Page 8 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“You had a happy marriage, then.” God help him, he didn’t know if he wanted her to confirm or deny it.
“Say rather a pleasant enough one,” she said slowly, as if it pained her to admit. “For the most part. As pleasant as a marriage could be, when the most I could ever expect of my husband was a sort of vague fondness. Perhaps the occasional show of some manner of affection. And I think—I would like to forget that. Just for a little while.”
Ah. In the arms of another man. One she did not expect to love her, one she did not wantto love her. One who could not disappoint her, for she would have no expectations to disappoint.
Which was damned inconvenient, when one considered that he had been desperately in love with her for more years than he cared to count. Dangerously close to half his life.
Emma blinked back the glassy sheen that had, however briefly, slid over her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said softly. “I have been unbearably rude. Would you care for a drink?”
God, yes. Perhaps a drink or two would ease the tightness of his jaw. Then again, it might also loosen his tongue. He’d never been tempted to spill secrets of state, even when three sheets to the wind. But he’d also never stood quite so close to Emma while he’d been drinking, either. At the very least, a glass would give his hands something to hold other than her. “Please,” he said.
She turned toward the sideboard, set with a number of crystal liquor decanters. “Have you a preference?”
“Whatever you’re having. I’ll not take offense should you desire another glass. I cannot imagine this has been a comfortable evening for you thus far.”
An odd, crystalline laugh sparkled from her lips. “No,” she said, but there was at least a tiny shred of true mirth in it at last. “No, it hasn’t. I didn’ttruly think it would be, you see. I’m not quite certain what I expected.” Some of that wretched tightness eased from her shoulders as she poured, first into his glass, then her own again. “I mucked it all up from the start, I suppose.”
She had, of course, from the very moment she’d decided to meet him somewhere other than her bedchamber. It was always best to begin as one meant to go on. He took the glass she offered with a small nod of thanks.
“I wasn’t certain what sort of man Kit would send to me,” she said. “He never said, of course. Out of curiosity, may I ask…what is the nature of your association with my—with Kit?”
A minor stumble; probably she was not accustomed to discussing her half-brother with just anyone. He said, “A longstanding friendship,” which was also not a lie. And then, to put her at ease so that she did not feel the need to guard her tongue quite so closely: “Your brother speaks highly of you.”
She gave a small start at that, as if it had surprised her that he had some awareness of the nature of her relationship to Chris. “Half-brother, I think he would say,” she offered with a wan smile. “To tell the truth, I find myself surprised that he speaks of me at all.”
Strange. Chris had spoken of her for years and years. In the beginning, when they had first become acquainted, he had thought it an attempt to claim a connection, however nebulous, to the aristocracy. But eventually, he had learned that Chris had simply been fond of her in his own way. By the time Emma had had her come-out, Chris had already been a powerful, dangerous figure within London’s dark underworld. He’d long used his influence to keep an eye on her, prying secrets and stories from those he’d placed within his noble father’s household.
Rafe had fallen hopelessly in love with the girl from those stories that Chris had shared, long before he’d ever seen her.
They’d both thought Ambrose had, too.
“I imagine he guards the nature of your relationship rather closely,” Rafe said. “Possibly he suspects that were it to become common knowledge, it would not reflect well upon you.” With one hand he gestured to the couch some distance away. “Will you sit?”
Belatedly she must have realized that a gentleman did not sit while a lady remained standing. “Oh. Oh, yes, of course,” she said, smoothing at her skirts with quick, nervous fingers as she took a seat upon the couch. Those watchful blue eyes observed as he took the seat beside her. Not too very near; not so near that a chaperone would complain of it, ifone had happened to be about. But near enough, he thought.
Near enough that he caught just a hint of the fragrance of her perfume. Lemon verbena, tart and bright. Like all the warmth of summer bloomed there in the hollow of her throat, where she must have placed the drops. A lovely contrast to the chill of winter that sat heavily over the city.
“I think,” she said softly, bending her head over her glass, a lock of her vibrant hair drifting free from its ribbon and sliding down over her shoulder with the motion. “I would have preferred to weather the scandal if it had meant I might have had a brother in truth. Children shouldn’t be held responsible for the circumstances of their birth.”
Rafe wasn’t surprised. Perhaps he ought to have been, since the aristocracy at large seemed to be eminently more comfortable pretending that the baseborn offspring of their ranks did not exist at all. But for the girl whom Chris had first described so many years ago—no. “I’d wager you’ve harbored more than a few by-blows within your home over the years,” he said, letting his arm drape across the back of the couch they occupied.
“I couldn’t begin to speculate,” she said, though a tiny smile nudged at the corners of her lips. Probably, he thought, she could speculate well enough—she just wasn’t uncouth enough to do so in anyone else’s hearing.
“How many children have you got at present?”
“Twenty,” she said, and relaxed a fraction more. “Do you know, nobody has ever asked me that.”
“Truly? It seems the sort of question one ought to ask.” But then, Rafe had the sneaking suspicion that no one cared about the children quite as much as Emma did. She had established her home as a charitable organization of sorts, and there were always those willing to contribute monetarily.
But they did not wish to be troubled with the minutia of Emma’s works, nor with the details of rearing children that they considered to be beneath them. The scratching out of a bank draft was the work of a moment, while Emma—Emma spent the vast majority of her time caring for the children she had taken in. Teaching them. Nurturing them. Loving them.
“They don’t, however,” Emma said, and there was just the slightest tinge of regret to the words. “I am fortunate to count many members of the aristocracy as…patrons of a sort,” she allowed. “Even the King himself has generously contributed to the care and keeping of the children. But for most, I expect, it is simply something to which they do not give much thought. Charity for charity’s sake alone.” It comforted her somewhat, he realized, to speak of this area of her life, the one to which she had dedicated herself so thoroughly. At the very least it had driven away the bulk of the restlessness, the anxiousness which had plagued her. Her spine had softened, fitting itself to the back of the couch, and her shoulder rested but an inch or so from the very tips of his fingers.
And this was, after all, meant to be a seduction of sorts. A guaranteed one, but a seduction nonetheless.
“Which are your favorites?” he asked. “The boys? The girls?”
That dark blue gaze sheared to his, and she blinked as if she had not quite understood the question. “They are all my favorites,” she said. “Every child. Every one.”
