by Nichole Van
Rafe’s voice rose as he spoke, Lady Sophie’s brow drawing further and further down, her chest heaving.
“Oh! Is that all you think a bluestocking capable of? Verbing?!” She bit out. “As I learned only moments ago that I must away to Edinburgh, I haven’t had a chance to research the journey. I am sure there is a solution that even a bluestocking can manage.”
This woman.
Instead of crumbling into a weeping heap, she swallowed, pinched her lips together, and rallied.
And damn if he didn’t admire her all the more for it.
“Perhaps instead of berating my decision, you could offer a few helpful suggestions. Or, at the very least, words of encouragement,” she finished with a toss of her head and spun around, stomping off.
Rafe had rarely felt like such an ass. Yet again, he chased after her.
“I apologize, Lady Sophie,” he said as he drew abreast of her once more. “My words were thoughtless. They were borne from the fact that I travel to and from Edinburgh with some regularity and am well-acquainted with the dangers. My genuine concern for your safety got the better of me. I did not mean to disparage your sex or intellect. I am quite certain you are fully capable of doing anything you put your mind to.”
They were approaching the main thoroughfare. He glimpsed several carriages rumbling down the wide street ahead, crests he knew on their doors.
He couldn’t be seen walking with Lady Sophie.
Damn and blast.
He paused.
Lady Sophie stopped and again noticed his noticing. Rafe suspected little escaped her too-knowing green eyes.
“Apology accepted,” she said briskly. “And though I understand the pull of your primus urges, I fail to see how the security of my person is any concern of yours.” She paused, looking him up and down. “I am no one to you, Lord Rafe.”
“Lady Sophie—”
“Good day, my lord.” She coolly turned on her heel and continued toward the hackney stand.
Rafe gritted his teeth and . . .
. . . did nothing.
Because despite how his heart panged and thumped in his chest—emphatically insisting that Lady Sophie was everything to him—she was, in fact as she said . . . truly no one.
He had no claim on her, no right, and, worst of all, no freedom to change the situation.
And that was the greatest tragedy of all.
12
Sophie took a hesitant sip of her tea, eyeing the door to the inn with mild trepidation.
Her maid, Martha, looked around, expression apprehensive. “There are so many people coming and going.”
Sophie hummed in agreement and took another sip of tea, grimacing at its weak taste.
She and Martha were availing themselves of a brief luncheon before continuing their journey. They had left London the previous morning, intent on Edinburgh, but the crowded roads made it seem as if the entire metropolis had followed them.
Case in point, they currently sat in the Black Bull in Stilton, one of the largest coaching inns in this corner of England. Scores of travelers came and went every hour.
The inn had been far too busy for Sophie to claim a private dining room. Consequently, she and Martha were tucked into a far corner of the public dining room, giving them a clear view of the main entrance. That is to say, she could see the door only in brief glimpses, as men-of-business and families with crying children blocked the way, over and over. Every few minutes, a beleaguered man would announce the departure of a coach and another press of passengers would exit the room, while new arrivals surged in. The bells of the cathedral down the road sounded the hour, their deep bong-bong causing the thin window panes to rattle.
Sophie had been disappointed to find that Dr. Ross had retired and moved home to Edinburgh. But something in her welcomed the challenge. The quest to find her natural father—to begin at the beginning when piecing herself back together—had become a journey in truth.
Initially, she had not known how to best accomplish the journey north. Her finances were not robust—Jack had seen to that—but neither was she destitute. Lord Mainfeld had ensured that some of her dowry was protected from Jack’s wastrel ways, and living with her parents these past months had allowed her to bolster her reserves. That said, she did not have the blunt for a hired coach to Scotland.
But in that as well, Lord Mainfeld had come to her assistance. Sophie had voiced her wish to visit a ‘friend’ in Edinburgh and before she knew it, her father had lent her a light travel chaise with a groom to ride postillion and footman to sit behind. She would need to pay for the post horses along the way, as well as lodging and all other incidentals, but Lord Mainfeld’s generosity helped considerably to defray the cost of the trip.
Sophie pushed back the guilt of using a false father’s kindness to find a true father who had, up to this point, shown no desire to know her.
If the man had been present for her birth, then he clearly knew of her existence. And yet, he remained in the shadows. But why?
Perhaps he felt that by ignoring her, he was allowing her the fiction that she was indeed Lord Mainfeld’s daughter?
Or . . . perhaps the man simply did not wish to know her? Would she forever be this unwanted, invisible burden—
“Do you think we will be kidnapped and sold into a maharajah’s harem?” Martha’s odd question jerked Sophie out of her reverie. “I’ve heard of those things happening,” she continued, eyes slightly panicked, voice deadly earnest.
Sophie looked at her maid, trying to keep her face impassive.
Martha was a nervous sort, forever anticipating a catastrophe around every corner. Her family had been tenant farmers for generations on the Mainfeld estate. Sophie had hired Martha after the young woman’s mother died, leaving her orphaned. None of Martha’s distant family members would take on her care.
What else was Sophie to do? She could not bear to see the younger woman tossed out into the world, like an unwanted basin of water. More to the point, she had been helpless to resist Martha’s earnest eyes and cheerful demeanor. The girl truly thought nearly everything would hurt or kill her, and yet she faced it all with a sort of desperate, plucky verve.
Sophie was quite sure there was a profound life’s lesson to be had in that.
“No, Martha. We will not be sold into a harem,” Sophie replied. “I think we would have to be in India for that to happen.”
“Oh.” A moment’s hesitation. “But why?”
Sophie mentally sighed. It was going to be a long trip with Martha as a ‘chaperone.’
“Because maharajahs only live in India. Harems are quite illegal in England.”
“Yes, but aren’t we going to Scotland? Scotland is not England.” A pause. “They probably have harems in Scotland.”
“There are no harems in Scotland, either.” Aside from the women that men like Lord Rafe collected around themselves, that is.
Sophie did not add that last bit.
Lord Rafe was likely traveling to Scotland with an entourage befitting the son of a powerful duke—coachman and postillion, footmen, valet, and perhaps a secretary. His own personal clowder to order about.
She took another hesitant sip of her tea. It truly was vile, more lukewarm, tea-flavored water than anything. The boiled pork and mash they had been offered for lunch had not been much better.
She knew she needed to move past this absurd fascination with Lord Rafe. She had traveled this path with him once before and been badly singed; she refused to act so stupidly a second time.
It was just . . .
. . . arguing with him outside the doctor’s surgery . . .
The years had simply . . . slipped away. She had been vividly reminded of why she had liked him all those years ago. The quick turn of his mind, the concerned caring in his voice.
And she had liked him.
So.
Very.
Much.
With every word out of his mouth, she had felt that younger self rising withi
n her—the girl she had been before Jack.
That girl had been naive in so many ways . . . so trusting, so easily deceived.
But that younger Sophie had also been full of life and fire, hope and optimism.
Her goal was to piece back together the shards of self that Jack had shattered, but into what form? The girl she had been?
No, she had no desire to go back. This journey had to be a rebirth in truth. That by uncovering the events on the night of her birth, she might begin anew—a phoenix rising from the ashes of her old self.
A coachman entered, calling for his passengers over the din. Through the dirty windows, Sophie could see a stagecoach in the yard. Like all stagecoaches, it was piled high with luggage and people, some seemingly held on with only a bit of rope and a prayer. A noisy table of school boys and their tutor rose, following the coachman out, reducing the overall chaos of the room considerably.
A tall man at the door stood aside to allow the boys to pass before entering the inn himself.
Though his back was to her, the man’s height and Highland dress instantly drew her attention.
An enormous red-and-blue kilt swathed his body, starting at his knees and ending wrapped around his torso, a darker short frock coat underneath. A jaunty Highland bonnet sat at an angle atop his dark hair, and the hilt of a knife protruded from the top of his gartered stockings.
Surveying him, Sophie’s heart lurched to a running thump in her chest and a pleasant tingle chased her spine.
Well, now. That was unexpected.
Or . . . perhaps not. The man was, after all, absolutely delectable.
Apparently in addition to rakes, her biological self found Scottish displays of overt masculinity unbearably attractive.
Interesting choice.
She had never encountered a clansman in traditional dress, so how was she to have known she liked such a thing?
But then, she had always found Jack dashing in his red-coated regimentals. Her late husband might have been a philandering rakehell, but he did cut a fine figure.
Unfortunately, her biological self had a preferred type of male, and this unknown Scot fit her notion of a spectacular masculine specimen. Now the man simply needed to turn around so she could evaluate him from the front.
Mmmm, perhaps she should add Scottish men as a separate genus and species. Scottus virilis or some such thing.
The frazzled innkeep stepped over to the unknown Scotsman.
“A Scot, are you?” the innkeep asked, surveying the man up and down.
“Och, nae,” the Scot laughed, his voice a rolling boom of sound. “I’m actually a dandified rakehell sent down from London for being an utter letch. I’ve stowed ma starched cravat and violet waistcoat in my valise.” The Scot hefted the bag in his hand.
The innkeep rolled his eyes. “Yer a Scot, all right. Can never answer a question without making a joke.”
“Aye, it’s our national pastime, I ken,” the Scot chuckled, good-naturedly. “Nothing else tae do during a dark Scottish winter except drink a wee dram and laugh at ourselves.”
The rumble of the man’s deep brogue washed over Sophie, a wave of fizzing sensation, firing her senses.
Heavens.
And to think—there was an entire country of men who looked and sounded just like this. If the man smelled divine too, she was utterly done for.
Stop.
No more rakes. No more manly men of any sort. They are bad, bad, bad for your health.
Sophie found it endlessly frustrating. Why did her biology crave something that was ultimately so harmful?
“Right. How may I help you?” the innkeep asked the Scot.
“I’m for the stagecoach to Edinburgh at half four. Looking for a mite to eat afore then.”
“Ah. Well, we’re terrible busy at the moment . . .” The innkeep placed his hands on his hips, surveying the room. “There appears to be a seat near the ladies in the corner over there.” The man waved a hand in Sophie’s direction. “I’ll send my Mary over with a pint and a plate in a moment.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
The Scot turned to survey the room.
And that’s when recognition finally set in.
What the—?!
Lord Rafe’s eyes fell on her from beneath his cap, his well-formed jawline and the scar on his upper cheek clearly identifying him.
He froze, his expression just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
How—?
Here—?!!
They were in a coaching inn.
In bloody Stilton, of all places!
Of course, wretch that he was, Lord Rafe recovered quickly.
Worse—
He winked, sending another wave of corresponding heat chasing Sophie’s spine.
Lord Rafe turned back to the innkeep. “Thank ye.” He saluted the man.
And then all his attention was on Sophie.
Lord Rafe didn’t walk so much as stalk toward her, his eyes lit with mischief, those dimples deep holes in his cheeks, the scar near his eye stretching.
Twice now, she had simply not recognized him. Her skills of observation required some honing.
She was blaming the kilt for distracting her. A man’s bare knees had a way of upending even the soundest woman’s good sense.
Though judging by Martha’s stunned expression and the heads turning his way, Lord Rafe would never pass through life inconspicuously. London rake or lowly Highlander, it made no difference.
His mere presence had raised the temperature in the taproom by a solid five degrees.
“Ladies.” Lord Rafe nodded at her. “May I be so bold as to join ye?” He motioned toward the empty chairs opposite Sophie.
And then, before hearing her answer, he sat down, setting his dusty leather valise at his feet. As if he had every right. As if he knew he would be welcome.
The sheer nerve!
Bloody primus.
Grrr.
“Please have a seat, sir.” Her tone could have peeled paint with its acidity. She aimed a pointed glance at the battered case at his feet, the initials LRG for Lord Rafe Gilbert embossed on its side.
Of course, that simply made Lord Rafe smile wider, nodding his head in greeting. He stretched his legs out, flashing those bare knees below his kilt and jostling the small table.
The man had no shame.
Sophie pasted on a strained smile.
What was Lord Rafe about? Did the man habitually travel to Scotland in Highland dress?
Moreover, he said he was waiting for the public stagecoach, not the more prestigious Royal Mail coach, or a more aristocratic private coach.
It all seemed . . . odd.
What was Lord Rafe about? And why did Sophie abruptly feel off-kilter, as if everything she knew about this man had been upended?
“Lennon Gordon, at yer service,” he said, answering some of her questions.
Ah.
A disguise.
Lord Rafe was traveling to Edinburgh incognito.
The mystery deepened.
Sophie surveyed him, lounging in his chair, his large body relaxed and at ease in his surroundings.
She had gravely miscalculated.
A pampered London rake did not appear in Highland dress at a coaching inn in Stilton—traveling on a public stagecoach, no less!—because he found it an enjoyable way to journey the length of Great Britain.
Why the need for such a disguise? What secrets was he hiding? Why did she care?
And why, why, why must he smell so delicious?!
“And ye are, madam?” he asked, his dimples flashing again.
“A lady,” Sophie replied, repressively.
If he was going to pretend not to know her, then she certainly wasn’t going to play anything other than the reserved societal widow that she was. Normally, Sophie would rebuff the advances of a man such as Lennon Gordon, no matter how attractive she found him.
Something flashed in Lord Rafe’s eyes as he absorbed her
words.
He braced his forearms on the table and leaned toward her.
“Are ye lovely lassies for the stagecoach north, too?” His brogue clung to Sophie like warm honey, deliciously sweet. “I should count myself a verra lucky man if ye were.”
Sophie nearly snorted. “I do not see such luck in your future.”
If she thought to quell him, she was mistaken.
Lord Rafe laughed, loud and boisterous. It was a glorious sound, pinging around the crowded dining room like a rung bell, reverberating across Sophie’s sternum.
Heavens.
He seemed a different person entirely.
Lord Rafe was the consummate man about town—impeccably well-dressed, meticulously groomed, and dripping with wealth and privilege.
But seeing him at this moment . . . not a trace of the London rake remained. That man had disappeared entirely. In fact, had it not been for the scar on his cheek, she might have doubted the Scot before her was Lord Rafe at all.
The entire scenario tilted her world on its axis, forcing her to realign truths and realities, underscoring how little she knew Lord Rafe in the end.
And given how effortlessly he settled into this Highlander act, Sophie had to wonder who was the true Lord Rafe:
The Scottish Highlander? Or the London rake?
Or was the real man someone else entirely?
“You play the Scotsman quite well,” she murmured, canting toward him, dropping the pretense between them.
“Thank ye.” He leaned similarly forward. “I ken ye like me like this, lass.”
She did.
Far too much.
It would likely prove a problem to her peace of mind.
Given the smirk on Lord Rafe’s face, he had as usual noticed her noticing, the wretch.