Chapter Six
London
Zephora sat rigid in Rafe’s hired traveling coach, angry as he had never seen her before. Her outrage began two days ago, in his Brighton study, and she had poured it all over him in waves of disbelieving glares, haughty lifts of her chin, and curt words.
“I do not need a companion.” That had been her first response to his statement that, when they got to London, he would hire for her a woman to assist her in her entry into Society.
“You do, Zephora. In London, you will be known as yourself. Not my ward. Or my niece. It will become known—though God knows who will venture to tell it—that you came with me from Paris. That we were together all these months—”
“And at first glance, they will see that I am not with child!”
“Zeph.” He tried to make her see reason. “Speculation about our relationship—”
“Will be the scandal of the fall season.” She had sniffed, gotten to her feet, and strolled to the window overlooking his garden. “I won’t accept an old biddy who will restrict me. I did not have anyone in Paris. Even Countess Nugent did not constrain me, and…”
“Yes. You were free.”
She had been so free, she had gotten herself in trouble. True. She had served the cause of defeating Bonaparte and his collaborators, but Vaillancourt, her chief adversary, had thrown her in prison.
Rafe frowned now as the coach he had hired in Brighton rounded the corner toward his townhouse.
This was the house his grandfather had purchased, a fine Palladian white-stone front with three more stories atop in red brick.
He loved the house. It was sturdily built, warm in winter, with enough windows to be opened to spring and summer winds.
If he loved this house, he liked the bigger, more rambling house the family owned up the Thames near Richmond.
But Zeph needed to learn London. They could retreat to Richmond now and then, if the bustle of Town irritated her.
But for now, he had to smooth her feathers. “Here in London, Zeph, you will have your freedom. Even with a companion.”
“I doubt it.”
He groaned. “It is a companion or you must go to live with the Ashleys or the Ramseys. Inès is too close to term to have company, and Halsey has enough challenges keeping her from walking her shoes off around Town. You cannot go live with her now. So it is a companion or you leave me.”
He hadn’t meant to mark her choices by uttering those words. To his own ears, they sounded repulsive. As if he gave her up to wolves. When she was his—and should remain with him. Yes, for as long as he could keep her. Even if that sounded domineering.
Even she did not care for the words. She had turned to gaze out the cab window, but he saw how she fought tears.
Hell. He was an idiot to make her cry.
“Very well.” She rallied and skewered him with a look. “I have conditions.”
“Of course you do.” He crossed his arms. He didn’t know whether to praise her for her fortitude or fume at her for her failure to understand the challenges they faced if she remained living with him.
To say nothing of how she would drive him mad with her exasperating spirit and her mind-numbing beauty. “List them.”
“I want a young woman within a few years of my own.”
He nodded. Why not? A simple request.
“A lady who fits my needs for a true companion and friend. No prune-faced spinster whose face cracks when she tries to smile.”
“Very well.”
“She will be well bred. Educated.”
“Necessary,” he agreed.
“Perhaps a young lady from a family who cannot afford to present her properly. In other words, she may well be entitled to be among the nobs, but cannot afford to be.”
He did not suppress his smile. “This sounds generous.”
“I will pay her.”
He shot her a look. “That is not necessary, Zeph.”
“It is. I will pay her with my own funds, when we find out where they are and how much they total. You will pay her now, but I will reimburse you the total. Yes! Do not argue with me! This woman is my companion. She will be my friend.”
“You will not persuade her to allow you rash behavior,” he said, worried now that a collaboration with a like-minded girl could lead to catastrophe.
“You said you would take me to meet my father’s solicitor. I imagine I have money. I can spend it as I wish.”
“Perhaps not.”
“What do you mean?” Her golden eyes grew hard, then soft with concern.
“Here in Britain, a young lady can be refused her inheritance by her father or guardian until she is a certain age.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “What age?”
“Any age the man chooses.”
She cursed.
He laughed. “Do keep those words for our conversations alone. It is not what ladies do in London.”
“Too bad.”
“Zeph,” he said in sympathy, “I know the age limit is unfair.”
“Stupid.” She rolled her shoulders.
“He might not have limited you at all. We should see first before we speculate that—”
“My dear papa was a tyrant. So yes, if he thought it all the rage, he would put a limit on my age. He probably had me inheriting at age forty or fifty. No? Do not scoff, sir. I wager you a hundred pounds.”
My sweetheart, you are so bold. “I will not take your money.”
She blew out air. “I will overturn my father’s regulations.”
“It is not that easy,”
“No? I know ways.”
He suspected subterfuge. Zephora Butler, hoyden, was capable. How well he knew it! “What ways?”
“Money buys so much.”
“You cannot promise what you do not have.”
“Then you will lend it to me so I can get my due.”
She challenged him? He snorted. And surrendered. “You are right. I will.”
“Good.” She folded her arms across her fabulous chest.
Even in the pelisse of ripe purple wool, he noted the two apples of her breasts were now…God help him…grapefruits. He should not lick his lips, but save him, he did.
“What else do I need here in Town, eh?” Her golden eyes caressed his own, then fell to his lips and his hands.
He was lost. Lost.
She was an imp. He flexed his fingers, the need to take her to him, to kiss her to silence, rising in him like an inferno in his blood.
He’d like to show her what else he needed, but that was so impossible. He’d go to his club tonight, drink heavily, meet his friends, and go find the woman he had favored last year to ease his physical challenges.
He smacked his lips. “You need more clothes.”
“Dear me.” She whipped out that fan she had taken to beating the air with lately. Was she angrier…or…was she trying to seduce him with those eyes? Hell if he knew.
He’d confound her. “Jewels.”
“What?”
“You need pearls wrapped in gold to match your skin and your eyes.”
She pressed her plump lips together and shook her head.
So he should not have said anything about her skin or her eyes. He had the damnedest time crossing one leg over the other. His cock was happy with this discussion, even if he was not. “You need them.”
“That’s expensive,” she groused.
“Look, mon petite chou, I am lending you money to bribe your solicitor, so I can afford to buy you gems.”
She put a hand to the valley of her chest.
He could imagine her hand on him.
“My dear sir, you do too much, and besides, the gossip.” She flared wide her brilliant eyes and batted her lashes.
One day, if in some other universe he were freed from these shackles that held him from her, he’d kiss those eyes. Her lips. And then… “No one will know.”
“You are certain?”
Enough of this pining like a schoolboy! “I am. Now smile at me, will you? We are home, and my staff are used to people who are pleasant with them. Be one of those, I urge you.”
She gave him the first warm regard toward him within days. “I promise.”
*
“I would like to see him as soon as possible,” Zeph told Rafe two mornings later over breakfast. She was not interested in waiting for acceptance.
Yesterday, the first thing Rafe had done was write to the man that many said had been her father’s solicitor in the City.
That was good enough warning to the man that she was coming.
Rafe pushed aside his newspapers. “I requested an appointment for today, but he may not have time for us.”
“We could go anyway.” She tipped her head and lifted her brows.
Here at home in London, Rafe was even better dressed than in Brighton.
His sartorial dignity in matching black frockcoats and trousers of dove gray, complemented by shades of blue and red waistcoats, transformed him into the most delicious creature.
He became better looking, more tantalizing, each day.
He drew her to him without a clue she was so smitten.
The only thing she could do to keep from crawling into his lap was argue with him, make him notice her minute by minute.
Luckily, she had topics of controversy to keep any debate lively.
“Zeph,” he sighed, “that is not the way to do business.”
“It is my way.”
“Barging your way into one’s domain is not the way to endear yourself.”
“Do I need to be endearing?”
He stared at her. “It helps.”
“Helps me do what?”
Rafe sighed.
“Helps me get my inheritance? My money? My lands? It is mine. They will not keep it from me. Papa may have disliked me, but he respected me. I was his blood.” She had moments alone when her anger over her father’s view of her enraged her.
But her most violent anger came when she remembered what had happened to her in Paris.
Then? She could tear the wallpaper from the walls.
Over this, she would not act a madwoman.
This discussion was about something else that belonged to her.
Not her integrity or her body, but her rights, her money, her land, her keep.
Here, for this, she found the means to soothe her outrage. “What is mine will be mine.”
“Let’s be clear, Zeph. I know you have not experienced much of it, but it always helps in this world to have other people’s goodwill.”
How did he take the sting from her wound? His voice? His smile? She met his kindness with less vitriol than before. “Is that how you have earned all this?” She swept a hand in the air to indicate the spacious house and its spectacular, lavish furnishings.
“Yes. My grandfather believed in goodwill toward men and so did my father. I am the same.”
She picked at her eggs. She was being a pest. She knew it. But this morning she had awakened, wanting action. “I apologize.”
“Let me write that down.” He raised a finger in the air and pretended to pull his newspapers toward him.
She stuck out her chin. “Is it not impolite to read while you are dining with another?”
He fixed her with his dark green stare and opened both hands, palms up, upon the small, circular table. “Yes. Now I offer my apologies. What else would you like to discuss?”
She smiled at him in thanks. She really did not wish to fight with him. He was too agreeable.
His expression softened, even if one black brow rose in question.
“How do we find my new companion? Do we go to a servants’ registry? Or ask your household staff? Or—”
He fingered his coffee cup. “We will go visit your friends tomorrow. Gus and Amber first. They have been here in Town for years and have friends who will have ideas for a companion. Inès might know of a few, but, of course, she is rather indisposed.”
“How is it you know them so well? You even address them by their given names. Did you know them in Paris?”
“No. Never.” He took a drink of his coffee, then indicated that the nearby footman should refill his cup.
“I was in Paris most recently on business during the peace of Amiens in 1802. But I have visited Paris many times, Rouen and Bordeaux most often, with my father from the time I was seventeen. I was never in the company of Countess Nugent, nor the old Duc d’Orleans.
But I was often there in ’93 and ’94, near the end of the Terror. ”
“Paris was a nightmare.”
“It was. Where were you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “My father left me at first in Compiègne with a governess. Away from the chaos of Robespierre, he said.” She picked up her toast and broke it into a thousand little pieces.
“The people there were as angry, as violent as what people described in Paris. They carried a local lord to the church and tore him limb from limb. My governess and two footmen took me to a small house where her sister lived. That woman kept us from the crowds. Sometimes we slept in the caves beneath the house.” She caught his eyes.
“Did you know that French people have hidden beneath their houses in caves ever since Catholics fought Protestants there?”
He shook his head. “How long did you stay?”
She shrugged, suddenly feeling the chill of the ancient French tunnels. “A week. Then my father had written to my governess that I was to go to Madame Campan’s school. And off I went, back to Paris.”
“Zeph, you have survived tribulations many will never face.”
She pursed her lips. “I intend to keep doing that.”
He smiled. “I know. And so well, too.”
She gave a little laugh. “Even though you are vexed with me.”
He reached across the table and covered her hand in his strong, warm one. His first sign of affection in weeks had her whole body stirring with frantic need for more. “You try me, I admit. But always it seems in the service of good.”
She tossed her hair, an act that always lit his green eyes like brilliant emeralds. “Ah, then you should reward me.”
“I will.”
Perhaps you will kiss me? Improbable, eh? “So…a visit to my solicitor?”
“Unannounced? Well, why not?” He grunted and took away his hand. “Yes, that! Go get dressed.” He reached for his golden pocket watch strung through the loops of his ruby-red waistcoat buttonholes.
She liked his hands, big and broad, strong as iron clamps, yet soft to the touch. Strong on her heart, soft on her soul, his hands could ignite a world of flaming pleasure in her.
She had to keep him guessing, worried, working for her, didn’t she?
Her handsome bear.