She nodded jerkily. “Geoffrey showed me once.”
Fury, immediate and swift, rampaging through him, he took a step toward her. “He touched you?”
She scooted back, nearly curled into a ball, shaking her head riotously. “No, no. He showed me a pair of hounds mating.”
Spinning away from her, he plowed his hand through his hair. He’d been contemplating murdering her bastard of a brother. And all he’d done was show her a couple of dogs rutting, but it irritated the devil out of him that he’d exposed her to that.
“I must say,” she began timidly, “that it didn’t appear that the girl dog enjoyed it overly much.”
Oh dear God. Suddenly an unfamiliar sound echoed through the room. It took him a moment to realize it was his laughter. Abruptly he stopped, peered over his shoulder at her. She was smiling and, with regret, it occurred to him that when he was done with her, she might never smile that sweetly again.
“You’ll enjoy it, Eve, I promise you that.”
He strode from the room before he did something rash. He was torn between taking her at that moment and letting her go. Maybe he should flip a coin, but as he’d told her, fate was seldom a friend, and he wanted her too much to take the chance.
Evelyn heard Rafe prowling about in his bedchamber. Perhaps he was right. Best to just get it over with. She took immense pleasure in his kisses. She could only imagine the pleasure she might find in his bed.
He wasn’t Ekroth of the pudgy fingers, Berm of the rancid breath, or Pennleigh of the wrinkles in the wrong places. She furrowed her brow. Where precisely were the right places?
It didn’t matter. Rafe would not have wrinkles. He was young and firm and powerful. She would want to hold him, caress him, stroke him. Lying there like a fallen tree was going to be difficult. Perhaps she should come up with a few rules of her own.
She slipped out of bed, padded toward the door, raised her hand—
But couldn’t quite bring herself to knock. Once done, she would not be able to retreat. She understood that. Such a bold move would result in an even bolder one from him.
The thing of it was, though, she had become more comfortable with him. She’d seen the terrifying look on his face when he thought Geoffrey had touched her, yet she had not been terrified. His anger hadn’t been directed at her. She’d known that, but that he could care so much, so passionately that she might have suffered at Geoffrey’s hand, had caused the misgivings about this arrangement that she’d been harboring to drift away as though tossed on the outgoing tide.
She had little doubt that had Geoffrey abused her, Rafe would have killed him. Or at the very least made Geoffrey wish he were dead. Probably the latter.
She should be horrified that Rafe was a man who would take such dreadful actions, but instead she felt remarkably safe. He would defend her, he would protect her. Had he not been doing so all along? First from thegentlemenwho had come to call, and then from Geoffrey. Of course it came with a price, but it was one she was willing to pay.
It was his laughter that had won her over, that had reached deep down within her, reverberated through her heart. It had sounded rough, like the rusty hinge on a door being opened after such a long period of disuse. He seemed as surprised by it as she was.
She wandered to the window and gazed out on the night. He had revealed only bits and pieces of himself but she was beginning to gain a sense of the whole. Like her, he had been left with no one to see after him. But he had managed to make himself into a successful man. He had not relied on his heritage, but on himself. He was to be admired.
Perhaps someday she would meet a man who would respect her for doing what she had needed to in order to survive.
Chapter 10
The following morning Evelyn enjoyed a solitary breakfast. It seemed Rafe had left for his club. He didn’t return that evening or the next. Or the one that followed. No word from him. Was this the uncertainty that would be her life?
Curiosity had gotten the better of her one night and she’d attempted to open the door to his bedchamber, only to find it locked. She’d tried both doors, the one that led into her room and the one in the hallway. She wondered what secrets he harbored in there, what she might learn about him. He was so mysterious, and if he wasn’t returning to the residence, how was she to come to know him better?
She knew all he desired was the bedding. Unfortunately she dreamed of more.
On the fourth afternoon, following a midday meal, she sat in a chair beneath the shade of a towering elm, near the brick wall that bordered the massive garden of the property beside this one. From a window at the end of the hallway in the wing where her bedchamber was located, she had been able to gaze out and see the large residence with its immaculate surroundings.
As usual, she had spent her morning wandering through the residence, imagining it as her own. She decided that she would convert it into a shelter for women who found themselves in a circumstance similar to hers. She would provide lessons in order for them to acquire skills that would allow them to secure gainful employment, so they were not dependent on others as she was.
Although it was quite possible that he was already done with her. She’d not heard a word from him. Had she done something to displease him? He seemed the sort to point out flaws. Perhaps she should visit a bookshop to see if she could find that book regarding the laws of mistresses. She felt quite ignorant about the whole affair. She supposed she should try to be seductive, but how did one go about that?
On the other hand, if he never bedded her, she’d never be ruined. She scoffed at that absurd thought. Living in a man’s residence was ruination enough. No one would believe that a man as virile and masculine as Rafe Easton had not taken her to his bed.
She heard the childish gleeful laughter that had made her smile on other afternoons. This had become her favorite time of the day.
“Lord Redley!” a woman called out. “Come here, child.”
More laughter, and she envisioned him running beyond the reach of his nurse. Based on the squealed pitch of his laughter, he couldn’t be more than a couple of years old.
