When they finished putting her rooms back together, Rafe reached for the last garment.
Edwina rushed to intercept him. “I have that.”
But he proved quicker.
And then he made the mistake of looking down at the item she’d been so determined to relieve him of.
And he had to remind his brain of the movements behind the whole task of swallowing. Finer undergarments he’d never seen on a single woman. Lace so sheer a person could see clear through it. Leaving next to nothing to the imagination but for the pink bows that adorned the top sleeves.
Edwina yanked the article from his hand and shoved it behind her back. As if that might make him somehow unsee what he’d seen . . . and unimagine what he was now imagining.
The least of which was the taste and feel of her mouth. And the most being her resplendent, in that garment—in only that garment—she all but tossed into the armoire, closing the door hard behind it.
She faced him, her cheeks flushed, her usually perfect chignon having come undone, leaving long, loose curls falling about her shoulders.
And his body tensed at the sight of her.
I should go.
I should go for so very many reasons. The least of which was he found himself recalling too clearly the last time he’d been in here with her in his arms. The most of which being that she was employed by the duke.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He grunted and started for the door, but she slid into his path, stopping him. She wore a somber set to her features.
Rafe stared questioningly at her.
“I . . . what you said, on our journey here,” she began. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said softly. “Yes, most people are bone-weary from, as you said, toiling all day.” Edwina took a step closer to him. “Despite your opinion that I know nothing of it, I’ve spent a good many years working. Most work from the moment the sun rises until it sets. The majority are at the mercy of employers. Too many who are oftentimes cruel, and too often are given to overworking them.” She laid a palm upon his arm, and his muscles bunched under the tenderness of that touch.
He met her gaze.
“But that does not have to be your lot, Rafe,” she said imploringly. “You do not have to live the tiring existence most every other person does. You have this opportunity to live a life different than the one you’ve spoken of.” She lightly squeezed his arm, before releasing him. “Not only for you but also for your siblings, and anyone would trade places for that gift.”
She was determined. And he wanted to fault her for that, when he already faulted her for so much.
Perhaps it was the guilt of what he’d inadvertently wrought upon her room.
Or mayhap it was the fact that he now found himself unemployed. Albeit, according to Sparrow, temporarily.
Or perhaps it was because she’d raised mention of his siblings . . . particularly Cailin.
But an idea stirred to life. “You are so determined that I accompany you to Town and take part in your London Season.”
“Well, it is not my London Season, per se. The London Season is the time of year when all members of the ton leave their country estates to take part in their . . .” She caught his look, and had sense enough to stop with this latest lesson. “Ahem. Yes, I am determined that you will take your rightful place among Polite Society.”
Distaste soured his mouth like the vinegar his sister had a horrifying habit of overusing in too many recipes. Those words, now spoken by Edwina, were the exact same ones that had been written in the one note he’d bothered to open and read from his father. And the same ones uttered by every other man whom Rafe had managed to send packing. “There is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.”
She gave a little flounce of her dark curls. “Nothing at all. I’m quite determined in my course I set, and am not thwarted. Ever.” Unblinking, the lady held his gaze. “Ever,” she repeated, in such somber tones that didn’t fit with Edwina and her cheerful nature, he found himself fighting an unexpected smile.
“Yes, I have come to find that,” he allowed. Edwina Dalrymple was a veritable virago. Had she been going toe to toe with any person other than himself, he would have admired her. With the endless stream of words always sprouting from her interestingly shaped mouth, he would admit—at least to himself—that he was never going to win a word match with her. “Very well. I will go with you.”
Shock brought her crimson lips apart, and she immediately corrected that gape. “You . . . will?”
“I will.”
“Oh, this is quite splendid! Very splendid, indeed.” Edwina clapped her hands several times. “There is much to be done. Packing your belongings, and having the carriages readied.” And animated as she was, gesturing and speaking rapidly, color filled her cheeks. And as she celebrated, he almost felt bad.
“Of course, there are your lessons, which we really must begin immediately. There is no time to spare . . . etiquette and decorum and . . . proper forms of address, of course,” she prattled.
And Rafe heard but two words among that torrent of them:
Your lessons . . .
As if he were a schoolboy in desperate need of tutelage that only she, the great savior of a teacher, might manage.
That did it.
It effectively quashed the very brief, and entirely fleeting guilt.
“I have . . . terms.”
That brought an immediate cessation to her rambling. Edwina eyed him warily. “What . . . type of terms, Mr. Audley?”
“You do precisely what you’re expecting me to do. You stay here, and fit in,” he said, relishing more than he ought teasing her with his uncouthness.
Edwina winced. “Very well,” she said, bringing her shoulders back. “What exactly does my fitting in Staffordshire entail, Mr. Audley?”
“First, my name is Rafe. You’ll call me Rafe because anything else makes you some fine governess, instructing me.”
“That is . . . essentially what I am,” she said slowly.
He sharpened his gaze on her, and she hastily cleared her throat. “I’ll allow that concession.”
Given she had already done so, that wasn’t much of a concession, as she called it. “You’ll be part of Staffordshire life, live here. Fit in with the locals. Do what we do. Live how we live.” Just as she expected him to live how she lived.
She blanched, and for all the revulsion there, he may as well have suggested she fish her own trout, gut them, cook them, and eat them there, raw. “We don’t . . . have the time for that. There are your formal lessons to see to and—”
Rafe cut her off. “Is it that we don’t have time for that, or you don’t want to take part in quaint village life?”
She sputtered. “Of course not! That is not it, at—”
“Or is it that you don’t want to forsake your fine balls and dinner parties? Not fancy enough for you?” All of that fit with the manner of woman who had arrived in her fancy apparel, and who thought so very highly about the peerage, just because of the titles they carried.
Her lips formed a harsh line. “I did not say that,” she said tersely. “Any of it.”
Rafe smiled coldly back. “You didn’t need to. You’ve been quite clear since you arrived that you presume your way of life is better than mine, and what I’m saying is if you think it’s nothing giving up all I know and venturing to Town, then you try it, princess.”
Chapter 11
Princess.
What would he say if he knew just how very far off that mark he was? That she wasn’t some highbrow lady who happened to be down on her luck and in need of respectable work but, rather, bastard-born like him . . . living a secret and a lie so that she might have that respectable work.
It was a secret she could and would breathe to no one. She’d no choice but to leave him to his erroneously drawn
opinions about her, and try and convince him. And yet, convincing him also required that she agree to this outlandish proposal.
“You aren’t going to do it,” he stated smugly.
“I am . . . thinking. After all, impatient contemplation has the power to destroy clever ideas.”
He eyed her as if she’d sprouted a second head. “Who said that?”
Edwina gave a toss of her head. “I did.”
“Of course you did,” he muttered, and she refused to rise to his bait.
Because that was what he wanted. Just as he didn’t truly want . . . or expect her to agree to his terms.
She tapped a finger against her chin.
That was the sole reason he’d capitulated. Because it wasn’t really a capitulation. He expected she’d turn tail and run at the prospect of fitting in his world. In fairness, however, the gentleman wasn’t off the mark. The last thing she wanted was to remain in any countryside of England, and that he chose to be here? She shuddered. That was a preference she could never understand. After her mother had passed, the moment she’d gotten out of the country and into London had been the only happy thing to come of that loss. The country brought with it memories of the father who rarely visited, and the people who were small-minded and cruel. And yes, she quite abhorred country living. And yes, all her least favorite memories involved places just like this one she now found herself in, but no, she was not incapable of seeing to whatever challenges he thought to throw her way.
And yet . . . taking on this assignment had the power to set her free from ever having to worry about returning to the country and being gossiped about and mocked as she’d been growing up.
Edwina ceased her tapping and let her arm fall to her side. “Very well. We do not have much time. At most, ten days. However, all would not be lost as we would have the opportunity to interact and I can learn more about you.”
His jaw slackened. “You’re agreeing . . .”
“To become one with your Staffordshire life?” she supplied for him, when he didn’t or couldn’t finish. “I will. What exactly does this entail?”
Surprise brought his dark eyebrows creeping up. Good. He thought he knew so much about her. He thought he knew why she didn’t want to take part in those silly events, and what she would or would not countenance to secure his cooperation. What he didn’t know, however, was that she wasn’t a woman to back down. She had made her way in this world, and it had always been difficult, and from it, she had developed a resolve that gave her the strength to do anything in order to succeed.
“Helping in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?” Edwina repeated back this latest ridiculous task he’d have her complete.
“Yes, the kitchen.” He enunciated each of the two syllables in a grating manner that required she draw on a lifetime’s worth of lessons on propriety and decorum to keep from remarking rudely over.
“Fine.” She infused a certain amount of boredom into her voice. “Is there a particular favorite you’d like for me to bake?”
“I . . .” His mouth moved several times before he shook his head dumbly. “Uh . . . no?”
Yes, he hadn’t been expecting that, had he? It was all she could do to keep from dusting her palms together in gleeful triumph. “Is that all, Rafe?” she asked with false innocence.
His dark brow dipped lower.
“You are going to . . . bake?”
The gentleman thought he was so clever. He’d no idea of just how removed she was from the world of Polite Society he thought she belonged to. Yes, she educated young ladies. Yes, she conducted herself with a like decorum and properness—outside of kissing him madly and thinking of it in detail and depth afterward, of course. But she was not a woman who attended fine balls and dinner parties . . . not as anything more than a companion or chaperone, that is. “I am going to work in your kitchen and live the life of a Staffordshire village woman. Just as you requested.”
She wasn’t a woman who enjoyed life in the English countryside. But neither was she unfamiliar with her way around it.
Nay, since she’d been born, the illegitimate issue of a marquess and his well-regarded mistress, Edwina hadn’t really fit into any world. Instead, she’d straddled two, striving to belong to one or the other, but finding her place in neither.
And she resented this man before her. He, with his erroneous opinions, and his ill ones at that, about her.
Edwina released a sigh. “Why do you sound so surprised as to your own terms?” she returned with a question of her own, one that she filled with deliberate confusion. “Unless . . .” She made her eyes go round, and slapped a hand against her breast in pretend shock. “Unless . . . never say you are thinking I’ll say no, and you’ll drive me off, Rafe?”
“No, I don’t think you’ll say no.” A cold smile played at his lips. “I don’t think you have the sense God gave a snail to do so. I think you’ll say yes, fail, and then I’ll drive you off.”
Hmph. She bristled. The gentleman was destined to be surprised and disappointed when she succeeded and, in turn, secured his cooperation. “So what else does this entail? Am I to also spend a day at the coalfield? Haul coal buckets?”
And the hard set to his lips softened, giving way to that very real half grin, a lopsided smile, as if even when he was genuinely amused he resisted it with all that he was. “I’m not trying to kill you.”
She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Well, that is reassuring.”
He chuckled, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out that she’d been speaking in all seriousness.
“The miners meet at the tavern at nine o’clock, for drink and song. I’ll have you join in, Edwina.”
She swallowed wrong and promptly choked, struggling and gasping for air. Until tears streamed down her eyes, and she hunched over in an attempt to get a proper breath.
Rafe took mercy on her, thumping Edwina hard between her shoulder blades.
“Y-You . . . y-you . . .” She still struggled to get those words out. This time, not because of the paroxysm he’d induced, but because of the scandalous nature of what he suggested.
“I want you to join the men and women who meet at the tavern?” He folded his arms across that broadly muscled chest. “Aye.” Rafe winged another eyebrow up. “Is there a problem with that, princess?”
No, there was not one problem with what he suggested. Nay, what he required. This was, after all, one of the terms that would determine whether or not he accompanied her to London.
Rather, there were a whole host of problems with this latest item on the list of his ultimatums. Every night she took her meal in the taproom, but she was sure to take to her rooms when those raucous revelries began. With the drinking and the bawdy singing, it was the last place a woman with her reputation could afford to be. Furthermore . . . “Those people do not want me there.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Those people?”
She felt her cheeks warm.
“The people in your village. They are . . .” At his questioning look, she searched her mind. “Not welcoming to outsiders.”
“Oh, now, that is rich coming from a woman who thinks Polite Society will be welcoming of me and my siblings.”
“It is different.” Entirely so.
He rested a hip on her makeshift desk. “Enlighten me, princess.”
Not correcting that endearment-insult, she clasped her hands before her, and proceeded to elucidate. “I’m not speaking as someone who is unfamiliar with how people new to a village are treated.” She knew that firsthand from when she and her mother had moved to Leeds. And she’d witnessed Rafe and his brother’s resistance to her being here. “There were Mr. Ward’s efforts.” This time, it was Rafe whose cheeks went ruddy. Hammering home her point, Edwina gave him an up-and-down look.
“Fair enough.”
At that concession, Edwina’s eyes widened.
Rafe crossed his arms and continued. “Has my sister been anything but warm to you?”
That gave her pause. The whole of her life she’d simply taken it for granted that she was a woman without a place in the English countryside . . . because she was an outsider. And yet, his sister had only ever been gracious. “No,” she allowed. “She’s been welcoming and kind and warm.”
He smirked at his triumph, but he was not content with having secured even that agreement. “And what of Mr. Ward’s daughter, Maryam?”
Edwina chewed at her lower lip. What of Mr. Ward’s daughter, he asked. The young woman who’d been kind and generous and . . . “You are right,” she said with a quiet, dawning realization.
Rafe’s jaw slipped, and he dropped his arms to his sides.
Edwina patted at her chignon. “My expectation that I would be treated unfairly tainted my views of the people here, and blinded me to the very real kindness I’ve been shown. As such, having had my eyes opened, I trust if you’d simply accompany me to London, you’d find that your own expectations for how you’ll be treated in London are as erroneous as mine have been.”
“There is nothing simple about me joining the duke’s household.”
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. He couldn’t simply make this . . . easy.
Everything with him was a test.
Just as everything was intended as a deterrent to her efforts.
And failure was not an option, for her. Not when this represented entry into a world that had been far beyond her reach . . . first as a child born the bastard of a marquess, and then, as an independent woman building a career for herself.
She bit her lower lip and nodded. “Very well. I’ll live in your countryside and bake in your kitchen and drink your ale and sing your songs. Is there anything else, Rafe?”
He drifted closer. “Do you want there to be?” There was a husky quality to both his low baritone and the question he asked that awakened the wickedest heat within her.
She’d rather there be none. If she said as much, he would likely have doubled his list.
Along Came a Lady Page 14