by Tessa Dare
"I'm not marrying Piers. And I can hire my own men of business. Can't you see? I want something that's mine. A challenge."
"When you marry Piers, you'll have the title of marchioness. A house in London and a vast estate to manage. He'll have diplomatic duties. There will be children. If that's not enough, there are any number of worthy charitable ventures to which you could lend your time and your name. You won't lack for challenges."
"But this is different."
"How so?"
She gestured with frustration. "This is a challenge where I have some chance to succeed."
"What? That's absurd. You'll make the perfect Lady Granville."
There it was. That bold, ridiculous word again.
Perfect.
"I mean what I'm saying." He put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. "Look at me."
She looked at him. It wasn't easy. He was so close and so large. She had to tip her head back, exposing the vulnerable length of her throat to the cool, damp air. Her pulse beat like an indecisive rabbit's.
"I know it's been a long wait," he said. "I know there's gossip."
"Those are under--"
"Understatements. I know that, too."
There he went again, finishing her sentences. Oh, he was in fighting form now. But this time, Clio wouldn't back down. There was more to her than he believed. More than anyone suspected.
"Most of all," he said, "I know what it's like to be the dark horse. To have everyone betting against you, counting you out. And I know the vindication you'll feel when you finally win. When you walk down the aisle in your big flouncy gown, on the arm of one of England's great men, and all those gossips' wagging tongues turn to ash. Believe me . . ." His big hands squeezed her shoulders. "Triumph is sweet. It's so damned sweet."
His green eyes were nearly black, and his voice was so earnest. And a deep, lonely part of her wanted to believe him.
"This was a mistake," she said, backing away. "I don't know why I try to explain anything to you."
"I know. I'm a stupid, uneducated brute. Next time, speak slowly and use smaller words."
"That's not what I meant. You are far too clever, and I've always known it. I just wish you'd give me the same credit."
"Me? I don't think you're stupid."
"You must. You think a pretty gown and a big party will be enough to change my mind about something so important as marriage. How can that not be insulting to my intelligence?"
"Now, Clio . . ."
"Don't 'Now, Clio' me." She turned and started up the winding steps. Thanks to the downpour, she couldn't flounce and leave the tower. This was the next best thing. "Maybe I am a fool. You arrived unannounced, with all your lists."
He mounted the stairs behind her. "There was only one list."
" . . . and your ridiculous 'esquire' of a friend . . ."
"I can explain him."
" . . . and your dog . . ."
"He's not my dog."
" . . . and I was fool enough to let you stay. I welcomed you into my home because I hoped you'd see that Twill Castle is just that. My home. But you're so stubborn." She trod hard on the steps as she spiraled toward the top. "You're just like Piers, caring only for your career and nothing for me. I wish I'd shown you the door."
As she took the next step, her ankle twisted. Her slipper skidded on the damp stone.
Rafe's hand shot out to steady her.
"I have you." He flexed his arm, pulling her flush with his chest. "I have you."
Clio clutched his shirtfront. She would have caught herself, even without his help. But for this one fleeting moment, she would let him play the hero.
She was growing dangerously used to this. The way it felt to be held in his arms. Protected. Valued, to whatever small degree.
"Still wishing you'd shown me the door?" He cocked his head at the unforgiving stone floor, some twenty feet below. "It's a long way down. We could have landed there in a heap of broken bones, waiting days for someone to find us."
"Hah." She released him, turned, and resumed climbing. "If we were found here together, we would be better off dead. You can well imagine what people would conclude."
"What would they conclude?"
"That we were lovers, of course."
Chapter Six
Lovers?" Rafe asked.
The round, echoing walls threw the word back at him, like a teasing chant.
Lovers . . . Lovers . . . Lovers. . .
He cleared his throat and dropped his voice to a quiet, commanding timbre. "Why would anyone think that?"
"It's all around us," she said, climbing the remaining few steps to the second floor. "Just look."
What with the rain and the paucity of windows, it was difficult to make out anything at first. But as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Rafe began to understand what she meant. The stone walls surrounding them were carved and etched with letters. Letters in pairs. Some of them enclosed in hearts.
The initials of lovers.
This must have been the local trysting place for decades now. Perhaps for centuries.
"It's rather charming, isn't it?" She traced a heart with her fingertip. "So many couples over the years. I wonder who they all were."
Rafe decided this was a welcome development. Anything that churned up thoughts of romance and couples in her imagination had to aid his cause.
"What about you?" She turned to him. "Are your initials carved in a wall somewhere in Somerset? Or . . . many somewheres?"
"Me?" He shook his head. "No. When it comes to women, I don't car--
"You don't carve anything in stone." She shook her head. "Of course not."
He looked at her, annoyed.
"What? Fighters aren't the only ones who can concentrate, anticipate, react." She held up weak little fists and mimed boxing his shoulder. "If you don't like me finishing your sentences, try being less predictable."
He chuckled to himself. Damn. She was clever, this one. And perhaps not quite so innocent as her looks would suggest. Still, she could never predict what kind of thoughts were churning in his mind right now.
During her almost fall, she'd dropped the overcoat he'd lent her. The cursed thing was probably to blame for pulling her off-balance in the first place.
But now she was left in just her thin, wet, nearly transparent muslin frock--and shivering, either from cold or from the lingering fear of falling.
He couldn't look at her without wanting to warm her.
Hold her.
Guard her.
More.
"Piers," he said. "Piers would be the sort to carve your initials in the wall, right alongside his."
She settled on the floor. "I doubt it. He's spent years declining to write his name beside mine in a wedding register."
"That's different." He sat beside her.
"Rafe, I wish you'd stop denying the obvious. He doesn't love me."
"Of course he does. Or he will. Love has a way of creeping up on a man. I'd venture to say love has to creep up on a man. If men ever saw it coming, we'd only run away."
"Love's never caught you."
"Well, that's me." He gave her shoulder a teasing nudge. "I've spent years honing these reflexes. Love can take all the swings it likes, but I've always managed to dodge the blow."
"So far," she added meaningfully.
"So far."
They listened to the rain for a moment.
The truth was, Rafe doubted love would ever catch him. He lost interest in things too easily. He'd always been this way. His studies, tasks, clubs . . . friends and lovers, too. Fighting kept his body and wits engaged because the challenge changed with every bout. It was the one pursuit that had managed to capture and hold his fascination.
He glimpsed a faint wash of pink on Clio's cheek.
Well, perhaps it was one of two.
"What if it's the opposite?" Clio asked. "What if Piers returns, sees me, and what hits him isn't love but the realization that he feels nothing for
me? That he never has and never will."
"Impossible."
"It's not impossible. He must have changed in his time away. I've changed, too. I've grown older, and I've grown . . . Well, I've just grown." Her voice went quiet. "I've gained a full stone since he saw me last."
In all the best places, he wanted to say.
But he couldn't say that. He considered it rather heroic that he only dropped his gaze to her breasts for a moment and not ten.
"Clio, you're still--" Damn. "Still" was not the word he wanted there. "You've always been--"
"Just stop. Please don't try to flatter me. It's so unconvincing. Especially when it's clear you don't like me."
That's right, he didn't like her. He didn't like her so much, he'd just risked plummeting to his doom to catch her when she stumbled.
"In eight years, you haven't answered one of my notes," she said. "You've never repaid any of my calls. Until you showed up here, you hadn't accepted a single one of my invitations. And I made several."
He exhaled slowly. Goddamn him. Yes, she had.
Rafe had assumed she made the effort out of duty. Why else would a gentlewoman treat her betrothed's estranged, disreputable brother in such fashion? All those holiday greetings, birthday wishes, invitations to family dinners . . . They had to be mere obligation, he'd reasoned. At best, they came from an essential sweetness in her character. Troubling her with unwanted replies seemed a poor way to repay the gesture.
But the gesture had meant something. He'd saved those notes and calling cards. Every last one. He didn't pull them out and fondle them, or sniff them, or anything so stupid. But he'd kept them.
She made him feel more a part of the Brandon family than his own family ever had.
He didn't know how to put that in words. Much less pen it in a note. When it came to feelings this strong, he only dealt in actions.
"You have it wrong," he forced himself to say. "I don't dislike you."
"Oh, truly?"
"Truly."
"Then do me a favor, Rafe."
"Anything."
God, yes. Please. Enough with this trial by prattle. Give me something to do.
She turned to face him. "Look me in the eyes and tell me, honestly, just how eager you are to call me your sister-in-law."
Bloody hell.
He cast a wistful glance at the stone floor below. Was it too late to plummet to his doom and make it look like an accident?
He could manage the first of her requests. He looked her in the eyes--her lovely eyes, the same blue as a cloudless sky--for a very long time. Without saying anything.
Outside, the rain beat down like a rebuke. His blood thundered in his ears.
"You can't say it," she whispered. "Can you?"
"Honestly? No, I can't."
Hurt flickered over her features. He wanted to punch a hole straight through the wall.
"Well, then. Good. Now that we know where we stand with each other, we can stop pret--"
Damn him. Damn him and his impulsive, reckless soul.
His hands were out before he could stop them. Reaching for her, pulling her close, turning her face to his.
Skimming a touch over her soft, trembling lips.
And holding her still for his kiss.
When his lips first touched hers, Clio was certain there'd been some mistake.
That could be the only explanation.
Obviously, Rafe had meant to put his wide, sensuous lips somewhere else--and she, being clumsy, had gotten her face in the way. How very embarrassing. How very her.
But . . . Then again, his big, warm hands did seem to be holding her face.
And those wide, sensuous lips were moving over hers, again and again, with something that felt suspiciously like purpose.
Good heavens. Rafe was kissing her.
And what was more shocking by half? By the time her brain put it all together, the rest of her was kissing him back.
Oh, Rafe. Yes.
She scarcely knew how, but it didn't matter. He taught her the way of it, in much the same way he'd once taught her to angle trout in the stream. With practiced skill and gentle teasing, and a patience that belied his hunger.
They kissed tenderly. They kissed deeply.
They kissed as though it were right.
As though it made perfect sense. As if all the talking and not-talking and arguing and ignoring they'd done over the past eight years--no, so much longer than that--had all been entries on one long list of "Things We Do to Avoid Kissing." And now that they'd reached the end of it, they had a great deal of lost time to make up.
They kissed and kissed, as the rain fell around them.
It was so absurdly romantic, Clio thought her heart would burst.
And sweet. So sweet. His mouth brushed over hers again and again, each kiss lingering a bit longer than the last. A cloud of breath and longing formed between them. Their own small, secret storm.
His hand cradled the back of her head, tilting her face to his. He drew her close to his chest and deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth with bold sweeps of his tongue. All Clio could do was cling tight.
Her senses opened wide to take in everything. The firm beat of his heart. The faster pulse of her own. His sweet taste, and the spicy wintergreen scent of his skin.
It intrigued her, that scent. Some kind of aromatic shaving soap, perhaps? It wasn't cologne.
Curious now, she slid one hand to touch his jaw. Though it was barely afternoon, and yes--he had shaved that morning--the faint beginnings of whiskers rasped against her fingertips. She found the texture wildly exciting. So foreign to her, and so masculine.
So real.
To her surprise, he didn't press her for more than kisses. Didn't stroke or grope in any of the ways good girls were warned that wicked men would try to do. Oh, she could feel the power pulsing through his body, the need coiling hot and tense in his muscles. He wanted more. He wanted everything.
But he only kissed her. As though this were enough.
As though it must be enough, and God help them both if it wasn't.
"The rain stopped," he said, sometime later.
She nodded drowsily. So had the kisses.
His hands slid from her face. He turned his back to the wall and let his head fall against the stone with a soft thunk. "I'm a bastard."
"If you're a bastard, I don't know what that makes me."
"It's nothing to do with you."
Her chin ducked. "It isn't?"
"Well, it is, of course. It's a great deal to do with you. If I try to explain, I'll make a hash of it."
"Try anyway." She waited, still cocooned in his scent and the warm, lingering glow of his embrace.
"I should have outgrown this by now," he said. "I thought I had, curse it."
"Kissing?"
"Envy. I always envied my brother. His playthings, his accomplishments. The praise he earned. From the earliest time I can remember, I wanted whatever was his." His jaw tensed. "You were his."
"Oh."
He rubbed his face with both hands. "What the hell am I saying? You are his."
Clio didn't know quite how to take this. Rafe wanted her. He'd wanted her for ages, but not because he found her especially desirable or attractive. He wanted her because she belonged to Piers. Apparently, she could be a hideous, troll-faced lump, and it wouldn't matter. He would still want to kiss her for hours in the rain.
That warm, lingering glow began to fade. Rapidly.
"This won't happen again," he said. "Ever."
And . . . there it went. Glow extinguished.
"Well," she managed, after an uncomfortable moment spent piecing together what little remained of her pride, "I see why you're so popular with the ladies now, Rafe. You truly know how to make a girl feel exceptional."
She tried to untangle her sodden skirts.
He put a hand under her elbow, scooping her off the stone and setting her on her feet.
The nerve of him, acting so chivalrou
s less than a minute after rejecting her, and that less than a minute after kissing her with abandon. Was he dizzy from all these about-face maneuvers?
"At least this means I win," she said.
"You win what?"
"You'll have to sign those dissolution papers now. They're in my dressing table. Now that it's stopped raining, we can go back at once."
"Wait, wait. You do not win. I'm not signing those papers."
"How can you refuse after . . . ?" She gestured lamely at the spot of floor where they'd kissed. " . . . after that? You're still going to encourage me to marry your brother?"
"Of course I am."
"You kissed me."
"Don't make so much of it. A kiss is nothing."
Nothing? To him, perhaps. But that kiss hadn't felt like nothing to her.
"I've kissed a great many women who moved along and married other men," he said. "Sometimes the same day."
"You can't be serious."
"And as for you," he plowed on, denying her an explanation. "If you'd had the experience of a proper season, you wouldn't make anything of this, either. You'd have been kissed by a dozen randy scapegraces on verandahs and in follies, and you'd have realized on your own that marrying a man like Piers is for the best."
Clio knew better than that. There was a reason she'd been known as the luckiest debutante of her season. Because not only had she become engaged to the most eligible bachelor of the ton, but everyone knew she would have had no chance at him, had their fathers not arranged it years ago. If she'd had a normal season, she might not have been kissed at all.
"But this is your own brother you want me to marry. How do you see this working, exactly?" She started down the stairs. "Every Christmas and Easter, we'd sit down across the table from one another and try not to think about that time we kissed like lovers in the rain?"
"You needn't worry about making polite conversation. I'm not coming around on Christmas or Easter."
Clio paused on the steps. She knew that Rafe and his father had conducted their own at-home reenactment of the Hundred Years' War. But surely now that the marquess was dead, the two brothers needn't continue it.
"You wouldn't come?" she asked. "Even now, when your father's gone?"
"I don't see a reason."
What a liar. His kiss had been full to bursting with reasons. There was emotion in that embrace they'd shared. Perhaps it wasn't attraction or affection or love--but it was yearning. He might have rebuffed all her invitations over the years, but it was plain to her now that he hadn't ignored them completely.
They reached the bottom of the stairs. Ellingworth had fallen asleep in the hopcart.