Along Came a Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  Rafe knew by the absolute absence of the familiar charred scent that greeted him at the end of every long workday that something was decidedly amiss.

  That, coupled with the absence of the sister who always rushed to greet him. Not even bothering to look as he tossed his cap at the crude nail that served as a hook behind the door, he did a sweep of the still room. Perfectly tidied as it always was, nothing outwardly out of place.

  “Where’s Hunter?”

  “He’s not here,” Cailin called back from the kitchen.

  “Yes, I see that,” he muttered to that obvious answer from the sister who’d always taken an unholy glee in goading him.

  Nor did he find it a coincidence that Hunter was conveniently missing. His brother hadn’t even had the decency to prepare Rafe for the news of his post. Instead, he’d let that bastard Sparrow be the one to tell him? No wonder he’d not returned after that particular meeting. Heading for the kitchen, Rafe gave his head a disgusted shake. This had been the duke’s latest gift to their family—turning brother against brother.

  No, that wasn’t true. He might envy Hunter; he might be jealous of the role he’d snagged from Rafe. But he would never resent his brother. Particularly in this. Hunter had been fighting for the opportunity to prove himself capable of a leadership role at the Cheadle coalfields. And it appeared he now had it.

  Rafe pushed the kitchen door open, speaking as he went. “Did he come home after . . . ?” Shock cut off the remainder of that question. His gaze landed not on his sister seated at the table, but on the woman beside her. The two of them, sipping tea and chatting like they were the oldest of friends.

  Suddenly, she stopped and looked up.

  Edwina’s eyes brightened. “Mr. Audley!” she greeted him, as if they were, in fact, old friends, too. “How wonderful it is to see you again!” And she said that last part as if it were the greatest of surprises that she found him in his own home. Which he didn’t take for any kind of coincidence.

  With the day he’d had, the last thing he cared to do or the last person he cared to see was the duke’s latest emissary.

  This goddamned day.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The young lady froze with a teacup halfway to her lips. Those lips did not deviate from their usual smile. Smiling as she always was. And on this day, with what he was facing, it grated all the more.

  “Rafe,” Cailin scolded; shoving her chair back, she came to her feet. “Forgive my brother’s rudeness, Miss Dalrymple. He’s not usually this boorish.” His sister favored him with a glare . . . that he completely ignored. “Actually, I’m lying. He’s usually about this boorish.” Cailin winked at this interloper.

  Edwina laughed, the sound effervescent and bright against the dreariness that was his Staffordshire cottage, and he found himself . . . sucked into whatever spell she cast. Their eyes caught, hers twinkling and bright with her merriment . . . a merriment that came at his expense . . . and because of his sister’s jesting.

  Rafe growled. “Boorish?” he directed his question at the one responsible for letting the interloper in. “I’m boorish? This from the sister who’d let this . . . this . . . woman in my home?”

  Cailin gasped, and coming around the table, she punched him hard enough in the arm to earn a grunt. “Behave. Furthermore, it is our home, and she is my guest.” She looked to Edwina. “Despite my earlier teasing, he’s not usually this rude. I do not know what has come over him.”

  “Betrayal,” he mumbled under his breath. It had that effect on a man.

  With slower, more graceful movements, Edwina sailed to her feet. “Please, there is no need to apologize for Mr. Audley,” she assured. “You should hardly be held to blame for his rudeness.” She reached for the opened notebook and pencil, and picking them up, she directed a question at Cailin. “How would you describe his general disposition, if not boorish?”

  “Oh, well, certainly blunt to the point of near rudeness,” his traitorous sister happily supplied. As if Rafe were not even there. As if they both spoke about a naughty little boy whom they had removed from the discussion.

  Rafe was promptly forgotten by the two women, who proceeded to discuss his character.

  What in hell was happening here? It was as though the world had all gone mad, and he was left the only one sane of the lot.

  He narrowed his eyes upon the source of his misery and woe—Miss Edwina Dalrymple.

  And suddenly, it felt very good to have a proper place to direct his rage. This latest person who sought to manipulate and influence his life. One who’d become a wedge between him and Cailin. Well, if that was what Edwina Dalrymple and the duke wanted, they were both bound to be disappointed. Because his father may have cost Rafe his work, thinking that in tying his hands he’d secured his cooperation, but he had every intention of digging all the way in on this one.

  “I. Asked. What. You. Are. Doing. Here.” He iced out each syllable.

  This time, his sister remained silent.

  Edwina showed no such compunction. “Well, at present, your sister and I are having a discussion about your general demeanor and personality.”

  He searched for some hint that she was teasing, but found only her usual guilelessness.

  “Before. That.” Fury darkened his vision, briefly blinding him. When the curtain of rage lifted, he registered the patient smile she still wore.

  She blinked innocently. “Oh.” Had she been any other woman, any other person, he would have taken that innocent doe-eyed look as affected. “I think it should be clear. I was speaking with your sister about the offer from the duke.”

  That was it. The thin thread of control he maintained since his meeting with Sparrow snapped.

  Anger whipped through him, and if he wasn’t so outraged by that unapologetic admission, he’d have been impressed with her blunt directness. It was entirely one thing for her to challenge him. Her staking out his sister and involving Cailin? That was altogether different, and was a grievance he’d neither forgive nor tolerate. It was enough the duke had interfered with Wesley. “Get out,” he seethed. He was already marching for the kitchen door, and grabbed the handle.

  “Rafe,” his sister repeated, again forceful and sharp in her tones. “Enough.”

  “You are angry,” Edwina murmured, her calm, dulcet tones a contrast to his sister’s barely suppressed rage.

  “Damned straight I—”

  “I was not finished, Mr. Audley,” she said politely but firmly, knocking him briefly off the scathing tirade he’d planned to deliver. Beside them, Cailin’s eyes grew huge. Yes, because neither of them, nor anyone for that matter, was accustomed to Rafe being blatantly challenged. “You are angry, but as I see it, your sister has even more reason to be so.”

  And just like that he was knocked off balance. “My . . .”

  “Sister,” Edwina finished for him when he remained unable to get the rest of his words out. “Yes. Your sister. You have made your feelings entirely clear about coming to London. But those are your feelings. And your wishes and your opinions. What of Cailin’s?”

  It was the first time in the whole of this thirty-one years that anyone had dared question the manner of brother he was. What was worse, it was the very question he’d silently asked himself just yesterday. And with every fiber of his being he resented this stranger for putting the same one to him. Rage swirled in his gut. “You would call me out as a brother?” A smarter, wiser, more aware woman would have heard the warning in that whisper.

  Yet again, Edwina proved unlike anyone he’d ever known. “I cannot speak of matters before this, however, in this instance? Yes, I would.”

  A growl worked its way from deep in his chest and rolled up his throat and past his lips. “Leave us.”

  The insolent baggage raised her chin. “I’ve already stated my intention to remain.”

 
; “I wasn’t talking to you,” Rafe said flatly.

  “Oh.”

  Cailin firmed her mouth. “I’m not leaving.”

  Goddamn it.

  The always-smiling Miss Edwina Dalrymple looked to his sister. “I promise, I shall be quite fine. I’ve come to learn his bark is worse than his bite.”

  “Undoubtedly. Most don’t know that. Most fear him. Not me.” His sister’s grin was firmly back in place. “And now I see, not you, Miss Dalrymple.”

  “Oh, not at all.”

  Not at all? He growled. Of course, either of the stubborn pair would have to be listening to hear that animalistic grumble. The minx had no idea. None at all. Between her meddling and the duke’s? It was too much.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” he shouted, and Edwina and his sister finally stopped talking. “Do not go reassuring my sister. I will be the one to do so.”

  “If ‘reassuring’ is the air you intend to convey, with all that blustering and bellowing, you are not doing a very convincing job of it, Mr. Audley,” Edwina chided, disapproval rich in her dulcet tones.

  Cailin’s eyes grew round in her face, as she looked first to Rafe, then to Edwina, and back to Rafe once more. And for the first time in her life, without a word, his sister stayed silent, headed for the kitchen door, and hastily quit the room until he and Edwina were . . . alone.

  The moment she’d gone, Rafe launched into his insolent guest. “You, a stranger, coming into my household and my village, thinking you know what’s best for any of us. Except that’s not really the case, is it. This is a job for you. You do not care about me or my siblings.” Nor did he expect her to, as they were strangers. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll let you come here trying to exert your influence and presume to control my family to get what you want.”

  “And I’ll ask again: is it what they want?”

  It hadn’t been what Wesley wished for, a voice taunted. He tamped it down. “It’s what Hunter wants,” he said flatly.

  “What of Cailin?” she persisted.

  Cailin, whose heart had been broken by this village. Cailin, who was likely never to marry a miner because of the loss she had suffered. And in a mining village, there were few other options; nay, there were no other options, in terms of sweethearts or husbands. He took an angry step toward her, but she did not back down. “What of my sister?” He lowered his head, and she angled hers back at the same time. A different tension danced in the air, a dangerous awareness lent heat by the fury that burned between them. “I’d advise you to have a care, Edwina,” he whispered, his breath mingling with hers.

  The lady wasn’t done. “But have you thought about what she wants? Truly wants.”

  “You know nothing,” he snarled, sticking his nose near hers. “Nothing.”

  “Actually, I do, Mr. Audley.” Edwina edged her chin up. “And I suspect you know it, and you despise that I do,” she said, her voice emerging as a slightly husked whisper, one that bespoke . . . an awareness. One that he shared.

  His gaze locked with hers, a volatile energy thrummed in the air.

  Of their own volition, Rafe’s eyes slipped to her mouth.

  Their chests rose and fell, fast and hard.

  He trailed a taunting finger from the line of her jaw up to the high, graceful curve of her cheekbone. Except . . . it was intended to be a mocking touch. And yet, if it was, he’d no place luxuriating in the creamy softness of her skin. He immediately stopped that inadvertent caress. “And you think you know what she wants? You who have met her once and for one afternoon?” he asked coolly, logic once more restored.

  “I know her hardly at all, and in just an afternoon’s visit I’ve learned she has an interest in seeing museums and the theater and attending an opera.” She managed to speak with both a calm and quickness that didn’t allow him an opportunity to respond. Or mayhap it was that the chit didn’t want or need to hear from him.

  She’d gathered all that?

  Except she wasn’t done.

  “Do you know what else I believe?”

  “I don’t c—”

  “I believe your prejudice against Polite Society and even your father, and everything associated with that gentleman, might have impacted your ability to make a decision free and clear of your own feelings, yes,” she said with such assuredness and control of her voice and her opinions that outrage burned his neck and face hot with fury.

  His lip peeled back in an involuntary sneer. “This from a woman who thinks it is so very important to pluck me out of Staffordshire and see me placed in a part of society and England she approves of?”

  That brought the young woman back on her heels, and her mouth slackened a bit.

  Good. He’d knocked the insolent baggage off balance.

  The moment proved fleeting. “I know taking your rightful place among Polite Society would open doors for you that would see you spared from risking your life in a coalfield. I know that you’d have warmer winters and more comfortable summers. And I know your sister wouldn’t be toiling over kitchens, which she hates, because all women hate that manner of work and only ever see to it out of necessity.”

  And oddly, she spoke as one who did know. And what was worse, she’d again raised such specific thoughts about his sister.

  It wasn’t lost on him that it had been he who’d declared war upon her, and yet she’d cut a path through his household, dragging onto their makeshift battlefield Rafe’s sister, the one whom he’d sought to protect at any and every cost.

  She was ruthless.

  And Rafe hated this woman before him, in this moment, for forcing him to think about that. Even as he should probably be grateful.

  Yet, the truth remained, Cailin might have had her heart broken in Staffordshire, but that same exact fate awaited her if they joined High Society. Nay, worse. There, he and Cailin would both find themselves the recipients of scorn and scandal and mockery. And while Rafe didn’t doubt that any insult would roll off him, he couldn’t say the same for his sister. And that was why he would not expose her to life in London.

  “You know what I’m saying is right,” she said quietly, into the void of their silence, filling it with her convictions and seeking to weaken his. “You know this has the potential to be about improving more than your life, and that is why you still haven’t thrown me out as you want to.”

  “As I should,” he sneered. Rafe scraped a condescending glance up and down her lace-ruffled, pale pink satin gown, as out of place here as he would be if he set foot in her fine end of London. “You think you know anything about what I feel? You think you have some preternatural insight into my thinking? You insist you know and speak of how easy it would be for me to forsake my life, my career for the whims of a duke.” This time, when she attempted to speak, he cut across her interruption. “But if the roles were reversed, princess. And I asked you to give up everything you knew, everything you did, and start anew here, you’d turn tail and run.”

  Edwina wrinkled that pert little nose. “Why would I—” She immediately closed her lips, but he thinned his eyes, as that unuttered meaning filtered into the air.

  “Why would you give up your fancy lifestyle for my lesser one?” he whispered, starting a path around her.

  The young lady stiffened, angling her head and fearlessly following his movements. “I did not say that.” There was a wariness in her hazel eyes.

  “Ah, dishonest once more,” he jeered.

  She sputtered, “I have not been dishonest once about my identity or my intentions or my feelings about your refusal to speak with His Grace. How dare you suggest I’ve behaved in any way other than honorable and forthright?”

  “I dare because it’s true, princess,” he said, against the shell of her ear, and Edwina’s breath caught. Near as he was, he felt the little tremble that shook her long, willowy frame. Was it fear? Desire? He could no
longer tell where she was concerned, and even more disconcerting was the masculine hungering for it to be the latter. “Just because you didn’t bring yourself to speak it aloud, Edwina, doesn’t mean it wasn’t what you were thinking, and your failure to own that makes you a liar.”

  “Very well! I was going to say as much. The country is unforgiving and harsh.” As she spoke, she whipped a hand about, punctuating every point she made. “Why, you yourself spoke of fires and cave-ins and there was my injured foot, and why should anyone, man or woman, prefer such a dangerous, disagreeable existence?” She tossed her arms up and didn’t allow him a word edgewise. “They wouldn’t.”

  “It’s not dangerous and it’s not disagreeable to me,” he seethed. And it was that there which divided them; they were two people from two very different worlds. It was why she could never, ever understand the reasons that compelled him. All of them. “Now, I want you to leave.”

  Her face fell. “But . . .”

  * * *

  • • •

  Well, this hadn’t gone as she’d expected.

  He was supposed to have temporarily lost his position at the coalfields and, therefore, be free to accompany her back to London.

  Free of excuses and with nothing else keeping him here.

  He was proving even more stubborn than she’d anticipated.

  His eyes sharpened on her face. “What is that, Edwina?”

  What it was, she would certainly not say. Not when she had sense enough to know he’d be livid at the reminder of the change in his circumstances.

  And he’d be even more enraged if he knew the hand you had in it.

  Unable to meet his probing eyes, Edwina took a hurried step away from him, and made a show of drawing on her gloves. She put an inordinate amount of attention and effort into drawing each digit through each hole of the lacy articles, all the while regaining her composure. “Thank you for your time.” She dipped a curtsy, and gathering up her bag, headed for the door. “I . . . was going to say I had such a lovely time speaking with your sister.” Which wasn’t a lie. It had been so . . . wonderful to simply speak with another young woman . . . one who wasn’t a charge, and who Edwina didn’t feel she had to instruct. “She and I can meet again some other—”