Chapter Ten
“Let’s talk, shall we? Sit, will you?”
“No.” Zeph rebelled. He had something terrible to impart.
She wouldn’t like it. Not a bit. She had had too many hours with him not to note when he was about to present his point of view and demand she adhere to his plans.
Whatever they were this time, she predicted she would not like them.
Nor would she follow them. “What do you want of me?”
His unfathomable eyes lit with flames of desire. But in a second, his black lashes covered them all.
Angry, disappointed at that, she gritted her teeth. “What?”
“I am as thrilled as you at the knowledge that you have easily established your identity. Your inheritance and your wealth would be a boon to anyone, woman or man. But to you, who have been denied so much, this is a blessing.”
He took a breath.
She took umbrage. “I hear the negative coming.”
“Sixty thousand is an enormous sum of money. Many can claim great wealth and receive but one-fifth of that.”
She fumed. “You are afraid I will spend it all on fripperies? I do like ribbons. I also like parasols, but how can I buy so many to eat up sixty thousand pounds?”
He put up a hand.
“Rafe, get to your point.”
“Your life will change as a result.”
“Why?”
“People will learn. I cannot say precisely how. Perhaps they will never learn the amount, but they will ask. They will speculate. Others who knew your father may speak of his business, his plantation and his crops. He might have even spoken of you as his only heir. I doubt you can understand the full of it. But I do. And I do not like it. But I cannot stop it. I can only make the future easier for you to manage. And truth be told, you do need to begin your command of London Society immediately.”
She tipped her head. Sarcasm blossomed even more in her heart. “Wonderful. The next candidate to become my companion arrives in a few minutes. I shall accept her and we shall go forth, swords drawn, to conquer Society.”
“Zeph, stop.”
She sat, perfectly relaxed in the chair, her arms to the rests, her long fingers curled over the edges of the sculpted walnut.
She had no idea what was about to confront her, change her, demand wild and wonderful things of her.
But she would weather it all. The question was: did Rafe see it in him to weather it all with her?
He would contribute to that. He had already. For the measure of how well she had recovered from the assaults on her person in Paris was how she had not shied away from men lately. She marveled at her own new savoir faire.
She had the mad compulsion to shoot to him, pull him close. One more time. One charming moment more before…
“Your wealth changes your life.”
Warned by his dire tone, she cocked her head. “Not if I don’t allow it.”
“You can control some of it, but not all.”
She scowled. “Of course I can.”
“The ton is very greedy. They will want you at every rout, every garden party, every ball.”
“I bring nothing new to them. A woman with money.”
“Heiresses abound. Usually they come laden with family, historical proclivities toward certain politics, and a set of opinions about how they should act as single and married women.”
“And I?”
“You have a different set of circumstances.”
“They distinguish me from others? Good. I wish not to be like any others.”
Now his green eyes turned dark with fear. “You are American. With property and income from that land.”
“I will deal with that. At the moment, I know not how or when. Though I hate to consider drowning in anything more than a teacup, I will one day head to Virginia. My father’s slaves—poor souls born into their conditions—must be freed.
I know not how to do that, but I will. I will.
I always knew if they were mine, I would free them. ”
“Noble of you, Zeph. But not easy to do.”
“It is.”
“What happens when you set them free? Hell! This was not what I wished to discuss! If you let them go, your tobacco crops die. Your land lies fallow. Your income stops. Furthermore, and just as important, those freed men and women now have no way to support themselves. No money to buy food or shelter. No positions to—”
She put up a hand. “I hear you. I do. I did have thoughts on that before I went to the dungeons where Vaillancourt thought I would die for him. Never doubt, about the men and women in my service, that I will resume my thinking and make a proper and useful plan for them.”
“The solicitor we consulted the other day may have knowledge of how to deal with that. But that is for later. Your first priority is to learn how to deal with your new status as the wealthiest heiress in Britain.”
She laughed. “I have seen houses here three times the size of my father’s, more grand than any manor house in the Tidewater. But nothing to rival the splendor of what I can only assume lies behind London’s closed doors. Do pardon me if I say, surely you jest.”
He fixed her with harsh certainty. “Not a bit.”
She inhaled and shifted in her chair. “So tell me then what eats at you. Go on.”
“There are many ways to learn how to navigate the ton.”
“Yes. So? I navigated Parisian Society. How different can London be?”
“Paris was a beginning. You were a young woman with a few good social connections.”
She arched her long red brows at him and knew the portrait she sent him of her determination. “Countess Nugent, Queen Hortense, and Caroline Bonaparte are three of the finest connections.”
“Yes. And they kept you safe from predators.”
“Not Vaillancourt, they didn’t.”
Rafe grimaced. “You did that to yourself. You stole his betting book.”
She scanned the room. She held back declarations she was too afraid to voice. But, ignoring mention of her second little book, she faced him.
He seemed to flinch.
Did he perceive her secret?
No. No!
“What you will have here in London, Zephora Butler, is a mountain of invitations to every event the whole of British Society has to offer.”
“And the problem there is…?”
He blew out a breath. “You will need guidance on whom and what to accept.”
“I shall take them all.”
“Not wise, Zeph. Not wise at all. You will spend your every waking moment dining, drinking, dancing, and ducking those who would demand your favor.” He sighed.
“You need to know whose invitations to accept. Whose to decline. Particularly whom to dance with, whom to talk to and walk with into the moonlight.”
What if I only want to talk and walk into the moonlight with you?
He looked away.
She wanted him looking at her. “Why would I walk into the moonlight? I have no desire to claim any beau.” Only you.
“You will.”
“You do not know that.”
“I do! You are young and your body can lead you to want affection and caresses. It is natural.”
“After the unnatural things that happened to me in Paris, I would like a kind and faithful lover.” I have it on good authority, despite having been brutally used, that I can still want that from a man who loves me as I love him.
“But others can be persuasive. Men will want you. Men who have spent their youths learning how to charm a woman and seduce her with compliments and kisses.”
Compliments from him were what she wanted. Kisses from his lips were the ones she craved. “I don’t want seduction. And as for kisses”—she paused and admired his hair, his jaw, his shoulders, and his stern, beautiful mouth—“I will decide whom I kiss.”
He looked weary and shook his head. “You do not understand. London is crammed with hordes of ambitious bachelors with matrimony their best means to fill their empty pockets.”
Cool as ice, she smiled and said, “I will fend them off.”
“Chouchou, you need an education about who is acceptable. Who is honorable.”
“You are acceptable. You are honorable.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I am not a man who will court you.”
That pierced her to her heart. “You are not attracted to me?”
“Zeph, I am fifteen years older than you.”
“That does not answer my question.”
He winced. “I am not marriageable material.”
“Is that why you have not married and you are…what? So very ancient?” She tsked at him like an unamused governess. “In all those years, what have you done for female companionship?”
He scoffed. “None of your business.”
“I have seen no women come here. Which means you go out for a bit of fun.”
“Stop this.”
She fumed, hands to her hips. “What are you saying to me?”
“I cannot educate you about…about Society and men. I know a different sector of London Society. Politics. You will be in the pure social realm. I cannot advise you on whose invitation to accept or what man to favor.”
“Then don’t.”
“Zeph, I will win this argument.”
She rose and strolled toward him.
He stiffened. He would build a wall of rock to stand against her.
She approached him and held him with the power of her gaze.
Suddenly, she had one hand around his neck, one on his cheek, and her lips…her lips were a breath away from his.
He cupped the points of her shoulders. “This is—”
“Not wise,” she murmured, and brushed her lips across his.
He clamped shut his eyes. “We are friends.”
The moments ticked by like an hour.
“Are we?” she whispered.
His fingers dug into her flesh. “You must go live with Gus and Ashley. You will not need a companion, either.”
“Oh, well!” She gave a laugh, insulted, then stepped back and rolled her eyes. “That will be such a blessing.”
He shook her a little. “I care for you.”
She yanked farther from his embrace. “How kind of you.”
“You must not confuse gratitude with—”
“Desire?” she taunted him—and, in truth, herself.
“No. Because only—”
“Because only silly young girls do that.” She grunted. “How many young girls have you known, eh, Rafe? Five? Ten?” She took hold of one of the ends of his cravat and pulled it loose. “How many women have you had?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“Is it?” She flipped the end of his silk against his silver waistcoat. “I would like to know the number of those you have taken to your bed.”
“Zeph—”
“Did you know their desires, each and every one, before you took them, before you had them?”
“I knew who they were, what they were.”
“Not all whores, I am certain.”