Page 42 of The Viscount and the Thief
‘We must design you a more secure sheath for your weapon, one that does not so embarrass you. This is going to involve a great deal of effort and study on my part, but it’s a sacrificeI’m prepared to make.’ As he spoke, he pulled up her gown and smoothed it back over her legs, shamelessly exposing her stockings, her bare skin and her garter to the spring air. ‘Now let me see…’ he mused, laying his big hands either side of her thigh and scrutinising it intently.
‘Rafe!’ she said, conscious of the liquid heat pooling between her legs as her body responded immediately to his touch and the intensity of his dark gaze. ‘You presume too much! You make a joke of it, and behave as though the difficulties were small and easily overcome, when they are not. You have most conveniently not mentioned your sister, and the importance of respectability for her.’
He shook his head. ‘Look around you – at the house, the land, everything and everyone in it. All the things you can see and all the things and people you can’t. The servants and the tenants, my grandmother, my brother and my sister. It is a great responsibility, you are right, and one I take on gladly, because it is in my blood, as my siblings are. I love Amelia and Charlie, and I will always do my best for them. But they are Wyvernes. We all are. That is a legacy that they can never escape, any more than I can. Do not frame my life in such a way, as though if I should be mad enough to give you up, some magic wand can be waved and we will emerge with an unstained name, in a week or a month or a year. I believed that once, even recently, but it was a ridiculous, childish delusion. The past cannot be changed, and we must live with what we have. And I am glad of it now, because none of this means a single thing to me if you cannot be mine.’
She did not speak, her certainty shaking in the face of his desperate eloquence, and he said urgently, ‘You must see that I am right. We are not living in a fairy tale, a world of black and white, where my choice is between respectability and love, and I nobly choose love and pay the price. The Wyverne name is already tarnished through no fault of mine or yours, no matterwhat I do. In a hundred years, in two hundred, when we are all long dead, I dare say a whisper of scandal will still cling to the family. People enjoy being outraged too much to set it aside easily. And knowing that, to choose anything but love would be insanity. Marry me, Sophie, and we will face whatever comes together. Do not make me face it without you. I don’t think I can.’
She paused for a moment, but she knew that there was only one answer she could give him. It was hard to believe him after all she’d been through, but her heart told her she must, or she would regret it forever. She’d prided herself on her strength and boldness – now she must take this last and greatest risk. ‘I will not ask you if you are sure, for I can see that you are. That being so… Yes! Yes, of course I will!’
‘Oh, my love… Thank God! That’s… I don’t have words to say how much your trust means to me. I promise I will never betray it as long as we live.’ He dropped a lingering kiss where the sheath of her knife would be if she were wearing it, then stood and held out his hand to her.
His voice was ragged with emotion, but he was smiling as he said, ‘To celebrate our engagement and to seal the unbreakable bond between us, my dearest, I’m going to take you up the steps under the portico and make love to you right here and now. Make love to you properly, as I have not yet, if you do indeed consent to that, my love.’
‘You’d like to put a child in me?’ she asked bluntly, taking his hand. It seemed to be important to know his intentions completely.
‘It’s not the main thing on my mind at the moment, but yes, Sophie, I would. It doesn’t have to be now, if you don’t want that. I have many, many other ideas. What do you think?’
‘Youarequite wild and wicked. I hadn’t realised.’
‘I’m hoping to be. But would you like a child, Sophie? One day, if not soon?’
‘I believe I would,’ she said, considering. It was hard to take in the entirely new direction her future had taken. A great sense of excitement was bubbling up inside her like a spring of water that could no longer be suppressed. ‘In my life as Clemence I’d always assumed I would have children, and then later, of course, it was vital that I should not, so I determined to put the idea from my mind. I think I’d like one day to have a son and name him in memory of my poor little brother Louis, who barely had a chance at life. But just now I’d like to leave it up to fate. Perhaps I am done with trying to control every aspect of my existence.’
‘I promise I won’t try to control it either,’ he said seriously. ‘Apart from anything else, you have a knife.’
She put her arms about his neck. ‘You’re safe for now. I’ll let you know if that changes. So, we go where life takes us, Rafe? No regrets?’
‘Yes, as long as we go together. One day I’d like to travel the world with you, if these cursed wars ever come to an end. But just now, my desire is to journey just a few paces up these steps and have you wrap yourself around me.’
‘Carry me!’ she whispered in his ear. He slid his hands down her back and lifted up her skirts so that she could wrap her legs securely about his waist. She pulled down his head to kiss him, and he fixed his hands firmly on her naked bottom, taking her up the steps without the least apparent effort.
Once there, he set her down on a shallow window ledge that was at just the right height, and while she kissed him with greedy urgency he unfastened his breeches fall and freed himself. ‘Are you ready for me, my love?’ he asked against her mouth.
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Yes, Rafe, I am.’
41
Lord Wyverne, his grandmother, his brother and Sophie took dinner together, and the event soon took on the air of a celebration, Mr Barnaby having completed his task and taken his leave once he’d been quite sure that Rosanna was safely out of the way. ‘I expect she will be telling anyone who will listen that I turned her out of doors the day after her husband died,’ said Rafe, refilling their glasses once the servants had been dismissed.
‘Well, you did,’ said Lord Charles reasonably. ‘Frankly I’m surprised you waited as long as that, old fellow. Horrifying creature, enough to make a man’s hair stand on end. Nobody who knows her or anything about her would be the least shocked that you sent her about her business.’
‘It is a huge relief to have her gone,’ said the Dowager, who had indeed been carried down the stairs by a blushing William but otherwise showed no particular signs of decrepitude. ‘I am sure you are right, Rafe, and we will not have heard the last of her, but as Charles says, she is so obviously a woman scorned that her malice can have little effect.’
‘I don’t suppose that I will ever persuade the world that she has never been my mistress,’ replied Rafe ruefully. He seemed so much more relaxed now that his stepmother was gone, Sophie thought. They’d made love with wild abandon in the temple, the first time that intimacy had been entirely unconstrained in either of their lives, they’d realised, and walked back together slowly, hand in hand. He had told her that, while he would always keep the little attic refuge that he’d had for so many years, he would like to move to more commodious quarters now – but not, he’d added firmly, those previously occupied by his father and Rosanna. So they’d spent part of the afternoon choosing adjoining chambers for themselves and arranging for furniture to be moved to their liking; it was not as though their options were limited. Lord Charles and his sister would also need to choose their own rooms now that they could at last make their home here. It would be a fresh start for all of them.
The next few weeks passed in a whirl of activity. Rafe very much wanted his sister Amelia to attend the wedding, and she would not return home for a fortnight or more, so it was decided that they’d have the banns read in the local church, rather than seeking a licence, and use the intervening time to prepare. Sophie had a great need of more suitable clothes, and a trip to London was deemed necessary.
The funeral came first, an extremely quiet affair which Sophie, naturally, did not attend, as women of rank generally did not appear at such solemn events. Rafe and Charles were more or less alone, save for Mr Barnaby and those few of the servants who wished to be present. Some of the local landowners sent empty carriages, as a mark of respect towards the new Marquess rather than the dead man, but none of them saw fit to come in person. And once that day was done with, another weight seemed to lift from Rafe’s shoulders.
Sophie, arrayed in her new London finery, found herself a little nervous when it came time for Lady Amelia to return, just a few days before the wedding. She’d established a firm, undemanding friendship with Lord Charles, who was so amiable that it was hard to imagine him being at outs with anybody. But his sister might be a different matter. The Dowager had said she was clever. She might not be quite so ready to accept the insubstantial story Rafe had concocted to explain Sophie’s own presence here.
Amelia came to her new home in grand style, one of her outriders cantering on ahead so that Rafe, Charles and Sophie could be on the steps to meet her with due ceremony. But there was nothing grand about the dark-haired, vivacious girl who tumbled out of the carriage to greet her brothers with a flurry of embraces and kisses. Sophie found herself caught up too, and swept inside to take tea.
‘I’m excessively glad you are to marry Rafe, Sophie – may I call you Sophie?’ Lady Amelia said artlessly, buttering bread. ‘It will be much, much better than having stuffy old Aunt Keswick as my chaperon for my come-out next year. She’s married Cousin Annabel to a very dull man, though of course poor Annabel is extremely dull herself, but I amnotdull and I am firmly resolved not to do the same.’
‘For once I am in accord with you. I think it may be best if a very dull man doesn’t marry into this family,’ said Rafe drily. ‘He might not like us. God knows, he might not like you, and if he thought he did at first he’d soon learn his mistake. And I’m glad you approve. That’s the only reason I’m marrying, naturally, for your greater convenience, Melia. It’s my only object in life.’
‘Naturally,’ she echoed, dark blue eyes sparkling wickedly. ‘But you’re gammoning me, Rafe. You’re in love, I can tell! It’s written all over your silly old face. Look at you, blushing andlooking conscious! And I am very pleased. It’s time you had some fun at last, you poor, sad thing.’
