Page 52 of The Spy Who Loved Her
A scratch at the door of his study pulled Rafe from the muddle of his thoughts, from the fog created by having downed a good deal more gin than was wise. “Enter,” he called, rubbing his eyes with one hand to alleviate the vague burn behind them. It didn’t do much, but then he hadn’t expected itwould.
The door opened, and Mrs. Morris poked her head in. “Lady Weatherford has come to pay a call.”
Bloody fucking hell. Diana hadn’t come to pay a call. She’d come to interrogate him. And he was in no particular mood to beinterrogated—but Diana sailed into the room before he could dredge up an excuse. She drew in a deep breath as she did, and the slash of her brows behind the rims of her spectacles suggested she had arrived in high dudgeon and would not be easily ejected. She hadn’t brought Hannah along with her, either, which meant she meant business.
He thought about rising, suggesting that she’d come at an inopportune time, that he had somewhere else to be. He was not entirely certain that he could hold his feet if he did. He was even less certain that they remained connected to his legs. Instead he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Morris,” and resigned himself to his fate.
Diana had hardly let the door close behind her before she flailed her hands in a helpless little gesture meant to express the depths of her disquiet and inquired in a rapid rush of words, “Are you having an affair with Emma?”
“No,” he said, and comforted himself that it was the truth. Whatever it was in which they had been engaged, it was now definitively ended. Relegated to the past.
Her lips tightened, nostrils flaring as if she had caught the acrid scent of the deliberate obfuscation. The silence that had fallen in the wake of his words stretched out between them. But he had always been comfortable with it, that silence that most people were perturbed by. So he let her make of it what she would.
Diana fisted her hands upon on her hips, and her dark eyes raked over him in intense judgment of his disheveled, slovenly appearance. He knew what she would see, though he’d hardly been able to give his reflection within a mirror more than a glance—cravat loosely-knotted and wrinkled beyond repair. Waistcoat unbuttoned. Hair uncombed. Eyes likely more than a little bloodshot. A day and a half of a new growth of beard shadowing his jaw. Half-empty bottle of gin set strategically near a convenient glass.
“You are ever so clever at dancing about with your words, Rafe,” she said, her voice clipped and more than a little menacing. “So I suppose I must be more specific.Wereyou having an affair with Emma?”
“Thatis none ofyour damned business.”
“She is my friend!” Another queer little flutter of her fingertips, agitation evident in the jerky lift and fall of her shoulders.
“Then you may ask her,” he said. “But I will not share anything which rightly ought to be kept in confidence.” At least—at least Emma deserved to be able to trust him that far. To know that he had not violated her right to privacy in what had passed between them.
“I can’t,” she said. “She was meant to come to tea today. And she didn’t. Of course I was concerned, so I called upon her, and she—she was not at home.”
“Perhaps something pressing came up.”
“She wasn’tout, Rafe. She wasnotat home. To me!” With a wretched sigh, she dropped into a chair, gripping the arms in her hands. “She won’t see me, and I must know...is it because of me, or because of you?”
Rafe sank back in his chair, and even that small movement made his head swim. He shaded his eyes with one hand against the suddenly too-sharp intrusion of afternoon sunlight. “The fault is mine,” he admitted. “Don’t stop trying. And when she does see you, tell her—tell her she never has to see me again.”
“What have you done?” Diana asked, her voice quavered over the words. “For God’s sake, Rafe. What have you done?”
Rather too much than could be fit into a single conversation. More even than he was at liberty to confess, given the sensitivity of the matter. And now, it seemed, he had taken more from her than he had known. Even the comfort she might have found in the companionship of her dearest friend had been lost to her.
He could only shake his head, and reach for his abandoned glass with fingers that trembled. “Just keep trying,” he said as he cast back the rest of the liquor. There was no taste to it anymore, no bitter, punishing burn to coat his throat in fire. He’d consumed more than was prudent already, but there did not exist enough liquor in the whole of England to drown the guilt of it all.
He could run, he supposed, when this was all through. Take a post in some distant country, bury himself in work, and resign himself to never returning to England’s shores. He’d made himself invisible enough that eventually, he would be forgotten. The unneeded spare; the middle brother who had made himself so scarce for so long that probably it would take a few months—a year, perhaps—for anyone to realize they’d not seen him in some time. Probably Diana and Marcus would spare him the occasional thought,until their families grew so large and busy that they hadn’t the time or the inclination even for that much any longer.
It would be a sort of death, but perhaps a kinder one than he deserved. Not to die, but to be erased from memory. Perhaps Emma, too, would forget—and that would be a kindness in itself, too.
But no matter how far afield he fled, he’d still be in his own company. His sins would catch up to him eventually. They always did.
∞∞∞
“You’re going to do wonderfully,” Emma said as she adjusted the lapels of Josiah’s coat just outside the drawing room. He’d acquired a new, confident set to his shoulders in this last week, his spirits brighter. No longer half so nervous as he once had been, and ever so much closer, now, to the man he was becoming than the boy he’d been when first he had arrived at her home.
It hurt her heart, just a little. Another of her boys, grown at last. Halfway out the door already; only this one obstacle left to clear.
“I know,” he said, and managed a sliver of a smile. “I’ve done the work. I can’t let a little thing like nerves shake me now.” He drew in a steady breath, let it out slowly. “I will stand tall upon my accomplishments,” he said, in a faintly reflective voice, as if he were quoting someone.
“Of course you will,” she said. “As it happens, the gentleman who will conduct your interview, Mr. Rutledge, offers instruction in philosophy. He has a particular fondness for Aristotle. He will want to hear your own interpretations in your own words.”
“Aristotle,” Josiah said, and a flicker of relief passed over his face. “I can do that.”
“I imagine you can,” Emma said, since Josiah had a good many opinions about a great many things, and a particular talent for expressing himself with both an enthusiasm and an eloquence seldom seen in boys of his age. “We’ve a few minutes still,” she said. “The tea has arrived, but Mr. Rutledge is quite fond of sugar biscuits. So long as we are not late…”
Josiah ducked his head, a ruffled lock of his bangs drifting over his eyes. “I’d like to go in alone,” he said, abashed. “I’m sorry. I know I said—”
