Page 39 of Escaping the Earl
At this, Rafe chuckled darkly. “Sweet? I’m anything but. However, that is a discussion for another day. Now tell me what he’s done to you.”
“He hasn’t done anything,” she insisted.
“Sabrina, I hired you for Isla because I sensed you were honest and trustworthy. Please do not disappoint me.”
Sabrina blinked away a fresh set of tears. “I fear you will dismiss me from your service.” Isla scooted away from Rafe and crossed the coach to sit next to Sabrina. She hugged herself against Sabrina, trying to comfort her.
“Please don’t cry, Brina,” Isla said in a woeful little voice.Brinawas the child’s nickname for her, and somehow it only made the tears come harder. She put an arm around Isla’s shoulders and hugged her back.
Rafe’s harsh gaze softened as he watched them. “I highly doubt there’s anything you could do that would make me terminate your employment, but I swear on my honor—what little my brother believes I have—that I will not terminate your position as Isla’s governess.”
That trust she’d felt from the first moment she’d met Rafe hadn’t vanished. She knew he would not judge her.
“Shortly before I met you at that inn, I fled my home. My brother ran out of money, and he and his wife schemed to sell me to a man in marriage to have all of his debts erased. But that man was no gentleman. He demanded that I be inspected, to have my virtue proven to be intact before he would marry me, and he made it clear that my sole purpose in life would be to provide him with an heir. He cared not a whit for my feelings. Naturally, I had to dream up a way to avoid this fate.”
A frown furrowed his brow. “Naturally,” Rafe agreed.
“That night, I overheard my sister-in-law complain that she could not go to Lady Germain’s ball.” She looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “It was a masquerade, and so I put on my mother’s court dress and an old mask. I walked to the manor house and danced with the most wonderful man before I slipped out into the gardens with him and... well...” She didn’t continue. Isla was watching her and Rafe intently, trying to figure out what came next.
Rafe’s eyes widened with sudden understanding.
“No... it can’t be.Hewas the man you chose?”
She nodded. “I did not know it at the time, of course. He danced so wonderfully, and I felt so at ease with him. When we walked into the gardens, I felt at peace in a way I never had before. We were together that night beneath the stars, and he was everything I never knew I could wish for, but we never removed our masks or shared our names.”
There was a moment of silence in the coach, and Sabrina focused on the pounding beat of the wheels hitting ruts in the road. Rafe considered what she’d said, staring out the window, tapping his upper lip. He turned to look at her again.
“Buthowdid you know it was him here?”
“When he rescued Celeste from the mud, I thought he was a land steward. I felt that same ease with him as I had with the masked man.”
“But surely that was just your mind seeing what it wished to see.”
“True, but I could not shake the feeling. I didn’t realize he was the man in the mask until...”
Rafe reached over and covered Isla’s ears with both of his hands. “Until?” he asked, urging her to continue. Isla tried to push her father’s hands away, then gave up and frowned at him.
Sabrina closed her eyes for a brief instant, reliving the memory.
“Until I kissed him again. It was his scent, leather and sandalwood, and something unique only to him. And it was the way he kissed me. I knew at once he was the masked man from the ball.”
Rafe released his hands from Isla’s ears. “You.Youwere the enchantress in the silver gown. My God.”
“I was.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “After you left, Peregrine was lovestruck. I’d never seen him like that. He pined after you for months. It took quite a bit of convincing for him to let you go, and I fear I am in part to blame for that. I told him you were a dream, that no one could be as sweet as you seemed to be. It’s a funny thing, to be wrong. I’m not used to it. I don’t think I like it.” He was silent a long moment. “And here? What happened between the two of you this week during the party?”
Sabrina smoothed her fingers over the fabric of her gown. Her throat tightened, and she had to focus on control lest she start to cry again.
“We fell in together so easily, and once I knew it was him... I could not help myself. I wanted to be with him again, to be with him in all ways possible. I knew it couldn’t last, but for a few days I could pretend. I just grasped what brief happiness I could before letting him go.”
“I understand,” Rafe replied, his voice soft and gentle. She’d expected outrage and judgment, but she had to remind herself that Rafe wasn’t like other men.
“When he spoke to me this morning, he said he wanted me to come to Ashbridge with him. I thought...” She choked on the rest of her words.
“You thought he meant to offer marriage,” Rafe finished.
Sabrina nodded. “It was silly of me to think that. He doesn’t even know that he met me before. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want him to think less of me for being a woman who...”
