Rafe suppressed a smile. ‘Good, now we understand one another, are you willing to put yourself in my hands?’
Henrietta nodded. ‘Yes, thank you, I’d like that.’ Out here, in the bustling street under a grey sky washed with a pall of sea-coal smoke, she realised that Rafe had been right to insist they quit the intimacy of their bedchamber. She did need some air, though fresh was not exactly how she’d have described this gritty, tangy London atmosphere.
They took a hackney into the city, down Threadneedle Street and past the colonnaded front of the Bank of England. At Cheapside, they abandoned the hack, for Henrietta complained she could see nothing through its small dusty window, and they walked, something of a novelty for Rafe. Henrietta tripped gaily along at his side, exclaiming at the buildings, the mass of printed bills that covered them, the street hawkers who sold their wares on every corner, oblivious to the dangers of carriage wheels, horses’ hooves and pickpockets alike. Several times he was forced to steer her clear of noxious puddles while she gazed up admiringly at the architecture. Eventually, he tucked her arm securely into his and wedged her to his side in order to prevent her straying into the path of a carriage.
He liked having her there, so close. He liked the way she bombarded him with questions, never doubting that he would be able to answer. He also liked the way she trusted implicitly that he would keep her safe, even though she had no apprehension of danger. He liked the way she threw herself with gusto into drinking in the ambiance of the bustling city. She paused at every shop to peer in the windows. Drapers, stationers, confectioners, pastry cooks, silversmiths and seal cutters alike, she was quite indiscriminate, as enthralled by a display of pen nibs, ink pots and hot-pressed paper as she was by an array of ribbons, trimmings and button hooks.
Outside St Paul’s, the beggars, hawkers, petty thieves and pamphleteers fought for space, pushing their wares under the noses of the better off, slipping their fingers into the pockets of the unwary, proclaiming their tales of woe from upturned crates. Henrietta, spotting a filthy urchin whose flea-bitten dog was making an extremely feeble attempt to dance on its hind legs, fumbled in her dress pocket for her purse.
‘For God’s sake, put that away,’ Rafe said hastily, as they were immediately surrounded by a small crowd holding out their hands beseechingly.
‘But the child—’
‘Is very likely part of an organised gang. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of urchins like that, and very few are the genuine article. Here, let me, don’t waste your resources, which you’ve already told me are pitiful enough.’ Expertly flicking a shilling at the urchin with the dog, Rafe took advantage of the diversion and ushered Henrietta up the shallow flight of steps into the relative sanctuary of the cathedral.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said, tucking her purse out of sight again and shaking out her cloak.
‘Well, before you add it to that mental list of debt you’re totting up in your head, let me tell you that it was a gift. And don’t bother trying to deny it, I know that’s exactly what you were doing.’
Henrietta’s smile was shaky. ‘Oh, very well, and thank you. I have to confess, I was very glad of your presence out there, it was quite overwhelming. I had not realised there could be so very many very poor people. It was a shock. You know, I could not at first fathom why everyone walks so quickly with their noses either to the ground or in the sky, I thought it was simply to give themselves an air of consequence, but now I suspect it is because they don’t want to see what is around them.’
‘And as I’ve also already pointed out,’ Rafe said drily, ‘most of the beggars, especially the aggressive ones, are on the fiddle, believe me.’
Henrietta looked dubious, for it seemed to her that that was precisely what people said when they wanted to justify their apathy, but though Rafe could certainly be both cold and cynical, he was not callous. ‘You seem to be uncommonly well informed about life on the capital’s streets.’
Rafe shrugged. ‘It is common enough knowledge, God knows, there are enough of them. The younger boys start out stealing pocketbooks and silk kerchiefs, then they graduate to more lucrative work, assisting housebreakers, and pilfering from the docks. Foundlings, many of them, though some are sold into the trade by their families.’
‘Sold! Good God, you cannot be serious.’ She had thought herself well informed upon the subject of poverty through her parents’ association with Poor Houses, but that had been in the rural countryside. Here, in the capital, the sheer scale of the problem was beyond her comprehension, the horrors it led to simply unbelievable.
Rafe’s expression was bleak. ‘I am deadly serious. I don’t doubt that, for some of them, it’s a case of too many mouths, but for others, it’s just gin money. And though there’s always the risk of the gallows, it’s not as if life as a Borough Boy or Bermondsey Boy is as bad as life as a climbing boy. The gangs at least look after their own. It’s in a sweep’s interest to keep his boys thin.’
‘You sound so—so resigned! Is there not something that can be done to help such families keep their children rather than sell them?’
‘What do you suggest, Henrietta, that I adopt them all?’ Bitter experience had shown him the futility of finding a solution to society’s ills. Even the small private contribution he currently made was a mere drop in the ocean. Often, he felt it was futile.
Henrietta was startled by the acidity in his voice. ‘Don’t you care? You must care, for if you did not, you wouldn’t know so much about it all.’ She stared up at him, but his face was shaded by the brim of his hat. ‘I don’t understand. Why do you pretend not to care, when you so obviously do?’
His instinct was to shrug and turn the subject, but, perhaps because her large, chocolate-brown eyes were filled with compassion, perhaps because she refused to believe the worst of him, he chose that rarest of courses, to explain. ‘Because if a child is unwanted, there is little to be done to change that.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’
‘The truth is often terrible to behold, but it must be faced all the same.’ As he must face that fact every day, despite the funds and time he poured into his attempt at atonement.
‘I had thought, in my own small way, through teaching, that I could make a difference, a contribution,’ Henrietta said sadly. ‘I see now it could only ever be the merest scratch on the surface of the problem.’
‘Forgive me, Henrietta, it was not my intention to disillusion you. Your altruism does you credit. Do not let my cynicism infect you, I would not want that on my conscience.’
‘I must admit, it’s a little disheartening to hear such a bleak view of the world.’
‘Then let us turn our thoughts to more uplifting matters. Come, you must see Wren’s dome, it is an extraordinary and quite breathtaking spectacle.’
He was already assuming his usual inscrutable look. Henrietta was, however, becoming more attuned to the nuances of his expression. His mouth was always tighter when he was trying not to show emotion, his lids always heavier over his eyes. And his tone, too, was always more austere when he didn’t want to talk about something.
She followed him as he led the way swiftly along the chequered floor of the nave, her mind seething with questions, but if her brief acquaintance with Rafe St Alban had taught her anything, it was that the direct approach rarely paid dividends. The subject was closed for now, but she added it to the growing list of things she was determined to discover about him before their time together ended: how he came to know so much about the tragic fate of foundlings, why he had helped Benjamin Forbes set up in business, what it was about Lady Ipswich that prevented him from calling on her, or what happened during his marriage to the beautiful Lady Julia to make him so adamantly against ever marrying again. Then there were the contradictions. His knight errantry and his compassion did not sit with his reputation, any more than did his refusal this morning to take advantage of her.
With so very many questions requiring answers
, it never occurred to Henrietta to ask a few of herself: what, exactly, she would do if Rafe kissed her again, or why, if she really did believe his reputation, she continued to place her trust in him? Instead, at Rafe’s bidding, she looked up, and caught her breath at the magnificence of the dome of St Paul’s, which seemed to fill the sky, and the questions that flooded her mind were concerned with architecture.
After St Paul’s, they took another hackney cab and visited the Tower of London, where Henrietta shivered at the sight of Traitor’s Gate and the Bloody Tower. Dutifully inspecting the Crown Jewels, she declared them to be, in her humble opinion, rather vulgar.
Rafe suggested that perhaps she refrain from inspecting them too closely, lest she get felonious ideas, making her laugh, declaring that such ostentatious jewellery should be left to men with a northern accent and an eyepatch, which earned them both a reproving look from the Beefeater.
For the small price of a shilling—which Henrietta added to her mental list of debts—they were shown the Menagerie, but here her more tender feelings were roused by the pitiful condition of the caged beasts. ‘The grizzly bear looks as if he wants to cry,’ she whispered to Rafe, ‘and look at those poor lions, they look positively mournful. It seems a shame to keep such proud creatures so confined, something should be done.’
‘Do you wish me to have them released? I don’t think the people of London would be too pleased to have these creatures at large. They might look pathetic, but I am pretty sure they could still cause a fair bit of carnage.’
‘Of course I didn’t mean that!’
‘Or perhaps you mean to solve two problems at the same time, release the lions and feed the Bermondsey Boys to them. I can’t say that it’s a particularly humane notion, but I’m sure there are some politicians who would claim merit for the idea.’
‘Stop making fun of me,’ Henrietta said, biting her lip to suppress a smile.
‘Not of you, with you,’ Rafe said, as they retraced their steps out of the Lion Tower, ‘there is a difference.’
‘I know, but I am so unused to either, I forget. It’s different for you, I’m sure, you must have lots of people to laugh with, but I…’
‘No, I cannot imagine that Mama and Papa, worthy as they are, are much fun,’ Rafe said.
She tried to stifle her giggles, but could not. ‘That is shocking, but it’s also true, alas. I’m very much afraid that worthiness precludes any sense of humour. I fear I must be very, very unworthy.’
‘And I am very, very glad that you are,’ Rafe said, taking her by surprise and raising her gloved hand to his lips. ‘Because despite what you might think, my life is not over-full of people I feel able to laugh with, either.’
‘You must have friends.’
He hailed a hackney, instructing the driver to take them back to Whitechapel. ‘Lots—at least, lots of acquaintances,’ Rafe said, ‘but since I have a reputation for being a bit of a cold fish…’
‘I can’t understand how, for it seems to me that one cannot be a cold fish as well as a rake.’ She saw his smile fade and regretted her words immediately. ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘I know exactly what you meant,’ Rafe said, in his best cold-fish manner. ‘I thought, however, that your experience of me would by now have taught you not to believe all you have heard. Obviously I was wrong.’ For a moment, just a moment, he was tempted to put her right, but then he would have to explain why, and he could not bear to open that wound. Instead, he resorted to his old armour of anger. ‘If you had my wealth and title, you’d be a cold fish, too. You have no idea what it’s like to be the fawning target of every mama with an eligible daughter, and every Johnny Raw who claims to be a cousin of a cousin first removed and thinks the Earl of Pentland is their ticket into society, to say nothing of those who claim friendship only because they’ve been brought to point non plus and want me to tow them out of the River Tick.’
She was cowed by the vitriolic nature of his reply, but refused to be silenced. What he said explained so much…and appalled her so much. ‘But, Rafe, not everyone is like that. Most people—’
‘Most people are exactly like that. I’ve rarely met anyone who’s not on the take in one way or another, and in my experience, the higher the ton, the more they’ll try to take you for.’
‘That’s a horribly cynical way of looking at things.’
‘Also horribly true,’ Rafe said, with a saturnine look.
‘No, it’s not,’ Henrietta declared roundly. ‘I’m not saying there aren’t people who are as you say—’
‘Well, that’s something, at least.’
Henrietta glared at him. ‘But there are lots of others who aren’t, only you won’t give them a chance.’
‘For the very excellent reason that the one time I did place my trust in someone they repaid it by deceiving me.’
Furious with himself for this unaccountable admission, Rafe clenched his fists, then he hurriedly unclenched them. God dammit, what was it about her that made him say such things? How was it that one minute they were laughing and the next minute she had him completely on edge? ‘It was a long time ago and I don’t wish to discuss it,’ he said tightly.
‘Yet another thing you don’t wish to discuss,’ Henrietta said, now equally furious. ‘I would add it to my mental list, only it’s becoming too long to remember. Why is it that you are permitted to block every subject of conversation, yet you feel free to interrogate me? Who took advantage of you so badly as to make you so bitter?’
‘I don’t wish to discuss it, Henrietta, not at any time and particularly not in the back of a hackney cab.’
‘The driver can’t hear us. Who?’ Henrietta demanded, now so beside herself with fury that she did not realise she was treading on exceptionally thin ice.
‘My wife,’ Rafe snarled.
‘Oh.’ She felt as if she had been winded, so unexpected was the admission.
‘Yes, you may well say oh! Julia married me for my money. And for the title, of course—such a very old one, and so vast the lands that came with it. She married me because I was one of the only men able to give her the position she felt her looks entitled her to. Are you happy now?’
‘Rafe, I didn’t mean…’
But he threw her hand off angrily. ‘Yes, you did. I told you to stop prying, but you would not desist.’
Remorse squeezed her anger away. She gazed at him helplessly, aghast at having unwittingly inflicted such raw pain as he had so fleetingly displayed. His face was rigid with his efforts not to show it, his lips almost white. Nothing had prepared her for this. Her wretched tongue! ‘Rafe, I’m truly sorry,’ she said, as the hack pulled up at the Mouse and Vole. Rafe threw some coins at the driver and all but dragged Henrietta out of the cab and through the door of the inn. ‘Go to the room. I’ll have them send some dinner up for you.’
‘But what about you? Won’t you be joining me?’ Henrietta asked in a small voice. ‘Rafe, please…’
But he was already gone.
* * *
She spent a dreadful night. Though she should have been ravenous from the day’s sightseeing, she could only pick at the pigeon pie steaming on the platter. At every footstep on the boards of the corridor, she held her breath, but none halted, or even hesitated as they passed. Miserably, she prepared for bed. Not even the luxury of an entire jug of hot water to herself, and complete privacy in which to make use of it, made any difference to her sombre mood.
Over and over, she replayed their last conversation in her head, trying to isolate a point where she could have turned the subject, avoided it, said something different or been more tactful, but to no avail. Rafe’s shocking admission had come out of the blue. She had had no idea. Could have had no idea. Taking herself to task over the matter was pointless. Feeling guilty—and she did feel guilty, even though she knew it was misguided—was also pointless. How on earth could she have been expected to guess?
But logic was no real balm. Unwitting or no, she had ripped open an
old wound and felt absolutely terrible. Pulling her red flannel nightgown over her head, tugging her comb through her tangled curls, cleaning her teeth and climbing into a bed which seemed somehow to have grown much larger and much colder, Henrietta bit back the tears, but as the clock in the church tower across the road struck midnight, she pulled the rough sheet over her head and allowed a single tear to escape from her burning eyes. And then another. And another still. Then she sniffed resolutely, and the next tear was refused permission to escape as she began to feel angry.
Not with Rafe, but with that woman. That woman, that beautiful woman with the cold eyes. How had he found out? When had she shattered his illusions? How much had he loved her? That was the question she found hardest to contemplate. Though it explained everything. No wonder he didn’t want to marry again. A few years older than him, Mrs Peters had said Lady Julia was. Had she toyed with him, laughed at him? Henrietta clenched her teeth. It would have been a crushing blow to his pride. No wonder he kept his thoughts opaque. No wonder he cultivated that forbidding air of his. He had been hurt. Obviously he had no intentions of being hurt again.
Henrietta brooded darkly. Such a marriage must have been very unhappy. Was he glad, when Lady Julia died? Relieved? Or did he feel guilty? People did, sometimes, when they wished for something awful and it came to pass. Maybe that was why Rafe kept the portrait of his dead wife on display, as a painful reminder, as a form of penance.
Maybe that was also why he had such a notorious reputation when it came to women. But she couldn’t match that to his behaviour. In fact, the more she thought about it, Rafe’s reputation didn’t conform at all with her experience of him, the Rafe she knew. He just wasn’t the type to exact revenge in such a manner. Much more the type to bury it all deep—which is exactly what he had done. Was he not, then, the womaniser gossip would have him? But was there not always fire where there was smoke? She couldn’t understand it. She probably never would.
The church bell tolled one. Where was he? Was he going to stay away all night? Perhaps another room had become available. So much for his concern about her being alone here. Although Benjamin Forbes had been up to check on her several times, and to remind her to keep the door locked, so maybe he was still a little bit concerned. When she’d asked Benjamin where Rafe was, he’d just shaken his head. Did that mean he knew, or he didn’t?
Rake with a Frozen Heart Page 10