Chapter 6
Six
Rafe tapped the black pawn lightly “I believe, Mademoiselle de La Brou, your king is in check.”
Alix was staring at the board, her brow furrowed, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. Suddenly she stiffened and looked towards the door. “Did you hear something in the sitting room? Is that Jervis?”
Rafe released the piece and turned his head toward the door, listening. It had been three days, and they hadn’t heard a word from Jervis. “I don’t hear anything.”
When he glanced back at the board his bishop had been moved and his pawn was nowhere in sight. Alix’s gray eyes were twinkling.
Rafe raised a brow at her. “Mademoiselle, this is no way to win at chess.” He held out his hand. “My pawn please.”
She laughed. “Ah, monsieur, I fear you have gravely underestimated your simple pawn.” Then she forced her face into a serious expression.
“He is, in fact, a noble in disguise, a loyal servant of the white king, and when you so foolishly looked away, he leapt upon his faithful steed Hermes and raced to warn the king of your evil plans.”
Rafe looked down at the board; his knight was missing too. “Alix,” he said warningly.
She sighed. “You English, no sense of romance.”
He laughed. “You French, no sense of discipline.”
Alix leaned over the table to replace the missing pieces, but as she did so her shawl trailed across the board and swept the remaining pieces to the floor.
Rafe shook his head. “You do hate to lose don’t you?”
He smiled at her, a now familiar smile, a smile that made her heart race and her skin grow warm, made her want to reach out and trace the sensuous curve of his mouth.
Alix’s hand stole unconsciously to her own lips as she thought of the way he’d kissed her so unexpectedly that day in front of her mother’s house.
She’d been kissed before, cold wet kisses stolen by the Marquis de Beincourt, breathy damp kisses from a few bold suitors at court, but never had she felt more than a faint curiosity to kiss anyone back.
Now every time Rafe smiled at her she wondered what it would be like.
She turned to look out the window, trying to hide the flush she could feel spreading across her face.
In the street below, vendors hawked their wares and horsemen jockeyed for position with carriages while the people on the sidewalks tried to avoid being splattered with mud.
In short, life in Paris was continuing as usual while she was locked in a room with Rafe Harcrest waiting for Jervis to return.
She should be out looking for her mother, she told herself, not playing chess and flirting with Rafe, and certainly not mooning over his smile.
She heard the rattle of chess pieces and glanced back to see Rafe picking scattered pieces up off the floor. “Here, I should really be doing that,” she said, bending to help.
“I’m wretched company, I know. It’s just that I wish I could be doing something, anything beside waiting and worrying.”
“And playing chess?” he suggested.
“And playing chess,” she agreed. “Though I did beat you four out of six times.”
“Seven,” he said with his crooked smile. “If not for that little accident.”
“We shall never know shall we?”
“I could set up another game,” he offered, his hazel eyes gleaming.
Alix waved her hands in surrender. “Cry peace, no more chess.”
She retrieved a bishop that had rolled under one of the chairs and reached out to hand it to Rafe, her fingers brushing against his.
Rafe fought the urge to pull her up and against him, to press her teasing lips to his.
He felt the ivory curves of the chess piece in his hand and thought of how he’d like to stroke the curves of her body.
He abruptly dropped the piece into the box where it settled noisily amongst its companions.
Three days in this room with Alix and even the game pieces were making him think of bedding her. Where in hell was Jervis?
He stood up quickly. “I’m sure Jervis will return soon.”
Alix turned back toward the window, her fingers restlessly tracing shapes on the glass.
Rafe poured himself a glass of wine and admired the play of the late afternoon sun on her hair.
She reminded him of an exotic bird he’d seen in a marketplace once, thrumming its wings against the wires of its cage.
She was so small and colorful, so full of energy.
So different from Lady Anne Dinsmore, he thought, the taste of the wine turning acid on his tongue.
The pale blond image of Lady Anne took shape in his head.
He’d grown up with Anne. Their parents had country estates in the same county.
Over the years they had met at supper parties and country dances and, as they’d grown older, at the more elegant social gatherings in London.
She should have been snapped up in the first season, he mused, but she hadn’t, in her first, her second, or even her third.
Despite the distinguished title, the family was impoverished and the estates heavily in debt.
And there was an edge to Anne, a sharpness to her tongue that made men uncomfortable.
It was her ability to wield her tongue like a fish knife, deftly removing the backbones of social climbers and foppish posers, he reflected, that had made her the darling of the matrons who ruled the haut ton.
Rafe found making the rounds of the social season tedious, but useful for keeping abreast of the trends in fashion and, when it amused him, dropping remarks that spurred the purchase of his silks.
His presence at the season’s gatherings, however, made him a target for every giggling and fluttering young girl and her matchmaking mama.
He’d found refuge in Anne’s acerbic wit.
As their friendship had grown, she’d chided him about using her as shield against the husband-hunters.
“You aren’t getting any younger, Moreham,” she said, tapping him with her lace fan.
“One of these days you are going to have to choose one of these girls and set up your nursery. Elizabeth is nearing marriageable age; she’ll need more guidance than Louisa will offer when she comes out.
And once she’s married, what will you do?
Rattle around your estates and play gentleman farmer? ”
Rafe realized Anne was right. He hadn’t looked beyond seeing Elizabeth securely married off.
He thought of the great house silent, bereft of his sister’s laughter and mischief.
Louisa was quiet company. She rose and retired early so that she could spend her time puttering about her gardens.
Perhaps it was time to consider finding a suitable companion and filling his home with children.
Gradually, he began to notice the spaces in his life, the time not filled with business or spent drinking and playing cards in his club.
He began to think of what it would be like to have someone to ride with in the mornings, to dine with, to share his bed.
Still, surveying the ruffled confections that littered the ton, he found no one with whom he could imagine sharing his life.
One evening at Devonshire House, as he watched Lady Anne weave gracefully through the crowd, it struck him that they would do well together.
They shared a similar background, and he found her company comfortable.
With him, she sheathed her famous tongue, never argued, keeping silent if she disagreed with him, but more often complimenting his opinions in her softly modulated voice.
Smiling wryly, he considered how Anne’s impeccable connections among the doyennes of the ton would put an ironclad seal of approval on Elizabeth’s introduction to society.
Riding in Hyde Park the next morning with his closest friend, Cole Davenport, he’d broached the subject. They’d grown up together, fought in the Americas together, and spent most of their holidays together. Though they were as different as night and day, Rafe valued Cole’s opinion.
Reining in his snorting bay, Cole had turned to stare at him. “Are you completely addled? Marry that stuffed goose? Whatever for? I mean surely you haven’t developed a tendresse for her?”
Rafe shook his head. He had to admit he wasn’t physically attracted to Lady Anne. “Let’s be serious, Cole, most men of our class don’t marry for love; they marry to beget heirs. I’m not getting any younger.”
Cole’s dark eyes narrowed. “Good Lord man, you’re even beginning to sound like her.”
“Well,” he replied dryly, “not all of us can be so fortunate as to have our future wives hunt us down with muskets and hold us captive.”
Cole laughed at this reference to his first encounter with his wife Phoebe, but quickly grew serious. “Rafe, don’t settle for Anne. She may suit, but that’s not enough for you. When you find love, it fills every corner of your life, it gives everything meaning, a purpose.”
He shook his head. “I sound like one of those blasted romantic poems Elizabeth reads. What I’m trying to say is, wait a bit longer. Find a woman who takes your breath away, who you can’t live without, not simply one who suits.”
He looked hard at Rafe. “You don’t want to wind up one of those men who spends his life avoiding his cold fish of a wife, wasting his time at his club or in the arms of his mistress, pretending the passion that he’s paid for is real.”
Spurring his horse into a canter, Rafe signaled an end to the discussion.
Privately, he’d dismissed Cole’s words. Davenport was passionate, impulsive; he always acted before he thought and damn the consequences.
Rafe, by contrast, believed a man was better served by taking a cautious, well-planned course through life.
He wasn’t the sort who’d be swept up by passion.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure such a thing existed.
Slowly, he’d begun to court Lady Anne, spending more and more time with her, monopolizing her dance card.
Nothing had been said between them, but all was understood.