Chapter Nine #3
He could not help himself. He reached over, stroked her face with his fingertips, and cupped her cheek. “How exciting. And?”
She closed her eyes a moment, and in her bliss—for there was no other word adequate to describe her dreamy elation—she rubbed her cheek on his palm and dropped a slow, wet kiss there.
Harshly, he tutored himself to remove his hand and do it slowly. He wanted her lips on him. Everywhere that starved for her taste. He let his hand drop.
“Oh, Rafe.” She threw back her head, and suddenly, she was in his lap. Just as she had nestled there once before ages ago, months ago when they engaged only in sweet friendship.
More the idiot, entranced though he was, he did not stop her.
His body rose to the occasion, but his mind fought all his manly urges.
She flung her arms around him and kissed him.
Once, twice, three times in big, smacking expressions of delight.
All of which were accompanied by the press of her breasts, so close, and the wiggle of her bottom, so deftly to his groin, that he could have said she thrust herself inside him.
Which, of course, was precisely where he wanted to be, but no.
No.
He pushed back, her still securely in his hold. “Tell me!”
She licked her lips. “I am rich.”
“How?”
“Liesel, Baroness Fournier, knows the Rothschild bankers of Frankfurt and the one in Manchester.”
“Nathan Rothschild.” Rafe paused, amused. She was dazed and going to drag this out, this revelation…if only so she could believe it herself.
“Liesel took us all.” She nodded like a lady with a new jewel—or a new beau.
“Led the way. She has dealt with him. Amber and Vivienne came, too. Viv also has dealings with him. Amber and her husband, too. Gus… Oh, I am not sure if Gus banks with him. When Inès had…had some sign she was in labor, Gus insisted all of us leave her with Inès while she tended to her and their butler summoned Lord Halsey.”
“Zephora Butler!”
“Yes?”
“Tell me what Rothschild said!”
“I passed his test. I did. I did! Papa’s test, really. Questions. So the clerk, not Rothschild who was not there, said I had identified myself and he told me about my father’s accounts. Rothschild invested them. All three of them.”
“Three?”
Zeph bit her lower lip. “My father’s Manchester account that I tallied when he came to Paris is now worth approximately twenty-two thousand Great British pounds.
My grandfather’s estate that he left to me—yes, my mother’s father left me his shipping business out of Baltimore—the accounts state it is worth more than twelve thousand pounds.
And another sum was invested to support enemies of Napoleon that amounts to twenty-five thousand pounds.
I have nearly sixty thousand pounds.” Her lashes fluttered and she cast her gaze around, then came back to focus on him. “I cannot believe it. Sixty!”
If he had not been sitting already, Rafe might have fallen to the floor. As it was, he grinned at her and let the enormity of it sweep through him.
It was a tidal wave of money.
Sixty thousand pounds was a vast fortune.
Rafe had never dealt with Nathan Rothschild—he dealt with Coutts of London for his own shipping company.
Among his friends and colleagues, Rafe had heard of this Rothschild who had come from the German city of Frankfurt along the Rhine.
The man was well respected. Known as honest, but aggressive, he borrowed money from one depositor to loan to another at an interest rate that earned both him and the lender a pretty fee.
“What is wrong?” Zeph searched his features. “You don’t like him?”
“No, no. I do hear he is very good at his trade.”
“I would say so. But what?”
“That is an enormous amount of money, sweetheart.”
She blinked, started to speak, then pulled away, frowning. “How enormous?”
He blew air out of his mouth. “How to explain this? Hmm. Well.”
But Rafe knew the world. How it worked. How a fortune was perceived, especially if the heir was an heiress. This presented all sorts of challenges for her.
But now, too, for him.
He saw the problems, the gossip, the days ahead, and he had to comply with the demands of it, didn’t he?
Not just for her, but for his own sanity, too.
He put her in the chair beside him, then rose and strode to his window. Outside, the barren view of his winter garden offered a desolate landscape that sketched out his future.
He heard her jump to her feet.
“Now it is your turn. Rafe, please tell what you know.”
He felt a smile curl his lips. But it died.
He liked her feisty. He applauded her when bold and free.
He faced her and took all of her in. Her unmistakable red hair.
Her pristine skin. Her oval face with strong bones and dashing eyes that demanded things of him.
Like truth and restraint, circumspection—and denial.
Because now, after months of caring for her as his patient, his ward, his friend, to him she was now a woman, full-fledged, vibrant, willful, and august.
And he loved her.