Chapter 11
Eleven
She glanced out the window of the hired hack, staring absently at the traffic and pondering her next step.
The pug lay contentedly in his swaddling bands, snoring on her lap.
It had been a perfectly useless visit. She hadn’t been able to persuade James to call off the duel.
The only thing that had changed was James’s pillow and carpet: Roland had chewed a hole in the one and lifted his leg on the other.
The afternoon was deceptively light, the day looked as though it was still young, but time was passing quickly.
Much too quickly. Think, Elizabeth, she exhorted herself.
Rafe was always reprimanding her for not thinking things through; she’d show him this time.
She’d find a way to make things right. She reviewed her visit with James.
At least she had gotten to see him. She’d assured Louisa a visit to a bookseller would be just the thing to cheer her spirits.
Louisa had eyed the old-fashioned cloak with curiosity, but believed her explanation: she needed to shield herself from potential snubs.
Thank goodness her mother hadn’t noticed the dog bundled in her shopping basket!
The corners of her mouth curved at the memory of the scene she’d made on the back stairs.
She’d been part imperious, part hysterical, completely dramatic and, thinking back on it, the whole thing had been rather cathartic.
Though she’d felt the oddest pang in her chest at how easily the Dinsmores’ servants accepted the notion that an irate mistress of James’s might appear on the doorstep.
She had a nagging suspicion she wasn’t the first.
The pug nudged her hand to indicate she should scratch behind his ears.
“Men,” she muttered, distractedly ruffling the fur on the pug’s square little head, “you’re all the same, only thinking of your own pleasures.
” The dog sighed. Elizabeth thought of James kissing her through her veil.
She closed her eyes, recalling the sensations that had swept through her.
The pleasure, she knew, hadn’t been only his.
She opened her eyes. She needed to think, not fantasize.
Think about what he’d said, not what he’d done.
She’d asked him to withdraw from the duel.
He’d refused. He’d said he couldn’t apologize, that he wasn’t sorry.
His words, the resolution in his tone, had struck her as odd, but, caught up in the moment, she’d let slip the opportunity to question him. Why wasn’t he sorry?
Had he thought he was avenging Anne’s honor?
That would explain why he hadn’t asked for her hand.
Though he’d said Rafe had called him unfit.
Did that mean he’d asked and been refused?
It was just the sort of pigheaded thing her brother might do.
Reject an offer of marriage out of hand and never even tell her.
And what would she have said? James’s words whispered across her mind, as his lips had whispered across hers. Do you want to marry me, Elizabeth?
If it will put an end to the duel, she’d said. And then he’d kissed her again. Not a light, teasing kiss like the first, when he’d said she tasted of Elizabeth Harcrest.
His second kiss had been hard, demanding, enveloping.
The feel of it lingered. Not just on her lips, but across her skin, and deeper still.
It surged through her veins, pulsing in places that ached for his touch.
Elizabeth shifted in her seat, her clothes suddenly too warm, too tight, too rough across her breasts and thighs.
He’d called her the patron saint of temptation, and when he’d released her, he’d reminded her that saints must suffer.
If there ever was such a saint, Elizabeth had a strong conviction she must have burned for her sins.
Alix sat up in the bed, her mahogany hair tangled loose about her shoulders.
Her gray eyes were nearly as dark as the predawn light beyond the bedroom curtains.
She watched as Rafe dressed himself. He slid a gray superfine coat over his broad shoulders and swept his tawny hair free of his collar.
He tied it back with a black silk ribbon.
He hadn’t called for a valet this morning.
He hadn’t wanted even the briefest moment of this time together disrupted.
“Must you go?” she asked as he reached for his cravat.
“You know I must,” he said, glancing up as he tied it.
She swallowed the arguments she’d already exhausted. “Don’t die.”
He looked at her wrapped in the sheets of his great bed, the tangle of bedclothes around her a mute witness to the love they’d made throughout the night. He shook his head. “Always so demanding.”
Alix ignored his attempt at lightness. “I couldn’t bear to live without you.”
“I’ve no intention of dying.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I love you.” His eyes slid down to the slight curve of her belly. “And I’ve a son to raise.”
“It might be a girl,” she said, her hand resting on her belly. “You’ve read women wrong before.”
Rafe’s hands lingered on his wife’s shoulders. “That’s why I know God won’t dare give me another female. He knows I’ve got my hands full on that score.”
She leaned into him and he kissed her again—a farewell kiss.
He straightened, and his glance fell upon the pug, who, during the course of the night, had made his way into their bedchambers.
He was happily snoring atop a pair of half-chewed slippers.
He scowled. “The only reason I’m allowing that beast to remain is because he’s got a cock and balls. ”
“I hate Anne Dinsmore.” More than the peasants that killed my father, more than the man who tried to kill me, her eyes said.
“I know. But,” he added in a voice grown suddenly cold, “I promise you, after this morning, all you will feel for her is pity.”
She shook her head. “I will never forgive her for putting our happiness at risk.”
“So long as you forgive Elizabeth.”
Alix didn’t respond and Rafe wasn’t sure she’d heard him. But he didn’t repeat himself. He wasn’t certain he wanted to hear her answer.
“Have you had much traffic this morning?” Rafe asked the gatekeeper.
“Just you and one other fancy-looking coach.” He peered into the carriage. “Not as fancy as your rig, that’s for sure. Don’t mean to offend, my lords, but it’s my duty to ask, what brings you out into the park so early this morning?”
“Bird-watching.”
“Bird-watching?” The gatekeeper scratched his greasy gray head, pausing to examine something beneath his nails. “Never heard that one before. What kind of birds would that be?”
“Peacocks.”
The gatekeeper shook his head with disgust. “Noisy screechy creatures, disturbing the peace…”
“I quite agree.” Rafe drew a bag of coins from his waistcoat pocket, dangled it out the window. “The birds startle quite easily. I’d be most appreciative if you kept this entrance closed for the next hour or two so we can observe them undisturbed.”
The gatekeeper stuck out a filthy hand. “Yes, sir, no problem there, my lords. You can count on me.”
Rafe slid back against the cushions as the coach rolled on, his fingers drumming silently on his knee.
Cole, seated across from him, next to a pinch-faced surgeon, speculated that his friend was playing out the opening moves of the duel ahead.
He turned his gaze to the window. The trees lining the road were wrapped in a mist that rose from the damp grass.
The sky was light, but the moon still ruled the sky.
Odd to think that most everyone he knew still lay abed, while he rode to a damp clearing in the park to watch two men try to kill each other.
“Can’t you stop him?” Phoebe had asked as they’d lain together the night before.
But there was no stopping Rafe when he’d set his mind on something.
They’d all warned him he was holding the reins too tightly on Elizabeth, that she’d bolt if he didn’t loosen up.
And she had—straight into Dinsmore’s waiting arms. Cole had a suspicion that Rafe was angrier at himself for mishandling Elizabeth than he was with Dinsmore.
Dinsmore was just a convenient scapegoat.
Rafe held the belief that if a man planned his life carefully, he could control it.
A grim smile curved the corners of Cole’s mouth; he doubted there was much a man could do to control the course of his life, and he knew for certain there was little a man could do to control the women in it.
Elizabeth had the wildness of her late father and her brother George, but she also had the quiet determination of her mother Louisa.
Had she truly been “experimenting” with Dinsmore or was there something deeper involved?
Lord help them if she’d decided James was like some neglected rosebush in need of a good pruning and a bit of attention.
If that were the case, then Moreham had best kill Dinsmore, or Elizabeth would surely find a way back to him.
Dinsmore really wasn’t such a bad sort, Cole reflected, though he would never voice his opinion to Rafe.
Actually, James reminded him of himself fifteen years ago—spoiled, bored, and restless—before he’d met Phoebe, of course.
The lines around his eyes softened as he continued to stare out the window.
He saw a coach with the Dinsmore family crest drawn up by the side of a clearing, a lovely bit of garden, really, bordered by flowerbeds.
James Dinsmore stood, still as a nearby statue of a nymph, hands resting on his sheathed sword.
“He’s here,” Cole said as the coach slowed to a stop.
“Are you ready, my lord?” The surgeon spoke for the first time since he’d been introduced earlier that morning.
Rafe eyed his battered, leather medical bag. “If you’re asking am I prepared for your handiwork, then, my good sir, you’re asking the wrong man.”