The Man Behind the Scars

by Caitlin Crews

  Why was he telling her this? And why not tell her the real truth—that had taken all these years and Oliver’s death for Rafe to accept? That there had to be a reason that Oliver treated Rafe the way he had, a reason that their mother had encouraged it. There had to be something in him that brought that kind of meanness out in them. He had been ruined even when he was a boy. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell Angel that. He couldn’t bear for her to know that particular truth.

  “What did he do?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Everyone likes to claim they were picked on by their older siblings, don’t they?” she asked in that deliberately offhand way of hers that made him feel lighter, no matter the subject. Even this one, which he had never found even remotely light. “Everyone loves to make themselves the martyr of their own story. And some people may be, of course. But there are others who think a single scuffle for the last biscuit one summer when they were eleven is more than enough justification for a lifetime of excuses.”

  She eyed him then, as if she expected him to confess to exactly that, and once again he found himself fighting the urge to laugh. It was unexpected and as shocking to him as the fact he’d told her anything about Oliver in the first place.

  “Sadly,” he said, his voice low, more to disguise his reaction to her than any indication of a matching mood, “Oliver was not the sort to scuffle for a biscuit. That would have been too straightforward. He preferred to mask his worst traits from any kind of parental eye and strike when least expected.”

  Angel eased herself back down to the chair, this time to perch herself on the empty arm, giving Rafe ample opportunity to wonder what had come over him. He’d had fevers that had affected him less than this woman. Whole wars, in fact.

  “That’s a bit like my mother then,” she said. A strange expression moved over her lovely features, obscuring them for a moment. It was not until it was gone that Rafe realized what it was, why he recognized it even before he identified it. Pain. He knew it all too well. “She’s always neck-deep in a scheme, and it’s never what you think she’ll do—never quite what she’s done before. Though, inevitably, it will cost you. It always does, one way or another.”

  Something moved in the air between them, heavy and bright. Rafe felt his need for her like a pulse, coursing through him like blood. Only thicker. Sweeter. Hotter.

  “Did your mother burn your house to the ground?” he asked. He didn’t entirely understand the rueful expression that crossed her face then, much less the flash of something far sharper than amusement in her gaze.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said, her lips moving into something a shade too serious to be a smile. “But there is no scaffolding to repair the sort of damage my mother can do, I’m afraid. She defies any attempt to rebuild.”

  “While the scaffolding cannot do a thing to keep the ghosts of Pembroke Manor at bay,” he replied, something very near wry. “They merely wait their turn.”

  “The ghosts will always lie in wait, won’t they?” Angel asked softly, her blue eyes dark on his. “We are all haunted in one way or another. This house. You. Me.”

  He did not want her wisdom, he realized then. Nor her understanding. It cut too deep. Whatever it was that arced between them pulled taut, clawing into him, making him completely unable to do anything but focus on her mouth. That wicked, taunting mouth. He welcomed it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, but her voice was no more than the faintest whisper of sound. She stood again, as if to put distance between them, as if she meant to move to safer ground—but she didn’t go anywhere. And now they were both standing, so close—so close—that he could easily reach over and—

  “You know very well what I’m doing,” he said, his voice far more of a growl than it should have been. Want and need pounded in him, making him so hard it bordered on pain. But he didn’t touch her. He had promised her he would wait, hadn’t he? And there was very little left of the man he should have been, he knew that. But he still had his word. There were times he thought it was all he had.

  “Rafe …”

  Again, that hard swallow, as if she was fighting the same demons and desires that he was, and with as much success.

  “You have been hiding in this library for two weeks,” he said, managing to keep his voice even, though he felt nothing at all but heat. “And I’ve let you. I wanted your transition to Pembroke Manor—to Scotland—to be as easy as possible.” She only watched him, eyes wide and wary. And that shimmer of heat beneath, that called to him in ways he refused to explore. Not here. Not yet. “I have very few requirements, Angel,” he continued. “But I would like you to have dinner with me in the evenings. Do you think you can do that?”

  He was sure she could tell how much he wanted it—how he wanted her—and he wasn’t sure who he hated more in that moment. Her, for being such a temptation that he made himself into a fool for her? Or himself, for being that fool? He did not know what he would do if he saw pity in her eyes, or worse, some kind of understanding—but that was not the expression that dawned there, and gleamed softly.

  “Do we dress for dinner here?” she asked in her easy, offhanded way, as if she hadn’t noticed all these currents swimming around them, all the tension simmering in the air.

  “If you like.” He shrugged, arousal making his voice as hard as the rest of him. “I cannot be bothered.”

  “I expected the role of countess to require far more gowns,” she said, her tone reproving, as if she believed the matter of her wardrobe to be of paramount importance here, where there were only the two of them and a staff well paid to notice nothing at all. “If I may lodge a complaint.”

  “You may wear whatever you please,” he said.

  Maybe his voice was too rough. Maybe that was why she seemed to stiffen—but no, she only nodded, and he had the frustrating realization that she was hiding her true feelings, whatever they were, behind that amiable surface.

  Again.

  As usual.

  He hated that too.

  “Except,” he said, and there was no doubting his voice was too rough now, too rough and too hard, like the monster she kept making him forget he was, forcing him to wonder if she considered that service simply part of the bargain—part of the price he’d paid. “That mask you wear all the time. I’d prefer you leave that in your room. If at all possible.”

  His words hung in her mind as Angel swept into the small, intimate dining room later that same evening, dressed in the finest gown she’d been able to find among her belongings—all of it carefully unpacked and painstakingly hung in the extensive closets in her rooms by unseen if capable hands. It was a deliberately extravagant dress of deepest crimson that flowed over her body from a bold, asymmetrical neckline to pool at her feet like a living, breathing flame. She knew it made her look as if she were planning to make herself the main course—to incinerate them both with the force of her brightness.

  She was hoping it would distract Rafe from this talk of masks. After all, the mask she wore—the easy, happy mask she had to wear with him—was the only thing she had that was hers. The only thing she had left.

  The only thing she hadn’t signed away.

  “Good evening, my lord,” she said with greatly exaggerated courtesy, and had to fight to restrain herself from sketching a theatrical curtsy in his direction.

  “My lady,” he murmured in cool reply, in a manner that made Angel question her own sanity—and her seeming need to poke at this man as if he were a tiger locked up in a cage. She had no trouble imagining him in the role of a big cat, all sinew and grace, danger in every solid inch of his sleekly muscled body. But she’d do well to remember the only one in any sort of cage around here, gilded or not, was her.

  He loomed there beside the long, narrow table against the far wall, much too dark and menacing for what was meant to be a cozier dining room than the formal hall in t
his great house, and what was frightening wasn’t that she found him scary—but that she did not. Quite the opposite. She had thought him far too compelling, far too much, in his fine Italian suits, all elegant lines and inspired tailoring—none of which he wore tonight. As he had promised, he did not dress for dinner.

  He didn’t have to.

  Rafe in a simple pair of denim jeans and a sleek dark navy jumper almost did her in. His hair was too long, and bore the marks of impatient hands run through the thick, dark locks. He was too grim, too hard, too impossibly male. When he wore a suit, he was so obviously the earl—distant and dangerous, but quite clearly out of reach in every way that mattered. Here, now, dressed so casually, he was only a man. But what a man! It was as if she could see all that power and shattering sensuality coiled and ready in his distractingly masculine form. Waiting. It made her throat go dry, even as the rest of her softened, melted, ached.

  Her reaction to him terrified her far more than he did.

  “You are staring,” he pointed out, and there was something in his voice that seemed to skitter over her skin like a kind of touch. She had to force herself to breathe.

  “I am trying to find the earl in this particular costume,” she said, sweeping her gaze over him from his carelessly tousled head to the feet he’d encased in hard black boots. He should have looked far less magnificent than he did. He should have faded into mediocrity without the fine clothes that marked him as the wealthy, powerful man he was. But Angel looked at the way he stood there, so easy and confident, and knew that whatever this man was, he didn’t need clothes to broadcast it. He simply exuded it from his very pores.

  That should have made her nervous, surely. She told herself it did, that nerves explained the jumpy, achy feeling low in her belly.

  “I was the earl long before I had any hope of the title,” he said, in a voice that hinted at secrets and stories she doubted he would share. “I suspect it is in me whether I like it or not, clothes be damned. It is like the family curse.”

  He was so dark, so serious, with his soldier’s stance and his ravaged face, and yet she had the nearly overwhelming urge to close the distance between them and see if she could taste the white-hot heat of him on his tongue. He was magnetic and fascinating, and how, she wondered with something like despair, could she handle this marriage of hers if she was no better than a moth to the nearest bright light? If she had the suicidal urge to simply throw herself at him and see what became of her?

  He studied her for a moment, his gray eyes cold, and she had the sinking sensation that he could read every single thought that crossed her mind. As if he knew exactly what effect he had on her. As if he was luring her in with every breath, every near-smile. Don’t be ridiculous, she chided herself. He is only a man. Two weeks in Scotland and she’d gone over all gothic, apparently. Next thing she knew she’d be waxing rhapsodic about the joys of sheep.

  She accepted the glass of wine he handed her, and their fingers brushed as she took it. Such a small, silly thing, hardly worth noticing—and yet her heart stuttered, then began to beat harder, like a drum.

  “You spoke of requirements earlier,” she said, determined that her voice should not sound as breathless as she felt. She forced some facsimile of her usual easy smile, unable to control herself as she should. “Perhaps you should list them all for me, so there is no further confusion.”

  “I am not in the least confused,” he replied smoothly, a small quirk in the corner of his mouth that she took to be his version of a smile. “But then, I am not the one who worried that the countryside would affect her sanity.”

  “I have been in it very little, as it turns out,” Angel replied, still smiling at him. As if it were her job. Which, she reflected with a pang, it was. “From inside the house, if I squint, I can pretend I’m near enough to London.”

  “I admire your dedication to remaining in your fantasy world,” he said dryly. “I’m sure it will serve you well here.”

  That didn’t sit well with her, but she couldn’t address it even if she’d known how, because he was moving toward a chair and pulling it out for her. He settled her into it with a certain ease that made her feel too warm, then took the chair opposite hers, and nodded at one of the hovering, silent servants.

  Dinner was a long, strange affair. Course after course appeared, each more succulent and delicious than the one before. They ate, they talked. Angel kept the conversation going, poking fun at him as much as she dared, making his gray eyes warm just slightly from time to time. She told silly stories from her many different lives, embroidering each one, dramatizing them. She felt like some modern-day version of Scheherazade, spinning tales to keep herself alive, though she couldn’t have said what she thought the threat was, here. Or what the price might be if she stopped.

  Until the final plate was cleared away, and there were only the candles in their gleaming silver holders between them, the flames dancing in the sudden, airless silence.

  “Have you run out of stories to tell?” Rafe asked, his voice very nearly lazy. He had relaxed his posture over the course of the meal, and now lounged in his chair, his hand propping up his chin, his face half-shadowed. In the candlelight, Angel realized with a certain shock, she could see none of his scars—only his hard, male beauty.

  That, then, was the price.

  She was in so much trouble.

  “Of course not,” she said, aware that her voice was too soft, too pliable, telling him things she was not at all sure she wanted him to know. “I feel perfectly capable of at least a thousand and one nights of stories. Possibly twice that. You can consider it my wedding gift to you.”

  He only watched her. Angel was no fool. She knew exactly what hovered in the air then, what seemed to dance between them, making each breath feel thick, dangerous. And there was no denying the fact that she wanted him, however suicidally. He fascinated her. That darkness that moved in him, that cast him into shadows, was far more compelling to her than it should have been. She wanted to touch it. Him. She wanted to let herself fall forward into the swirl of these feelings, this tension, and who cared where she landed?

  But she could not let herself do it. She was far too afraid of where she might end up, and what falling in the first place would make her.

  Like mother, like daughter, that little voice whispered.

  “I think that is my cue to go up to bed,” she said quietly, her voice seeming twice as loud now in the hush of the small room, in the unwavering, patient heat of his dark gaze. “I have a very busy day of doing very little ahead of me, and must conserve my strength.”

  “Allow me,” he said in that silky way of his that seemed to hit her hard, low in her belly, and tight across the crest of her breasts. He rose, his every move somehow fluid, all that repressed power making him something near graceful despite his size and strength. And Angel could do nothing but gaze at him, entranced, as he moved around the table to pull out her chair, the very picture of gentlemanly courtesy despite his casual clothes.

  It was so much harder than it should have been to stand, to step away from him, when every cell in her body screamed for her to move toward him instead. To press her lips to that fascinating place where the strong column of his throat met his chest. It took more strength than it should have to turn from him and walk toward the door.

  She thought she might have hurt herself somehow—tearing herself away like this—but she did it anyway, because she had to ignore this wild passion that burned so hot between them. She had to—or it would eat her alive. She knew it. She’d seen what happened to those who surrendered to this kind of heat, and she wouldn’t do that to herself. She couldn’t.

  “Angel.”

  She stopped without knowing she meant to do so, her body obeying him without consulting her mind. She swayed slightly on her feet, and put out her hand to the doorjamb to steady herself. She did not turn back around. She was much too afraid of what would happen if she did.

  Liar,
that same voice chided her. You know what would happen. And you’re not afraid at all.

  Not of this moment, perhaps, she admitted to herself. But of what would come after.

  She sensed him more than she heard him come up behind her, and she began to tremble just slightly in helpless reaction, but she still did not turn to face him. He moved closer, until his legs brushed the back of her full skirt and she felt the whisper-soft wool of his jumper brush against the bare skin near her exposed shoulder blades. Did she feel the heat of him, burning like a furnace in the cool room, or did she imagine it?

  Did it matter? The effect on her was the same.

  “Rafe—” she began.

  “Quiet.” It was a command, for all that he said it softly, his breath caressing the back of her neck, making gooseflesh prickle into life all over her skin.

  He reached around and let his fingers run down the arm that hung at her side, spreading a sweet, heavy fire into her with his touch, making her whole body seem to tremble, there, on the precipice between panic and desire. Both, perhaps. He took her free hand in his, then raised it, bringing it up and placing it on the opposite side of the door, so she was bracing herself in the doorway, splayed open before him. Her fingers clutched convulsively against the plaster. Why would he …?

  And that was when he moved even closer, until his body was flush against hers, plastering her back against his strong, impossibly hard chest. Angel heard herself sigh, and felt herself melt. Everywhere. Her head fell back against his shoulder, as if she had lost the will to keep herself upright. He muttered something, his voice rich and dark, even as her hands clung to the doorjamb as if it was her only link to any kind of safety. As if she could hold herself there—apart. As if that could protect her from this. From him.