Page 3 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Not when the only men she knew were of her own social set. Men inclined to gossip every bit as much as the ladies. Men who would think nothing of tearing a woman’s reputation to shreds just because they could. And men, who, crucially, might wield an advantage against a vulnerable widow who commanded a not-insignificant fortune.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t. Not with—with anyone I know.” Not with a man she might encounter atTonevents, whose circumspection might be in question. She couldn’t lie with another woman’s husband, and neither could she lie with an unattached man, who might decide a wealthy bride—evenone long widowed—would suit him well enough. She had too much to lose to risk such a thing. “A man of my social set might expect marriage.”
“Then marry the blighter afore ye fuck ‘im.”
“Don’t be so crass, Kit, I beg you.” Emma steeled her shoulders. “I have no intention of marrying again.” She could not stomach another marriage in which her affection was the greater. It killed a soul by inches to give everything of love, and have only the scraps of it in return. “I had hoped you might know of—of someone suitable. Surely you’re aware of brothels and the like.”
“Sure. Mostly filthy places, overrun with disease. That ‘ow ye want to go out, Em? Riddled with the pox?”
She cringed from the statement. “Naturally, I would prefer a gentleman not afflicted by such ailments.”
“Naturally,” Kit echoed snidely, in a perfect mimicry of her upper class accent. “And while we’re at it, I s’pose you’d prefer an ‘andsome gent. Charming. Genteel.”
Of course she wouldprefer those things. It would make it seem less unsavory.
“I s’pose I’d just direct him ‘round the back?” Kit shoved himself to his feet, pacing toward her. “Same way I come?”
She had never asked him to. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a quiet street. There’s no one—” She flicked back the curtains, peering out into the dim night. Odd. Therewassomeone. One solitary figure mostly concealed in the shadows at the end of the street. A man, she was certain of it. But it was too dark to make out any of his features.
Kit had come up behind her, staring through the frost-misted panes. “No one, eh?” It was meant as a scoff, but it fell quite flat. In the same moment, the lone figure in the distance began to retreat, one slow step at a time, toward the corner. In a moment the man had disappeared round the corner, and the street was quiet and vacant once again.
“Usually there isn’t,” she said.
A beat of silence, so thick she might have sliced it with a knife. At last he asked, “Why?”
And really, there were so many answers to that question. Because she had buried herself along with Ambrose. Because she had gone around in a half-haze for too many years already. Because she had felt just as dead as her late husband, rotting where she stood. More ghost than woman.
“Because I want to feel—” she said, and the words halted abruptly.
“Feel what?”
“Just to feel.” Anything. A touch. A kiss. Somethingthat would rouse her from the stupor she had lived within these past years. Something that might stand a prayer of relieving the agony of always having been the one to love more. Perhaps the very absence of love would do it. Like a curse she had placed upon herself. “Just tofeel.” Turning from the window, she scrubbed at her face with her hands. “Don’t poke fun at me, Kit, I beg you. If you can’t help me—”
“Don’t believe I said as much, now, did I?” Though she’d let the curtains fall once again, still he stared in the direction of the window, as if his piercing gaze could see straight through even the shield of them. “As it ‘appens, I mightknow just the man.”
Chapter Two
Keeping up appearances meant the occasional meal taken at his elder brother’s home, and Rafe could feel Marcus’ gaze upon his face over the pages of the paper he held in his hands. But he’d had years innumerable to perfect his bland, blank expression, and he clung to it fiercely as he carved a neat slice out of the bit of ham upon his plate.
He knew well enough how to hold his silence. How to deflect and dodge, bob and weave. How to disappear into the shadows, and how to slip into the outer edges of a group and behave as if he had always been there. How to be invisible.
For well over a decade he’d trained himself in these things, but the truth was that he’d started learning them practically from the cradle. A spare had a purpose, and he’d served his well enough: to be secondary even within his own family. For most of his childhood—indeed, well beyond it—he’d had the strangest sensation that he’d been forged of glass. Utterly transparent. Not only overlooked, but looked clean through.
He’d even grown to enjoy it, after a fashion. It had meant that the brunt of their Father’s contempt had rarely fallen upon him, that he had borne the burden of few responsibilities and fewer still expectations. It had meant that the bulk of attention had fallen upon Marcus, and he and their younger sister, Diana, had been more or less left to their own devices. And since Marcus had always been hale and healthy and had lately produced a son, thus negating even the tiniest possibility that the title might fall to Rafe, Rafe had been largely overlooked even at social events. No appropriately-enterprising woman aspired to only a spare, even if that spare happened to be the son of a marquess. And most especially not since little Edward’s birth had shunted Rafe down the line of inheritance.
He’d been invisible. And he’d quite liked it that way. No one much cared what he did or where he went. To all outward appearances, he led a charmed life. Prestigious enough in social standing to merit invitations practicallyanywhere he wished, but without all the headache of managing a vast estate or dodging matrimonial traps that might have been laid for a man of greater eligibility. Pleasant enough, affable enough, to find all manner of doors open to him. And yet forgettable enough to the owners of those very doors for his absence to be of no particular note if he slipped away.
He’d gone to great lengths to be exactly that sort of man; one only remembered when present and swiftly forgotten when not. He’d gone to greaterlengths to avert suspicion, to ensure that his public perception was of the idle and genial second-son he was expected to be.
Only now,yearsinto his convoluted ruse, had Marcus grown doubtful of it. His own fault, there. He’d made too much use of his skills—his training—in the service of resolving certain family matters. One or two instances might have been brushed off, but he’d meddled enough for any three men, and more ably than most. Of courseit had roused Marcus’ suspicions.
“Problem?” Rafe asked mildly, popping a bit of scone into his mouth.
“No.” The paper rustled, but Marcus’ dark eyes did not waver. “Not a problem, per se. More of a…curiosity.”
Not a question. Good. One of Rafe’s very first lessons had been never to volunteer information. People, as a whole, were uncomfortable with silence. Too given to filling it with unnecessary and revealing information. The weight of silent suspicion could coax forth the confession of all manner of sins. But not from him. He’d learned to revel in that silence, to let it hang over him, and to maintain a façade of indifference in the face of it—as if he hadn’t noticed it at all. People tended to read innocence into that.
By and large, people tended to see what they wished to see. Hear what they wished to hear. It was a simple fact which had served him well over the years.
