Page 81 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“And little Edward,” Ben added.
He’d been had.So much for a quiet evening. “How the hell did you all fit?”
“With a great deal of flying elbows shoved into soft places,” Ben said. “Incidentally, if you might take a few of our number with you, it would make the ride much more pleasant.”
“You have already got dinner out of me, and I’ve no sympathy left to spare for either of you. I’m damned well walking,” Rafe said, shuffling the both of them toward the door and pausing only to reach for his hat to jam it upon his head. “Butdo enjoy the trip.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
It hadn’t been the quiet dinner he’d hoped for, but there had been something enjoyable in it nonetheless. A sort of peace, Rafe thought, that he’d not experienced in years—despite the chaos of flying food, courtesy of Hannah, and at least four separate conversations taking place simultaneously. Here, at last, he did not have to guard his words or mind his expressions. All secret things had come to light, and he…he had stepped into that light himself. As if the fragmented parts of him had assembled into a whole once more. No longer was he relegated to the fringes of that life which he had always wanted.
It was here; it was now. At a long table stuffed with friends and family both. Those disparate parts that he had long kept separated at last reunited, however strange a company it had become.
Convention might dictate that once the dinner plates had been cleared away, ladies and gentlemen were to go their separate ways, but his family had never been particularly well-suited to conventional things. Instead they remained gathered round the table, and Emma’s servants supplied a few bottles of port to keep the conversation going.
Emma, who had hoarded little Edward for most of the evening, elected finally to pass him along to her left, where sat her brother.
“Thank you, no,” Chris said, with a feral grin. “I’ve already eaten.”
Emma pulled a face, wisely passing Edward instead to Diana, who held out her arms to receive him. “Kit, do endeavor to be pleasant.”
“This is as pleasant as I am capable of being,” he said, and hefted the lovely, ornate cane that Emma had purchased for him in one hand, stretching it across the table to hook the handle around a bottle of port going spare, dragging it nearer in a flagrant and deliberate violation of etiquette. He had not yet learned that Rafe’s family could not be scandalized by so minor an infraction—but Rafe was certain he would. “My leg aches like the very devil, and I’m out of a job, no thanks to you.”
Rafe wasn’t certain who Chris thought he meant to fool. The governmentpaid a pittance in comparison to the fortune that he’d hoarded over his lifetime of illicit dealings. He had never wantedto be a spy to begin with. It had simply been his only option to avoid transportation.
“Out of a job?” Emma repeated the words as if they had not quite made sense, and her vivid blue gaze swung across the table to land upon Rafe. “The both of you?”
“Have you not been reading the papers?” Chris asked. “We were arrested on suspicion of treason. The cat is out of the bag, as it were. Some spies we would make now.”
“Yes, well, I think it’s for the best that those days are behind you,” Marcus said, leveling a firm stare at Rafe—a warning courtesy of an older brother that they hadbetterbe. But then, he’d yet to lose the lines of strain in his face, as if the last week or so had weathered him by years instead of days.
Rafe had begun his career with noble intentions, of course. But the years and the sacrifices he had made to maintain himself within that world had worn upon him. Now, at last, he couldput it all behind him. No more long journeys across vast oceans, no more hiding in plain sight or doubling back upon himself to shake would-be pursuers. No more eavesdropping for tidbits of information or rifling through the contents of some unlucky bloke’s desk in search of secrets.
“Hannah, poppet, wherever are you sneaking off to?” Ben’s gimlet eye had fallen upon his young daughter, who had been creeping steadily toward the door, a book clutched in one hand.
Hannah had the good grace to look abashed at having been caught out. “I was going to find Dannyboy,” she said. “I brought my book of sonnets. We only got to read a few of them.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Emma said on a soft sigh. “I’m afraid he’s not here. He’s got his own home and family to be with.”
A sore spot, Rafe thought. It had been some days since either of them had seen the boy. He’d not come back for breakfast, nor either for the coin to be earned in running errands.
Hannah’s lower lip quivered. “But I was teaching him to read,” she said. “He’s meant to be here.”
By the fragile expression that briefly slid across Emma’s face, he felt she must think so, too. And not only for a brief visit, whenever the occasion presented itself. He ought to have a place at this table, in this house, in their lives.
They would all be so much the worsewithout him.
∞∞∞
“Now that you’ve let them in,” Rafe said, as he tugged his shirt off over his head, “you’ll be lucky ever to get them out again. You’ll have Beaumonts running up and down the stairs, swinging from the rafters, eating you out of house and home. And they’re all terribly nosy, to a one.”
“I beg to differ,” Emma said as she perched upon the end of her bed, the handle of her brush held in the clasp of her hand. “I’ve had Diana and Lydia in and out of my house for years. They’re perfectly amiable guests.”
“Yes, but now—now you are practically family, so they’re not truly guests any longer. All those pretenses of civility will go flying straight out the window. And there’s nothing so nosy or meddling as family.”
“Practically family?” She dragged the brush through her hair slowly, the sleek strawberry blond strands catching hints of the fire burning in the hearth with each slow stroke.
“It’s the damnedest thing, really. You missed the chance to be born a Beaumont, so you’d have to marry in.” He was mostly teasing, but in profile he could see the dimple that had appeared in her cheek and knew that she was amused.
