The Return of the Disappearing Duke

by Lara Temple

  ‘Well, then, what did you fight about?’

  ‘Him trying to kill a maid because she giggled.’

  The air squeaked out of her lungs. He turned at her silence, his smile wry.

  ‘I come from bad stock. Are you certain you want to be alone in here with me?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish. Whatever your father was, you are as sane as I.’

  He walked along the wall, his gaze moving over the carvings, but she could feel things shifting about inside him. She wanted to stop him, turn him to her and have him tell her...everything. He seemed so open sometimes but with every snippet he revealed she felt the mystery grow. And her curiosity. He must have come from a well-to-do family—it was in the way he spoke and a certain ease, that expectation that people would follow. But there was much more and that was mostly hidden in darkness. Now she felt he was finally twitching back a corner of the curtain and it shocked her how much she wanted to pull it away completely. He remained silent so long she was certain he had no intention of continuing his revelations, but he surprised her again.

  ‘I used to have dreams that they would come and switch me, as well.’

  ‘Switch you? Who?’

  ‘Whoever kept switching him into a violent fanatic. It almost made me believe in demons and possession, which would have made my father very happy. He was a fire and brimstone zealot.’

  ‘Perhaps...perhaps it was an illness?’

  ‘Perhaps. Since we never spoke of it, I never asked. Whatever it was, that was why I ran away.’

  ‘But...your mother? She must have been frantic.’

  ‘Frantic is not a word one would associate with my mother. Her object was always to keep the surface of her world calm. She was a master...sorry, mistress of control. If it calms your conscience, I did write to her after I enlisted.’

  ‘And she didn’t object?’

  ‘She objected to my choosing to enlist rather than purchasing a commission. She told me she preferred I join the Dragoon Guards so I didn’t have to mix in low company.’ His voice rose in a mincing falsetto and she smiled.

  ‘I have a notion your mother does not sound like that.’

  His mouth relaxed into a smile. ‘No. She’s a true martinet.’

  ‘So? Did you join the Dragoons?’

  ‘Hardly. I joined the Rifle Corps when it was formed and that summer I was already losing my first battle in Spain. The next year I won my first battle in Copenhagen.’

  ‘What did your mother say about that?’

  ‘I have no idea. I did not speak to her until Edge’s son was born. I was thirty by then and since I was already several years into this mercenary business, the issue didn’t arise.’

  Each of these lightly delivered revelations were blows that made her heart give a heavy, painful thump before hurrying along again. He didn’t sound angry, but she was; she was furious for him. It was burning and crackling inside her. She wanted to reach through time and space and shake sense and love into his parents. How could they not have cared?

  ‘Well, I am very happy Birdie found you. He strikes me as a far better person than your parents.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. Though to be fair, I found him. One of my many talents—I know a good egg from a bad one.’ He grinned at her over his shoulder and she felt a flush of pure pleasure.

  ‘I’ve never been called a good egg before. As far as compliments go... I like it.’

  His smile softened and for a moment they stood there in silence. She’d never felt so cut adrift from life and yet so very right where she should be. Home. The thought shook her but before she could even pull away from it, Rafe turned back to carving of a woman standing beside a crowned man holding a staff.

  ‘Could this be your namesake?’ he asked, his voice curious, calm and distant. She recognised the question for what it was. The end of his revelations.

  ‘No. From what I understand this style is much earlier than Greek times. By that disc I think this is Amun, god of the sun. You said your brother is a scholar, he would no doubt enjoy this.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘When I was a child I always wanted to see the places my father mentioned when he came to visit us in England,’ she said. ‘But I never imagined I would. When we were at the orphanage...’

  He turned abruptly.

  ‘You were in an orphanage?’

  ‘After my mother died; but only for a year. Then a ship’s captain arrived with a letter from my father saying he would take Dash.’

  ‘Only Dash?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Well, to be fair, I can understand his dilemma. Being saddled with a girl, especially in this part of the world, is not easy. But I couldn’t allow them to take Dash without me so I cut my hair and took his second-best set of clothes and we both presented ourselves at the ship and said the message must have meant sons, plural, not son, singular. I am quite convinced the Captain saw through our ruse, but he was a kind man and probably took pity on me. The orphanage was not very salubrious.’

  In the gloom of the temple she found it hard to read his expression but her pulse picked up, like a camel sensing predators beyond the cliffs.

  ‘I did not tell you about my childhood to make you pity me, Mr Grey.’

  ‘I don’t pity you. Between an orphanage and your current life, I think you chose well. But forgive me if I think your father was a complete louse.’ He spoke with barely suppressed violence. ‘I cannot understand people who abandon their children. If you don’t want them, don’t have them.’

  ‘Perhaps that is something one does not know until one has them?’

  ‘That is no excuse.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you seem angrier with my father than with yours.’

  ‘I used to be viciously angry with him,’ he said finally, to the pharaoh.

  ‘Not any more?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘When I heard he had died, I thought it would come back, but I can’t find it. I think...if he was mad it is unfair to be angry with something beyond his control. Don’t ask me about my mother, though. And I mean that seriously, Prying Pat.’

  His smile was back so she didn’t mind the rebuke. They stood for a moment in the darkening silence. It occurred to her she’d never felt more comfortable with anyone. She didn’t want to return to Cairo, or England. She wanted to stay right here, with Rafe. She saw her hand rise just as he turned towards the entrance.

  ‘I’ll fetch our belongings and we’d best eat and have an early night. We should reach the river tomorrow.’

  Chapter Eight

  An hour later Cleo was heading back towards the temple through the palms, her arms full of brush for the fire, when she saw Rafe by the well.

  He stood with his back to her, his shirt off, his back glistening with water as he shaved. The lowering sun was adding red and gold to everything and it transformed his back into a landscape far more arresting than any she’d seen on their trip. Like the desert, its power was rough and raw. Beautiful.

  She stood rooted, like Lot’s salt pillar of a wife. She couldn’t look away. Her heart began thumping viciously, her skin burning, and a moan bubbled up inside her. It had been building this whole week, images and thoughts and sensations knitting together into one stifling fabric of need.

  She would never have imagined a week ago that one of her chief worries was an increasing tendency to daydream about a brusque and flippant mercenary. She couldn’t even blame him. All he was doing was shaving peacefully. She, in turn, was on fire. She wanted to skim her tingling palms down that sculpted expanse, feel every curve and contour, slip them round to his flat abdomen until her fingertips brushed the dark hair arrowing down...

  She knew she should move on, but she remained where she was, wishing he would turn to her, not with his teasing laughter or compassion, but mirroring the heat she felt flooding
her, making it hard to breathe.

  He poured water from the gourd over his head and face, rivulets forming shiny stripes down his back. She swallowed as he dried his face with a strip of linen, his touch slowing and softening as it moved over his scarred shoulder.

  Her heart squished itself into a little ball, shoving back the lascivious storm. What she wanted more than anything was to wrap her arms around him and touch her lips to that shattered, tortured skin. Soothe it...him...

  Oh, this is not smart at all, Cleopatra. Lust is one thing, caring is another matter altogether.

  Their journey was about to come to an end. In a couple of days she would never see him again.

  Repeat after me: you will never see him again.

  He turned, his hand still on his scars, his eyes locking with hers. She didn’t know what she looked like, but she was afraid he could see everything. His hand descended slowly from his scars and she watched it with something like horror, as if waiting for him to extend an accusing finger. She’d been hot before, but her face blazed like the noonday sun. She swallowed and stepped back, stumbling a little.

  ‘If my scars bother you so, you must stop sneaking up on me when I am shaving, Cleopatra.’

  His voice was utterly flat and her mind utterly aghast, so it took a moment for her to register his words. She dragged her gaze up from his chest to his eyes.

  ‘That’s not... I wasn’t... They don’t...’

  He walked towards her, still with that same flat look. She tried to gather her thoughts, explain...

  Explain what? That’s she’d stood lusting after him behind his back? That even now she wanted to reach out and take...

  Perhaps if he had stood still she might have been able to think of something sensible and mature to say, but he kept coming towards her and her mind joined her body in the wishful clamour—perhaps he would not stop...he would put those big hands on her, touch her, bend down to press his half parted lips on hers...

  He was within an arm’s reach from her, he extended his arms... God, she would combust faster than dry papyrus if only...

  With a faint, unamused twist of his mouth he took the bundle of twigs from her arms and walked past her.

  She stood for a moment, heat and horror warring inside her for dominion.

  It was only a few short moments but it felt as though she’d been down to the rings of purgatory and back.

  Nothing like that had ever happened to her. Not even with William when she’d been young and foolish and—despite her father—still believed in love and dreams come true. She’d thoroughly enjoyed their embraces, even if they’d led to humiliation and disillusionment. But she’d never felt...fire.

  She’d never felt afraid.

  Already the flood waters were lowering, leaving behind the usual debris—a wincing embarrassment and frustration. It took another moment for the real sting to wake her as his words finally sank in—he hadn’t thought she had stood there like a lust-struck ninny, but stricken by disgust and dismay because of his scars.

  Shock held her silent for a moment. He treated his scars lightly, but there had been disappointment in his voice, his eyes. No—not disappointment, hurt. She’d hurt him.

  She turned and hurried towards the temple, her mind tumbling over itself.

  * * *

  Rafe was kneeling in the central chamber of the temple, his head bent as he worked to kindle the fire. He’d put a shirt on and it clung damply to his back. He must have heard her enter, but did not look up.

  ‘I’ll be out of your way once the fire is ready.’

  She hurried into speech.

  ‘Rafe. You were wrong. Your scars don’t bother me in the least. I’ve seen them before, remember?’

  He pressed some dry weeds gently on to the flicking flames, careful not to smother them.

  ‘You were half-dead that day and you had a hard enough time looking at me even then. You don’t have to hide it, Queenie. I’m used to it.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘You looked as though you’d seen a ghost. So unless one of your mummy friends was making faces behind me...’

  ‘Just listen.’

  He stilled, but didn’t turn. With his shoulders bowed over the fire, the rising flames casting gold lights on his dark hair and making the wall carvings shiver and dance, he looked like a supplicant come to beg mercy of the gods.

  ‘That’s is not why I looked...however I looked. I wasn’t even thinking of your scars...no, that is not quite true. I was thinking of them, but they don’t frighten me. The truth is...’ She came forward and took a deep breath before resting her palm lightly on his scarred neck. His skin was both cool and hot, or perhaps that was her. ‘I don’t know you very well, but I hate the thought of you being hurt.’

  * * *

  Rafe froze.

  I hate the thought of you being hurt...

  It meant nothing, nothing at all. He’d seen people react a thousand and one ways to fear and loneliness. It took everyone differently. It clearly took Cleo into unnecessary realms of compassion.

  So said his mind. His body, however, already on its knees, dropped at her feet like a panting puppy. There was nothing he could do to stop it marshalling the troops against him. It gathered the feel of her hand on his skin, the warmth of her legs close behind his back. It added images from the long, hot, dusty days—the way she wiped the perspiration from her cheeks or tilted her head back to catch the first breeze of the afternoon, exposing that little dip at the base of her throat where her scent would rise with each beat of her pulse.

  He kept still, waiting for his mind to reassert dominion over his body. It was usually faster in coming to his defence, but the heat kept rising like the Egyptian sun—becoming incomprehensibly hotter, spreading from her hand like a curse, seeping through his skin into his veins and skidding along merrily to attack him from within. It bothered him far more than the erection that pulsed into life within seconds of her touching him. This heat felt far more dangerous than a lustful surge—it felt as though it was plotting against him.

  What the devil was wrong with her to touch him like that? It would serve her right if he’d do what every base cell in his body ached to do.

  He drew away, very carefully, as one might from a poisonous snake.

  ‘I don’t need pity, Miss Osbourne.’

  ‘That is good. I haven’t any for you.’

  He uncoiled himself and stood. She stepped back and again he saw that same widening of her eyes and pupils. Damn it, he knew fear when he saw it.

  ‘You tell a fine story, Cleo-Pat, but you have to work on not flinching or blushing with embarrassment.’

  She gave a small, strangled laugh, surprising him.

  ‘I wasn’t flinching and it’s not embarrassment. I’m beginning to think Birdie has grossly exaggerated your knowledge of women, Mr Grey.’

  He clasped her arm before his mind even fully registered her meaning. She didn’t pull away, just stood there. He had been right—she looked flushed and flustered. But he had been absolutely, peculiarly wrong—it wasn’t fear, or disgust, or even compassion. The latter had been in her touch and voice, but not in her eyes, at least not now.

  She could as easily have looked away, lowered her lashes, anything, but she let him take it in—the almost sleepy look in her eyes, the sultry heat colouring her cheeks, the tension in her parted lips. It wasn’t an invitation; it was an admission. She wanted him to see the truth because she would not allow him to believe the alternative—that his damage either frightened or repelled her.

  He had no idea what to do with this gift.

  Oh, hell.

  He laid his palm gently against her cheek. It shook slightly, reverberating against her skin, his index finger resting on the impossibly soft lobe of her ear.

  ‘I apologise, Cleo.’

  ‘Don’t. There is no nee
d, Rafe.’ Her fingers rose to brush across his jaw, her gesture mirroring his. ‘How did it happen?’

  It sucked him in, that gentle question. It rang with concern and an echo of pain, as if she’d been there with him those long, agonising months when he’d been tempted to take whatever path available to relieve the pain.

  ‘Stupidity. Mine. I walked into a burning building and would have stayed there if not for Birdie.’

  She shook her head, her fingers feathering over his damaged skin, her mouth a sad, tense bow as her eyes followed her fingers, making his skin burn all over again.

  ‘There is more to it than that. Don’t make light of it.’

  ‘I’m not... I must. I don’t like remembering it.’

  ‘Yes, I can see. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was a gunpowder depot. We were sent to salvage what we could when their cannon fire hit the building. I was already outside, but five of my men were still inside.’ The words were dragging themselves out of him, just as he’d tried to drag out McAllister and the others. ‘Birdie and I went in to find them. We pulled two out and I went back...’

  He could remember the smell—acrid, evil—and the sound—snapping and sizzling. He’d just anchored his hand in McAllister’s coat when the explosion hit him. He had no other memory until days later. And then the first memory was pain. For a long time.

  He breathed in and out.

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Some memories defy time. They’re carved on our minds like those walls. If we lived a thousand years, they would still be there.’

  He nodded slowly. Right now it felt as if this moment was being carved in stone, too. He didn’t want it there any more than those long painful weeks in Los Piños, but it was unstoppable.

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry, Mr Grey,’ she said as the silence stretched and he shook his head. He didn’t want her to call him Mr Grey right now. Not that he wanted her, or anyone, to call him Greybourne, but for the first time the lie felt wrong. What would happen if he just...told her? If he laid it all bare. He’d already revealed so much more than he’d ever intended. What would happen if he added his true name? Not Mr Grey... Rafael Edgerton, Duke of Greybourne...