Page 80 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Diana turned on him, her lower lip quivering with distress, her dark eyes glittering with tears. “Don’t jest about such things, I beg you,” she said in a pitiful little voice.
“Ah, hell.” Diana’s husband, Ben, patted at his pockets, and eventually produced a crumpled ball of fabric that might once have been a handkerchief, in its cleaner days. Several straggly bits of multi-colored thread wove through it, frayed from overuse. He tucked it into Diana’s hand, and she gingerly removed her spectacles to mop at her damp eyes. “For the love of God, Rafe, don’t make her cry,” Ben warned. “She’s with child. It takes ages to get her to stop once she’s gotten going.”
“I am aware.” And so would everyone else be soon enough, did Diana’s waistline continue to expand at its present rate. Still, he suspected that the reminder of his brief stint as an alleged traitor was not the only thing to occupy Diana’s mind at present. They hadn’t spoken of it yet, because there had been more pressing concerns to contend with, but the last two Saturdaysbefore he’d been apprehend, he’d been turned away at Diana’s door.
The last time he’d seen her before his arrest, she’d been castigating him within the study of his own home. He had not held it against her, since to his mind he’d richly deserved it—but he rather thought that Diana had held it against herself. That had he been hanged, her last words to him would have been ones of anger.
And so he wrapped one arm about her shoulders and said gently, “I have other obligations this Saturday. Josiah will be on his way to Oxford to settle in before the next term, and I promised Emma I would be with her to see him off. But next Saturday I can manage, so long as you don’t intend to turn me away at the door.”
The faint hitches of her breath turned to full-blown sobs. Ben scowled at him even as he offered his wife a few consoling pats upon the back, which she hardly appeared even to notice. “I am—so sorry,” she said between wheezes. “I should never have done it.”
But she had been angry and confused and righteously indignant on Emma’s behalf. He had lied to them all, in one fashion or another, for well over a decade.Necessarydid not soothe injured feelings, nor ease a well-earned sense of betrayal. “I forgave you at once,” he said. “You’re my baby sister. You’re always forgiven. Immediately, without reservation.”
“Not so much a baby any longer,” she sniffled.
“You’ll always be my baby sister. Even when you’re old and grey.”
“Rafe.” She had meant it to be chiding, but a shred of a laugh had slipped through the tones of annoyance, through even the lingering remnants of tears.
He pitched his voice to a simpering coo. “Even as a hunchbacked, wizened old crone.”
“Oh,stop.”
“Truly. Even when you’ve lost all your teeth and can only gum at your supper.”
“Rafe!” She ground her heel into the toe of his boot.
Rafe winced, gingerly extracting his foot from beneath the pressure of hers. “I’m hobbled enough already, Diana, I’ll thank you.”
“Are you? Your tongue seems to have suffered no injury—though your manners have clearly been beaten to match your face.” Her fractious expression wavered. “You really do look dreadful, you know.”
“A fine thing for a loving sister to say of her brother,” he grumbled. “I’ll have you know that Mrs. Morris is a firm believer in the curative powers ofbeef. I’ve taken to locking myself within my study while she’s about her business, else I’m liable to find myself with a slab of it slapped across my face.”
“Just on the dreadful half, I’d imagine,” Diana said.
“One would think, but either Mrs. Morris’ eyesight is going, or she doesn’t particularly care which part of me is so adorned, so long as it’s found a mark somewhere upon my person.” Rafe gave a rueful sigh and cast his gaze toward the ceiling. “I suppose it could be worse. At least she’s not so cruel as to feed it to me afterward.”
“Yes, well, I suppose that might have something to do with you having spent remarkably little time at your own home just lately,” Diana said. And then, “Oh, do not look so shocked—I only mean to say that peoplewillremark upon it, eventually.”
Ah. Diana was fishing. “That, dear sister, is none of your business. Nor anyone else’s. Ben, would you kindly take your wife and her extraordinarily long nose and be on your way? I have a dinner engagement.”
“Oh, no.” Ben lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender as he took a large step away. “Admittedly my tenure within your family has not been a long one, but I have learned to keep well clear of your squabbles. If you want my opinion—”
“I don’t, thank you.”
“—It’s a damn sight easier to let her have her own way. For allinvolved.”
Rafe pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and let out a heavy sigh. “Is a nice, quiet dinner so much to ask? Truly.”
“Well, you are to miss breakfast on Saturday,” Diana said. “Surely you can afford to spare one dinner. And how quiet was it really going to be, Rafe? Kit is still in residence, is he not?”
Yes, and he was damned surly about it, too. “He won’t mince his words just because he’s in the company of a countess,” he warned. And then, at the pleading look she cast him, he gave in with a groan, knowing well enough that Emma would have no complaints of it. “Very well,” he sighed. “I suppose you’re invited.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Diana exclaimed in delight, but he caught the flash of a guilty expression just as she leaned in to embrace him.
“Hannah’s coming, too, isn’t she?” he asked, and Diana had the good grace to flush.
“She’s in the carriage,” she said. “With Lydia. And Marcus.”
