Cornelia, Comtesse de Vane.
What’s she doing here? Rafe slammed his fist against the doorjamb and a small splinter slid beneath his skin. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in France, rotting away with her crooked old husband at Château de Vane, counting the silver or ordering the servants about, not stealing the register out from under him.
‘Lord Densmore, I’m truly sorry for your inconvenience.’ The solicitor puffed from behind him. ‘Had I known the book was so important to you—’
Rafe held up one hand to silence the man, in no mood to be polite. ‘Thank you, Mr Nettles, but I’m no longer in need of your services.’
Rafe stormed off down the street, the slam of Mrs Ross’s front door echoing off the buildings.
He moved into the bustle of Gracechurch Street, his toe sliding through the now-widened hole in his stocking. If it weren’t for the crush of people, he’d pull off the boot and toss the offending garment in the gutter. Instead, all he could do was keep walking, the wool grating with each step like the memory of Cornelia watching him from the back of the hackney.
He passed a wagon loaded with apples and plucked one from the pile without the seller noticing, turning the smooth fruit over and over in his fingers. What’s she doing here?
She couldn’t have convinced her husband to abandon his native shore. The Comte wasn’t likely to leave after everything he’d done to regain his ancestral home. It meant the old man had either given up the ghost in a fit of ecstasy over his nubile young bride, or Cornelia had spent her time at the château plotting to run out on him just as she’d so cleverly plotted to run out on Rafe.
His hand tightened on the apple, the hard skin pressing against the splinter and making it sting. If it hadn’t taken him so long to raise the money to purchase the register page, he might have beaten her to it today.
Now she had it and the ability to destroy him.
He took a bite of the apple and cursed, spitting out the mushy piece and flinging the whole rotten thing under the wheels of a passing carriage.
Damn his luck. Nothing was working out as he’d planned.
* * *
Cornelia leaned back against the squabs and let out a long breath, relief flooding through her as if she’d faced a man at dawn and prevailed.
Her fingers tightened on the register, the leather cracking a little under the pressure. If she’d dallied a few minutes longer this morning or walked instead of hiring the hack, she might have lost the register to Rafe. Then all her plans to protect Andrew, her half-brother, would have come to nothing.
She eased her grip on the book and closed her eyes, struggling to see Andrew’s dark hair tousled over his small head, to remember the warmth of his little hand in hers as they’d explored the river behind Hatton Place, their father’s slurred and roaring voice blocked out by the rush of water over the rocks. However, one image remained stubbornly fixed in her mind.
Rafe.
His deep tones had rolled into the town house ahead of him, drawing her back two years ago to their first nights together in the tiny room in Covent Garden. The image of him standing over her as she’d lain in the narrow bed, his shirt open at the neck, his dark breeches tight against his hips, made her heart race as fast as it had when he’d smiled at her from across Mrs Ross’s entrance hall.
Except today it wasn’t desire quickening her pulse, but fear. If he’d recognised her through the veil or noticed the register clutched against her like a shield, who knew how he’d have reacted. Thankfully, more carnal thoughts had distracted him from seeing what was plainly in front of him.
She opened her eyes and shifted against the worn leather, irritated at the way her traitorous body warmed with the memory of Rafe’s dark eyes caressing her like a fine shift. She swept her fingers across her neck, the light gauze covering her breasts suddenly as heavy as wool. After the Comte’s waxy hands, even Rafe’s gentle touch would be a welcome relief.
Emptiness slipped in beneath the desire. She rubbed her cheek, still able to feel the scratch of Rafe’s shirt against it as he’d held her in their Paris apartment two months ago. She’d been so terrified that night, clinging to him as she’d repeated the rumours of British men being arrested once war was declared. She’d feared for him and their future. As a woman, she would have been free to go, but he faced the threat of being caught and left to linger in some disease-ridden prison.
If only he’d received such a deserving fate.
She clenched her hands, the black gloves pulling taught over her knuckles. Like a fool, she’d trusted him, sending him off to the card room with the last of their money, believing his promise to return with enough to buy their passage home. Instead he’d fled like a coward, saving himself and leaving her to her fate.
She banged her fists against the worn-out squabs. After all he’d done for her before, how could he have been so cruel?
The hackney made a sharp turn and she gripped the strap above the door. In the rattle of the wheels, she could almost hear Fanny, her stepmother, laughing at her change in fortune. Thankfully, her father would never learn of it. When the letter from Fanny had finally reached her, she hadn’t cried. She couldn’t bring herself to mourn the man who’d felt nothing for her his entire life.
Out of the window, the arch of St Paul’s dome stood over the tops of short buildings and marked the end of long streets. The familiar sight eased some of her anger and pain. There were too many days during her thankfully brief time at Château de Vane when she’d thought she’d never see this beautiful sight again. During the endless hours she’d spent wandering the dark hallways, she’d tried to convince herself marrying the Comte had been a great victory. Who knew the Comte was a bigger charlatan than any she’d ever encountered in a card room?
The hackney hit a bump and she clutched the register to keep it from sliding off her lap. When the vehicle settled back into a rocking gate, she opened the worn leather cover, the papers beneath it yellow with age. The past no longer mattered. In her lap lay a better, more secure future for her and Andrew. With the money she’d raise from the register, she could keep paying for Andrew’s school and prevent Fanny from making good on her threat to send him to her brother in the disease-ridden West Indies.
She closed the book, knowing it wasn’t only Andrew’s future she held.
The fate of Rafe’s entire legacy now rested on her thighs.
The tart taste of revenge filled her mouth, followed by a pang of guilt. She ran her finger down the first list of names, wondering on which page Rafe’s father’s name appeared.
He’ll come after it.
She snapped the book closed, wrinkling her nose against the dust escaping from the paper. Let him come, let him try to charm the book out from under her with all his wit and games. She’d listen, all the while dangling it before him like a sweetmeat in front of a dog’s nose. Then she’d pull it back and watch him writhe in frustration.
It’s exactly what he deserved.
* * *
Rafe stepped through the crumbling brick arch into the narrow alley filled with the deafening chorus of men’s cheers. The noise called to him, drawing him through the sharp turns like a sweet smell draws a child to the kitchen. He stepped around the last corner and into an open courtyard. A large crowd circled two men, yelling and jeering as the hulks in the centre pummelled one another. They fought bare from the waist up, their broad backs covered in open cuts and dark bruises, each blow sending sweat and blood splattering into the dirt.
A