it? As if looking more feminine might lessen his anger.

More silence filled the room, heavy and thick. It felt wrong, lying down. It made her feel helpless and weak. She needed to sit.

She attempted to push herself up, but pain stabbed her side.

Strong hands wrapped around her arms and pulled her up.

“Thank you,” she said, allowing herself a quick glance up into his face.

He stepped away from the bed. “How do you feel?” His words were kind enough, but his jaw was set tightly.

“Alive, I suppose? And very…heavy.”

“That would be the laudanum Doctor Shepherd gave you.”

His mention of the doctor brought back more memories.

“How long have I been…?”

“A few hours,” he said.

She nodded. “What happened to Mr. Munroe?”

Oxley smiled slightly, but there was a strained quality to it that made her anxious. “Nothing.”

She frowned. “You mean I missed entirely?”

Oxley gave a wry smile. “Only by a mile or so. But Munroe didn’t do much better.”

She flinched as she shifted again. “My side begs to differ.”

“Yes, I cannot imagine it feels pleasant, but the bullet merely grazed you. You will make a full recovery.”

She sent him an annoyed glance. “Merely, did it?”

He chuckled, but his expression soon grew more somber again.

She could only delay the inevitable for so long. “You are angry.”

He fixed his gaze on her, and there was no softness in his expression. “I cannot deny it.” His jaw shifted from side to side. “Why?”

She swallowed, feeling emotion rise in her throat. Did laudanum have such an effect? “Will you sit down?”

His brows drew even further together.

“It is just that, I feel a bit intimidated with you standing there, so tall and angry and uninjured.”

He pursed his lips together and took a seat.

She clasped her hands in her lap and exhaled. “I never meant to deceive you. Truly. It was a series of unforeseeable mishaps that led to it.” She glanced at him, and he was watching her, his eyes skeptical and stern, as if to tell her he had no intention of believing a word she said. She couldn’t blame him.

“I know you have every reason to disbelieve me, and I will not fault you for doing so, but I wish to explain, and I promise to be honest with you now.”

“That would be appreciated.” His voice was clipped, and she felt the censure in his words and tone. She should always have been honest with him.

“I am the Swan and always have been. I write the column for our local newspaper, and Topher delivers it. I never gave anyone to believe I was a man, but it is what people assumed, and I didn’t correct them. When we received your letter, requesting a consultation, I wanted to refuse. We had never done such a thing, and it felt…wrong.” She felt her cheeks warm and averted her eyes. It wasn’t easy to be honest about their circumstances or their behavior. “But we needed the money. It hasn’t been easy since my father’s death, and I couldn’t subject my younger siblings to hardship when there was another option. So Topher and I decided to come to Town together—I would instruct him on things so that he could meet with you for that short consultation. But…”

She paused a moment.

“But what?”

“But you asked to move the meeting forward a day. And Topher was nowhere to be found. I thought he would return by the time the meeting was set to occur, but he didn’t. We couldn’t wait for your return—we hadn’t the money to afford another week in Town. I was furious with him for ruining everything, for putting frivolity above the well-being of our family. And that is when the idea formed in my mind.”

She stared ahead, remembering those moments with such perfect clarity that the room in Upper Brook Street nearly disappeared, and Oxley along with it. “I had cut my hair to afford the journey to London, and my siblings had teased me for looking like a boy. They have always teased me that I was meant to be one, for my parents convinced themselves they were having two boys when it was discovered late into her pregnancy that my mother was expecting twins. So when I saw the extra clothes sitting in my brother’s portmanteau, I thought I would see—just see whether they fit me, whether I really did look like a boy. And I did.”

She forced herself to meet Oxley’s eyes—to thrust away the embarrassment of confessing her lack of femininity; to admit her ludicrous decision to this man whose opinion she valued so dearly. “I couldn’t let Topher’s idiocy undo all of our work, and I decided I could manage one simple hour as the Swan that people expected—as a man. And then…” She lifted her shoulders and sighed.

“And then I asked you to keep helping me. And I made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.” Oxley was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. His hands were lightly clasped, one thumb rubbing the other pensively.

She nodded slowly. “I should have refused despite that, of course. I know that now. I knew it then, I think. But I couldn’t.” She didn’t say the next words that came to her. That it hadn’t just been the money. That there had been something about Oxley himself that made it impossible for her to refuse.

She wouldn’t lie to him, but she couldn’t tell him the entire truth. She had wounds enough without the pain of that type of rejection.

He was staring at her. She could feel it. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, my lord.” She couldn’t help herself. She reached for his hand, which he retracted slightly. She pulled her arm back and clasped her hands tightly in front of her, cheeks flaming. “But I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you or anger you. Indeed, I wanted to help you.” She looked at the room around her, with its fine furnishings and freshly papered walls. The four-poster bed she lay in was finer than anything she had slept in, even at Dunburn.

And she, in her brother’s blood-stained shirtsleeves, her face bare of glasses, and her head shorn of hair—she felt exposed and out of place. “We will pack our belongings.”