Page 57 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
“Aye, it seems I am.” Pincher stood his ground, hands thrust into his pockets. He shrugged his shoulders. Every movement was performed with malice. “Where’d you ride off to?”
“Is that any concern of yours?” His hands grew clammy in his gloves.
“Might be.” Pincher’s tongue darted out to lick his lips. He walked in a circle tauntingly. “Just making conversation.”
“Not interested.”
“I like that,” Pincher drawled. “I like it when the mask slips and you show your true colours. You do not let that happen often, do you? A liar, that is what you are. You live and breathe the lie.”
Raphael’s body coiled in anger. Each word from Pincher’s mouth proved what he already knew. “What do you want? There must be a reason you are blocking the path, looking for a fight. Out with it.”
Pincher grinned. Raphael was reminded of all the villains he used to frequent, men who thought they owned the world while contributing nothing of worth to it. He could not begin to imagine how monsters like this were born, how they subsisted on their hollow entitlement. Maybe the world was made for them.
It seemed nowhere in England was safe from greed and coercion, not even a place as heavenly as Berilton Court.
Raphael knew little about Peter Pincher besides the obvious. He had become the groom after his father, who was gentle and had served the Norbert family well. He knew more about horses than any other man in East Anglia.
He was a bully and a brute who did not think twice about striking the stable boys. Most importantly he hated Raphael, though Raphael did not know what he had done to incite the man’s wrath.
“I said, out with it,” he repeated.
“Have it your way,” Peter replied. His face twisted in victorious malice. “I know what you did to the duke’s daughter, and I want to tell.”
Raphael started, holding onto the reins for purchase. He had known what was coming, but hearing his sin spoken aloud made it feel more real. Pincher was not pulling any punches. Raphael was cornered.
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Oh, but you do. I saw you in the cottage together. I saw the silly mare run out with her coat buttons undone . . .” He grunted. Maybe it was a laugh. “I saw you run after me. So, youknowthat I know what I am talking about.”
Raphael looked over the grounds, trying to collect himself. “You are insane.”
“I am not insane. If anyone here is insane, it is you, thinking you can have your way with the daughter of a duke. For what? Because you know how to read and have broken bread with a noble? That does not make you one of them.”
“Is there a point to this? Some of us have work to do.”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid? I am going to tell the duke.”
Pincher clearly thought he was cleverer than he was. It gave Raphael hope. He could not revoke the truth, but he could outsmart him.
“If that were true you would have already done it. It is not the telling, it is something else. What do you want?”
“Well, you did not deny it that time.”A misstep, drat!“All right.” Pincher stopped to scratch his stubble. It fed into Raphael’s outrage. “You who deals in bargains and coin . . . what is my silence worth to you?”
“Blackmail, then.”
“You can call it that. I would call it an exchange.”
Raphael weighed his options. There was nothing to be gained from denying the truth any longer. Pincher was callous. If Raphael did not try and negotiate, hewouldmake good on his threat to tell the duke and there would be no way to mitigate the damage. Raphael had hoped his days of extortion and secret-keeping were behind him. It seemed not.
“You do not deny it then?” Pincher asked.
“What is the point? A rumour could end me just as easily as the truth. It does not matter what I say, what you think. With my word against yours, the duke will cut his losses and give us both the sack. Why bother?”
“Because I can do better anyway. You cannot.”
“Were you spying on me?”
Peter’s expression told him everything he needed to know.
