‘You’re right.’
‘I am?’
He could almost have laughed at her astonished expression, were he not aware of the rather miserable picture it painted of him. Unknown. Unknowable. He had prided himself on those qualities. His armour. Now Henrietta had pierced it and he was relieved. Glad, almost. He felt as if she were waking him from a torpor. It wasn’t a full awakening—there were some scars that were so much part of his being that no one could heal them—but it was enough to tempt him with possibilities. Not least, the possibility of looking forward to the day, rather than simply enduring it.
‘You are. On this occasion, Henrietta, you are quite right,’ he said, smiling again. It was coming easier, his smile. Practice. That, too, was down to Henrietta. Henrietta, who was still playing with her knife, which meant she had something else on her mind. He waited.
She could feel his eyes upon her, but was not quite able to meet them, despite his surprising admission. After he’d fallen asleep, she’d lain awake until she heard the clattering of pans in the kitchen, just listening to him breathing, only just restraining herself from snuggling into his side. Though she hadn’t really thought he’d abandon her, the relief of having him back again was immense. Despite what she knew of him, or what she’d thought she knew, despite all of Mama’s warnings and despite her principled objections to his way of life, she was not immune to his charms. Far from it.
From the moment she first set eyes upon Rafe, tall, dark, dishevelled and brooding, she had known he was dangerous. It was not just his reputation, but the man himself. He had warned her several times not to trust him, and several times she had failed to heed him. She had paid no heed, either, to her own cautioning inner voice. She was a mass of contradictions, almost as many as he. Before she met Rafe St Alban, her life had been perfectly straightforward. Now though…
She picked up her knife again and began to trace a pattern in the grain of the wooden table with the blade. Now, nothing was at all clear. The more she knew of Rafe, the more she liked him, the more she was attracted to him, yet she still understood him so little. She knew now for certain he was no callous seducer. Last night had proved that.
Why had he stopped? Why had not she? Looking at him over the scrubbed wooden table, she wondered if he even remembered. She remembered only too well. Last night, she would have given herself to him willingly. Much, much too willingly. Without even thinking about it, until it was too late. Last night she had discovered a side of herself that she hadn’t believed existed. A side that seized control of her principles and her morals and contemptuously discarded them—until morn, at least. Last night she hadn’t recognised herself.
And that, Henrietta realised with a horrible sense of foreboding that was at the same time horribly exhilarating, showed how very far she had already come already to making him a present of the heart that was beating, as ever, far too fast in his presence. She must be more careful. She must be much more on her guard against her own weakness. She nodded to herself resolutely, then jumped as the knife was removed from her hand.
‘It would be far safer for you to simply say what’s on your mind, Henrietta,’ Rafe said, putting the cutlery out of reach, ‘you’re in danger of cutting yourself.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Which means it’s about last night.’
She coloured. ‘How did you know?’
‘Would you rather pretend it didn’t happen?’
‘Yes. No.’
‘No, you’re not one of those young ladies who pretend, are you? It’s one of the things I like about you.’
‘Is it?’
Rafe laughed. ‘Don’t look so surprised, it’s not the only one. I like the way you suck your bottom lip when you’re trying to stop yourself saying something you suspect you shouldn’t. You twist your hair around your middle finger when you’re thinking and you wrinkle your nose when something unpleasant occurs to you. You never complain and you are always putting others before yourself even when, like me this morning, they don’t deserve it. You are in turn infuriating and endearing, but at least you are never predictable. I never know what you’re going to say next, any more than you do. Just when I think I want to shake you, you make me want to laugh, or you look at me just so, and I want to kiss that delightfully kissable mouth of yours. In fact, there are aspects of you, Henrietta Markham, that I find quite irresistible.’
‘Oh.’
‘You always say that when I’ve said the opposite of what you were expecting. Last night, Henrietta,’ Rafe continued in a gentler tone, ‘I was drunk, but not incapable. I was unshaven, reeking of brandy and reeling with unpleasant memories. You deserve better, far better, than that.’
‘Oh.’ His tone, even more than the words he spoke, moved her. A lump rose in her throat. She blinked several times, touched by his care for her, which was more than she had had for herself. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
Rafe squeezed her hand. ‘It’s the truth. You are a rather extraordinary person, Henrietta Markham, and your being quite oblivious of the fact is perhaps the thing I like about you most.’
The coffee room door swung open and Bessie arrived with Rafe’s breakfast, a vast plate of ham and the promised three eggs along with the first of the loaves that Henrietta had helped make. ‘Excellent timing,’ Rafe said, picking up his knife and fork with relish. ‘Kill or cure, I suspect.’
* * *
Benjamin sought them out after breakfast with an update. ‘No firm word of either the housebreaker or the emeralds as yet,’ he said, ‘but don’t despair, I’m waiting on a couple of fences getting back to me in the next day or so.’
Henrietta looked blank.
‘A man who sells on stolen goods,’ Rafe informed her, ‘and before you ask, not a man with whom you will be pursuing an acquaintance. We’ll leave it in Ben’s capable hands.’
‘What shall we do today, then, if I am not to be allowed to meet shady underworld characters?’
‘Oh, I’m sure I can find some alternative form of excitement for your delectation,’ Rafe replied with a rare grin. ‘Leave it up to me.’
* * *
He took her to Astley’s Amphitheatre in Lambeth, where the entertainment included bareback horse riding and a staged re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo. While Rafe would normally scorn such spectacles, as he would disdain to mingle with the great unwashed, even he was forced to admit that the horses were exceptionally well trained, though most of the time his eyes were on Henrietta, rather than the sawdust-strewn floor of the stage. She leaned precariously out of their private box, her eyes huge with excitement, her cheeks flushed. Such a simple treat, yet he might as well have given her the Crown Jewels. Then again, now he came to think about it, perhaps not, because she’d said only yesterday that they were vulgar.
He set himself out to entertain her, by way of an apology. A novel experience, yet infinitely rewarding, for Henrietta found everything fascinating and her enthusiasm was infectious. Her absolute faith in his ability to answer her questions, from the latest fashions—fuller skirts, narrower waists—to the accuracy of Astley’s battle charge—almost completely lacking—and the King’s current state of health—confined to Windsor with gout—he found touching rather than irksome. What would, had it been suggested by one of his peers, have seemed a day out beyond tedium, turned out to be one of the most entertaining he could remember in recent years.
* * *
Afterwards, they ate in a chop house. With a little prompting, Henrietta was persuaded to confide some of her history. As ever, she was self-deprecating. He surmised she had been happy, but rather neglected, her parents more concerned with good works than the welfare of their only child, but recalling how prickly she had been about her sainted papa, he refrained from criticism. Recalling the yearning look upon her face as she gazed upon the toilettes of the Astley’s audience, cheap imitations of the walking gowns and carriage gowns, full dress and half-dress worn by the haut ton, he wished he could make her a p
resent of just one such, but he knew better now than to offer. Not only would her principles forbid such a thing, he would be drawing attention to her own shabby gown; though he detested the thing, it was such an integral part of her that he had come to feel something like affection for it.
They talked on, long after they had cleared their plates of lamb cutlets and thick gravy, oblivious of the comings and goings of other customers, oblivious of the curious looks cast them, he so well dressed and austerely handsome, she so vivacious and yet so dowdy. They talked and they laughed, and they leaned ever closer as the light fell and the rush lights were lit and the chophouse proprietor finally plucked up the courage to tell them it was well past closing.
‘Goodness, where did the time go?’ Henrietta said, blinking in the gloaming outside as Rafe hailed a hack. ‘I’ve had such a lovely day, thank you.’ Rafe’s thigh brushed hers as he took his seat beside her in the hackney cab. She watched the driver’s head bobbing in front of her through the small window, vaguely aware that they were crossing the river, for she could see the gas lamps were lit. She should be tired after her restless night, but she had never felt so alive. Rafe’s leg lay warm against the folds of her cloak. His shoulder brushed hers. Though they were silent now, it was a comfortable silence for once.
Though it was not precisely comfortable. She was too conscious of the man beside her. Irresistible, Rafe had called her. Henrietta had never thought of herself in that way before. She liked it, though it made her nervous, for it contained all sorts of possibilities she suspected she couldn’t ever live up to and knew she should not try to do so.
Today she had seen yet another side of Rafe, one she liked very much. One she could grow to like even more. Another side of him that failed to fit the image his reputation ought to have created. She’d thought it was that simple: Rafe was a rake, therefore he was unprincipled. Yet her experience of him was almost entirely the opposite. She just didn’t understand it. She could no longer believe him capable of dishonourable behaviour, yet he had not denied it.
Henrietta chewed her lip. Thinking back, every time the subject came up, it had been she who accused and he who refused to comment. Could she have been a little too presumptuous? It was a fault of hers, she knew that.
* * *
As they pulled into the yard of the Mouse and Vole and Rafe took her hand to help her down from the carriage, doubt shook her once more. Why would Mrs Peters, his own housekeeper, have warned her off if there had been no grounds to do so?
She followed him, through the side door, along the corridor, the draught from the taproom door making the wall sconces flicker. Gazing at his tall figure, his wide shoulders, the neat line of his hair, she felt the now-familiar prickle of awareness. Another contradiction, perhaps the most significant, her body’s desire for him. A desire quite independent of her mind. She knew she should not, she knew that it was wrong, but her body insisted it was right.
Right or wrong, that was the key question. She wished she had an answer. She wished things didn’t have to be so complicated. Or maybe it was Rafe who was complicated? Or she was simplistic? He said she saw things too much in black and white, and he’d been proved right about that several times now.
‘Go on up, I’ll go and see if Ben has further news,’ Rafe said, interrupting the somewhat tangled strands of Henrietta’s reasoning. A roar of anger came from the taproom, quickly followed by a louder roar. ‘Sounds like he has his hands full,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Perhaps now is not the best time to interrupt him.’
They made their way up the stairs to the sanctuary of their chamber. Placing the oil lamp by the bedside, Rafe drew the curtains together. Henrietta unclasped her cloak and placed it over the chair, cast off her gloves, tugged the ribbons of her bonnet and pulled it from her head. Rafe cast aside his coat and loosened his neckcloth. A cosy domestic scene. The thought struck them both at the same time. They caught one another’s expression, smiled, looked away, embarrassed by the intimacy—or perhaps unwilling to acknowledge it.
‘I had a lovely day. Thank you,’ Henrietta said, picking up her hairbrush.
Rafe smiled. The smile that made her feel as if her heart were being squeezed, so she found she had to concentrate on breathing. ‘I enjoyed it, too,’ he said.
‘Confess, you didn’t expect to. I can’t imagine that Astley’s is the sort of place you visit regularly.’
His smile broadened. ‘I confess, but I still enjoyed myself. You have the knack of making even the most tedious occasions refreshing.’
‘Because I’m so green.’
‘Because you are so Henrietta.’
She put her hairbrush down. ‘Is that a compliment?’
‘Yes.’
She picked her hairbrush up again, looked at it absently and then put it back down. ‘Rafe, I wanted to—at least I don’t want to but I feel I must. I don’t understand and it’s confusing me, and so…’ She looked at him helplessly, trying desperately to find the words that would not put him instantly on the defensive.
‘You are confusing me, too, for I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
She bit her lip. If she hesitated now, then she would simply find herself wrestling with the same questions tomorrow, and before that there was tonight to get through, not that she had any intentions at all—far from it—and, anyway, he would not. Probably. So…
‘Rafe, are you really a rake?’ She could almost see his hackles rise; his brows were drawn together, winging upwards to give him a satanic look, his eyes stormy. Oh God, why had she had to blurt it out like that? ‘I didn’t mean to—forget I said it.’
‘But you did, so it is obviously troubling you.’
‘Well, it is,’ she said resolutely. ‘I simply don’t understand you.’
‘What, precisely, don’t you understand?’
If she touched him, he would freeze. Not that he would let her touch him. The barriers were invisible, but she could see them all the same. Touch-me-not. ‘You,’ she said, refusing to back down. ‘I don’t understand how someone with your reputation can be so—so—well, you just don’t behave like a rake at all.’
‘And how does a rake behave, Henrietta?’
‘Well, they—well, they—Mama says that they seduce innocents.’
‘And Mama would know, would she?’
‘Yes, she would,’ Henrietta said, her temper rising in response to his heavily sarcastic tone. ‘She knows because she was seduced by one. Oh!’ She put her hand over her mouth, but it was too late, so she blurted out the rest. ‘She was young. He promised her marriage. They eloped together and he jilted her.’
‘After he had seduced her, presumably.’
Henrietta’s colour rose. ‘There is no need to be so callous.’
‘Surely, if you are to tar me with the same brush as your mother’s seducer, you would expect me to be callous,’ Rafe said.
Henrietta folded her arms across her chest. She would have the truth from him this time. ‘You’re not callous,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re not callous and you’re not irresponsible, and you’re not shallow and you’re not selfish.’
He ignored this. ‘What happened to your mother?’
‘She was devastated. She is very beautiful, not a bit like me, and she had had excellent prospects, but they were all ruined. She retired to the country; it was there she met Papa and he fell in love with her and she agreed to marry him and there was some sort of quarrel with her family over that because Papa is not rich or titled… .’
‘Your mother was?’
‘I believe her family is a good one, but I have never met any of them. They disowned her—not because she was seduced by a rake—he had the benefit of being a well-born man, too—but because she married my father,’ Henrietta said indignantly ‘What happened to my mother, it was a terrible thing. Awful. It has shaped her whole life. Even though she is happy with Papa, there are times when she is just so sad. You cannot imagine.’
He could. A fading beauty self-o
bsessed with something that happened more than twenty years ago, too caught up in her own tragedy to admit to any sort of responsibility. He could imagine it only too well, for he had married one such. Now Henrietta had tarred him with the same brush as her mother’s seducer and he wanted nothing more than to shake some sense into her. ‘And so Mama has filled your head with tragic tales of seducers, has she?’
‘She has taught me to believe that such men are to be avoided. That they have no morals. That—’
‘So, I am not only a seducer of innocents, but I have no morals? I wonder that you trust yourself with me, Miss Markham.’
‘That’s my point, Lord Pentland. I do trust you. You are patently an honourable man.’
‘Oh please, Henrietta, don’t colour me whiter than snow.’
‘I’m not, but you are content to be coloured black as night, and I don’t understand why,’ she replied furiously.
‘I have no intentions of explaining myself.’
‘Why not? I explain myself to you all the time. Why should you not tell me—?’
‘Because it is none of your business.’
‘But it still matters to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it does.’ She waited, glaring at him, but she was no match for Rafe’s stony countenance. Henrietta gave an infuriated growl. ‘I don’t understand you and because of that I don’t understand myself,’ she said. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, if you must know, I just can’t reconcile how I can feel—want—I just—last night! Last night, when you kissed me, I wanted you to—and then when you stopped I wished you hadn’t. And yet I know you are a rake, so I ought not to want. But I do and that is what I don’t understand,’ she said, dashing away a tear with the back of her hand. ‘And if you are a rake, why have you not seduced me? I don’t understand that, either.’
Her brown eyes were sparkling with tears. Her bosom was heaving. She was flushed with mortification and temper. Rafe saw that revealing her mother’s past had cost her dear, but not as dear as the frank and totally unexpected admission of her desire. The righteous fury he had been nursing dissipated like a cloud of steam. He took a step towards her and tried to take her hand, but she pushed him away.
Rake with a Frozen Heart Page 12