A Matchmaking Mismatch (Romance Retold #3)

Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

P hilip’s knuckles stung, and he clenched his hand to numb the pain. Munroe had fallen back into the arms of Mr. Archer and another man, but he threw their supportive hands off and put a hand to his bleeding nose.

He glanced at his bloody thumb then chuckled. “So you don’t know. Then you have my sympathies, Oxley.”

Philip backed up a few steps, reaching his hand for Ruth’s again. If Munroe wished for a duel, Philip would gladly accept. At least this time he wouldn’t be forcing Ruth into it.

“Do you want to tell him? Or shall I?” Munroe was speaking to Ruth, and he shrugged his shoulders. “He can look up there and see for himself, I suppose.” He pointed lazily up above them, and Philip glanced up at the terrace, where a dozen people stood.

“Philip.” Ruth’s soft, plaintive voice sounded beside him, and he looked down at her. “I wanted to tell you. I should have told you.”

Philip’s eyebrows drew together, unease filling him at the look on Ruth’s face. “Told me what?”

“Bah!” Munroe said. “Why spoil the fun and let her do it? I shall tell you!” He threw up his hands and shoulders, directing a pitying grimace at Philip. “Your swan has been bamboozling you, Oxley! Playing you false.”

Ruth’s hands clenched Philip’s arm, and she shook her head, but there was desperation in her eyes.

Munroe looked at all the people gathering around, and an unpleasant smile stretched across his lips as he directed himself to the group at large. “Perhaps many of you will recognize this woman before you! She has been masquerading”—he snorted with amusement at his à propos choice of word—“around Town for a month now, dressed as a man. One Mr. Ruth—also known as the Swan—a poor woman who gets paid for giving love advice in a newspaper.”

More murmurs sounded.

“She has been accepting money from unsuspecting gentlemen who haven’t the wherewithal to handle their own affairs—who require the help of someone else to woo women.” He sniggered. “Lord Oxley is one of those men.”

Philip clenched his jaw, and he felt the blood pulsing in his neck, drawing the heat up into his face as his fellows looked on. Was this what Ruth meant she should have told him? That she had been discovered?

“But she has done more than cheat a few fools out of their money. She had other plans—far more ambitious ones! Didn’t you, Miss Hawthorn? Far more than could be gained from helping Oxley or Kirkhouse.”

Ruth swallowed, shaking her head, and Munroe sneered, the light of victory growing in his eyes. “All this time, she was helping her own brother to court Miss Devenish in secret.” He pointed up toward the terrace, and Philip’s eyes followed.

Miss Devenish stood there beside a masked man Philip now recognized as Mr. Hawthorn. They held hands, but Miss Devenish was frowning, her eyes trained on Munroe.

“Yes. And I must applaud the enterprise and vision of your scheme, Miss Hawthorn. Why help Oxley to win Miss Devenish’s hand when you could steal him for yourself—and Miss Devenish for your brother?”

Philip’s head turned slowly to Ruth.

“No, indeed,” she said, and her hand tightened its grip on his. “That is not what it was!”

“Oh, but it was,” Munroe said.

Nausea swirled in Philip’s stomach, his hand sweating in its glove.

“I didn’t know,” Ruth said. “I swear. And nor did Topher. He would never have courted her if he had known it was her you wished to marry.”

Philip blinked and swallowed, but Ruth’s face still oscillated before him strangely.

“Mr. Ruth is a woman? And your sister ?” Miss Devenish’s stunned voice wafted down to the gardens.

“Rebecca—”

“And you…you tricked me into loving you?”

“No, I—”

Departing footsteps sounded, followed by Mr. Hawthorn’s pleas.

Ruth reached a hand up to Philip’s face. “Philip. Please let me explain.”

He drew back, letting her hand drop from his and stepping backward as things clicked into place in his mind. Ruth’s acquaintance with Miss Parkham and Mr. Kirkhouse—and their engagement shortly after her arrival in Town. Rumors of Miss Devenish’s secret lover. The strange behavior of both Mr. Hawthorn and Miss Devenish at the card party. “It was your brother?”

Tears sprang to Ruth’s eyes, and she reached a hand out to Philip. “I didn’t know. And when I discovered it, they ended things.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” He took another step backward, remembering the list of lies he had detailed after discovering Ruth was a woman—how he had laughed as if it was a joke.

“I didn’t think it mattered. Topher and Miss Devenish could never be—and you were having such success with her.”

Bile rose in Philip’s throat, and he stepped back again, away from Ruth’s outstretched hand—the one he had been holding but a moment ago. He stumbled as his shoe hit an uneven stone, and he caught himself on the raised wall beside him, gazing dazedly around the gardens.

Pitying faces looked on, some silent, some whispering with their eyes trained on him. He clenched his eyes shut to block out the nightmarish sight.

“Philip, please.”

He froze, jaw clenching at his name on Ruth’s lips. She had made him look a fool—held his hand while he defended her in front of all his acquaintances—defended a person who had been secretly humiliating him.

Had she been using her own tactics against him to make him fall in love with her? He rose up to his full height and squared his shoulders. He wouldn’t let her humiliate him by showing how much the knowledge hurt him.

“Don’t.” He turned on his heel and strode from the courtyard, pushing past a smirking Munroe and into the house.