Castles Ever After 02 Say Yes to the Marquess (4 page)

At those words, his thoughts reeled to a halt somewhere on the outskirts of Canterbury.

The best man?

Out of the question. Rafe would be the worst man for that duty.

Abandoning her untouched custard, Clio rose from the table. “Shall we adjourn to the drawing room, ladies? We can leave the gentlemen to their port.”

A glass of port would have been welcome. As a rule, Rafe didn’t take strong spirits while training. He might reconsider that rule this week.

Then he caught Clio’s gaze, pleading with him over a sea of cut crystal.

On second thought, he decided against the port. There would be no reconsidering the rules. This was a week for the rules to be unbendable. No spirits stronger than wine. No indulgent foods.

No women.

“Yes, let’s go to the drawing room,” Daphne said. “We’ll start on the guest list.”

“This is all happening too fast,” Clio said. “I don’t see any reason to make plans until Piers returns.”

“I see a reason, dear sister. I see eight years’ worth of reasons.”

“Don’t argue it, dumpling.” Cambourne motioned for the footman to bring port. “Best to have the mousetrap all baited and set, considering how many times he’s escaped it already. Clap that ball and chain on him before he has a chance to run. Isn’t that right, Brandon?”

The man laughed heartily at his own joke.

Rafe wasn’t laughing. He could feel that familiar, reckless anger rising in his chest. “My brother is looking forward to the wedding.”

“Believe me. We’re all looking forward to this wedding.” Cambourne leaned forward. “Word to the wise. Ball and chain. Look into it.”

Slam.

Rafe’s palms met the tabletop with a violent crash. China rattled. Crystal shivered.

People stared.

He pushed back from the table and rose to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Rafe needed to look into something other than Sir Teddy Cambourne’s smirking face, or he was going to overturn this dining table—china, crystal, silver, and all.

Chapter Four

B
y the time Rafe had charged upstairs, gathered the dog, carried him downstairs for a quick turn out of doors, then carried him
back
up three flights of stone steps and deposited him by the hearth in his bedchamber, he’d lost the volatile edge of his anger.

Now he was just . . . lost.

He stopped a footman in the corridor. “Miss Whitmore and her guests?”

“In the drawing room, my lord.”

“Very good.” He took two paces, then stopped and turned on his heel. “And the drawing room would be . . . ?”

“In the east wing. To the end of the corridor, turn right, down the stairs, and through the entrance hall to the left, my lord.”

“Right.”

Or was it left?

Rafe stalked down the passageway before he could forget that litany of directions. He was navigating his way through the maze of passages and corridors, picking up speed as he rounded a corner—

When he collided, bodily, with someone coming the other way.

Clio.

“Oof.”

She recoiled with the force of the impact, like a grasshopper bouncing off the flank of a galloping horse.

He caught her by the wrist, steadying her. “Sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

She might be fine, but Rafe needed a moment. In just the brief instant of their collision, he felt like he’d been branded with her body. The impression of lush, curvy warmth lingered in inconvenient places.

A few sprints up the staircase weren’t enough. He needed to run tomorrow. Far, and hard. He needed to hit and lift things, too. Many times.

“I was just dashing down to the drawing room,” he said.

“Then you were dashing in the wrong direction.”

Rafe shrugged. “This place is a maze. And you’re supposed to be downstairs with your sisters, making the guest list.”

“I slipped away. You seemed . . . agitated when you left dinner. I wanted to make certain you were well.”

He couldn’t believe it. After all her brother-in-law’s snide remarks at the dinner table, she was concerned about
Rafe’s
feelings?

She touched his arm. “You seemed uneasy through the whole meal, actually. Is there anything you need?”

God. There were a great many things he needed, and a full half of them were squeezed in that gesture alone. He told himself not to make too much of her kindness. She’d been groomed to be the consummate hostess, always thinking of her guests’ comfort.

“Get married,” he said. “Then I’ll feel fine.”

They turned and began walking down the corridor together.

She sighed. “This wedding-planning nonsense. Can’t you see that it’s just wasted time? Not to mention, trifling with my sisters’ feelings.”

“Strange, then, how you don’t simply tell your family you plan to call the wedding off.”

“Before the papers are signed? I don’t dare. Then I’d have all four of you bent on changing my mind. No, thank you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’ll forgive you for showing up like this.”

“You’ve forgiven me worse.”

“If you’re speaking of the way you reserved the third dance at my debut ball, then failed to attend?” Her clipped footsteps accelerated. “I’m still vexed over that.”

“
That
was doing you a favor.” He matched her pace as they turned to traverse a long, narrow gallery. “I was thinking of the birthday party where I dipped your gloves in the punch.”

“Ah, yes. And then there was the time when I was eight and you were eleven, and you scorched my frock with an ember.” She slanted him a look. “But that was nothing compared to when you humiliated me at indoor tennis that rainy week at Oakhaven. Winning four times in a row? The height of ungentlemanly behavior.”

“Should I have let you win just because you were a girl? I wanted the silver cup.”

“It was an old copper blancmange mold,” she said. “Anyhow, I had my revenge when I bested you at footracing.”

He frowned. “You never bested me at footracing.”

“Yes, I did.”

“When?”

“Well, let’s see.” She halted in the center of the gallery, pondering. “That would have been right about . . . Now.”

She kicked off her slippers. Hiking her skirts, she took off in a dash, sprinting down the length of the gallery. When she neared the end, she stopped running. The momentum carried her forward, and she coasted on stocking feet, skating over the polished hardwood until the doors at the other end caught her.

“There.” She turned to regard him, breathless and smiling. “You lose.”

Rafe stared at her, struck immobile.

If this was losing, he never wanted to win.

Good Lord, look at her. Her hair coming loose from its pins, her throat flushed the shade of china roses . . . and that labored breathing doing magic—a dark, wicked kind of magic—on her abundant bosom.

Most alluring of all, that glint of laughter in her eyes.

The girl needs finishing.

That had been the common wisdom, back when the engagement was first announced. While Piers sailed for India to launch his diplomatic career, Clio was meant to remain in London for “finishing.” Rafe didn’t know what the devil “finishing” meant, but he knew he didn’t like it. Within a few years, she’d been finished indeed. Everything remotely unique or spirited about her had been scrubbed off, pinned back, or drilled straight out of her demeanor.

So he’d thought.

But apparently, the old Clio was still in there somewhere—the Clio he’d rather liked, before the dragons had taken her in their clutches and stifled her with ten coats of lacquer.

The Clio he had no right to be admiring now.

Damn. He had to bring himself under control. He wasn’t here to ogle her. He was here to make certain that in a few weeks’ time she walked down the aisle and married another man.

Not just “another man.” His own brother.

“We did have fun in those days,” she said. “Before the engagement was settled and everything grew . . . complicated. Well, at least the two of us had fun. Phoebe and Daphne were just babies then, and even in my earliest memories, Piers had grown too old for such games.”

“Piers was
born
too old for such games.”

“And it would seem I haven’t outgrown them. Another sign he and I are poorly matched.” She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear and shrugged. “I’ve been a very good girl for a very long time. I’m ready to have fun again.”

Don’t. Don’t say that.

“Do you know what’s great fun? Weddings.” Good God. The things that came out of his mouth this week. “Just give this a chance. You’ll have every indulgence you could ever dream. Doves released into the air. Swans in the pond. Peacocks wandering the gardens if you want them.”

“That’s a great many birds.”

“Never mind the birds.”

“I mean, there would be feathers everywhere. Not to mention their droppings.”

“No birds. Forget I said anything about birds.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “What I’m attempting to say is this. You shall have everything you want, and nothing you don’t. We’ll spare no expense.”

It was just as Bruiser said. A wedding was like a championship bout, and Clio’s head wasn’t yet in the ring. She needed to step into some gowns, plan a menu or two, start envisioning herself as the admired and envied bride on Piers’s arm. Triumphant. Victorious.

This would work. It
had
to work. He could not let her dissolve this engagement.

“It’s no use, Rafe.” She went to retrieve her slippers.

He tried not to watch as she lifted her skirts to slip her toes inside.

Tried, and failed.

“Even if I
were
so easily persuaded . . . It’s not as if my Uncle Humphrey left me a seaside cottage or a string of matched pearls.” She bounced up and down, wriggling her foot into the slipper.

Other parts of her wriggled, too.

Really, she was just torturing him now.

“I have a castle,” she said. “My very own
castle
. How can a wedding—even a lavish one with dozens of birds—possibly compete with this?”

“So it’s a castle. There are castles all over England. I’m certain the Granville title comes with one or two. If it’s a great, fancy house you’re after, you’ll be mistress of Oakhaven.”

“It’s not just a great, fancy house I’m after. It’s . . .” She looked to the corner and sighed. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” His pride was piqued, the way it always was when someone questioned his intelligence. He might not have graduated Oxford with top honors the way Piers had done, but he wasn’t a lummox.

“It’s hard to explain in words. Come along. I’ll try to show you.”

He shook his head. “Downstairs. The guest list.”

“Not yet.” She came to his side. “You want to understand why this place is different? Why I’m different now, too? Give me a chance to show you, and I promise I’ll join my sisters in the drawing room for the rest of the evening.”

He stood unmoved. “The week.”

“What?”

“I want a full week of bridal compliance. You’ll make lists and menus. You’ll choose flowers. You’ll be fitted for gowns. No grousing, no evading.”

“Let’s say I agree to this plan. I allow you to stay for a week. I keep an open mind about marriage. You promise to keep an open mind about me. If at the end of the week, I still wish to break the engagement . . . what then? Will you sign the dissolution papers?”

He inhaled slowly. He was putting a lot of faith in the power of lace, silk, and Bruiser’s competence, but he didn’t seem to have a choice. The preparations couldn’t sway her if she didn’t take part.

“Very well,” he said. “It’s a bargain.”

“Shake hands on it?”

He clasped her small hand in his and pumped it once.

She squeezed his fingers tight and didn’t let go. “Excellent. Now come along. I’ve been dying to show
someone
around this castle. We’ll see how much trouble we can find on our way downstairs.”

As she led him through the opposite end of the gallery, a sense of foreboding gathered in Rafe’s chest. Above all things, he had a talent for finding trouble.

And a week suddenly seemed like a dangerously long time.

Clio swelled with a modest amount of confidence as she tugged him out of the gallery and down the spiraling flights of stairs.

A quarter hour would be more than enough time to prove this place wasn’t just another heap of stones littering the English countryside.

Of course, then came the trickier part—making Rafe see what Twill Castle meant to
her.

“Quickly,” she whispered, peeking into the corridor to make certain no one observed them. “This way.”

“But—”

“
Hurry.
”

As they ducked into a smaller, darker stairwell, Clio clutched his hand tight and tried to ignore the stupid thrill that ran through her every time her skin met his.

Ridiculous, really. Yes, he was an infamous rake. But they’d known each other since childhood, and she’d been engaged to his brother for almost a decade. There wasn’t anything forbidden about taking the man’s hand.

Nevertheless, her heartbeat drummed in her chest as she drew him down the stairs. At the bottom, they were greeted by cold, clammy darkness. The only illumination was the last lingering bit of twilight struggling through a ceiling grate.

“See?” She lowered her voice as they crept through the cavernous space. “This castle has dungeons.”

“These aren’t dungeons.”

“They are so dungeons.”

“They’re far too big for dungeons. These were clearly cellars.”

She went to a hook where a lamp was hung and gathered a flint from the nearby tinderbox.

“Stop ruining the fun.” She struck the flint. Nothing. “Battles were fought in this place. It’s over four hundred years old. The very air is thick with history. For centuries, people have lived and loved and died here. Just think of it.”

“Here’s what I think. You’ve been reading too many of those knights-and-ladies stories in the
Gentleman’s Review.
People have lived and loved and died everywhere. And for every crusading knight who won a tournament for his lady in this castle, I promise you—there were a hundred men who spent a solid decade scratching themselves and having pissing contests from the ramparts.”

She cringed and tried the flint again. “Men are disgusting.”

“Yes,” he said proudly. “We are. But we’re useful, on occasion. Give that here.”

He took the flint from her hands and struck it. The sparks didn’t dare disobey. Holding that warm, nascent glow cupped in his powerful hands, he could have been Prometheus, as painted by a Florentine master. The reddish gold light flashed over the strong planes of his brow and jaw, then lingered on the rugged slope of his oft-broken nose.

“Well, I’m not a man,” Clio said, feeling keenly aware of her womanliness. “I’m not going to spend a decade pissing from the ramparts. I’m going to
do
something with this castle.”

“Let me guess.” He lit the lamp, then whipped the straw, putting out the flame. “You want to open a school for foundlings.”

“That’s a lovely thought. But no. If I’m to maintain this place, it needs to generate income. No offense to the poor dears, but there isn’t much money in orphans.”

Clio took the lamp, went to the far wall, and counted off the stones.

One, two, three, four . . .

“Here’s what I brought you down to see.”

If
this
didn’t impress him, she didn’t know what could.

She pushed hard on the fifth stone. An entire section of the wall swung outward.

“Behold,” she declared. “A secret passage.”

He took the lamp from her and thrust it into the darkened tunnel, peering hard into the gloom. When he whistled, the whistle echoed back.

“Very well,” he said. “One point to you. That’s capital.”

At last.
Clio warmed with satisfaction. She wanted him to appreciate the history and see the potential of this place, but there was more to it than that. She wanted him to
enjoy
this castle, the way she enjoyed it.