He’d had control of her fortune from the time her father had died when she had been but nine years old. And he had been determined to do anything and everything in his power to keep her inheritance in his greedy claws.
“If you refuse, I will have your rookeries-born ruffian rat killed.”
The dull pulse of dread which had been her constant companion since his arrival in her shabby little room tightened into a cold knot of fear. Surely he could not be speaking of Rafe. There was no way he would know she had formed an attachment with him, that he was the man she loved.
She stiffened. “Mr. Jasper Sutton was my employer, Cousin. He did nothing more than provide me with shelter and fair recompense in return for my labor. He is a fine man and undeserving of your wrath.”
“It is not Mr. Jasper Sutton I speak of, my dear.” His grin was pure evil, utterly triumphant. “I am referring to his younger brother, Mr. Rafael Sutton. It is he who attacked Lord Gregson.”
She bit her inner lip, willing her face to remain an expressionless mask. Refusing to give him any satisfaction or proof he was right.
“Silent, my dear?” Again, one of his cutting laughs. Strange how viciousness could cloak mirth and become so ominous.
If anything were to happen to Rafe because of her, she would never forgive herself.
“Very well,” she said. “I will go with you.”
Her portmanteau was already packed.
* * *
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life rattling Saint Hugh’s bones and drowning your bloody arse in jackey?” his younger brother Hart asked grimly at Rafe’s side.
The interior of The Devil’s Spawn was swirling around the edges of his blurred vision, a state that was likely partially caused by the fact that he could not recall when last he had slept and partly thanks to the gin he’d been drinking all evening.
“Rolling dice is a good fucking distraction,” he informed Hart crudely, wondering why he had allowed the arsehole to accompany him this evening.
Hell, had Hart even asked permission? Rafe struggled to sift through the murky shadows of his mind and could not recall how he had come to be here, sitting at the green baize and wagering half his blunt away on what would have once been enemy territory. Their families had been forever joined when Rafe’s sister Caro had wed Gavin Winter, putting an end to the feud that had once divided Winters and Suttons.
The devil’s arsehole. All he could remember was that he had been searching for Persephone for a week, and he had nothing to show for his efforts. Not so much as a damned whisper of her name in all London. And that nothing echoed what was left of his conscience and his soul.
“You’re becoming a tosspot like our pa,” Hart observed shrewdly.
To that, Rafe raised his glass in mock salute. “I ain’t a tosspot. I’m a chap whose heart’s been crushed to dust beneath ’is lady’s fine beater cases. Have a care now, you bleeding arsehole. I’d ’ate to give you a basting, but I will, lad. Don’t doubt it.”
Persephone had left him without a word, nary a farewell, and no means of finding her after she had gone. No chance to right the wrongs he had done.
“I’m not a lad.” Hart reached out and thieved the glass from Rafe’s fingers. “And you’ve had enough hazard and gin for the evening, brother.”
He couldn’t have Persephone.
She was lost to him forever.
All he had left was dice and drink.
He attempted to wrest the plunder from his brother’s greedy hand, but the bastard was too quick. “Give me my jackey.”
“You don’t need it, Rafe.”
“And since when are you my mother?” he snapped, growing irritated by Hart’s attempts at steering him from his course. “I’m older than you by a bleeding year.”
Persephone wasn’t coming back. After scouring every inch of London, desperation keeping him awake all night long as he tirelessly attempted to find her, he had finally admitted defeat. He’d never see her again. He wanted to lose himself in game and drink. Was that so much to ask for?
Hart clapped him on the back whilst sliding the glass along the table, farther away and out of Rafe’s reach. “What do you say we pay a call to The Garden of Flora?”
He could never look at another woman again, for as long as he lived.
“Don’t want petticoats,” he grumbled. “There’s only one woman for me.”
“And yet, she’s left you,” Hart pointed out calmly. “Don’t be daft. This bit of skirts wasn’t for you. Find a moll and fuck her silly. You’ll feel better for it in the morning.”
There had been a time in Rafe’s life when the notion of hiring one of Sophie’s girls for the night and surrendering himself to depravity would have been all he wished. But Persephone was the only woman he wanted. The only woman he would ever want, now and forever. Too blasted bad he had been too stupid to tell her that when he’d had the chance. Maybe she wouldn’t have run.
“I don’t want a moll.” He reached for the gin again and just missed it, but he also managed to upend the glass and send his precious jackey all over the table. “Ballocks.”
Something smacked into the back of Rafe’s head then. He blinked, his vision fuzzier than ever. He rubbed his skull, scowling. “What the devil was that?”
“That was me.” Dominic Winter was hovering over him, a hard expression on his face. “And there’s more where that came from if you don’t get some sense into that thick pate of yours.”
“Winter.” Rafe attempted to pin the other man with a glare for having the daring to lay a hand upon him, but his eyes were being deuced difficult thanks to all the spirits he had partaken. Besides that, he was filled with the munificent glow that only a dram—or two, or three—could provide. He was in that transcendent state where he bloody well loved everyone. Or most people. Not Hart. Fuck him, the cursed liquor thief. “Bene bowse, old chap. Your jackey is quite good, loath though I am to admit it.”
Winter inclined his head. “The patrons of The Devil’s Spawn are damned exacting. I aim to please. No baptized spirits here as they will find in other, lesser establishments. But your brother is quite right that you’ve had enough.”
Christ. Not more of this damned fee, faw, fum.
He sighed. “You don’t look like my mother, Winter.”
“I certainly hope your mother was prettier than I,” Winter said, deadly serious. “Given your ugly Friday face, it ain’t likely.”
He scoffed. “Don’t tempt me into giving you the drubbing of your life.”
Rafe knew he was by no means in a state to enter into a bout of fisticuffs with Dominic Winter, or any other manner of defending himself, and yet he could not seem to still his tongue. When a man had nothing left to lose, he clung to recklessness, and damn all else to perdition.
Where was his gin? Hart had taken it from him. Why? He needed more. Right bleeding now. Yesterday, in fact. His brother was a heartless arsehole.
Oh, Christ. That was right. He’d spilled it, hadn’t he?
“You’ll be coming with me, Sutton, or the only one of the two of us receiving a drubbing will be you,” Winter said coolly. “Hart?”
Who the devil did Winter think he was? True, this was his family’s gaming hell. But this was the goddamned East End, and there was neither king nor queen nor prince in these far-flung, dangerous, forgotten streets. There was only keen wits, struggling chaps, and families doing their utmost to make certain they could stay together with a solid roof over their heads, filled bellies, and that ever-elusive feeling of home.
It had taken Rafe all his life to realize his home was The Sinner’s Palace. And then, not long after finally welcoming his family’s gaming hell as a place of comfort and familiarity and hope rather than darkness, he had realized his true home.
Miss Persephone Wren.
“Rafe?” Hart was asking, his hazel Sutton eyes searching.
Had he said something?
“Eh?” he asked, cupping a hand to his ear as if he co
uld not discern the words his brother was speaking. “Louder, brother. I can’t hear a goddamn thing you are saying.”
“Winter says he may have word of your Miss Wren,” his brother said, raising his voice.
Everything within Rafe froze. “Persephone? Miss Wren? Christ, why did you not say so sooner, man?”
“Come with me, Sutton. I’ll see to it you get a filled belly, and then I’ll tell you everything I know.”
CHAPTER 13
Her return to Silwood Manor had been a bittersweet homecoming indeed.
Persephone stood before her beloved mare, Echo for the first time in nearly seven years, holding back tears at the differences which had come to pass in the time she had been gone. Echo was no longer the youthful mare she had once been, and though the stable master had taken excellent care of her, judging from her fine form and healthy coat, her age was apparent in her gait.
But she remembered Persephone. Those brown eyes gazed into hers now with an equine sense of understanding that only served to heighten Persephone’s own heartache.
“It is a misery, is it not, Echo?” she whispered to her mare. “What has time done to us, my love?”
Rafe’s voice was there, an ever-present memory burned into her mind. How handsome and concerned he had been, the morning when he had hurried her back to her room, taking care to make certain they would go unnoticed.
We’d best ‘urry, lovely. Time ain’t exactly our bosom friend this morning.
His low rasp, the tinge of an East End drawl, his charm and the tender way he had gazed upon her, remained firmly tangled about her heart. They always would.
Time had not been their bosom friend at all, for it had been far, far too short. And now, she had been forced to return to Oxfordshire and face the wedding she had spent the last few years running from. It was either that or risk the life of the man she loved. Rafe was too precious to her. She would gladly sacrifice her future and her happiness if it meant preserving his.
A tear broke free and ran down her cheek, but she dashed it away before the servant attending her could take note. She had been in Oxfordshire for only several weeks, and the banns had been read. Cousin Bartholomew was leaving nothing to chance. In three more days, she would find herself wed to a man she loathed. One sennight before her birthday, when she would turn five-and-twenty.
She supposed that was why he was allowing her this small concession, the permission for a short ride without either a groom or himself as accompaniment. At least, according to the groom. He had said nothing of his intentions over breakfast when he had declared she might enjoy a turn about the stables since she had been an obedient betrothed since their return.
Oh, how those words had infuriated her. And how she had longed to throw her half-eaten eggs and kippers in his face. But she had not. Instead, she had calmly thanked him and inquired whether or not he would like to accompany her. He had declined, much to her relief.
In truth, Cousin Bartholomew was an abysmal rider. His large form and uneasiness with horses—brought upon by a childhood accident in which he had been thrown from a saddle—made him an awkward rider, looking always as if he were an inch from spilling to his doom. He had never cared for horses, aside from their monetary value or the éclat they afforded him.
“She is ready, my lady,” the groom said, interrupting her tumultuous musings. “His lordship expects your return in one quarter hour. You’ll want to be gentle with Echo as she’s occasionally been favoring her front leg on cold mornings.”
He was new here, like so many of the domestics at Silwood Manor. Cousin Bartholomew had changed much, she had discovered in her return, and she could not help but to wonder who had paid for all his revisions. New servants, the construction of a lake and fountain in the valley Silwood Manor overlooked, a Palladian pavilion on the front façade, fresh carpets, a small fortune in paintings dotting the new wall coverings.
All while she had been living on the meager wages of a governess, forced from one situation to the next, just for the chance to no longer suffer his tyrannical rule.
She nodded politely to the groom. “Thank you, sir. I will be back in a quarter hour, as his lordship wishes, and I shall take great care of Echo.”
Considering she is my horse.
Echo, like many of the horses here at Silwood Manor, was a part of her inheritance. Her mother’s side of the family had been mad about horseflesh and rich as Croesus. And Cousin Bartholomew stood to benefit greatly from that combination.
With the groom’s aid, she mounted Echo. Although years had passed since she had last ridden a horse, being seated upon her mare’s saddle felt as familiar as if she had last been there just yesterday. With her thanks to the groom, she departed, taking care to keep Echo’s pace slow and even. She was not limping today, but if Persephone saw the slightest hint of arthritis, she had every intention of dismounting and returning to the stables by foot.
For now, the chance for freedom, even only one quarter hour of it, beckoned with a temptation she could not ignore. The wind on her cheeks was slashing and cool. But at least the gray clouds overhead had not lived up to their ominous portent of rain.
Yet.
She decided to take Echo on their old favorite route, down the lane to the path that circled what had become Cousin Bartholomew’s lake. It was a rather gargantuan affair, with a swan presiding over its smooth surface, and Persephone despised it as much as she loathed the life she was about to consign herself to here.
Oh, Rafe.
Where was he now? What was he doing? She hated allowing her mind to wander and wonder, but how could she not? In her old life as Miss Wren, she would have been happily ensconced in the sunshine-filled Mayfair nursery with Anne and Elizabeth. On occasion, they had been accompanied by one of Mr. Sutton’s dogs. Usually Motley, who possessed a particular affinity for Rafe.
She could not blame the pup, for she felt the same way.
There was something about Mr. Rafe Sutton. She was sniffling again by the time she and Echo had rounded a copse of trees, blotting out the sight of Silwood Manor sitting loftily on the hill. Weeping was an almost constant state for her now, unless she knew she would be facing Cousin Bartholomew. Tears vexed him mightily, and she had learned he was not averse to showing her just how much during their journey to Oxfordshire.
The bruise had faded, but she had not forgotten.
Her tears were reserved for moments of solitude now, like this one.
She was so lost in her misery that she failed to hear another rider approaching until he was almost upon her. For a wild moment, she feared it was Cousin Bartholomew come to denounce her for her willful disobedience, until she took note of the man’s form. He was not as large as Cousin Bartholomew.
And he had blond curls beneath the brim of his hat.
Her heart leapt. Surely it could not be Rafe! Here? In Oxfordshire? No.
She was dreaming.
“Persephone!”
His voice reached her, familiar and deep and laden with an emotion she could not define.
It was him. Somehow, Rafe Sutton was racing toward her on the back of an Arabian gray. She blinked furiously, sure she was somehow ascribing his traits to someone else. For how could he be here, at Silwood Manor? And how would he have known where to find her?
As the questions swirled, her body overtook her mind, and suddenly, she was riding toward him, heart leaping. Each gallop of Echo’s hooves brought her nearer, Rafe’s giving more credence to the wild and unbelievable notion that he had somehow come to her.
“Rafe!” she cried, pushing Echo as fast as she dared, unable to shake the fear he would disappear before she could reach him.
Their mounts pulled abreast of each other and they reined in at once. Persephone slid from the saddle at the same time Rafe dismounted, and in two steps, she was flying into his arms. Their collision was so forceful, her teeth knocked together and she bit her tongue, but she did not care.
All she did care about was Rafe’s arms closing
around her, strong and protective. His scent, mingling with the fresh earth and grass and the sharp scent of autumn leaves drying and falling to the ground.
“Ah, God, lovely.” He pressed his cheek tight to hers, his hot breath falling on her ear. “I’ve missed you.”
She clung to his neck, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How are you here?”
“I rode the bleeding horse behind me.”
His unexpected attempt at humor caused her laughter to burst forth, mingling with the sobs. “I saw you on the horse. What I meant to say was how did you find me? How did you find me here, in Oxfordshire?”
She had never mentioned her past to him, and when she had left the Sutton town house, she had left without divulging her true name or a hint of all the shadows and secrets that kept her running.
“Long story we haven’t the time for.” He reared back, his hazel gaze traveling over her face as if he had just been presented with a miracle. “Will you ride with me?”
Fear crept over her. “Where? Cousin Bartholomew only allotted me one quarter hour. He will note I have not returned and come riding after me.”
“That arsehole didn’t allot you any time to ride.” Rafe scowled. “Did you think he would allow his prisoner to slip from ’is fingers so easily?”
“How do you know?” She searched his face, his gaze, seeking answers.
“The groom aiding you was one of my men. It’s all part of the plan, lovely.”
“The plan? You have a plan?” Her heart was beating so fast, relief and love and hope at odds for supremacy. But lingering beneath the surface of it all was fear.
The fear Cousin Bartholomew would find them, that he would do Rafe harm as he had threatened.
Rafe grinned, his dimples appearing. “I would’ve thought you’d noticed by now, sweet. Rafe Sutton always has a plan.”
Of course he did, and at the moment, it would seem his plan involved rescuing her. Which was everything she wanted, except that she could not possibly allow him to endanger himself and his family by incurring Cousin Bartholomew’s wrath.
Sutton’s Sins: The Sinful Suttons Book 2 Page 17