Page 79

Something was damnably wrong. That was the only explanation for these two idiosyncrasies bookending his morning. Rafe left two rashers of bacon on his plate and his porridge untouched. He climbed to the drawing room with deliberate, thudding steps.

“Mr. Balfour.”

It appeared Miss Penney had not bothered to sit. She turned to face Rafe when he entered the room, her fingers fisting over the crooked ivory handle of her parasol. He didn’t return the greeting.

She sighed and raised the tip of her parasol to Thomas’s prize armchair, flicking its red tassels. “It’s quite adorable, what you and your father have put together here.”

Hopefully the fact she still wore her outer garments meant this was to be a brief visit.

“You may think it unseemly for me to call at such an hour, but I find the matter rather urgent, and I was unaware of what hours you … keep at the store.”

He scowled. “I do work considerable hours. How thoughtful of you, ma’am.”

Her narrow mouth compressed, and she gave him a north-to-south assessment. “Might I be invited to sit?”

Rafe swept his hand about the room. He could be deliberately obtuse. She would see. “Certainly. Anywhere you deem worthy.”

Her skirts were a half inch too long, and swished noisily over the carpet as she made her way to the French damask settee in the room’s center. Rafe didn’t move. Making the decision not to court her, not to give a damn what Thomas expected of his marital prospects, was liberating. He felt as though he were seeing Miss Penney for the first time, confronting their mutual loathing and no longer wishing it away.

“Are you so opposed to civil conversation as to not take a seat?” Her hands, still encased in pink netted gloves, pressed together in her lap.

“Ah,” he said, making his tone dismissive, “I’d just as soon remain here. Like the commoner you take me for.”

He leant against the doorframe and crossed his legs at the ankle. That effectively raised the color to her cheeks. For an instant, he wondered what the matter with him was. He shouldn’t want to incense her. He wasn’t a bully. He wasn’t Thomas.

“On to business then. How fitting.” She glared at him. “Seeing as our fathers have reached an agreement, I propose that you and I enter into a contract of our own making. An arrangement that allows us to look out for our mutual interests, so that there may be no illusions between us.”

“That won’t be necessary.” He pushed himself to a standing position. “Regardless of what understanding exists between our fathers, I must tell you, Miss Penney, that I’ve no intention to punish us both with matrimony.”

Her narrow, finely boned face swept up. The whites of her eyes shone beneath the bonnet’s brim. “Do not take me for a fool, if you please. This agreement has been reached for us. There is no choice about it. Only the opportunity to bend it to our individual benefit.”

Heat swirled in his chest. “Some backward discussion in my old man’s study isn’t enough to shackle my life to anyone’s, Miss Penney. Not even yours. Not even for him.”

The memory of Lord Penney’s carriage parked before the storefront swept to the front of his mind. He still didn’t know what that had been about, but furthermore, why did this woman desire misery for herself?

Rafe had been coarsely running a hand over his jaw and stopped. He found her frown from across the room, her back stiffer than a bookshelf. “If this is about securing a fortune for your family,” he said, “I’m certain there are other gents in town with pocketbooks fatter than mine.”

She looked away. Her laugh was dry, like sandpaper on oak, her teeth small in her grimace. “I believe I preferred you quiet, Mr. Balfour. Please, do find me another gentleman to wed! I would only be too grateful.”

“I would be more than happy to aid in your search.” He glanced meaningfully toward the open door. “Beginning tomorrow.”

That brought her to her feet with remarkable speed. Except she angled her fiery stride left of the exit, straight toward him. Only the outrageous breadth of her bonnet prevented her from getting any closer. “Are you being deliberately dotish?”

“I—”

“Has it occurred to you that if any lesser man than the Prince Regent himself offered for me, my father would reject him in favor of you?” Her eyes had a glassy quality, as though at any moment they might shatter into a great number of lethal bits. Between their fixed glare and the utter absurdity coming out of her mouth, Rafe was rendered momentarily silent, his mouth agape.

“I-I’ve seen the way your father looks at me,” he finally managed. “He thinks me beneath your touch.”

“Yes. Of course he does. But the earnings he stands to make on the canal certainly aren’t beneath his touch, are they?”

Rafe’s stomach plummeted. Falling down, down, down with nearly enough force to drop him to his knees. He gripped the doorframe. “What?”

Miss Penney’s gaze flickered curiously over his face. “You truly don’t know, do you?”

The Penneys’ carriage. The handshake. The smile on his father’s face. The … canal? A wave of heat took over his body, as if he were standing in a circle of open flames.

“You can’t possibly be speaking of the Liverpool and Leeds canal.” He had heard of it, as had anyone with interests tied up in shipping. Anyone nearby who owned sheep or could manufacture their wool into usable goods stood to make untold fortunes—but the canal was half a country away and still under construction.