The Man Behind the Scars(32)

"Rafe," she said urgently, making a crucial mistake and stepping closer  to him, even putting her hand on his arm. He felt himself tense, but she  didn't let go. "We can make this marriage whatever we want it to be. We  can-"

"You forget yourself, Angel," he said coldly, bitterly, because she made  him want to believe, damn her. Even now. "This is not an equal  partnership. It is not a partnership at all."

"But it could be!" she cried, and for a moment he saw only the passion  on her face, the wild determination in her darkened eyes. For a moment,  he was almost swayed. And he wanted to be-he wanted it with an intensity  that very nearly floored him. But then he remembered himself.

"To what end?" he asked, moving back so she had to

either let go of him or be dragged along. Her hand fell to her side. "I  told you what I want from you, Angel. You signed your agreement a  thousand times. I don't know why we're still discussing it."

"Because I want more," she said, her voice slightly scratchy now, and  nothing but misery in her gaze. Misery and that small gleam of battered  hope that he recognized and knew was the most destructive of all. He  wished he couldn't see it. It was too tempting. She was too tempting.  "And I think you do too, somewhere in there. I know you do."                       
       
           



       

"You know nothing about me," he corrected her, softly, temper like a  drumbeat in his head, his blood, beating out a harsh rhythm. "While I  know entirely too much about you. What kind of partner do you think you  could be, Angel? You mounted up fifty thousand pounds' debt in all of  two months' time. You live a hand-to-mouth existence, at best. You have  no education, no polish, nothing at all but bravado. What do you have to  offer?"

The library was silent then. He could not even hear her breathe. One  hand crept to her collarbone, as if she held her pulse inside her neck.  Or as if it hurt. Her gaze was wet, though no tears spilled over, and in  a lifetime of hating himself, Rafe could not think of a moment he had  hated himself more than this.

"Congratulations," she said in a thick voice. "I think you have finally managed to make me detest you."

"That matters about as much as love," he threw back at her. He laughed  shortly when she shook her head. "If you don't like it, Angel, you know  where the front door is. You've walked out before. I told you-you're  always free to go. I won't do anything to stop you."

She stood so straight, so proud, with only her head slightly bent, as if  that was all the grief she would allow herself to show. She pulled in a  breath, as if to steady herself. He couldn't tell if he wanted to  comfort her or if that was simply his own guilt, growing deeper by the  second. He would allow neither one to influence him. She had to  understand. She had to see. What kind of man he was, had always been.  What kind of monster.

The moment dragged on, and still she did nothing more than stand there,  as if he'd finally rendered her speechless. He told himself that was  some kind of victory. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to reach out to  her. He wanted to comfort her again, soothe her and hold her, and keep  her from saying those terrible, destructive words. He wanted to go back  to where they'd been before she'd said them. But look what his wants had  done so far. He knew better than to trust the things he wanted. He knew  better than to trust himself.

He turned away from her abruptly, making his way toward the door at the far end of the long room.

"I finally understand what you've been trying to tell me all along," she  said from behind him. He didn't turn. He understood that if he did, he  would not be able to turn away again. He was that weak.

"Good," he growled out. "It's about time."

He heard the rustle of her gown, and briefly squeezed his eyes shut as  if that could fortify him as she walked to him and then drew up beside  him. Her eyes were large, dark and haunted, and he regretted the things  he'd said to her almost as much as he regretted succumbing to the urge  to marry her in the first place. What had he expected? That he would  cart her away to his little castle and make some kind of fairy tale out  of this mercenary piece of business between them? Had he really been so  stupid?

But she was Angel. She was so lovely. And she was so much more than that  too. She teased him, as if there was nothing scary about him, nothing  broken. And she looked at him as if he was simply a man. He didn't know  how he could possibly have resisted her.

He only knew he should have.

"I understand that it is not the scars on your skin that cripple you,"  she said, facing him, looking more composed than he thought he would  ever feel again. "It is this ugliness you carry around inside of you."  She reached over and put her hand on his chest, her palm against the  place where his heart should have been, and he jerked back, but she did  not drop her arm. "You might as well have died with the rest of them,  Rafe, because all you are now is one of your ghosts. Haunting this  place, haunting yourself." She shook her head, a helpless look crossing  her face. "You are poisoning yourself from the inside out."

He thought he said her name, but he made no sound.

And then she walked away from him, without a backward glance from those  bruised blue eyes, and he lied and told himself it was exactly what he'd  wanted.

* * *

She didn't think. She didn't have to. There was no staying here. There  was no more hoping. If there was one thing she'd learned over the course  of her life it was that when a man told you who he was, what he wanted  and what he could give, it was the wise woman who believed him and  governed herself accordingly.

And she was finished, finally, with being so foolish.

She grabbed a small bag from her closet and threw in the most basic  things. A change of clothes. A few key toiletries. Her laptop and  mobile.

She didn't sneak down the stairs or creep into the night. She walked  into the kitchens, located Rafe's driver and asked to be taken into  town. She didn't look back as the car took her down the long drive. She  didn't do anything but stare straight ahead, telling herself she was  fine. Over and over again. Perfectly fine.                       
       
           



       

Or anyway, she thought, fighting off that deep, dark well of despair  that threatened to pull her under, she would be fine, wouldn't she? She  had no other choice.

She would survive, she told herself as the car dropped her as directed  in the sleepy little village that was the nearest thing to civilization  in this remote bit of wilderness. She would survive.

She always did.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

HE FOUND himself in her room, long after he heard the car make its way down the drive toward somewhere, anywhere else.

It was funny that he thought of it as her room now, when it had always  been the countess's room in his head before. As if he had been trying to  distance her from the title. From him. Rafe did not doubt it.

He did not like that she'd left so many of her things behind. Most of  them, in fact. That dark current of temper in him crackled to life, and  he wondered, hotly, if she'd left the dress thrown across the bed and  most of her clothes in the adjoining dressing room simply to taunt him  with her absence. He wrenched the red wine-colored dress into his hand  from the coverlet and then found himself lifting it to his nose, to  catch the faint scent of her on the fabric. The temper subsided as  quickly as it had come.

He knew it would all fade, in time. The scent. The memory. Angel.

He walked over to the large windows that looked out over the grounds of  the estate, and from which he could see the new walls rising from the  ruins of the burned-out east wing. Though it was dark outside, with no  moon to light the way, he imagined he could still see the details of the  ceiling joists that the workmen had just begun to lay over the top of  the walls. It was coming together, just as he'd planned. Soon, Pembroke  Manor would be whole again.

Rafe was increasingly less certain about himself.

He turned back around, unable to check a sigh, and looked across the  elegant chamber to the large painting that dominated the far wall,  staged to hang over one of the antique wardrobes that these days held  linens. It was a formal portrait of a woman with long dark hair and  deep, mysterious eyes, looking out from the canvas with a serious look  on her elegant, oval face. She was, he supposed, an attractive woman.  Perhaps even pretty. If he forced himself, he could look at the painting  and see only the girl she must have been when it was  commissioned-barely more than twenty, he thought. No hint of the future  awaiting her in that calm gaze. No hint of the monster inside of her  either.