Romancing The Rake (Brotherhood 0f The Black Tartan Book 2)

by Nichole Van

  Sophie blinkingly took in that thought.

  Shy?

  Truly?

  Lord Rafe?

  That seemed almost . . . impossible.

  He was likely a connoisseur of situations like this—a woman in half-dress, warm firelight, a dark night.

  And yet . . .

  Was the man now blushing?!

  It was difficult to tell for sure, what with the warm firelight, dark night, and her current state of half-dress.

  And still he said nothing.

  “Truthfully, Lennon.” She leaned on his false name. “Why are you here?”

  “I know I promised yesterday tae not be a bother . . .” He paused, bringing his gaze back to her before taking a step into the room.

  Just having him here in her private chambers sent her senses tumbling into forbidden paths. How many years had she ached for this man?

  But then he spoke again—thank goodness!—breaking the spell.

  “I require the opinion of a beautiful woman,” he said.

  Sophie’s mind, quite literally, blanked.

  What—

  Beautiful woman?!

  But . . .

  Had he truly just said that—

  Was he finally flirting with her?

  After everything else today?!!

  Blind rage flooded her mental vacuum.

  “Opinion? Beautiful woman?!” She enunciated each word with exacting precision.

  His eye shot wide. He was no stranger to that female tone of voice. No surprise there.

  “Aye, there’s something ye need to kno—”

  “How dare you!?” she nearly shouted, advancing on him, jabbing a finger. “How dare you treat me like this!”

  “Sophie—” he began, taking a step toward her, glancing anxiously at the door.

  “I have not given you leave to use my proper name, sirrah!” She took a step closer and jabbed her finger into his shoulder. A seemingly muscular, hard shoulder. She maybe jabbed it again, just to be sure. She steadfastly refused to be impressed.

  “Hush!”

  “I will not be silent!” Jab, jab. “Time and again, you ignore me when others are about, but the second you have no witnesses, I am suddenly a beautiful woman who you long to be mmmph, mmmph.”

  Sophie’s voice drifted into muffled mumbles as Lord Rafe wrapped one hand around her waist and the other over her mouth.

  Hand. Waist. Mouth.

  Him!

  Shock froze her in his arms.

  The sheer astonishment of being drawn flush against his larger frame, the heat of his hands pressing against her, his intoxicating male smell at such close range.

  The outrage that he would dare touch her person—

  Rakus lasciviosus, indeed.

  “Please, ye must be quiet,” he hissed in her ear.

  “Let me go, you arse-headed rakehell!” Sophie snapped in return.

  But as Lord Rafe still had his hand firmly over her mouth, the words were less emphatic and more, “Mmmph mmmph ma grrmph.”

  Finally, Sophie’s thinking brain informed the rest of her body that, as delicious as it felt being held in Lord Rafe’s arms, she was not that sort of woman.

  She wriggled, digging an elbow into his ribs, causing him to release her with an annoyed oomph.

  “This is ridiculous!” she whisper-hissed.

  “Of course, it’s ridiculous!” he whispered back. “I haven’t been ignoring ye.”

  “Pardon?!” Sophie all but screeched.

  “Shhhh.” He stepped forward, as if to wrap a hand around her mouth again.

  Sophie danced out of his reach.

  “You most certainly have been ignoring me!” she continued in a quieter voice. “You flirt and charm and work your Rakus wiles on anything in a skirt—like earlier today with Miss Johnson over lunch—and then, when you are alone with me, it’s like a tap. Shut off.”

  He paused, as if something in her words confused him.

  “Are ye saying you want me tae flirt with ye?”

  Sophie suppressed a scream. “That is what you gleaned from my words just now?”

  “Well, it is a logical conclusion—”

  “Consistency, my lord. I am asking for consistency in your behavior toward me. I have spent my entire life feeling like a nuisance. An unwanted obligation. Daughter of a whore, remember?” She lifted her hand, wiggling her fingers.

  His shoulders sagged. “Oh, Sophie—”

  “I don’t require your pity, my lord. But I would love for a man to decide that I am worth his full attention, regardless of who else might be in the room.”

  That stopped him short. “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.”

  “I— Well—” He stopped, frowned, and then ran an agitated hand through his hair, still glancing at the door, before speaking lowly. “I am sorry if my actions confused ye or caused ye pain in any way. I was simply trying tae remain in character as Lennon Gordon, as the man does have a reputation tae uphold. I clearly behaved without thinking—”

  “I am hardly that naive, my lord.” She rolled her eyes. “Spare me your protestations—”

  “’Tis the truth! And it’s a good thing I have been behaving like this as I just saw Lady Lilith walking along the gallery.”

  “Pardon?! Lady Lilith?!”

  “Yes. Hush.” He stepped closer, holding a hand out as if to silence her again. “Ye must be quiet. You’ll give us away.”

  “Are you sure it was her?”

  “Yes. Most sure.”

  “Why is she here?”

  “How should I know? That’s why I needed your opinion.”

  “My opinion? You’re a rake. Rakes know things like this.”

  His look was one-part aggravation and three-parts long suffering.

  “Perhaps she has relatives in York? Honestly, it doesn’t matter why she’s here. The larger concern is if she finds us together . . .”

  Oh, for the love of—

  Sophie wanted to pound her head against the wall.

  Could some divine being please save her from idiotic men?

  “Lady Lilith finding us together only became a problem once you entered my private chambers!”

  He paused, blinking.

  “Exactly.” Sophie continued in a low whisper, agreeing with his stunned expression. “Did you believe my chamber door to be a substitute for a convenient curtain, allowing you to hide from an unwanted paramour?”

  He made a strangled sound.

  “Honestly,” she continued, tone biting and unrelenting, “for someone who is supposedly so knowledgeable about women and raking, you make a muck of it with alarming frequency.”

  16

  Rafe stood still as Sophie continued to rage.

  Did she mean what she had just said? The words continued to pound through him:

  I have spent my entire life feeling like a nuisance. An unwanted obligation.

  I would love for a man to decide that I am worth his full attention, regardless of who else might be in the room.

  His heart sank. He had contributed to her feeling like this. Earlier with Miss Johnson, certainly at that ball four years ago, and then just now . . .

  He had glimpsed Lady Lilith walking along the outer gallery and, to put it bluntly, he had panicked.

  No one could know he was traveling with Sophie. If word got back to his father . . .

  He swallowed his anger, breathing slowly through the habitual rage that flared whenever he thought about his sire.

  Though she was correct:

  He should not be in her private chambers, facing an irate Sophie in a dressing gown with her hair unraveling from a thick plait, every gentlemanly sense he possessed ordering him to leave righthisinstant.

  But he was struggling to do so. The soft firelight bathed Sophie in luminous light, glinting gold in her dark hair.

  Holding her against him had been ill-advised, as now he could think of nothing else.

  Don’t imagine holding her.

  Do
n’t ponder how right she feels in your arms.

  Oblivious, she continued to berate him, her voice a hissing whisper of sound. “All you had to do is turn the other direction and walk away. From behind, Lady Lilith would have suspected nothing. Instead, you come in here, risking everything!”

  Rafe figured now was not the time to mention how fetching Sophie looked when in a high dudgeon. He knew he needed to answer her. But his eyes were bewitched by a solitary curl that had escaped her braid and drifted down the side of her throat.

  Heavens above, she was beautiful.

  A long silence ensued. Rafe struggled for an answer, but that curl seemed to have stolen his thoughts.

  “Honestly, it’s as if you don’t know how to manage a clandestine arrangement,” she went on. “For someone with your rakish reputation, you are really quite terrible at this.”

  That got his attention. “I didn’t have time to think it all through. I just reacted.”

  “You just reacted?” she parroted, crossing her arms, brows drawing down. “This is your definition of reaction? Doing the one thing you should not? I had assumed that your raking behavior would be more instinctual.”

  Rafe looked up at her, dragging fingers through his hair. “Instinctual? How can raking—” Not a verb! Grrr. “—being a rake be considered instinctual?”

  “What we are inhabits our very beings. You forget I have observed feral tomcats at length—”

  “The barn cats again?”

  “Yes, barn cats! As wild animals, they react entirely on instinct. When the primus tomcat encountered a problem, he behaved without hesitation—”

  “Lady Sophie—”

  “—but you hesitate endlessly. In fact, the more I ponder this, I see that you pursue a woman and then pull back at the last moment. Or, like this evening, you dodge a conflict in the worst way possible.” A long pause. “Your heart isn’t in the raking business, my lord. You lack a passion for it.”

  “A passion for raking? Do ye even hear yourself?”

  “It is as if you want others to perceive you as being a rake, when you are, in fact, nothing of the sort.”

  Rafe flinched, head rearing back, his tongue sticking in his throat.

  Her words had struck unerringly true.

  A condemning silence filled the room.

  And of course, Sophie being Sophie, she did not miss his reaction.

  “Ooooohhhhh!” Her eyes went wide, mouth a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. “Ooooooh!!!” she repeated, her voice raising.

  Rafe took a quick step forward, hand out. “Hush. Please.”

  His actions did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm.

  “Is this actually true, what I’m thinking?” she breathed.

  “I don’t know what ye are thinking.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He did know. He simply wished it left unsaid.

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

  “You are not actually a rake.”

  She said it.

  That same condemning silence returned.

  He could not deny it.

  Her mouth formed another perfect ‘O.’ He refused to contemplate exactly how kissable her lips appeared at the moment.

  “It’s true. You are a gentleman in rake disguise. A Rakus falsus.” She nearly bounced on her tiptoes.

  Why this news was so exciting, Rafe could scarcely understand.

  All her anger and frustration seemed forgotten. Abruptly, she was the Sophie of his memory—the wide-eyed innocent in her first Season, full of optimism and cheery glee.

  She clasped her hands together, holding them at her chest. It was the expression his sister adopted when viewing a particularly cute puppy or an adorable child toddling about.

  Not a pretend rake-shame.

  “You are like a Colubridae dipsadinae, a hognose snake,” she continued. “You raise your head and flair your cheeks like a venomous cobra, but in actuality, you are utterly harmless.”

  Sophie smiled. Rafe found himself lost in it for a moment.

  Now she’d done it. In less than thirty seconds, she had become that amusing, quirky woman he had loved.

  That he still loved, if he were honest.

  Damn and blast.

  This was not how things were supposed to go.

  “I am hardly harmless, madam.” He stalked toward her, gaze intent.

  If he thought his behavior would startle her, he was sorely mistaken. Instead, her eyes merely gleamed brighter, fascination dancing within.

  “Oh, that’s very good. With the lean, the slow smolder, the heated look . . . incredibly effective.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I feel breathless and terrified and yet so utterly thrilled. Absolutely fascinating. I must write this down.”

  She darted past him, reaching for a notebook and pencil on the table, making notes.

  This was . . . ridiculous.

  Rafe stood, feet shuffling, glancing toward the door, feeling thirty-ways a fool—

  “You must sit.” Sophie sat down and then nodded toward the other chair at the table. “I have many questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Yes. Scientific questions.”

  “About . . . raking?” Ugh. Still not a verb.

  “Yes.”

  She stared him down until he sat in the opposite chair, the wood creaking under his weight.

  “To begin,” she said, tapping the pencil against her lips, “why does one decide to become a Rakus falsus?”

  “Sophie—”

  “There you go using my first name again.”

  “Surely, we’ve reached that point in our friendship.”

  Silence.

  “I suppose we have . . . Rafe.”

  “Lennon,” he corrected her.

  Sophie may have sighed. She definitely rolled her eyes.

  “Very well, Lennon, why did you decide to become a fake rakeshame?”

  More silence.

  “Please?” she added, eyes beseeching.

  Rafe swallowed. No one knew this story.

  And he meant . . . no one.

  Not his mother or sister. Certainly not his father.

  Not even Andrew and the other members of the Brotherhood of the Black Tartan. They knew that his rakish ways were not as prevalent as he made them out to be, but they didn’t know the entire story. It had felt too . . . humiliating to tell them.

  As for anyone else . . . no one had been perceptive enough to see the truth behind his behavior. But analyzing behavior was Sophie’s specialty. Of course she saw through him. In hindsight, it seemed almost inevitable.

  And he cared enough to want her to understand all of him. It felt Fated in a way, that he would give every part of his soul to this woman.

  He released a sigh of his own, sinking back into his chair and stretching his legs.

  “It’s a simple story, really,” he began. “More of an accident than anything. My father ran with a fast set as a younger man, and so it was no surprise when my elder brother followed in his footsteps, gaining a reputation as a rakehell. My father assumed I would do the same. But, much to Kendall’s dismay, I did not. My father has never understood my love of the natural sciences. He condemns it as an unmanly, priggish sort of pursuit.”

  He breathed through the blast of rage that accompanied the memory, the tension churning a knot in his stomach.

  Kendall glared at him, eyes icy and merciless. “No son of mine will be a lowly scholar. The Dukes of Kendall are men of action. You will follow in their footsteps, boy.”

  Sophie gave a dismissive sniff. “Such a Philistine.”

  That startled a laugh from Rafe. “Truly. Regardless, my final year at Eton, I wanted nothing more than tae continue my studies at university, preferably at St. Andrews in Scotland. My father and I had a terrible row over it during the Christmas holidays. No son of his would be a weak scholar. Kendall insisted he would purchase me a commission and send me tae Portugal before seeing me studying natur
al sciences at St. Andrews. So I returned for my final term at Eton, angry and restless. Needless to say, I made a few poor decisions and my anger bled into my studies. I got into an altercation with another student, bloodying him.”

  Rafe did not disclose that the fight had begun when the other boy had slandered Rafe’s mother.

  “Naturally, I was sent down because of it, expelled from Eton. The headmaster told my father that the fight was over a woman.” Rafe snorted. “My father had never been so delighted with me. Somehow, my being known as a philanderer and a rake filled my sire with pride. Such behaviors are symbols of power in his world, and by participating in worldly and immoral deeds, Kendall perceived I was following in his footsteps.”

  “Good heavens. That is . . .”

  “Appalling?” Rafe supplied. “Aye, it is. But there ye have it. Philistine, remember?”

  The irony, of course, was that had his father known the fight had been over the duchess, Kendall would have beaten him for being a weakling. The duke had no care for his wife. But some unknown lightskirt? That was acceptable.

  Rafe clenched his jaw, fighting back the red tide of rage that swept his vision—

  He shook his head, swallowing firmly. “My father granted that if I continued to behave as a man ought—his words, not mine—then I was free to attend St. Andrews.”

  “Ah.” She tilted her head. “So you simply had to maintain the charade of your wretched behavior . . .”

  “Precisely.” Rafe shifted in his chair, drumming his fingers. “Of course, once I finished at St. Andrews, my father expected me tae continue being a proper ‘man about town.’ And so I could not relinquish my raking, as ye call it.”

  Coals settled in the grate, sending up a rush of sparks.

  “No one else knows.” He paused. “About my Rakus falsus ways.”

  A moment while she digested that fact.

  “You feel . . . vulnerable . . . about it?”

  A pause.

  “I suppose so. I simply ask ye to keep this a secret.”

  “I won’t tell a soul,” she said, eyes pensive, pencil tapping, teeth worrying her bottom lip.

  Rafe looked away before doing something ill-advised, like covering that bottom lip with his own.

  “I appreciate your discretion.” He swallowed, as there was one more thing. “One last item . . . over time, I fear that playing the charming rake has become habitual, as you most correctly observed. I will not pretend that my behavior has not been problematic from time to time. It is a mask that I don without thinking, as I did this afternoon when faced with Miss Johnson.” He took a steadying breath. “So, I must sincerely apologize if my actions caused ye any discomfort.”