Page 46

“Mr. Balfour.”

That silenced him. It had taken all of two seconds to mortify her, and two words to finish it all.

The crates may as well have contained coal. Rafe had left his strength in that godforsaken carriage. His fingers trembled, which only served to make him angrier, his actions faster: bend, grip, step, drop …

“Something the matter?” Alfie’s voice still carried a note of reserve, as though he didn’t quite want to ask. His motions were in perfect contrast to Rafe’s own; he moved with smooth, easy force, not the least concerned about how long the task took them.

“I was thinking you could ride back in the carriage, with her.” Christ, could he not even bear speaking her name now? “I’ll take the cart.”

Alfie sighed, slow and patient. He sat a rain-dampened crate down on a stack of four others in the hospital’s warehouse. Rafe didn’t look at him, but he could hear, in the projection and tone of Alfie’s voice, that his friend had stopped to face him, linking his hands on his hips in that fatherly way he liked.

“Laddie. What’s happened now?” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

Rafe’s pulse pounded in his ears and neck. He heaved another crate against his chest, the wood scrabbling against the nice wool of his coat—a terrible sound. He was probably ruining his clothes. It would be quite in keeping with the rest of the night.

Nothing was on the tip of his tongue as he deposited the crate on the warehouse floor with a vocalizing shudder, but he remained crouched over it, panting. “I almost— She almost—” He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. “We near to kissed.”

The quiet that followed made his words all the harder to believe. He stood, sniffed, and palmed the hair back from his brow. He stepped back to the cart and grabbed the next crate. They were almost done. And when they were, what would happen? She was waiting in the carriage. He had offered her his hand and she had sat there, glowing with anger, and refused to look at him.

He could see her now, arms crossed like a vice across her chest, staring straight ahead as though she meant to burn a hole through the cushion on which he had sat. That was the version of her he ought to remember. Not the close one, with warm lips and large, inviting eyes.

“And you’d rather drive a horse cart in the rain than risk a woman’s affections?” A thread of amusement was alive in Alfie’s voice again.

Grip, hold, step … “That woman’s, yes.”

“You dislike her, then.”

Rafe’s eyes fluttered shut for an instant. God, yes, how I wish I disliked her. “You know I’m to wed Miss Penney.”

“Ah, yes, how have I misplaced that besotted lover of yours?” Alfie was picking up another crate now. They’d finish in half the time. “The betrothal has been announced after all, and you know each other so very well, not a thing about it has to do with the business of parents and coin—”

Rafe’s teeth clenched tighter and tighter, until his jaw loosened and words burst out. “Alf, it must be Penney. He’ll have it no other way.”

The men faced each other. One wouldn’t guess they were at the prestigious hospital, tucked away between the narrow breadth of buildings as they were, sucking in breaths scented of wet straw and amber malt and the acrid Thames.

“This Miss Red Skirts—”

“Miss St. Quinton.”

“This Miss St. Quinton,” Alfie amended slowly. “She’s of a prestigious lot. Why couldn’t she suit Thomas’s purposes for you, if there’s some affection between the pair of you?”

It was the first time Alfie had spoken of her by name, really by name, and not by that foolish moniker. He was talking to him, Rafe, as if Sophie St. Quinton were a real person in Rafe’s life. A possibility. It made his chest scorch with something akin to pain, because for just a moment, Rafe could envision it being true.

“He’s got an understanding with Lord Penney. Even if—even if he didn’t, Alf, her parents would never have me. They don’t need Balfour money. They need someone of character. Someone who’ll follow instructions.” He hadn’t lifted a crate in minutes, but he was gasping for breath. “I cannot be that man anymore. You understand.”

Days ago, perhaps even hours ago, he would have given that other reason: I don’t desire anyone’s affection. Miss Penney won’t wish for my company, nor I hers. That is the only sort of marriage to interest me. But that … That was now false. That strange turbulence in his chest had taken root, and it hurt like hell.

Alf had closed the distance between them to an arm’s length. Rafe didn’t notice it until his friend’s hand came down on his shoulder. “A man who doesn’t take instruction is a man who follows his own heart. You understand?”

Rafe knew what it looked like for others. Alfie himself had been made to battle off unkind remarks in the street, as well as the uproar within his and Lucia’s own families, when they had been wed. He was a wounded sailor and a Black man. Lucia was a grocer’s daughter, her skin as pale as alabaster. Neither of them had let prejudice sever love.

“You’re a stronger man than I,” Rafe said. “You and I’ve both always known it.”

They each gathered a final crate and stacked them on the warehouse floor. The room blurred into one shadowy assemblage of stock, the distinction between containers of gold lace and wooden crutches indistinguishable.

Alfie huffed a laugh. “I’ve near to pissed myself in some of my finest moments. Strength seldom has anything to do with bravery. It’s more a blind trust in yourself. You’ll see.”

One of the pensioners came to count off the unloaded stock, and once satisfied, Alfie and Rafe began walking the horse and cart back to the courtyard. Inside the hospital gates, all was quiet, but the echoes of music and laughter trickled in from the nearby streets.