Page 20 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“My goodness,” she said. “What in the world has happened to your face?”
There was a bruise there, shadowing the better half of his jaw. A mottled deep purple, fading into grotesque yellow just toward the edges.
As if he had forgotten it altogether, his fingertips grazed the mark. “Ask your brother,” he said.
“Kitstruck you?”
“I expected it.” A casual shrug. “In fact, I’d have likely done the same, had my sister’s husband not had the good sense to marry her eventually.”
“You have a sister?”
“It’s not so unusual an occurrence. You have a brother.”
A half-brother, at least. And it wasn’t unusual; it was just that she couldn’t imagine what sort of a family he might have belonged to. A gentleman who consorted with criminals. Or perhaps a criminal who pretended at being a gentleman.
“What is her name? Your sister, I mean to say.”
“Irrelevant. You didn’t ask me here to conduct a family history inquiry, I assume.”
The certainty in his voice was galling, and she found herself lifting her chin in response. “And if I did?”
“I’d have to decline.” Another step closer, and another, the lamplight carving hollows into his cheeks, casting shadows beneath his eyes. “It didn’t matter before. Why should it now?”
It didn’tmatter, really. It was just that she wanted to know. She couldn’t place him within society, at least not with any degree of certainty—what little she knew of him defied reason and logic both. He dressed better than Kit, which might have placed him as a man more of leisure than of business, but his clothes, while undeniably well-made, were plain. Either he had a valet of his own, or he had some skill at tying his own cravats. He was paying a comparative fortune to a young boy to carry notes for him, suggesting he had a comfortable income of his own—and yet, she could not conceive of a single reason that a man of means would consort with known criminals.
It was as if he might simply slide into whichever place he chose to occupy at any particular moment in time, changing roles like some gentlemen might a wrinkled cravat.
With a face like his, with the income she was certain he had—ill-gained or not—he might have easily acquired a wife. Or if not a wife, at least a mistress. If not a mistress, then still he could have afforded to have his pick of women at any one of London’s numerous brothels.
Instead he had made it to the grand age of—what? Five and thirty? Perhaps six and thirty?—unmarried. He had allowed himself to be talked into a liaison with his friend’s sister, and had taken a blow—which he had said was expected—in the doing of it.
Why? What manner of man was he, then?
Still he maintained that silence, one with which he seemed perfectly comfortable, as if he might have let it stretch on between them unbroken forever, unless she chose to fill it.
And she did. “Kit has never spoken of you to me,” she said. “Not once. And yet he’s spoken of me to you.”
“That’s right.”
“Often, you said.”
A shrug. She imagined he did quite a lot of that; he seemed rather proficient at it. “I imagine he’s proud of you.”
Proud? “Nonetheless, it’s…disconcerting, you realize, to learn that someone who is a stranger to you knows a great deal about you.” Ever so much more than she knew about him. And she was certain, now, that it was by design.
“Emma, I doubt that there is a soul in London whodoes not at least knowofyou.” There was a vague edge of exasperation within the words, as if he couldn’t understand what point she was attempting to make, or even why it would have been important.
She suspected that he understood both well enough; that it was only the pretenseof exasperation he was giving. A misdirect, or a deliberate dodge. She simply couldn’t imagine why.
One palm flattened upon the surface of the desk to brace herself and steel her spine, prepared to match wits, if necessary, with a man she assumed had altogether too many. She said, “I am saying that I would like to know more than your given name.” That same horrid little thought traipsed once more through her mind. “IsRafe your given name?”
“It is.”
“You could be lying.” She didn’t know why she’d said it. Perhaps just to needle him, since he seemed to be eternally composed even as every grace she had ever cultivated slipped away from her.
“Lies are inconvenient and troublesome,” he said. “I avoid telling them whenever possible.”
“And when it’s not possible?” she inquired.
