The Man Behind the Scars(29)

Not sure you want to hear this while you're off exploring the Scottish  wilderness with your earl, Allegra emailed after several messages  demanding more information about Rafe and her exact whereabouts, in  response to that email Angel hardly remembered sending way back when.  But I've had a visit from Chantelle. She gave me a rather large cheque  (£15,000!) and said a lot of incomprehensible things about her bills.  Please tell me that doesn't mean your bills? Please tell me she didn't … ?

Oh, she did, Angel emailed in reply. And while £15,000 is a lovely  gesture, that's really all it is-a gesture. The old Angel would have  ripped Chantelle apart. She could have ranted on the topic of her  mother's opportunism for days. It wasn't as if Allegra hadn't heard her  vent about her mother before-especially in a situation like this. But  this new version of Angel couldn't see the point. It wouldn't make her  feel any better, and it wouldn't change things, so why bother?

It doesn't matter to me anymore, she wrote instead, feeling like someone  else-someone far calmer and more at peace than she had ever been. As if  being around someone as self-possessed and still as Rafe was somehow  contagious. She found she liked this version of herself, with all her  usual edges … softened. I'm sure she owes you at least that much. Keep it.

And what about poor Izzy? Allegra wrote back. No one's laid eyes on her  since that scene at the engagement party. You're going to have to come  back. It's all gone pear-shaped without you in London, clearly!

Angel stared at that email for a long time. She was not, she realized  with a trickle of something like shame through her belly, a particularly  good sister to Izzy. She didn't even know what scene Allegra was  talking about, having spent the engagement party completely engrossed in  Rafe-though with Izzy, it could be anything, and had probably involved  forcing herself into the spotlight in one way or another. It always did.  Angel had always despaired of her half sister's antics, but for the  first time it occurred to her to wonder if that was fair. Angel knew  better than anyone how difficult it was to grow up with Chantelle as a  mother.

Izzy is a survivor, she wrote back to Allegra. She'll land on her feet.  It's the defining family trait. Say what you will about Chantelle (I  mean that) but she always sorts things out in her favor, doesn't she? So  will Izzy.

But she couldn't help thinking about her half sister long after she hit  Send. It wasn't like Izzy to disappear from view for very long. She was  much more like their mother in that regard-she'd never heard of keeping a  low profile. But what did Angel know? She'd seemed to turn over a new  leaf, quite by accident, in the wake of Allegra's engagement party. Why  shouldn't Izzy?

"How is the outside world?" Rafe asked from the doorway, making Angel  start. But she only smiled, letting her eyes drink in the sight of him,  as if it had been years since she'd last seen him like this, all lean  and dark and gorgeous, instead of an hour or two. Her stomach dropped in  that now familiar little flip of reaction to him. And her body, so  attuned to him now, readied itself for the pleasure he could deliver.

"Very much the same," she said, closing the lid of her laptop. She eyed  him, standing there in the doorway, almost as if he wasn't entirely sure  he wanted to enter the countess's chamber. She wondered, not for the  first time, what kind of woman his mother had been. "The whole world is  carrying on just fine without me."

Rafe prowled toward the bed. Angel felt her smile deepen.

"I am not," he said in a low voice when he was close.

He stood over her, his mouth slightly curved in that way she found  toe-curlingly sexy. She wanted to taste it, him, and so she came up on  her knees and moved to meet him. He took her mouth in a kiss so deep, so  carnal, that she felt her whole body tighten and then burst into molten  heat.

And that suddenly, she was desperate for him. Again.                       
       
           



       

Always, that little voice whispered inside of her, propped up by that  brightness that seemed to glow more and more each time he touched her  like this, each time they took each other higher.

And then his hands were on her body and she stopped thinking altogether.

* * *

He could not get enough of her.

Rafe kept waiting for the fever to pass, for the fire to subside, but it  only grew worse. The more he had her, the more he wanted her. On the  table in that dining room, just as he'd imagined. In the woods in the  spot where she'd almost left him. In the gallery, beneath the austere  frowns of his noble ancestors.

He was made of want. Of need. He knew every variation of her sighs  now-what each one meant, how much pleasure each indicated, and what to  do to ramp it up even further. He never tired of exploring her lovely  body. He began to wonder if he ever would. He had always been the sort  of man who concentrated on what was in front of him, but this was  something more than simple focus. She distracted him even when she was  nowhere in sight. She was like an itch beneath his skin, and all he  could think to do was scratch it. Repeatedly.

He told himself that was enough.

Tonight he'd had to take a call during their usual meal time, and so  looked for her in the library when he was done. As he expected, she was  curled up in that same leather chair. And as usual, she was wearing one  of her formal gowns, as she did every night, while he remained  deliberately casual in response.

"You are dressed for a ball," he pointed out as he walked toward her. He  realized he'd quickened his pace the moment he saw her, and didn't know  where to put that. She set her book aside and watched him draw closer, a  smile in her bright blue eyes if not on her lush little mouth.

"Who knows?" she asked. "Perhaps there will be dancing in Pembroke Manor tonight. Hope springs eternal."

He came to a stop in front of her chair and held out his hand. Her eyes  widened, and he felt his mouth move in response. There was no getting  around it-he was smiling. He felt it move through him like light.

What was it about her, he wondered, that made him believe she could cure  the things in him he'd always believed were damaged beyond repair?  Simply with that smile? Her touch?

"Dance with me," he said softly. Repeating what she'd said to him in the  Palazzo Santina, he realized, with so much more between them now. Her  answering smile told him she remembered it too. She slipped her hand  into his and let him pull her to her feet.

She wore a gown the color of a good red wine, a deep, rich burgundy. It  fell low on her neck, exposing her delicate collarbone, then framed her  pert breasts with a line of draped ruffles from one shoulder before  swirling down to her feet. The effect was somehow edgy and elegant all  at once. She looked good enough to eat. She always did. She smelled of  something soft and feminine, and her clever eyes glowed as they met his.  He wanted to be deep inside her, moving, driving them both wild. He was  hard and ready and even though he knew she would be ready for him too,  he ignored the temptation and pulled her into his arms instead.

And they danced. Around and around the library, circling the old globe  in its pride of place in the center. This time, they did not talk. They  did not spar with each other. They only danced, as if they could both  hear the same song, as if it played in them both, guiding their feet  across the old, thick carpets. He held her in his arms as if she was his  very own miracle come to life. Perhaps she is, some small voice  whispered deep inside of him.

And then he spun her away, making her laugh in delight. He spun her back  to him, dipping her down low in the sort of showy way that he would  have abhorred in public. But this was for Angel. For that laughter of  hers that made his chest feel tight. That made him believe. How he  wanted to believe.

But when he pulled them both back to standing, he saw that she was crying.

"What is it?" He was shaken. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Had the monster in him struck when he hadn't been paying attention?

"No," she said, laughing slightly, wiping at her eyes. "This is so …  I never cry!"

"I told you I was a terrible dancer," he said softly, rubbing his hands  down the seductive line of her back, wanting only to calm her. "I gave  you fair warning."

Still, the tears fell, no matter how she tried to stop them, and Rafe  found he could not take it, even if there appeared to be no particular  crisis. He settled them both in the leather chair so that Angel was  across his lap, and he tried to calm her the only way he knew how.

"It's not the dancing," she said through her tears. "It's not you. I'm not even sad!"