Rake with a Frozen Heart

‘I found you quite unconscious. I thought you were dead at first, and despite what you have been imagining, Miss Markham, I much prefer my conquests both compos mentis and willing. You can be reassured, I made no attempt to molest you. Had I done so, you would not have readily forgotten the experience. Something else I pride myself upon,’ Rafe said sardonically.

Henrietta shivered. She had absolutely no doubt that he was entitled to boast of his prowess. His look told her he had once again read her thoughts. Once again she dropped her gaze, plucking at the scalloped edge of the sheet. ‘Where did you find me?’

‘In a ditch. I rescued you from it.’

This information was so surprising that Henrietta let fall the bedclothes shielding her modesty. ‘Goodness! Really? Truly?’ She sat up quickly, forgetting all about her aching head, then sank back on to the pillows with a little moan as the pain hit her. ‘Where?’ she asked weakly. ‘I mean, where was this ditch?’

‘In the grounds of my estate.’

‘But how did I come to be there?’

‘I rather hoped you could tell me that.’

‘I don’t know if I can.’ Henrietta put her fingers carefully to the back of her head where a large lump was forming on her skull. ‘Someone hit me.’ She winced at the memory. ‘Hard. Why would someone do that?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Rafe replied. ‘Perhaps whoever it was found your judgemental attitude tedious.’ The hurt expression on her face didn’t provide the usual sense of satisfaction he experienced when one of his well-aimed barbs struck home. On this occasion something more like guilt pricked him. She really was looking quite pale, too. Perhaps Mrs Peters was right, perhaps he should have summoned the local quack. ‘Apart from the blow to the head, how are you feeling?’

The true answer was awful, but it was obvious from the falsely solicitous tone of his voice that awful was not the answer he wished to hear. ‘I’m quite well,’ Henrietta said, striving and failing to keep the edge out of her voice, ‘at least I’m sure I will be directly. You need not concern yourself unduly.’

He had been ungracious, not something that would normally bother him, but her not pointing it out somehow did. Rather too quick with her opinions she most certainly was, but Henrietta Markham was not capricious. Her frankness, when it was not rude, was refreshing.

The memory of her curves pressed against him as he had lifted her from the ditch crept unbidden into his mind. Awareness took Rafe by surprise. It irked him that he remembered so clearly. Why should he? ‘You may, of course, take as long as you require to recuperate,’ he said. ‘What I want to know right now is who hit you and, more importantly, why they abandoned you on my land.’

‘What you really mean is, why didn’t they pick somewhere less inconvenient to dump me?’ Henrietta retorted. She gasped, pressed her hand over her mouth, but it was too late, the words were out.

Rafe laughed. He couldn’t help it, she was amusing in a strange kind of way. His laugh sounded odd. He realised it was because he hadn’t heard it for such a long time. ‘Yes, you are quite right,’ he said. ‘I would have happily seen you abandoned at the very gates of Hades instead, but you are here now.’

He had a nice laugh. And though he might be ungracious, at least he was honest. She liked that. Henrietta smiled tentatively. ‘I didn’t mean to be quite so frank.’

‘You are a dreadful liar, Miss Markham.’

‘I know. I mean—Oh dear.’

‘Hoist with your own petard, I think you would call that.’

The band of pain around Henrietta’s head tightened, making her wince. ‘Touché, my lord. You want me gone, I am sure you have things to do. If I could just have a moment to collect myself, I will get dressed and be out of your way directly.’

She had turned quite pale. Rafe felt a twinge of compassion. As she had so clearly refrained from pointing out, it was not her fault she had landed on his doorstep, any more than it was his. ‘There is no rush. Perhaps if you had something to eat, you might feel a little better. Then you may remember what happened to you.’

‘I would not wish to put you out any more than I have already done,’ Henrietta said unconvincingly.

Once again, he felt his mouth quirk. ‘You are as poor a prevaricator as you are a liar. Come, the least I can do is give you breakfast before you go. Do you feel up to getting out of bed?’

He was not exactly smiling at her, but his expression had lost that hard edge, as if a smile might not be entirely beyond him. Also, she was ravenous. And he did deserve answers, if only she could come up with some. So Henrietta stoically told him that, yes, she would get out of bed, though the thought of it made her feel quite nauseous. He was already heading for the door. ‘My lord, please, wait.’

‘Yes?’ She had dropped the sheet in her anxiety to call him back. Long tendrils of chestnut hair, curling wildly, trailed over her white shoulders. Her chemise was made of serviceable white cotton. He could plainly see the ripe swell of her breasts, unconfined by stays. Rafe reluctantly dragged his gaze away.

‘My dress, where is it?’ Realising that she had dropped the sheet, Henrietta clutched it up around her neck, telling herself stoutly there was nothing to be ashamed of to be found to be wearing a plain white-cotton chemise which, after all, was clean. Nevertheless, clean or no, she couldn’t help wishing it hadn’t been quite so plain. She wondered who had removed her gown.

‘My housekeeper undressed you,’ the earl replied in answer to her unasked question. ‘Your dress was soaking wet and we did not wish you to catch a chill. I’ll lend you something until it is dry.’ He returned a few moments later with a large, and patently masculine, dressing gown, which he laid on the chair, informing her breakfast would be served in half an hour precisely, before striding purposefully out of the room.

Henrietta stared at the closed door She couldn’t fathom him. Did he want her to stay or not? Did he find her amusing? Annoying? Attractive? Irksome? All or none? She had absolutely no idea.

She should not have mentioned his reputation. Though he hadn’t exactly denied it, she could very easily see just how irresistible he could be, given that combination of looks and the indefinable something else he possessed which made her shiver. As if he was promising her something she knew she should not wish for. As if he and only he could fulfil that promise. She didn’t understand it. Surely rakes were scoundrels? Rafe St Alban didn’t look at all like a scoundrel. Rakes were not good people, yet he must have some good in him—had he not rescued her, a noble act?

She frowned. ‘I suppose the point is that they must be good at taking people in, else how could they succeed in being a rake?’ she said to herself. So was it a good thing that he hadn’t taken her in? She couldn’t make up her mind. The one thing she knew for certain was that he was most eager to be rid of her. Henrietta tried not to be mortified by that.

Perhaps he just wanted to know how she had come to be on his estate in the first place? She’d like to know that herself, she thought, touching a cautious finger to the aching lump on her head. Last night. Last night. What did she remember of last night?

That dratted pug dog of Lady Ipswich’s had run off. She’d entirely missed her dinner while looking for it, no wonder she was so hungry now. Henrietta frowned, screwing her eyes tightly shut, ignoring the dull ache inside her skull as she mentally retraced her steps. Out through the side door. The kitchen garden. Round to the side of the house. Then …

The housebreaker! ‘Oh, my goodness, the housebreaker!’ Her mind cleared, like the ripples of a pool stilling to reveal a sharp reflection. ‘Good grief! Lady Ipswich will be wondering what on earth has happened to me.’

Gingerly, Henrietta inched out of the luxurious bed and peered at the clock on the mantel. The numbers were fuzzy. It was just after eight. She opened the curtains and blinked painfully out at the sun. Morning. She had been gone all night. Her rescuer had clearly been out and about very early. In fact, now she had a chance to reflect upon it, he had had the look of a man who had not yet been to bed.

Raking, no doubt! But those shadows under his eyes spoke of a tiredness more profound than mere physical exhaustion. Rafe St Alban looked like a man who could not sleep. No wonder he was irritable, she thought, immediately feeling more charitable. Having to deal with a comatose stranger under such circumstances would have put anyone out of humour, especially if the aforementioned stranger looked like a—like a—what on earth did she look like?

There was a looking glass on top of the ornately inlaid chest of drawers in front of the window. Henrietta peered curiously into it. A streak of mud had caked on to her cheek, she was paler than normal and had a lump the size of an egg on her head, but apart from that she looked pretty much the same as always. Determinedly un-rosebuddish mouth. Eyebrows that simply refused to show even the tiniest inclination to arch. Too-curly brown hair in wild disorder. Brown eyes. And, currently in the hands of the aforementioned Mrs Peters, a brown dress.

She sighed heavily. It summed things up, really. Her whole life was various shades of brown. It was to her shame and discredit that no amount of telling herself, as Papa constantly reminded her, that there were many people in the world considerably worse off than her, made her feel any better about it. It was not that she was malcontent precisely, but she could not help thinking sometimes that there must be more to life. Though more of what, she had no idea.

‘I suppose being thumped on the head, then being left to die of exposure, to say nothing of being rescued by a devastatingly handsome earl, counts as a burst of genuine excitement,’ she told her reflection. ‘Even if he is a very reluctant knight errant with a very volatile temperament and an extremely dubious reputation.’

The clock on the mantel chimed the quarter-hour, making her jump. She could not possibly add keeping the earl from his breakfast to her other sins. Hastily, she slopped water from the jug on the nightstand into the prettily flowered china bowl and set about removing the worst of the mud from her face.

Almost precisely on time, Henrietta tripped into the breakfast parlour with her hair brushed and pinned, her body swathed in her host’s elegant dressing gown of dark green brocade trimmed with gold frogging. Even with the cuffs turned back and the gown belted tightly at her waist, it enveloped her form completely, trailing behind her like a royal robe. The idea that the material that lay next to her skin had also lain next to his naked body was unsettling. She tried not to dwell on the thought, but it could not be said she was wholly successful.

She was nervous. Seeing the breakfast table set for just two made her even more nervous. She had never before had breakfast alone with a man, save for dear Papa, which didn’t count. She had certainly never before had breakfast with a man while wearing his dressing gown. Feeling incredibly gauche and at the same time excruciatingly conscious of her body, clothed only in her underwear, handicapped by the voluminous folds of the dressing gown, Henrietta tripped into the room.

He didn’t seem to notice her at first. He was staring into space, the most melancholy expression on his face. Darkly brooding. Formidable. Starkly handsome. Her pulses fluttered. He had shaved and changed. He was wearing a clean shirt and freshly tied cravat, a tightly fitting morning coat of dark blue, and buff-coloured pantaloons with polished boots. The whole ensemble made him look considerably more earl-like and consequently considerably more intimidating. Also, even more devastatingly attractive. Henrietta plastered a faltering smile to her face and dropped into a very far from elegant and certainly not, she was sure, deep enough curtsy. ‘I must apologise, my lord, for being so remiss, I have not yet thanked you properly for rescuing me. I am very much obliged to you.’

Her voice dragged Rafe’s thoughts back from the past, where he had once again been lingering. Be dammed to the precious title and the need for an heir! Who really cared, save his grandmother, if it was inherited by some obscure third cousin twice removed? If she only knew what it had cost him already, she would soon stop harping on about it. He gazed down at Henrietta, still smiling up at him uncertainly. Holding out his hand, he helped her back to her feet. ‘I trust you feel a little better, Miss Markham. You certainly look very fetching in my robe. It is most becoming.’

‘I’m perfectly all right, all things considered,’ Henrietta said, grateful for his support as she got up from her curtsy, which had made her head swim. ‘And as for the robe, it is very gallant of you to lie, but I know I must look a fright.’

‘Frightfully nice, I’d say. And you must believe me, for I am something of an expert in these matters.’

His haunted look had disappeared. He was smiling now. Not a real smile, not one that reached his eyes, but his mouth turned up at the corners. ‘I think I’ve finally remembered what happened,’ Henrietta said.

‘Yes?’ Rafe shook his head, dispelling the ghosts that seemed to have gathered there. ‘It can wait. You look as if you need food.’

‘I am hungry—a dog made me miss my dinner.’

For the second time that morning, Rafe laughed aloud. This time it sounded less rusty. ‘Well, I am happy to inform you that there are no dogs here to make you miss your breakfast,’ he said. The dressing gown gave Henrietta Markham a winsome quality. It gaped at the neck, showing far too much creamy bosom, which she really ought to have had the decency to confine in stays. She looked as if she had just tumbled from his bed. Which in a way, she had. He realised he’d been staring and looked away, slightly disconcerted by the unexpected stirrings of arousal. Desire was usually something he could conjure up or dispense with at will.

Helping her into a seat, he sat down opposite, keeping his eyes resolutely on the food in front of him. He would feed her, find out where she had sprung from and return her there forthwith. Then he would sleep. And after that he must return to town. The meeting with his grandmother could not be postponed indefinitely. An immense malaise, grey and heavy as a November sky, loomed over him at the thought.

So he would not think of it. He need not, not just yet, while he had the convenient distraction of the really quite endearing Henrietta Markham sitting opposite him, in his dressing gown, with her tale to tell. Rafe poured her some coffee and placed a generous helping of ham on to her plate along with a baked egg and some bread and butter, helping himself to a mound of beef and a tankard of ale. ‘Eat, before you faint with hunger.’

‘This looks delicious,’ she said, gazing at her loaded plate with relish.

‘It is just breakfast.’

‘Well, I’ve never had such a nice breakfast,’ Henrietta said chirpily, at the same time, thinking be quiet! She was not usually a female who wittered, yet she sounded uncommonly like one this morning. Nerves. Yet she was not usually one to allow nerves to affect her behaviour. Off balance. He disconcerted her, that’s what it was. The situation. The dressing gown. The man. Definitely the man. This man, who was telling her, with a quizzical look that meant she’d either been muttering to herself or allowing her thoughts to be read quite clearly on her face, that it would be a nice cold breakfast unless she made a start on it.

She picked up her fork. Was he just teasing, or did he think she was an idiot? She sounded like an idiot. He had the ability to make her feel like one. Taking a bite of deliciously soft egg, she studied him covertly from under her lashes. The dark shadows were clearer now in the bright morning light that streamed through the windows. He had a strained look about his mouth. She ate some more egg and cut into a slice of York ham. He was edgy, too. Even when he smiled, it was as if he were simply going through the motions.

Clearly not happy, then. Why not, she wondered, when he had so much more than most? She longed to ask, but another glance at that countenance, and the question stuck in her throat. More than anything, Henrietta decided, what Rafe St Alban was, was opaque. She had no idea what he was thinking. It made her want, all the more, to know, yet still—quite unusually, for Henrietta had been encouraged from a very early age to speak her mind—she hesitated.

A tiny frisson, this time excitement mingled with fear, caused goose bumps to rise on the back of her neck. He was not just intimidating. He was intimidatingly attractive. What was it about him that made her feel like this? Fascinated and frightened and—as if she were a rabbit faced with a particularly tasty treat, though she knew full well it was bait. She was beginning to see Rafe St Alban’s reputation might well be deserved, after all. If he set his mind to something, she would be difficult to resist.

She shivered again and told herself not to be so foolish. He would not set his mind on her! And even if he did, knowing the type of man he was, being fully aware of his lack of morals, she would have no difficulty at all in resisting him. Not that he had made any such attempt, nor was likely to.

More to the point, why was she wasting her time thinking about such things? She had much more important matters to attend to now that she remembered the shocking events of last night. Even before that, she must attend to her stomach, else she would be fainting away, and Henrietta, who prided herself on her pragmatism, would not allow herself such an indulgence. With resolution, she turned her attention more fully to her breakfast.

Chapter Two

When they had finished eating, Rafe stood up. ‘Bring your coffee. We’ll sit by the fire, it will be more comfortable there. Then you can tell me your tale.’

Awkwardly arranging the multitudinous folds of silk around her in the wing-backed chair, Henrietta did as instructed. Across from her, Rafe St Alban disposed his long limbs gracefully, crossing one booted foot over the other. She could see the muscles of his legs move underneath the tight-fitting material of his knitted pantaloons. Such unforgiving cloth would not show to advantage on a stouter man. Or a thinner one. Or one less well built.

‘I’m a governess,’ she announced, turning her mind to the thing most likely to distract her from unaccustomed thoughts of muscled thighs, ‘to the children of Lady Ipswich, whose grounds march with yours.’

‘They do, but we are not on calling terms.’

‘Why not?’

‘It is of no relevance.’

Anyone else would have been daunted by his tone, but Henrietta’s curiosity was aroused, which made her quite oblivious. ‘But you are neighbours, surely you must—is it because she is a widow? Did you perhaps call when her husband was alive?’

‘Lord Ipswich was more of an age with my father,’ Rafe said curtly.

‘He must have been quite a bit older than his wife, then. I didn’t realise. I suppose I just assumed….’

‘As you are wont to do,’ Rafe said sardonically.

She looked at him expectantly. Her wide-eyed gaze was disconcerting. Her mouth was quite determined. Rafe sighed heavily, unused to dealing with such persistent questioning. ‘His lordship passed away under what one might call somewhat dubious circumstances, and I decided not to continue the acquaintance with his widow.’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Rafe said, wishing he had said nothing at all. The poor innocent obviously had no idea of her employer’s colourful past and he had no intention of disclosing it to her. ‘How came you to be in Helen Ipswich’s employ?’ he asked, in an attempt to divert her.

‘There was a notice in The Lady. I happened to be looking for a position and Mama said that it all looked quite respectable, so I applied.’

‘Your previous position was terminated?’

‘Oh, no, this is my first experience as a governess, though not, I hope, my last,’ Henrietta said with one of her confiding smiles. ‘I am going to be a teacher, you see, and I wished to gain some practical experience before the school opened.’ Her smile faded. ‘Though from what Mama says in her latest letter, that will be quite some time away.’

‘Your mother is opening a school?’

‘Mama and Papa together—’ Henrietta frowned ‘—at least, that is the plan, but I have to confess their plans have a habit of going awry. The school is to be in Ireland, a charitable project for the poor. Papa is a great philanthropist, you see.’

Henrietta waited expectantly, but Rafe St Alban did not seem to have a burning need to comment on Papa’s calling. ‘The problem is that while his intentions are always of the best, I’m afraid he is not very practical. He has more of a care for the soul than the body and cannot be brought to understand that, without sustenance and warmth, the poor have more pressing needs than their spiritual health, nor any interest in raising their minds to higher things. Like statues of St Francis. Or making a tapestry celebrating the life of St Anthony—he is the patron saint of the poor, you know. I told Papa that they would be better occupied making blankets,’ Henrietta said darkly, too taken up with her remembered resentment to realise that she was once again rambling, ‘but he did not take my suggestion kindly. Mama, of course, agreed with him. Mama believes that distracting the poor from their situation is the key, but honestly, how can one be distracted when one is starving, or worried that one is expecting another child when one cannot feed the other five already at home? The last thing one would want to do is stitch a figure of St Anthony voyaging to Portugal!’

‘I don’t expect many of the poor even know where Portugal is,’ Rafe said pointedly. Papa and Mama Markham sounded like the kind of do-gooders he despised.

‘Precisely,’ Henrietta said vehemently, ‘and even if they did—are you laughing at me?’

‘Would you mind if I were?’

‘No. Only I didn’t think what I was saying was particularly droll.’

‘It was the way you were saying it. You are very earnest.’

‘I have to be, else I will never be heard.’

‘So, while Mama and Papa pray for souls, you make soup—is that right?’

‘There is nothing wrong with being practical.’

‘No, there is not. If only there was more soup and less sermons in the world….’

‘My parents mean well.’

‘I’m sure they do, but my point is that meaning well is not the same as doing well. I come across many such people and—’

‘I was not aware you had a reputation for philanthropy.’

‘No, as you pointed out,’ Rafe said coldly, ‘my reputation primarily concerns my raking. Now you will tell me that one precludes the other.’

‘Well, doesn’t it?’ Henrietta demanded. Seeing his face tighten, she hesitated. ‘What I mean is, being a rake presupposes one is immoral and—’ She broke off as Rafe’s expression froze. ‘You know, I think perhaps I’ve strayed from the point a little. Are you saying that you are involved in charitable work?’

She was clearly sceptical. He told himself it didn’t matter a damn what she thought. ‘I am saying the world is not as black and white as either you or your parents seem to think.’ His involvement with his own little project at St Nicholas’s was extremely important to him, but he did not consider it to be charitable. With some difficulty, Rafe reined in his temper. What was it about this beguiling female that touched so many raw nerves? ‘You were telling me about the school your parents want to set up.’

‘Yes.’ Henrietta eyed him uncertainly. ‘Have I said something to offend you?’

‘The school, Miss Markham.’

‘Well, if—when—it opens I intend to be able to contribute in a practical sense by teaching lessons.’ Practical lessons, she added to herself, remembering Mama’s curriculum with a shudder.