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‘You have nowhere to go, Sophie.’
‘Yes, we do. Mrs Fitzherbert has offered to take us both in until we can find our feet again somewhere. We shall be moving there just as soon as my aunt is well enough.’
That was news to Rafe—but it did not change the facts. ‘And how exactly will you find your feet again with no money. No family. Nothing that will give you the start you and your aunt will need to begin afresh. If it was just you, I have no doubt you would triumph over this adversity and flourish. You are formidable and resourceful and as stubbornly vexatious as anyone I have ever met. But you aren’t alone, Sophie. Like me you have the responsibility of another to consider, one who is too fragile for the long road which would undoubtedly lie ahead if you trod it alone. I know how that feels and it isn’t pleasant. The guilt along the way would crush you long before you both reached your destination. I’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul for years to keep Archie safe. Sold my soul to the army, then sold all that was left of the family silver to put a roof over our head this past year while worrying endlessly of what would become of him if something happened to me and fate left him all alone. It’s been suffocating and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’
He smoothed his hand down her arm, beseeching her not to put pride before a fall. ‘This isn’t charity, Sophie—it is compensation. A debt owed to your aunt by the house of Hockley because she has been a good tenant for over sixty years, and she has not been treated fairly.’
She might not take it for herself, but she would take it for her aunt. If he had to go to her aunt behind her back and twist the sick old lady’s arm into accepting the offer he would do that too. Whatever it took to see this stubborn minx here right. ‘By some miracle I now have more money than I could possibly spend in one lifetime. The rebuilding of your cottage won’t even make a dent in it and my cousin’s debt to you must be repaid. I would never sleep soundly again if I didn’t.’
Indecision furrowed her expressive eyebrows. Pride and need warred in her lovely eyes. But she was wavering, thank God, as common sense prevailed. Or he hoped it was prevailing. In case she still had reservations, he sugared the offer some more.
‘Your aunt would have the freehold obviously, so it wouldn’t be sold along with the rest of the estate when Archie and I leave. It would always be yours, no matter what happens.’ That was the last argument he could think of to counter any objections. Or perhaps there was one more. ‘I am not going to take no for an answer, Sophie. Whether you want me to or not, I am going to rebuild Willow Cottage and the deeds will say Gilbert.’ He smiled, his tone gentle and pleading. ‘And that is my final word on the matter.’
She smiled too, a little bewildered and a lot overwhelmed. ‘I—I don’t know what to say.’ More tears gathered and one spilled over her lashes. Before he thought better of it, Rafe reached out to brush it away with his thumb, then tugged his hand away when it had the overwhelming urge to trace the shape of her face. ‘That will mean the world to my aunt.’ He wasn’t doing it for her aunt, but he wouldn’t admit that aloud. ‘How can I ever hope to repay you for all that you have done for us?’
She reached for his hand and just that touch conjured a hundred images in his mind, all of them inappropriate. In case his imagination decided to run riot with one or two of them, he tugged his hand away and used it to lead her towards the door. ‘You have already resigned your commission as General Gilbert of the whinging Whittleston Rebel Alliance. Trust me, that is payment enough. But enough gushing, we are both on doctor’s orders to get plenty of rest. It’s long past both our bedtimes.’ Like an idiot, he succumbed to the ingrained good manners which dictated he offer his hand again to assist her up the stairs and was sorely tempted to haul her into his arms instead when the contact sent ripples of awareness throughout his body.
Unsettled, and improperly aroused and feeling like the biggest cad for being so, Rafe made small talk all the way upstairs then bade her a hasty goodnight at her door to go and have a long, hard talk with himself. Alone in his room, he decided to pace rather than sit, rationalising that it was better to give his body something to do to distract it from what it had made plain it wanted to do while he pondered his odd and uncharacteristic reaction.
What was it about her that called to him so?
The attraction was more than physical. There was no denying that. There was something about Sophie which tempted him to want more, in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to want in a long, long time. Yet it was a pointless and futile yearning. Because even if she was the one woman in the world able to adore and accept Archie as no eligible woman ever had, she was still hopelessly in love with another man and only just grieving the loss of him. That was an obstacle no amount of his inappropriate yearning was ever going to surpass.
Of course it wasn’t.
Only an idiot would attempt to compete with a ghost, and Rafe prided himself on not being an idiot any more when it came to women. Sophie’s heart belonged to another and likely always would. And just because he had some inappropriate feelings stirring for her which strayed away from the carnal did not mean she felt any for him.
Of course she didn’t.
Only a blithering idiot would confuse the first shoots of a blossoming friendship with anything else, and his heart was just too jaded to risk anything beyond that anyway.
Of course it was!
And that was that.
He was probably still tired. Very definitely a little over-wrought after the day—correction—days that he had just endured. He wasn’t thinking straight.
Wasn’t thinking straight.
Besides, the pair of them had been thrown together in a crisis and that had made everything seem more charged. Made his understandable physical attraction to the witch, who was frankly too damn attractive for her own good, seem like more. When it wasn’t.
It wasn’t.
All was calm. He was still in control.
He sighed in relief as he shrugged off his sling and then his coat. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing in the slightest, because even the physical attraction was a consequence of their enforced proximity and perhaps the charged response to all their shared confidences today. He had held the minx in his arms for goodness’ sake and she was a glorious armful. There was no denying that either. Physically, she was exactly the sort of woman his eyes and urges were drawn to. He might well be immune to romance and all the unpleasantness that went with it, but he was still a hot-blooded male and there hadn’t been much of an outlet for all that hot blood in the last year and a half. A simple enough predicament to fix once his damn shoulder was mended. All he had to do was visit a tavern and use his charm on a lusty tavern wench, and he would be as right as ninepence again. All was well and all would be much better if he had a good night’s sleep.
As his bed beckoned like a lifeline, Rafe used his feet to slide off his boots while he tugged his shirt from his waistband. He tried to undo the knot in his cravat with one hand and, when it wouldn’t budge, tried to assist with his bad arm and his torn shoulder screamed in pain. Frustrated he tugged on the stupid thing while cursing Archie’s too-tight knot, only to tighten it worse as he wrestled with it.
In desperation, he staked to the washstand to grab his razor, and was about to cut the dratted thing off when he remembered that his good hand wasn’t his good hand at all. It was his left hand, and Rafe was right-handed. If he were incapable of untying a paltry knot with his left hand, he’d likely cut his own throat if he attempted to slice it off in a temper.
Annoyed, at both his predicament and his lingering arousal despite the long lecture with himself, he marched out of his bedchamber intent on waking Archie to help him, but as the door slammed behind him, it was Sophie who emerged onto the landing.
‘Is everything all right, Rafe?’
As his necktie now resembled a noose and he was clutching a cutthroat, it clearly wasn’t, so there was no point in lying. Worse, if indeed things could get worse, the vixen had unpinned her hair and it fell in soft, tactile, silken waves to her waist to taunt him some more. ‘I can’t undo Archie’s blasted tie!’
She laughed at his anger. A soft, feminine, come-hither sort of sound which played havoc with the unruly, awakened beast in his breeches.
