Castles Ever After 02 Say Yes to the Marquess (20 page)

Teddy clucked his tongue. “You’re making a scene, kitten.”

“I don’t care,” Phoebe said loudly. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.”

People turned. Stared. Around them, conversations withered and died.

This entire evening was a mistake, and it was all Clio’s fault. She should have protected her sister. Phoebe wasn’t ready for this. Perhaps she never would be.

“Leave her be,” Clio repeated.

“It’s for her own good, Clio. She has to break the habit.”

“For heaven’s sake, why? Let her keep her string, and her peculiarities, too. Let her keep her
self.
” She tilted her head toward the crowded, glittering ballroom. “We were brought up to care too much about what others think of us. It changed me. It changed you, too, Daphne. And I’m sad to say, neither of us changed for the better. I refuse to let Phoebe meet the same fate. She’s remarkable.”

“ ‘Remarkable’ is just the word. Everyone will be remarking.”

She turned to Phoebe, tucking the string in her sister’s hand. “I’m going to make a promise. To you, and to myself. I’m your sister and now your guardian, and I love you. I will never make you feel you must be someone else, just to please society.”

“Don’t be naïve, Clio,” Daphne said. “You can’t brush aside society. You’re going to be the wife of a diplomat, and a marchioness.”

“No, I won’t be. I’m not marrying Piers.”

“Oh, dumpling,” Teddy said, giving her a nudge in the side. “Don’t give up now. I hope you’re not listening to what they’re saying in the card room.”

“Why? What are they saying in the card room?”

Her brother-in-law looked sheepish. “They’re wagering, of course. On whether the wedding will take place. Lord Pennington’s giving odds of four to one against it.”

Ah. That was probably the true reason they’d been invited here tonight. To provide a bit of idle speculation and amusement. A joke.

In that moment, Clio realized something wonderful.

She just didn’t care.

Perhaps they’d worn her down. Or perhaps five-and-twenty was a magical age where a woman came into her own. For whatever reason, she truly, genuinely did not care one whit.

And then, as though announcing a prize she’d been awarded, the majordomo cleared his throat. “Lord Rafe Brandon.”

No one was worried about string now. Not even Phoebe.

Clio knew the man could make a dark, dramatic entrance on horseback. But turn him out in a fitted tailcoat, snowy cravat, and polished boots . . . ?

Good heavens above.

The strong cut of his jaw was pure Brandon, as was the easy air of command. But he brought with him that essential Rafeness, too. The aura of rebellion and danger that made the air prickle and set her heart racing.

Everything about his looks declared he was born for just this setting.

Everything about his expression told Clio he
hated
it.

But he was here anyway.

For her.

He crossed to their corner and bowed to each of them in turn, saving Clio for last. “Miss Whitmore.”

She dropped a small curtsy. “Lord Rafe.”

“You came,” Phoebe said.

“Yes.” He gave his cuff an uneasy tug and cast a glance around the crowded ballroom. “Sorry to arrive so late. Miss Whitmore, I suppose all your dances are spoken for.”

Clio couldn’t help but laugh. “No. All my dances are free.”

“How the devil is that possible?”

“I’ve been sitting out with Phoebe.”

The orchestra struck up the first strains of a waltz. Rafe took her by the hand. “Well, you’re not sitting out a moment longer.”

Wearing a look on his face that blended defiance and unease, he led her to the dance floor and spun her into a waltz.

He was a most capable dancer. It made sense that he would be. Moving with coordination and grace was a part of his trade.

“I confess, I’d lost hope. I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I wondered, too.”

When she could bear to look up at him—and how strange that was, that gazing up at him was what she most wanted to do, and yet it cost her every scrap of courage she could muster—she noticed a faint purple shadow on his left cheekbone. And his full, sensual lips were even fuller than usual on one side.

“You’ve been hurt. What happened?”

He shrugged. “Hit a bump in the road. So to speak.”

“It rather looks as though the bump hit back.”

His swollen mouth tugged to one side. “It was nothing I wouldn’t have done ten times again to get here tonight. But I can’t stay long. I just came to give you the dance I owed. And to say farewell.”

“Farewell?”

He swept her into a turn. “I’m returning to London tonight. I assume I can leave Bruiser and Ellingworth at the castle with you.”

“Of course, but . . . Why? Piers will be home within a week or two. You’ll want to see him, and I . . .” Her chest deflated. “I just don’t understand why you have to go so soon.”

He drew her close and lowered his voice. “Come along. You’re a clever girl, and it doesn’t become you to pretend otherwise. You know why I have to leave.”

“I don’t know at all. We can agree to keep our distance.”

“There’s agreeing in principle, and then there’s nightfall. There’s being alone when it’s dark and quiet, and knowing you’re somewhere beneath the same roof. We can’t rely on your insomniac relations to keep saving you. If I spent one more night in that castle . . .”

His gaze swept down her body. She ached everywhere.

“I’d come to you.”

I
’d come to you.

Those words. They made her heart flip and her knees go weak.

“I’d come to you,” he repeated, as if taking a solemn vow. “I wouldn’t be able to stay away.”

“I could change rooms. I could move to—”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if you locked yourself in the highest, farthest tower. I’d find you. I’d come to your door in the night. And then . . . You know what would happen then.”

She couldn’t breathe. “What would happen then?”

“You’d answer.” He moved closer, until she was faint with his heat and the clean, male scent of him. “You’d let me in, Clio. Wouldn’t you? You couldn’t turn me away.”

She nodded, entranced by the low, dark thrum of his words.

He was right. If he knocked at her door in the middle of the night, she would let him in. And it didn’t have anything to do with kindness or generosity. It had to do with yearning and desire. The wild chase of blood through her veins whenever he drew near. The pang of need that answered whenever he looked at her like this.

The power of the emotion in those bold green eyes . . .

If this man were ever to love—truly
love
—a woman could spend her whole life reeling from the force of it.

But he was here to say farewell, and the sharp pain of losing him was enough to make her dizzy.

He slowed them to a stop. “You’ve gone pale.”

Had she? Now that he mentioned it, the ballroom had gone dark at the edges. And her head was still spinning, even though they’d stopped dancing several moments ago.

Her heart was just so full. And pounding. His suit, those words, the waltz . . .

How could any mortal woman bear it?

“Perhaps I just need some air,” she said.

Rafe shored her up with an arm about her waist. Then he steered her to the edge of the room, back to the corner where Daphne and Teddy were waiting with Phoebe.

“Lady Cambourne.” He nodded. “You should take your sister to the retiring room.”

“No.” Clio scooped in a shallow breath. “Don’t leave me. I’ll be fine. It’s just all that twirling on an empty stomach. Tight corset laces. You, in that coat.”

You, you, you.

He didn’t acknowledge the compliment. “Why is your stomach empty? Didn’t you eat before the ball?”

“Of course she didn’t,” Daphne said. “A lady never eats before a ball.”

Rafe looked only at Clio. “When’s the last time you had a proper meal?”

She hedged. “That’s not . . .”

“Answer me.”

With reluctance, she admitted, “Breakfast.”

He swore under his breath.

“It’s a bad habit.” A habit Clio knew she needed to break. If she was going to guard Phoebe from damaging expectations, she had to extend the same protection to herself. “All I need is a cup of lemonade or barley water, and I’ll be fine.”

He pulled her to her feet, lacing her arm through his. “You need proper food. I’m taking you in to supper.”

Daphne held them back. “But you can’t. Not yet.”

“Not
yet
?”

Goodness. Clio had never seen him wear an expression so stern. The furrow in his brow could have crushed walnuts.

But Daphne, being Daphne, shrugged off his obvious anger. “There’s an order to these things. Perhaps you’ve been out of circulation so long, you’ve forgotten it. But we don’t all flock to the buffet like gulls. We go in to supper according to precedence. Beginning with the highest ranked, down to the last.”

“Then I can take her in first,” Rafe said. “I’m the son of a marquess. No one here outranks me.”

Daphne corrected him. “We go by the ladies’ rank. And my sister, as unmarried Miss Whitmore, is near the end of the queue.”

“She’s engaged to marry a lord.”

“She’s not married to him yet.”

Rafe clenched his jaw. “This is bollocks.”

Daphne smiled. “This is society.”

“At the moment, Lady Cambourne, I don’t see a difference between the two.” He tightened his arm, drawing Clio close. “We’re going in to supper. Precedence be damned.”

“Truly, I can wait,” Clio murmured.

“But you won’t.” His deep voice shivered to the soles of her feet. Barely controlled anger radiated from him. “Not tonight. When I’m around, you don’t wait out dances. You don’t go hungry. And you sure as hell don’t come at the end of any line.”

Good heavens. It was a struggle not to swoon all over again. But she didn’t want this to mean the end of their evening.

“I promise, I can wait. I’m already feeling better.”

“That’s a good girl,” Teddy said. He nudged Rafe in the side. “We do have to permit the ladies their vanities, Brandon. It’s like I’ve told our dumpling again and again. Best to go easy on the supper buffet. Lord Granville already has one heavyweight in the family.”

Her brother-in-law chuckled merrily at his own joke.

Clio wanted to disappear.

“That’s right,” Rafe said, sounding amused. “Lord Granville does.”

Thwack.

No one saw the punch coming. Not Clio, not Daphne. Certainly not Teddy, whose head whipped to the side with the force of Rafe’s blow.

He blinked. Then he staggered backward and fell, dropping on his arse with a weak, undramatic “oof.” A dull thud that seemed to sum up the man’s whole existence.

She wanted to cheer.

“Teddy!” Daphne cried. She knelt beside her husband, drawing the handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and pressing it to his bloodied lip. Then she turned a scathing gaze in Rafe’s direction. “What’s wrong with you? You’re like some kind of animal.”

But Rafe wasn’t there to hear it.

When Clio searched the crowd for him, he was gone.

Chapter Twenty

W
ell. That was that.

Rafe’s great return to society was over before it had even begun.

A crowd gathered at once. Crowds were always drawn to blood.

From the moment he’d entered the ballroom, they’d all been hoping for a scene like this. Rafe had half expected it, too. This was why he’d told the grooms to keep his gelding saddled.

As he carved through the crush of bodies on his way to the door, whispers and rumors buzzed about him like bees, stinging from all sides.

They knew he didn’t belong here.

He knew it, too.

He was an impulsive, reckless devil with no sense of comportment. There was only one reason he had any interest in attending balls or claiming the privilege that accompanied his given title: to pay his debts to Clio. Well, his aristocratic birthright couldn’t even get her into the damned supper room. And he couldn’t last ten minutes without unleashing his inner brute.

Now the best thing he could do for her was to leave.

A steady rain had started, turning the drives and pathways to mud. He turned up the lapels of his coat and made his way to the stables. He wouldn’t get far in weather like this, but he would get somewhere.

“Rafe! Rafe, wait.”

He turned. She came dashing to meet him, wet silk clinging to her legs. For that matter, wet silk was clinging to her everywhere.

And of course the silk would be pink. It had to be pink.

He drew her into the stables. “Clio, what are you doing? Go back in the house.”

“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving with you.”

He threw a glance toward the grooms and lowered his voice. “Don’t be absurd. It’s raining. You’ll catch a chill. And for Christ’s sake, you still haven’t eaten. Go inside at once.”

She shook her head. “I’m not going back. There’s no going back.”

There’s no going back.

He didn’t know what those words meant to her, but the possibilities both thrilled and horrified him.

He shook off his damp coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, taking the chance to search her expression.

Locks of golden hair were plastered to her face, and raindrops dappled her cheeks. Her nose was red. But her eyes had never been so clear and determined.

Beautiful, foolish, impossible woman.

“What about Phoebe?”

“I asked her. She would be more upset if I didn’t go after you.”

“If you want to leave, I can order your carriage driver to . . .”

“I don’t want the carriage. Not unless you mean to ride in it, too. Rafe, can’t you understand this? I’m not running away from the party. I’m following you.”

No, no. Don’t say that. Take it back.

He could resist anything but those words.

“Don’t do this,” he warned. “If you push me right now, I’ll do something brash. Something you’d only regret.”

She stepped forward. “If you leave these stables without me, I will follow you. On foot. In the rain. Without a cloak. I’ll walk all the way to Southwark, if that’s what it takes.” She blinked away a raindrop caught in her lashes. “So if you’re concerned for my health and well-being, Rafe Brandon, you had better—”

Rafe never heard the rest of her impassioned threat. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto his gelding.

Then he mounted behind her, circling one arm about her middle and bracketing her hips with his thighs.

As he nudged the horse into a canter, he pulled her roughly to him. Holding her not like a lover, but like a captive. She’d asked for this. Tonight, she was in his keeping, for all the best and worst of what that could mean to them both.

And she was right on one score.

There could be no going back.

Clio was soaked to the skin and shivering in the dark. She had no idea where she was, or where Rafe might be taking her.

And she’d never been happier in her life.

Never mind the cold and the darkness. His body was warm. And her heart had enough joy inside it to blaze like a lantern. She could stay forever like this—tucked against his broad, strong chest and blanketed by his coat as the horse faithfully trudged through the rain and mud.

They stopped at the first inn they came across. Rafe ushered her inside, presenting some tale to the innkeeper about newlyweds and a broken carriage axle.

Clio tried not to make too much of the fact that he’d introduced her as his wife. He was only being protective, no doubt. Trying to deflect suspicion from the appearance of a man and woman traveling alone.

Still . . . When he uttered the phrase, “a room for my wife,” she leapt at the chance to nestle close to his side.

Once they’d been shown upstairs, he gave orders to the serving girls.

Well, not only to the serving girls.

“Stay on that side of the room,” he directed Clio. “I’m only here until you’re settled. Then I’ll go down for the night.”

“That’ll be a blow to your pride, I fear. We’re supposed to be newlyweds. They won’t think the honeymoon’s going well.”

He shrugged. “I’ll tell them you’re timid due to my prodigious size.”

She smiled, hugging herself to keep her teeth from chattering. Now that he’d released her, she was so cold. “About earlier. Rafe, I just want to say thank you. That was brilliant. All of it.”

“It was stupid. And loutish and impulsive.” He pushed his hands through his hair and blew out his breath. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I shouldn’t have hit him.”

“I’m glad to be here. And I loved that you hit him. That was the best part.”

“He’s your brother-in-law.”

“Yes. But he’s insufferable.”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I could have hit him harder. I wanted to hit him harder.”

“I know.”

“Bloody hell. I could have killed him.”

The back of her neck prickled. “You’d never do that.”

His dark gaze locked with hers. So intent, she felt it from across the room. “You don’t know what I’d do for you.”

Whomp.
Her heart slammed against her rib cage with such strength, she lost her breath.

“Beggin’ pardon, sir.”

Rafe moved aside as three of the inn’s serving girls entered the room. One carried a washtub, and the others held great pitchers of steaming water. Clio and Rafe stood silent as they went about filling the bath. It took them longer than it ought, because all three of them kept stealing glances at Rafe.

Even after they left, he kept his sentinel post by the door. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

“I imagine it wasn’t. You looked magnificent in this.” She hugged his finely tailored topcoat around her. “I don’t suppose you went to all that trouble just to come serve my brother-in-law a mean right cross.”

He made a futile gesture. “We were supposed to dance. A proper dance. One long enough for me to tell you how goddamn beautiful you are in that gown. The way I should have done at your debut, years ago.”

Oh, Rafe.

“And then before I left, I was going to pull you aside somewhere quiet and give you . . .”

“What? Then you’d give me what?”

He nodded at her. “Check the pocket.”

She slid one hand to the breast pocket of his tailcoat and reached inside. Her fingers closed on a packet of papers.

The
papers
.

“You didn’t.”

“I had to. You deserve that much. I—”

“Sir, beggin’ pardon again.”

The serving girls were back. Once again, Rafe stepped out of the doorway to let them through. They brought yet another pitcher of water for the bath, an armful of towels, and a tray with a pot of tea, bread, and what smelled like rabbit stew.

“Will that be everything, sir?” the eldest tavern girl asked.

He nodded. “Ready a meal for me downstairs, if you would. I’ll be down in a trice.”

The three of them left, and the moment they disappeared, Clio could hear them giggling and whispering in the corridor.

“Listen, I can’t stay and chat. I’d wager we have about three minutes before your reputation is destroyed.”

“They don’t know who I am.”

“They know who
I
am. Or someone will. And it wouldn’t be difficult to find out the rest.” He shook his head. “You can’t imagine. I wouldn’t mind it if the whole world knew. I’d like to hang a sign on this door that says ‘Ruination in Progress,’ and lock the both of us inside.”

None of that sounded so terrible to Clio.

“But that’s not why I came to the ball tonight,” he said. “I wanted—”

With a glance down the corridor, he ducked under the lintel and entered the room. The door remained open.

He lowered his voice. “Clio, I wanted to give you choices. Not take them.”

Her fingers curled around the papers. “So you do mean to sign these?”

“I already did.”

She looked down at the papers, uncurling them to verify. There it was, his signature on the final page, scrawled bold and unapologetic across the parchment.

“You’re no longer engaged, as of half-seven this evening. I wanted to let you know right away. In case it improved your enjoyment of the ball tonight. I owed you more than a waltz. I wanted to you to feel free. Free to dance, to flirt, to tell the gossips to go to the devil.” He shook out his arms. “Instead, we’re here.”

“Yes. We’re here.”

And Clio wasn’t upset about it in the least. Perhaps this wasn’t what he’d planned, but to her it was a thousand times better than any waltz.

“Well. For whatever good it does you, you’re an independent woman now. Free to go wherever you please and do what you like.”

She stood silent for a moment. “In that case . . .”

In calm, measured steps she walked around him and went straight for the entryway.

Then she closed the door and turned the key, locking them both inside.

“I want to spend the night with you.”