Say Yes to the Marquess(29)
“But this is your own brother you want me to marry. How do you see this working, exactly?” She started down the stairs. “Every Christmas and Easter, we’d sit down across the table from one another and try not to think about that time we kissed like lovers in the rain?”
“You needn’t worry about making polite conversation. I’m not coming around on Christmas or Easter.”
Clio paused on the steps. She knew that Rafe and his father had conducted their own at-home reenactment of the Hundred Years’ War. But surely now that the marquess was dead, the two brothers needn’t continue it.
“You wouldn’t come?” she asked. “Even now, when your father’s gone?”
“I don’t see a reason.”
What a liar. His kiss had been full to bursting with reasons. There was emotion in that embrace they’d shared. Perhaps it wasn’t attraction or affection or love—but it was yearning. He might have rebuffed all her invitations over the years, but it was plain to her now that he hadn’t ignored them completely.
They reached the bottom of the stairs. Ellingworth had fallen asleep in the hopcart.
Or was he asleep? He was so still, she worried for a moment. But she touched her fingers to his coat and found it warm. She massaged his neck a few strokes. The old dog scrunched his already-scrunched face and snuffled contentedly.
Clio gathered her courage. “I know it’s only been a matter of months since he died, Rafe. And you’ve been alone. When my own mother passed, I would have been lost without my sisters.” She stood tall. “Did you want to talk at all?”
He pulled a face. “No.”
“Are you certain? Sometimes it helps.”
“There’s nothing to help. I stopped thinking of the marquess as my father years ago, and the man never looked on me as a beloved son. I was always the mistake.” He took the cart handle and tipped a glance toward the tower’s upper level. “I still am, apparently. But despite what happened up there, I’m not going to sign your papers. If you mean to show me the door, I—”
“No,” she interrupted. “No, I want you to stay.”
“Don’t be polite. Courtesy’s wasted on me.”
“I’m not being polite.” To prove it, she added, “Drat you.”
Oh, this man. He tried to seem disbelieving. Indifferent. But just a look at him gave everything away. His eyes were daring her to cast him out, begging her to let him stay. Two thin green boundaries of wariness encircling deep, dark wells of . . .
Secret pain.
He tried to deny it, but he was hungry for connection, a sense of belonging in his life. Family. Acceptance. Home. A reason to come around on Christmas and Easter.
Clio could see it. And maybe—just maybe—if she kept him here a bit longer, he’d start to admit that to himself.
“I want you to stay, Rafe. Because we made a bargain. One round doesn’t decide the bout. I need those papers signed, and I’m not giving up.”
Not on herself, and not on him.
“As for the kiss . . .” She hugged herself tight, trying to preserve the last bit of that tender warmth. “You’re right. It was just a kiss. Let’s forget it ever happened.”
Chapter Seven
Let’s forget it ever happened.
Easy enough to say. Damn difficult to accomplish. Thus far, Rafe was finding it impossible.
By the time he, Bruiser, and the three Whitmore sisters had gathered in the castle’s jewel box of a chapel the next afternoon, some twenty-two hours had passed. Rafe had thought about, dreamed of, or berated himself for kissing Clio approximately . . . twenty-one-and-a-half of them.
He’d run twelve miles that morning, then taken an ice-cold plunge in the pond.
Hadn’t helped.
He couldn’t cease looking at her. And he had far too much opportunity to stare because she refused to so much as turn his direction today.
She was angry with him. For good reason.
The worst of it was, he rather liked angry Clio. She stood a little taller, hiked her chin a bit higher. Her eyes had fire in them. If he’d been coaching her toward a prizefight, he would have been feeling confident.
Talking her into a wedding, however . . . ?
“Dearly beloved,” Bruiser announced from the front of the chapel, “we are gathered here today to set the scene for this most joyous of occasions.” He rubbed his hands together. “Are you prepared to be dazzled, Miss Whitmore?”
“I . . . don’t rightly know.”
“Miss Whitmore is ready to be dazzled,” Rafe said, glancing in her direction. “She told me so. The other day.”