Page 47 of The Spy Who Loved Her
But what if he had never intended for her to know his address? If he denied her, or rebuked her for the presumption of turning up upon his doorstep? He had as much a right to privacy as did she.
He might be in possession of a key to her home, might have the freedom to come and go as he pleased, but he had not extended that same privilege to her.
She owed him the courtesy of asking first, rather than assuming. Slowly her hand released the knocker, and she descended the steps and turned back toward the street in the hopes of finding an opportune moment to venture once more out into traffic. The coachman had not gotten far; she could still catch up to her carriage. And then this evening, she would broach the subject with Rafe of visiting him for once—
“Emma? Whatever are you doing here?”
A frisson of surprise slid up her spine at the sound of her name, and she turned to find Diana there upon the pavement, hand in hand with her stepdaughter, Hannah.
“Oh,” she said, flushing. “Diana, how lovely to see you. I was in the area for an appointment with my modiste. But there is so much traffic, I thought to avoid a long ride home with a visit to a—a friend. And you?”
A tiny frown pitched itself between Diana’s dark brows. “We came to invite my brother for dinner,” she said. “Ben has got the carriage, but the walk isn’t too terribly far. And the weather is lovely for it today.”
There was the strangest tone lingering within Diana’s voice, a sort of confusion, as if she had not quite been satisfied with Emma’s explanation. “Oh, well, then, I won’t keep you,” Emma said. “I think my carriage is nearly through the worst of it, besides.”
“Of course,” Diana said slowly. And then she seemed to shake herself of the strange stupor she had found herself in and ventured, “Forgive me. It’s just that I was surprised to see you here in particular. I wasn’t aware you knew my brother.”
“I—I’m not certain what you mean,” Emma said, but the words had come out slightly shrill. There was a sourness that had begun there in the pit of her stomach, along with a dreadful churning. Her heart skipped across a few beats; her palms began to sweat. It was as though all the disparate parts of her body had come to some horrible realization that her mind had refused to accept.
“My brother,” Diana repeated, blinking behind the rims of her spectacles. “Rafe. You’ve just come down the steps of his house.”
∞∞∞
“Do ye want to fetch ‘er down, or shall I?” Chris asked as he stepped inside the terrace door after Rafe.
“You’d better,” Rafe said, aware of the grim tone of his own voice. It was inflected, he thought, with the sound of mourning. As if he had already begun to grieve. Probably Emma would want him nowhere near her bedchamber in the immediate hereafter. The darkness of the room felt nearly claustrophobic, like the house itself had begun to shut him out.
“Nobody need fetch me down.” Emma’s clear, crisp voice sailed through the darkness on a snap of fury. She had been waiting there, still and silent as a grave. Waiting for him to arrive.
A prickle of alarm set the hairs at the nape of his neck standing on end, as if the winter chill had wafted through the door behind him—but no. Chris had closed the door upon entering. The chill had been only the icy blast of Emma’s ire. A cold and frigid thing it was, too dark and deep for any heat to live within it.
They both froze, he and Chris, in the wake of it. Straight to the floor where they stood.
He said, “Emma—” But his voice broke upon her name. Even his tongue knew he hadn’t any right to speak it. But it didn’t matter, because he had no idea what he had intended to say, or why she was already so angry.
She folded her arms across her chest in a defensive little motion, as if to guard herself against his words. The darkness clung to her so sweetly, holding her within it until she was only a faint outline. “I saw my friend Diana this afternoon,” she said. “On the steps of your house.”
“Christ.” Chris scowled. “Ye gave her yer address?”
“No, he did not,” Emma said, though the sharpness of her voice condemned Chris too. “But Dannyboy described it. I happened to pass it on my way home from the modiste, and I thought—” There was a vague movement in the shadows, the woeful shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter. Diana was there. Wondering what might have brought me to her brother’sdoor.”
Hell.
“You lied to me,” Emma said, the coldness of her voice breaking in a sharp, pinging fracture. Her shattered trust was audible within it. “You knew who I was. You let me blather on like an idiot, but you knew. I wondered why you had never shared with me your surname—why you told me nothing substantial of yourself. It was because you knew I would know you if you did. That I would never—never—” Her voice scratched away into a fraught silence broken only by the distressed pant of her breath, tiny gasps she couldnot smother. The sort of sounds one might make when a fist had been introduced to one’s gut. Breath stolen by his perceived cruelty.
“I didn’t lie,” he said. In fact, he had made a concentrated effort notto. “Everything I have told you was the truth.”
“But not allof the truth.”
“No,” Rafe admitted, his hands flexing at his sides in a queer sort of impotence when he would have liked to reach for her, to comfort her. Knowing that she would rebuff him if he did. Knowing that she would revilehim when the rest of it came to light.
“Then you lied by omission. You deliberately concealed things. Things you knewI would have preferred to know. Things I deserved to know!”
“Yes,” he said, in a toneless voice, helpless but to take the accusations she slung at him, for she had earned every ounce of her ire. She just hadn’t learned the whole of it yet.
“And you!” She flung the words at Chris, who flinched beneath the lash of them. “I told you what I wanted. The very lastthing I wanted was a man of my own social set—and you sent me my dearest friend’s brother!” She took a step back, though neither of them had moved in the interim, as if even the several feet away she stood was still far too close for her taste. “I don’t know what is true,” she said fiercely. “But I know you—bothof you—have lied to me. I deserve to know why.”
“Tell her.” The words scraped Rafe’s throat like rusty knives as they emerged. “Tell her everything. But do me the small courtesy of waiting until I’ve gone,” Rafe said to Chris as he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the journal, setting it into Chris’ hands.
