Say Yes to the Marquess(97)
“Tutoring prigs like Teddy Cambourne, you mean? Oh, that will be fine.”
“It wouldn’t have to be wealthy gentlemen. Perhaps disadvantaged boys.”
He shook his head. “It’s a nice idea for someday, once our income is secure. But you said it yourself. There isn’t much money in orphans.”
And Rafe needed to earn money. More than anything, he wanted to provide for her. Keep her safe and give her the life she deserved. Living on her dowry and the castle’s income would be possible, he supposed. But his pride demanded that he contribute, too.
He felt confident he could do that, once he got back in a ring. But in this restrictive little cage of a room? He could only fail.
“I can’t . . .” Christ, he’d never tried to explain this to anyone. “I just can’t do this sort of thing. And it’s not because I don’t wish to, or because I’m too lazy to try. I can’t concentrate on ledgers and schedules and books. They make me feel like I’ve stuck my head inside a beehive. My whole life, I’ve been this way. Eventually, I grow weary of trying and . . . lose interest.”
“You lose interest.”
He shrugged. “That’s the best way I can describe it. Yes.”
She bit her lip and regarded him. “Are you worried you’ll lose interest in me?”
“That’s different. You’re different.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked.
“How can you even question it?”
The words came out too forcefully. They sounded angry, even to his ears.
His conscience—that living, breathing spirit of a lifetime’s accumulated sins—was screaming at him now. Retreat, it said, before he went too far. Said something he didn’t mean.
“Fighting is who I am,” he said. “If you want a man who’ll be happy pushing papers around a desk . . . maybe you should marry Piers.”
As soon as he heard his own words, he regretted them.
Rafe, you idiot.
She winced. “I can’t believe you said that.”
He rubbed his face with one hand. He wished he could claim the same surprise. His whole life was a string of rash words and actions he wished he could take back. Last night, those impulses had worked out in ways that pleased her. But he’d known it was only a matter of time before he cocked it up.
There was just too much of the devil in him. He was doomed to push away the people he loved most. He would never be able to hold anything good.
If he lost Clio now, that would be no worse than he deserved.
Hell, as far as she was concerned, it would probably be for the best.
“Listen,” he said, “I shouldn’t have . . .”
And then—just because it was exactly what Rafe’s life didn’t need that moment—Bruiser appeared in the doorway.
“There you two are. I trust the ball was enjoyable. I”—Bruiser clapped his hands together—“have good news.”
Rafe doubted it. He made throat-slashing, shut-it gestures.
Bruiser, naturally, ignored them.
“First, Miss Whitmore, I’m happy to report the engagement ring has, er . . . reappeared.”
“Really?” Clio said. “What interesting timing. We were just discussing the wedding plans. Weren’t we, Rafe?”
Damn it.
“And second,” Bruiser went on, “your new gowns have arrived from London. They’re made expressly for you, and they are magnificent. The dressmakers are waiting in the sitting room.”
Rafe shook his head. “She doesn’t want to—”
“Oh, but I do.” Her cool gaze met Rafe’s. “I do, Mr. Montague. I can’t wait to try the gowns.”
Chapter Twenty-four
In actuality, being fitted for yet more flouncy gowns was the last thing Clio wanted to do this morning. But she and Rafe needed some space from each other, and this seemed the best way.
After an entire week of telling her she couldn’t break an engagement she’d entered into at the age of seventeen . . . They had one argument, and Rafe was calling off theirs?
It was a touch alarming, how quickly his mind leapt from the realm of “mild disagreement” to “irreparable rift.”
Maybe you should marry Piers.
Of all the things to say.
But she knew he didn’t mean it. And she should have known better than to put him on the spot like that, in a setting so far removed from his strengths.
He’d warned her, hadn’t he? Ballrooms, drawing rooms, schoolrooms, offices . . . When he felt ill at ease, something brash would result.
But what she admired in him was that Rafe understood this about himself. He’d found his own ways to not only succeed but flourish. If she wanted to build a life with him, she would need to understand and respect that, too.