Page 51 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
She paused to look at him. “I must return home before Mama suspects a thing. I am sorry . . . but I must.”
“Why would you be sorry for that?” His words dripped with spite. “No, you are right. I should let you go,” he amended, embarrassed. She did not deserve his anger.
Cecilia did not look at him before she left.
Some time passed before she was out of the house for good, collecting her effects from the living room. When the door slammed shut, the cottage rocked on its foundation. Raphael lurched forward, racked with feelings of shame and rejection.
She would not have said she loved me if it was untrue. She would not use me knowing it could ruin me. I know her. I love her. I came on too strong.
The words looped in his mind as he slipped on his shirt and trousers. Barefoot, he padded into the kitchen. Cecilia had spent little more than an hour in his home, but her presence was all around him. He fingered his copy ofHamlet, fighting the injustice writhing within him.
Something clattered outside, drawing his attention.
“Cecilia?” he called, sprinting for the door.
It swung open. The path to the cottage was clear. Raphael scanned the area, walking around the house. The grass was woven with frost underfoot, undisturbed, but the wooden fence around the front garden had caved in. Someone had tried to climb over it, and he doubted it had been his lover.
The sound of hooves was faint but unmistakable now that he knew to listen for them. He glanced down the road that led to Berilton. There was a spot of dark in the mist. A horse and its large rider.
A rider who was undoubtedly Peter Pincher.
*
The terrace door of the manor yawned to a close. Cecilia stopped for breath at last, having run most of the way from Raphael’s cottage through the garden. She sank against the door and pulled a little fallen twig from her hair, most likely collected from the dormant apple boughs that lined the path to the main road.
Flicking it between her fingers, she knocked her head back against the mahogany and collected herself. Her tears had mostly dried by that point, tears which she chalked up to her exertion. An awkward goodbye was no reason to cry after all, she told herself, and she had not said or done anything that was cause for sadness, nor had Raphael.
He suggested marriage out of courtesy, nothing more. Yes, that must be it. You have no reason to be upset. Oh . . . but what is this feeling?
Dusting off her coat, she inspected herself for signs of their tryst. Was the loss of a woman’s purity something that could be noticed outwardly? Her gloved hands and booted feet looked the same as always, though her shoes were now caked in muck.
Her body felt mostly the same aside from a queer set of aches and tingles between her thighs. Her loins panged delightfully as she recalled their lovemaking, and she was surprised to find she did not regret a moment of it.Well, except for one.
“Oh, I imagined you would be Edward.”
Cecilia gasped and shot back against the door, clutching the front of her coat. Her mother had appeared at the other end of the empty ballroom, followed by her lady’s maid. The duchess cocked her head, her dark curls bobbing around her face.
“You imagined I would . . .” Cecilia shook her head. “I am just come in from a walk. You startled me.”
“A walk?” Her mother dismissed her attendant with a listless wave of her hand. She was holding a set of papers that looked suspiciously like plans for a ball. “Your note said that you were visiting Lady Daphne and the marchioness.”
“The note? You found it.”
“Was I not supposed to? Whatever is the matter with you? Why are you returned so early and in such a state?”
Cecilia cursed her poor acting skills. She pushed herself away from the door and forced a smile. The sooner she was by herself the better. “Nothing is the matter. I am exhausted, that is all. It is nothing a moment to myself will not solve.”
“Oh Cecilia, you could have taken a carriage. How many times have I warned you against traipsing around the country like the daughter of a farmhand? We are not built for such base exercise, you know.”
Cecilia wondered whowewere.
“Of course, but you know me. I love the fresh air, Mama. Yes, I cannot get enough of all that lovely air.”
She eyed her mother cautiously, who was barring the only exit. She crossed the room and cleared her throat.
“The truth is that you are right. I thought I knew better than you and pushed myself too far in my . . . exercise. I did not make it halfway to Hapthorn Castle before feeling rather faint and turning back. I should like a bath and some tea, if you would excuse me.”
With a disbelieving look, her mother stepped aside. Cecilia had just reached the stairs when she heard her mother call her back.
