The Man Behind the Scars(20)

       
           



       

"Did your mother burn your house to the ground?" he asked. He didn't  entirely understand the rueful expression that crossed her face then,  much less the flash of something far sharper than amusement in her gaze.

"In a manner of speaking," she said, her lips moving into something a  shade too serious to be a smile. "But there is no scaffolding to repair  the sort of damage my mother can do, I'm afraid. She defies any attempt  to rebuild."

"While the scaffolding cannot do a thing to keep the ghosts of Pembroke  Manor at bay," he replied, something very near wry. "They merely wait  their turn."

"The ghosts will always lie in wait, won't they?" Angel asked softly,  her blue eyes dark on his. "We are all haunted in one way or another.  This house. You. Me."

He did not want her wisdom, he realized then. Nor her understanding. It  cut too deep. Whatever it was that arced between them pulled taut,  clawing into him, making him completely unable to do anything but focus  on her mouth. That wicked, taunting mouth. He welcomed it.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but her voice was no more than the  faintest whisper of sound. She stood again, as if to put distance  between them, as if she meant to move to safer ground-but she didn't go  anywhere. And now they were both standing, so close-so close-that he  could easily reach over and-

"You know very well what I'm doing," he said, his voice far more of a  growl than it should have been. Want and need pounded in him, making him  so hard it bordered on pain. But he didn't touch her. He had promised  her he would wait, hadn't he? And there was very little left of the man  he should have been, he knew that. But he still had his word. There were  times he thought it was all he had.

"Rafe … "

Again, that hard swallow, as if she was fighting the same demons and desires that he was, and with as much success.

"You have been hiding in this library for two weeks," he said, managing  to keep his voice even, though he felt nothing at all but heat. "And  I've let you. I wanted your transition to Pembroke Manor-to Scotland-to  be as easy as possible." She only watched him, eyes wide and wary. And  that shimmer of heat beneath, that called to him in ways he refused to  explore. Not here. Not yet. "I have very few requirements, Angel," he  continued. "But I would like you to have dinner with me in the evenings.  Do you think you can do that?"

He was sure she could tell how much he wanted it-how he wanted her-and  he wasn't sure who he hated more in that moment. Her, for being such a  temptation that he made himself into a fool for her? Or himself, for  being that fool? He did not know what he would do if he saw pity in her  eyes, or worse, some kind of understanding-but that was not the  expression that dawned there, and gleamed softly.

"Do we dress for dinner here?" she asked in her easy, offhanded way, as  if she hadn't noticed all these currents swimming around them, all the  tension simmering in

the air.

"If you like." He shrugged, arousal making his voice as hard as the rest of him. "I cannot be bothered."

"I expected the role of countess to require far more gowns," she said,  her tone reproving, as if she believed the matter of her wardrobe to be  of paramount importance here, where there were only the two of them and a  staff well paid to notice nothing at all. "If I may lodge a complaint."

"You may wear whatever you please," he said.

Maybe his voice was too rough. Maybe that was why she seemed to  stiffen-but no, she only nodded, and he had the frustrating realization  that she was hiding her true feelings, whatever they were, behind that  amiable surface.

Again.

As usual.

He hated that too.

"Except," he said, and there was no doubting his voice was too rough  now, too rough and too hard, like the monster she kept making him forget  he was, forcing him to wonder if she considered that service simply  part of the bargain-part of the price he'd paid. "That mask you wear all  the time. I'd prefer you leave that in your room. If at all possible."

* * *

His words hung in her mind as Angel swept into the small, intimate  dining room later that same evening, dressed in the finest gown she'd  been able to find among her belongings-all of it carefully unpacked and  painstakingly hung in the extensive closets in her rooms by unseen if  capable hands. It was a deliberately extravagant dress of deepest  crimson that flowed over her body from a bold, asymmetrical neckline to  pool at her feet like a living, breathing flame. She knew it made her  look as if she were planning to make herself the main course-to  incinerate them both with the force of her brightness.                       
       
           



       

She was hoping it would distract Rafe from this talk of masks. After  all, the mask she wore-the easy, happy mask she had to wear with him-was  the only thing she had that was hers. The only thing she had left.

The only thing she hadn't signed away.

"Good evening, my lord," she said with greatly exaggerated courtesy, and  had to fight to restrain herself from sketching a theatrical curtsy in  his direction.

"My lady," he murmured in cool reply, in a manner that made Angel  question her own sanity-and her seeming need to poke at this man as if  he were a tiger locked up in a cage. She had no trouble imagining him in  the role of a big cat, all sinew and grace, danger in every solid inch  of his sleekly muscled body. But she'd do well to remember the only one  in any sort of cage around here, gilded or not, was her.

He loomed there beside the long, narrow table against the far wall, much  too dark and menacing for what was meant to be a cozier dining room  than the formal hall in this great house, and what was frightening  wasn't that she found him scary-but that she did not. Quite the  opposite. She had thought him far too compelling, far too much, in his  fine Italian suits, all elegant lines and inspired tailoring-none of  which he wore tonight. As he had promised, he did not dress for dinner.

He didn't have to.

Rafe in a simple pair of denim jeans and a sleek dark navy jumper almost  did her in. His hair was too long, and bore the marks of impatient  hands run through the thick, dark locks. He was too grim, too hard, too  impossibly male. When he wore a suit, he was so obviously the  earl-distant and dangerous, but quite clearly out of reach in every way  that mattered. Here, now, dressed so casually, he was only a man. But  what a man! It was as if she could see all that power and shattering  sensuality coiled and ready in his distractingly masculine form.  Waiting. It made her throat go dry, even as the rest of her softened,  melted, ached.

Her reaction to him terrified her far more than he did.

"You are staring," he pointed out, and there was something in his voice  that seemed to skitter over her skin like a kind of touch. She had to  force herself to breathe.

"I am trying to find the earl in this particular costume," she said,  sweeping her gaze over him from his carelessly tousled head to the feet  he'd encased in hard black boots. He should have looked far less  magnificent than he did. He should have faded into mediocrity without  the fine clothes that marked him as the wealthy, powerful man he was.  But Angel looked at the way he stood there, so easy and confident, and  knew that whatever this man was, he didn't need clothes to broadcast it.  He simply exuded it from his very pores.

That should have made her nervous, surely. She told herself it did, that  nerves explained the jumpy, achy feeling low in her belly.

"I was the earl long before I had any hope of the title," he said, in a  voice that hinted at secrets and stories she doubted he would share. "I  suspect it is in me whether I like it or not, clothes be damned. It is  like the family curse."

He was so dark, so serious, with his soldier's stance and his ravaged  face, and yet she had the nearly overwhelming urge to close the distance  between them and see if she could taste the white-hot heat of him on  his tongue. He was magnetic and fascinating, and how, she wondered with  something like despair, could she handle this marriage of hers if she  was no better than a moth to the nearest bright light? If she had the  suicidal urge to simply throw herself at him and see what became of her?

He studied her for a moment, his gray eyes cold, and she had the sinking  sensation that he could read every single thought that crossed her  mind. As if he knew exactly what effect he had on her. As if he was  luring her in with every breath, every near-smile. Don't be ridiculous,  she chided herself. He is only a man. Two weeks in Scotland and she'd  gone over all gothic, apparently. Next thing she knew she'd be waxing  rhapsodic about the joys of sheep.