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

by Nichole Van

  Sophie set down her pencil, drawing in a steady breath.

  I apologize if my actions caused ye any discomfort.

  The revelations of the past hour. She felt oddly scrubbed raw. Like she had been tossed about in a boat and then set back on land, head spinning, skin pricking. Nothing quite in place.

  Rafe was not a rake. He had never been a rake. A sheep in wolf’s clothing, to twist the popular idiom.

  How had she missed this important component of his behavior? And why did this knowledge leave a lump in her throat and a fire in her chest, both of which oddly felt like affection for this man?

  She did not want to be fond of Lord Rafe.

  Yes, she was attracted to him physically, but that was merely biology. An involuntary reaction she could not control.

  And, yes, she found conversing with him mentally stimulating . . .

  But fondness?

  Fondness implied that she had given a small part of her heart to him. That she liked him for himself.

  Fondness led to expectations . . . expectations on her part as to his behavior. And she knew from painful past experience, that this man was not to be trusted with any part of her heart.

  Do you hear that, foolish heart?

  Not. To. Be. Trusted!

  But . . . was that truly the case now?

  Sophie was unsure. Regardless of his true intentions, his Rakus falsus ways had given rise to hopes that he had then dashed.

  She didn’t know how to manage the thrum of emotions roiling in her.

  But there was one thing she knew she needed to do.

  “Apology accepted.” Her voice hung in the dark quiet. “I believe I owe you an apology, as well.”

  “An apology?” He huffed a laugh. “Whatever for?”

  “I have assumed the worst of you. My late husband . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed.

  Rafe had been brave. He had shared a secret part of himself with her. She could do the same in return.

  “Captain Jack Fulstate was . . .” She took a deep breath, allowing the habitual loathing she felt when thinking about her late husband to roll over her and then through her, washing away. She refused to be that hate-filled person. “ . . . well, Jack was a Rakus veras, a rake in every true sense of the word.”

  Rafe stilled, his head coming upright. He clearly understood everything that she left unsaid.

  She shot him a sad, wan smile.

  “Yes,” she nodded, “every behavior you are imagining and more. I spent my entire childhood living in the shadow of infidelity and adultery. I wanted nothing more than to escape it. And yet, whom do I marry?” She gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve often wondered if it is in my biology, in my very blood. I cannot seem to escape wanton behavior.”

  “Your late husband’s actions have nothing tae do with ye, Sophie. They reflect on him and his own demons and insecurities.”

  More silence. The fire popped again.

  “I know that now. But at the time . . .”

  Memories rushed in.

  Jack shouting at her when she asked him when he would return home.

  Jack meeting her gaze across a crowded ballroom, and then turning away, offering his arm to another woman, escorting her out onto a dark veranda . . .

  Sophie took a shuddering breath, raising her head. She met Rafe’s too-seeing gaze. She expected to see pity there. But received compassion instead.

  Her throat tightened, the ache growing.

  “No, I will not allow ye to apologize tae me,” he said, laying his words with soft gentleness. “Your words earlier were . . . accurate.”

  “My words?”

  “Yes . . . how did ye put it?” He paused, head tilted. “ ‘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,’ ye said. Or something very like that.”

  She had said that. She meant every word.

  “I am sorry that I ever made ye feel like that.” His words dripped with sincerity; his eyes plead for forgiveness. “As I said earlier, playing the rake . . . it’s been a mask for so long, I sometimes forget tae take it off. Any censure or irritation ye felt was justified. All I can do is promise to try tae do better while we are traveling together. To shed my Rakus skin, as it were.”

  Sophie regarded him, his eyes dark and imploring, his evening whiskers stubbling his cheeks.

  How did he apologize so effortlessly? Had she ever known a man to be like this?

  She gave a shake of her head, swallowing back the emotion that clogged her throat. The kindness that welled from him.

  What did it say about her life that kindness from a man such as Lord Rafe should bring her to tears?

  “I believe you,” she said and meant it.

  She stared off, blinking, attempting to reconcile the man before her with the inconstant rake she had assumed him to be.

  Did this explain his behavior all those years ago? He had kissed her out of force of habit?

  Did he even remember her from that evening?

  She had been so naive and trusting then, so inexperienced and unknowing in the ways of the world.

  “What is wrong, lass?” he asked, that same concern in his voice. “What did I say?”

  She bit her bottom lip again, this time to stop its trembling.

  Would Lord Rafe ever stop being this man to her? The one who undid her, unraveled her heart and made her yearn for things she had given up years ago. Even now, he was unearthing bits of her soul—hope and desire and longing that she had thought broken beyond recovery—and offering them to her, encouraging her to rebuild.

  But . . . she had trusted him once, and he had shattered her.

  “I believe you,” she repeated. “I believe everything you have told me is the truth—”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me quite yet. I believe you . . . but I do not trust you.”

  His head snapped back.

  “Why would your belief not lead tae trust? Are they not the same, in the end?” His brows came down.

  “Because even if the intent of your behavior is not truly rakish, it is still a deception of a sort. Such blatant flirtation gives rise to expectations, and I cannot trust those expectations.”

  “Pardon?”

  “See?! This is precisely what I mean. You are not even aware enough to remember.”

  Sophie took a deep breath, blinking away the sting in her eyes. Would she actually do this? Confront him about that night four years ago? Remind him that he had kissed her?

  Events he likely did not remember.

  She would look like a fool.

  She would feel like a humiliated idiot.

  But . . .

  The sting of it would not let her be. She needed him to understand why she withheld her trust. And perhaps in doing so, like Jack, she could release this odd hold he had over her.

  “Sophie?” The concern in his dark eyes convinced her to open her mouth. “What don’t I remember?”

  She laughed, such a bitter, sad sound.

  “Kissing me,” she all but whispered. “You don’t remember kissing me.”

  17

  Rafe sucked in a stunned breath.

  Bloody hell.

  Of all the places for this conversation to land—

  You don’t remember kissing me.

  He damn well remembered kissing her. The lush curve of her in his arms, the hitch in her breath as he dipped his head to hers, the gentle give of her lips as he lifted her closer—

  The memory nearly undid him.

  He had spent the last several years fighting to not remember their kiss.

  But it seemed every last second with this woman ended up imprinted on his very bones. Sophie had become part of his actual biology.

  You don’t remember kissing me.

  She looked at him, those expressive green eyes meeting his, catapulting him back four years to that n
ight. To that glorious stolen kiss and all his hopes and dreams for the future. For their future.

  How was he to answer?

  Our kiss is all I can remember.

  You are blazoned on my very soul.

  He took in a lungful of air, thoughts scrambling, trying to decide what to say.

  “I am not wrong.” She shook her head, looking away. “You do not remember.”

  “Sophie—”

  “No. Let me finish my thoughts.” She held out a hand. “You mentioned yesterday that you feel a kinship with your mother’s Scottish heritage.” She motioned toward his kilt, a wistful note in her tone. “I’ve never really . . . belonged.” Her voice the barest trace of sound. She lifted her eyes to his. “Is that so wrong? To want a place to belong? To be wanted.”

  Oh, Sophie.

  My heart.

  “Everyone deserves tae belong.” He willed her to believe him. “Everyone should be wanted, just as I—”

  “Exactly!” she interrupted him. “It is not wrong. I spend my days categorizing and assigning living things to their places. In a sense, I find the homes where they belong. The genus that puts them near others like them. I give them familiarity.” She glanced down at his tartan. “A clan, as it were.”

  He nodded. This he understood. The sense of kinship he felt when visiting his estate west of Perth. The reason why he counted the Brotherhood of the Black Tartan as his brothers.

  The places he belonged.

  What this had to do with their kiss, however . . .

  “I have no clan,” she continued, gaze drifting to the fire. That same lock of hair looser now, grazing the line of her throat, a slash of darkness against her pale skin. “I have no sense of kinship, no place where I am intrinsically wanted. I am the daughter of an unknown man. Poor, cuckolded Lord Mainfeld took on my care—bless him—but that cannot have been a welcome task. Worse, I am a scientist . . . a female scholar in a man’s world.” A lengthier pause. “The widow of a man who never took the time to know me beyond my dowry.”

  Something raw and aching settled in Rafe’s throat.

  This woman.

  You don’t remember kissing me.

  He understood. He closed his eyes, letting the pain of it wash him.

  Ah, Sophie.

  She thought he had kissed her and then forgot, left her unwanted.

  He hated that he had contributed to her pain.

  She deserved a clan.

  No . . . more than that.

  Acolytes. Pilgrims. A host of people dedicated to her. Like a goddess of old, worshipers to sing hymns of praise, to leave her offerings.

  And yet . . . he knew her well enough to understand that she didn’t want to be worshiped.

  She simply wanted to be . . . wanted.

  He opened his mouth—to apologize? to confess?—but she continued speaking.

  “I am more than just a dowry!” She met his gaze, eyes glassy. “I may not have known that when I married Jack, but I understand it now. I have a plan for my life.” A pause, and then, “The first step is finding my father, my true father.”

  He froze, thoughts scattering.

  Her father?

  That was . . . unexpected.

  “Pardon?”

  “I wish to find my natural father,” she repeated. “My mother will not tell me who he is. She becomes excessively agitated anytime I mention it. No one else seems to know.” A hesitant silence. “It’s why I am seeking out Dr. Ross, actually.”

  As usual, the jump in topic had him scrambling. “Ye think he might be your father?”

  “No, hardly that.” She laughed, a soft, breathy sound. “I’ve heard tale that my true father was present for my birth. Dr. Ross was the physician attending my mother that night.”

  “Ah. Ye hope he remembers who else was there?”

  “Exactly.”

  Her unexpected confidence had him off-kilter.

  She was traveling to Edinburgh, risking life and limb, simply on the hope that an elderly doctor might remember who else had been in the house that night nearly a quarter century ago.

  It was . . . absurd and rash and poignant and . . .

  . . . the actions of a woman on a mission.

  Of a woman of courage and spirit.

  A pilgrimage of her own, in a way.

  Was it any wonder he had been so helpless against her charm that night four years ago? How could he have done anything but kiss her?

  His Sophie was—

  Ah, bloody hell.

  His Sophie.

  He had gone and done it.

  He was thinking of her in possessive pronouns. Words like his and mine and us.

  A man was done for when a woman started to alter his very grammar.

  He truly was a peacock, as she had said. Because Sophie had become his bird, and he felt helpless to stop this flood of emotion.

  Every Scot knew that being a man’s bird was one step closer to becoming his hen and marrying Lady Sophronia Fulstate simply wasn’t a possibility.

  His father would banish his mother to the cruelest asylum possible in retribution. Rafe would never forgive himself for it.

  But one thing he could give her.

  “Ye are wrong on one account, Sophie.” He waited until her eyes met his. “I absolutely do remember kissing ye. I remember every moment of it.”

  He willed her to believe him, to trust that she was wanted then.

  Hell, she was wanted now.

  Desperately. Achingly. Thoroughly.

  How he wanted her. Some days he could scarcely breathe for sheer wanting.

  “Why?” she whispered, voice agonized.

  She said the word so softly. As if it wasn’t cannon fire. As if it didn’t shred him bare.

  Why did you kiss me?

  Why did you never call on me afterwards as you promised?

  Her pain was his own.

  The habitual anger toward Kendall scoured him . . . fury firing through his blood, setting his heart to racing.

  Why had he been forced to give up this woman?

  Why could he not be free of his father’s heavy hand?!

  But now . . . what was he to say to her?

  I love you and my father took you away.

  You are more wanted than you can ever know.

  I would give anything to make you mine.

  Rafe took in a shuddering breath, the roar in his ears blocking all sound.

  He answered her plaintive, why? the only way he could:

  “You want to belong, tae be part of a greater whole.” He laughed again, an angry, mirthless sound. “I simply want tae be free.”

  “Free?” Sophie repeated, shock freezing her in place.

  Rafe had morphed before her very eyes.

  With his words, the carefree rake had abruptly melted away, leaving an angry, wounded animal in his place—a creature who raged at the world, furious and impotent.

  The sight sent air whooshing from her lungs.

  What happened to you?

  Who did this to you?

  And how was this the answer to her question?

  Her: Why did you kiss me?

  Him: Because I wish for freedom.

  His face was drawn into a tense grimace, that scar a slashing punctuation mark across his cheek.

  “What do you mean . . . free?” She laid the words hesitantly, as she knew something about being a wounded creature herself. “You are the second son of a duke—wealthy, feted, excessively handsome, and with none of the looming responsibilities of the heir. How is that not freedom?”

  Rafe stilled, his eyes studying her.

  She replayed her words. Wealthy, feted, excessively handsome.

  “Excessively handsome?” he repeated, a faint grin causing those dimples to appear—a trace of his rakish persona resurfacing. “Dinnae stop now, lass.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “Don’t confuse the obvious. You know you are absurdly handsome—”

  “Absurdly, even?”

  “And no
w you’re avoiding my question. Freedom from what?”

  His face instantly sobered, that wounded creature re-emerging.

  He swallowed convulsively and clenched his jaw.

  Finally, he replied: “Freedom from my father.”

  Father?!

  Gracious. That was not what she expected.

  Though it perhaps explained why he felt the need to travel incognito.

  Sophie sat back, her mouth drawing into a frown. Her mind raced to understand.

  “He holds your purse strings?” she asked. Many a peer danced attendance on an overbearing parent in order to keep an allowance.

  “No. At the moment, I would be a penniless beggar before allowing that man”—he spat the words like an epithet—“to control me for money.”

  She absorbed that statement. The vehemence in Rafe’s words, the way his mouth twisted when he said that man, the wondering absurdity in his tone, as if the prison that held him could be exited for such a paltry reason as wealth.

  But if not money, then what?

  Or perhaps the better question—

  “Who?” Sophie murmured. If he didn’t obey his father for money, if wealth and gain weren’t Rafe’s goals, then it had to be for a person.

  Rafe was protecting someone, someone he cared about enough to subject himself to his father’s whims.

  And why did that thought cause her eyes to sting?

  “Whom do you protect?” she asked.

  He leaned forward, scrubbing his hands over his face. He stared sightlessly down, eyes focusing on a spot about three inches in front of her feet.

  The fire popped in the grate. Silence hung in the gloom. He sat so unmoving that Sophie began to doubt that he would reply.

  Finally, he shifted, bringing his gaze back up to hers, his eyes pools of helpless suffering.

  Ah. Here was the wounded animal in truth.

  “My mother,” he whispered.

  Oh!

  “Your mother?”

  “Aye.”

  Sophie’s mind scrambled to keep up. She had met the Duchess of Kendall only once or twice. The woman was something of an invalid, rarely going about in public. But Sophie had lived long enough to know that being labeled an ‘invalid’ could encompass a great many things, only some of which were genuine illness.