The Handmaiden's Necklace (7 page)

The kiss had grown hot and wild, and Dani hadn’t stopped him when his hand found her breast. She remembered his soft caresses and the sensual tug of heat that flowed through her body, the way her nipples hardened beneath the bodice of her blue muslin gown.

The way they were hard even now.

Dani flushed.

“Darling, you weren’t paying attention,” Richard scolded. “Did you hear what I just said?”

Her face was burning. She prayed that in the flickering light of the candles in the silver candelabra on the table, Richard wouldn’t be able to see the color creeping into her cheeks.

“I’m sorry. My mind must have wandered. What were you saying?”

“I said that the duke has agreed to join our bird hunting party next week.”

She managed to smile, but it wasn’t easy. “That is…that is wonderful. I’m sure he’ll enjoy himself.”

“I was thinking that we would make a weekend of it. Jacob’s country house is quite large and he has invited all of the ladies to join the men.”

Her stomach squeezed into a knot. More time with Rafael. What in God’s name did he want? “That sounds…very…pleasant.”

Obviously pleased with himself, Richard turned back to the conversation he was having with the duke and the other men, and Dani concentrated on her food. Why was Rafael intruding in their lives this way?

Danielle didn’t know, but she intended to find out.

Rafael endured the seemingly endless evening, determined to discover as much as he could about the man Danielle intended to marry. It was midnight by the time he returned to his suite at the William Penn Hotel. When he got there, he found Max Bradley waiting.

Sitting in the darkness, Max rose as Rafe reached over to light one of the whale-oil lamps, and Rafe swore a soft curse.

“I wish you would stop doing that. It’s extremely disconcerting.”

Max chuckled. “Sorry. How was your evening?”

“Tedious.”

“You spoke to Clemens?”

He nodded. “I’m doing my best to like the man, but so far I’m having a devil of a time. There is something about
him…. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’ve managed an invitation to join Richard’s hunting party.” Rafe smiled faintly. “Danielle will be traveling to the country, as well.”

“When is it?”

“The end of the week.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What do mean?”

“I may be on to something. If I’m right, I may need your help.”

Rafe moved across the room toward Max. “You’ve confirmed the Americans are making a deal with France?”

“It looks that way. So far I’ve only heard rumors…something to do with a schooner called a Baltimore Clipper.”

“Indeed?”

“I’ve got a lead I need to follow up on. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”

“You’ll let me know if there is anything I can do.” According to Max, a man of Rafe’s social standing would be better able to move in upper-class circles, thereby gaining access to the men who were privy to the needed information.

“I’ll let you know if I need you. In the meantime, you look like you could use some sleep.”

Rafe nodded, more weary than he should have been. “Good luck, Max.” Rafe headed for his bedroom, leaving Max to disappear as he usually did.

As Rafe undressed, his mind returned to the earlier hours of the evening and the unsettling events he had seen.

His arrival at Mrs. Clemens’s home had been early enough to see Danielle with Richard’s children. They were spoiled little wretches, raised without manners, and mostly
left to run out of control. Worse yet, from what Richard had said to Dani, he didn’t intend to allow her the slightest say in their upbringing.

Rafe believed the children would be far better off if Danielle took a hand. She had always been good with youngsters. They had planned to have a large family of their own. At the afternoon tea he had attended, he had watched her with several of the orphans, who seemed to adore her, as he could have guessed they would.

But Richard seemed too dictatorial to see the good she could do his offspring. It made Rafe wonder…what else would he be unbending about?

Rafe slid beneath the sheets trying to imagine what sort of future Dani would have with Richard Clemens.

Rafe wanted her to be happy.

He had to be certain marrying Richard Clemens would bring her the happiness she deserved.

D
ani heard nothing from Rafael. Determined to discover the reason he continued to interfere in her life and hoping she could dissuade him from accompanying them to the country, she had sent a note to where he was staying at the William Penn Hotel. She had requested a meeting, but received no reply and wondered if perhaps he had gone out of town.

Dani hoped so.

As she awaited the arrival of Richard’s carriage that Friday morning, she prayed Rafe had changed his mind and would not be joining them, now or any time in the future.

Aunt Flora had declined to make the trip, but a number of married women would be in attendance so there was no need for a chaperone, and Caro was accompanying her, acting as her lady’s maid but actually there for support. Since Dani had only just met the other women and she barely knew Richard, it was good to have a friend along.

Richard’s carriage finally arrived for the journey to Jacob Wentz’s country house, nearly twenty miles away. The
three-hour ride, Danielle hoped, would give her the chance for a bit of conversation with her fiancé.

Unfortunately, once they were on the road, Richard slept most of the way.

They reached the house in the early afternoon, a large stone residence surrounded by acres of rolling green fields and patches of dense green forest.

“It’s lovely,” she said, staring through the carriage window at the countryside that reminded her a little of home.

Richard smiled from the seat beside her. “We’ll have to consider buying a place like this for ourselves. Would you like that, darling?”

She turned to look at him. “I’ve always loved the country.”

“And it would be good for the children, as well.”

“Yes, I think it might be.” Anything to get them away from their overindulgent grandmother. Perhaps they would have the chance to be a family after all. The family she never thought to have.

Her spirits lifted. They went into the residence, a large house with low, beamed ceilings in the main rooms and plaster fireplaces tall enough for her to walk into. There were hooked rugs on the wood-planked floors, and each of the guest rooms had a lovely four-poster bed. When she went upstairs, she found Caro pulling a trundle out from beneath the bed in the room the two of them would share.

“It’s very nice.” Caro smiled as she glanced round the bedchamber. As she walked over to the open window, a breeze blew fine blond curls loose from their pins and fluffed them around her narrow face. “There’s a lovely view of the garden and the hills at the edge of the valley.”

Dani walked over to see them. Instead, as she peered out the window, her gaze snagged on the tall man riding up the lane, mounted on a lean gray horse. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew who it was, recognized the confident way he sat his mount, the width and straightness of his shoulders.

“Rafael is here,” she said softly, drawing Caro’s attention.

“The man on the dappled gray horse?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

Though Dani had told her friend a good deal about him, Caro had never seen Rafael. He drew closer, his face coming partially into view.

“Oh, my…”

“Exactly,” Dani said. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t be impressed by Rafael. Aside from his dark good looks and impressive, broad-shouldered physique, there was simply something about him, the way he carried himself, the way he looked at a woman, giving her his complete attention as if she were the only female in the room. Dani watched him continue down the lane until he disappeared behind the high hedge surrounding the garden, riding toward the front of the house.

“Well, he is here,” Caro said practically. “You will simply have to accept the fact.” She turned away from the window and a bright smile bloomed on her face. “On the good side, you wished to speak to him, discover his intentions, whatever they may be. Perhaps you will now have the chance.”

Dani dragged her gaze away from the window. “I suppose you are right. He has played the gentleman so far.
Since my presence seems to have no effect on him, I shall simply behave the same way.” Still, she wished he hadn’t come, wished that he would turn round and go back to England where he belonged.

It was late in the afternoon. Danielle was wandering the pathways through the garden, meandering along, in no real hurry to get back to the house when she spotted the duke striding toward her, a determined look on his face. It deepened the faint cleft in his chin, made his eyes look a deeper shade of blue. Her heart stuttered, set up an erratic clatter.

“I apologize,” he said, stopping on the path directly in front of her. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your note until late last night. Apparently, the desk clerk put it into the wrong box.”

“I thought that perhaps you were out of town on business.”

Rafe’s smile softened, lifting the edges of his full, sensuous mouth. It was the sort of smile she hadn’t seen since before that awful night five years ago and it made her heart kick into a higher gear.

“I may have a matter to deal with while I am here, but that isn’t the reason I came. The business I came for, Dani, is you.”

The use of her nickname, said in that deep, resonant voice roughened with a hint of affection, made her tremble.

“If I am the reason you are here, you needn’t remain. You’ve done what you came for. You’ve set matters straight, which is more than most men would have done. Go home, Rafael. I don’t want you here. Surely you can understand why.”

The smile slid from his face. “I want you to be happy, Danielle. I owe you that. Once I’m certain you will be, I promise to be on my way. Until then, I am staying.”

Her temper inched up. “You don’t owe me anything. I’m marrying Richard Clemens. I don’t need your approval—I don’t care what you think. Leave me in peace, Rafael. Let me get on with my life.”

She started to turn away, but Rafe caught her arm.

“I asked you before—do you love him?”

Her chin shot up. “That is none of your concern.”

“I’m making it my concern.
Do you love him?
”

Jerking free of his hold, she ignored the fierce scowl on his face, turned and started walking, her temper still high.

She was marrying Richard Clemens. Her decision had been made. Whatever Rafael thought was unimportant. Her own thoughts needed to focus on Richard, not Rafael.

But as she made her way out of the garden she could still see his tall image in the back of her mind, feel his intense blue eyes burning into her. She remembered the smoky look she had glimpsed in those eyes the instant before she had turned away, and keeping her thoughts on Richard wasn’t all that easy to do.

Rafael joined the men for the hunt the following morning, riding out on horseback, Rafe on the saddle horse he had hired in town, an exceptionally fine gray mount that belonged to the man who owned the stable. The well-trained gelding was well worth the extra money he had paid for its use, he thought as they rode across the open fields.

The countryside was beautiful, rolling hills crisscrossed with low rock walls, interspersed with forested knolls, bisected with occasional rippling streams. Meadows sprinkled with white-and-yellow daisies stretched across the landscape in front of them.

They reached their destination and dismounted, leaving the horses to graze on the lush grass sprouting up between their legs. There were five men in the hunting party: Richard Clemens, Jacob Wentz, a wealthy merchant named Edmund Steigler, Judge Otto Bookman and Rafael, along with a pack of blue-speckled and rusty-red hunting hounds, brought to search out woodcock and quail.

As the dogs fanned out with the young man who was their handler, Richard Clemens walked next to Rafe across the field, a smoothbore long gun with a silver-engraved flintlock gripped in one hand.

“Nice-looking piece,” Rafe said, the long gun Richard had loaned him resting comfortably in the crook of his arm.

“My father’s,” Richard said proudly. “It’s English, extremely well crafted.” Richard held the gun out for Rafe to examine more closely.

Pausing for a moment, he leaned his own weapon against the trunk of a tree and took the gun from Richard’s hand. He snapped the piece up against his shoulder, lowered it and turned it over to look at the maker’s initials.

“I know the gunsmith, Peter Wells. Wells is still making very fine weapons.”

Clemens beamed. “My father was always proud of this gun.”

“He had reason to be.”

They talked a little longer, building a sort of camaraderie, though Rafe yet remained wary. He wasn’t quite sure why.

“So how are you enjoying our country so far?” Richard asked. “Had the chance to meet anyone interesting?”

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you and your friends, of course.” Rafe looked up at him. “Are you talking about a woman?”

Richard shrugged. “You’ve been here for several weeks. A man has needs. I thought perhaps I might be of help, if you’re interested.”

“Then you’re suggesting an evening of pleasure.”

“There’s a place in the city I enjoy on occasion. I think you might find it entertaining.”

“And you would accompany me?”

He smiled. “I have a lady friend there…a very talented lady friend. We’re quite well acquainted.”

“You’re getting married in less than two weeks.”

Richard just smiled. “Getting married hardly precludes a man from taking his pleasure. I don’t imagine it is any different in your country.”

Rafe couldn’t argue with that. In fact, had he wed Mary Rose, he would surely have turned to the company of other women. “A number of married men keep mistresses or pay an occasional visit to a brothel such as the one you mentioned.”

But it wouldn’t have been so with Dani, and the thought of her new husband intending to live such a life made his stomach start to churn.

“Your fiancée,” he said, “seems to be a very lovely young woman. Perhaps her attentions will be enough.”

Richard just laughed. “I’m definitely looking forward to the marriage bed, but with my factory in Easton, I’m gone from the city quite often. I keep a mistress in the country. I don’t intend for that to change.”

Rafe said nothing more. He had vowed to see Danielle happy. She would never be happy with a man who planned from the start to be unfaithful.

“Look there!” Richard pointed toward a ditch running
along the side of the field. “The dogs have flushed up a covey of quail!”

Richard and the other men swung their guns into position. Rafe slammed the stock of his flintlock against his shoulder and pulled the trigger. A pair of birds went down. If the rest of the day went as well, they would be having quail for supper.

Unfortunately, Rafe’s mind was no longer on the hunt. He was thinking of Danielle. He had the answers he had been seeking, but he couldn’t break a confidence and tell her.

The question arose, what should he do?