Page 46 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
Clearing her throat, she took the seat beside Edward and watched languidly as a maid served her tea. “Where is Daphne?” she asked, noting her friend’s absence next.
Edward cracked his newspaper. “She was driven up to her parents’ home this morning. The marchioness is poorly, and Daphne wanted to be by her side.”
“I see,” Cecilia murmured, unconvinced.
What if she heard something last night and feels I betrayed her trust?
“And Mr Travers?” she asked next. “Where is he gone?”
“If you came down for breakfast at a reasonable hour you would know these things, Cecilia. His bed was not slept in. One must think he snuck out in the night when the snow abated.”
“He left a note,” her father added from the other side of the table. He flipped through his correspondence, delivering the peskier letters to the duchess as was in his habit. “Thanking us for our hospitality.”
“Mr Travers is a fine man.” Her mother hummed as she considered her tea. “I cannot believe we waited so long before inviting him to dine with us. A pity we could not host him for breakfast as well.”
“I imagine he did not feel comfortable sleeping here.” The duke sighed, asking the maid to pass his letter opener. “He is not to be blamed, of course. That is the way they are.”
“The waywhoare, Father?” Edward asked.
“The working class.”
“Hm, I worried you would say that.” Edward set down his paper, asking Cecilia to pass him the coffee pot. “Must you speak of such division? It is uncouth.”
“Why?” The duke guffawed. “It is the truth. I do not speak it as an insult. I would feel out of place sleeping in the basement. Men are allowed to be different.”
Cecilia stared at her empty plate, her stomach groaning not with hunger but with guilt. They could theorise about Mr Travers’ departure all day long, but they would not glean the truth. Cecilia had driven him from the house because of her behaviour. Raphael had walked through a blizzard just to be away from her. He was probably sick.
“Should one of us not check on him?” she asked. Her mother began plying her with croissants and jam. She took a weak bite of her pastry. “Was not the reason we bullied him into staying to avoid him getting sick?”
The duke scanned his newest letter. “He has the day off to recover if that is the case. We should all spend the day in recouping from our travel, leisurely.”
“As if we do anything else,” Edward remarked.
Cecilia agreed dishonestly, knowing that as soon as breakfast was over, she would walk to Mr Travers’ cottage.
Raphael woke around noon. He stretched on his bed, rubbing his hands over his face. For a split second, he existed in that ignorant peace that came with waking, where worry did not exist. Then he remembered what had happened the night before.
He inspected his knuckles for frostbite as he prepared something to eat. They were red and raw but not cracking. It had been an act of lunacy to walk from Berilton to the cottage in the snowstorm. He could barely see five feet in front of him between the darkness and the blizzard. It was a miracle he had not died, slipped on a patch of black ice, his head cracked open, red on white on black.
Better that than deal with his guilt.
He devoured his bread and butter, moving to prepare some coffee. The busywork did not distract him long. In earnest detail, he recalled Cecilia. He would never forget. Not the way she felt, the way she smelled. Nor the way she looked at him with betrayal when he had withdrawn his hands from under her skirts.
In that moment, he had been consumed by his desire, holding onto nothing but a mote of his good sense. He could not claim Cecilia in good conscience, even if it killed him to live without her touch. He would ruin her, and in time she would regret what they had done and hate him because of it.
It was better to live as strangers than enemies, if they could not live as lovers.
Someone rapped the knocker on the front door, and he froze. He called for them to wait and dashed into his bedroom, whipping on the first cotton shirt he found. He hesitated at the door, glancing through the frosted window before opening it.
Cecilia was there, half-turned from the house. She was dressed in a wool pelisse and matching hat, flecked with light snow.
“May I come in?” she asked. Her breath misted before her face.
Raphael hesitated. “Does your family know you have come?”
“Lady Daphne has gone to visit her mother and father. I told Papa I had planned to walk to their estate and join her.”
Daphne’s father, The Marquess of Townshend, resided a thirty-minute walk away.
