Guilt. Henrietta was right. It was destroying him.
Rafe picked up his Madeira glass, raised it to his mouth, stared at it uncomprehendingly and put it back down again. Henrietta. Such a ridiculous name and yet so very appropriate. She said it was time to forgive himself. Was she right about that, too?
He forced himself for the second time that day to replay the painful facts. Forced himself to ask the painful questions he had asked himself so many times, only this time, he tried to answer without the bias of guilt. He tried to answer them as Henrietta would want him to. As if she had reset his moral compass. Was he wholly to blame? Could he have done this differently, or that? Had he cared more, or less, would it have changed things?
He and Julia should never have married, but they had. Duty and circumstances and, yes, in the early days, affection and desire had conspired to join them together. Duty and circumstance had conspired to make them try that second fatal time. They were not faultless, but they were neither of them wholly to blame. Henrietta was right about that, too.
And the child? His child. Their child. Had it been born, would he really have rejected it? He recalled the countless little bundles—other people’s bundles—he had held in his arms since founding St Nicholas’s. Such helpless, utterly trusting, tiny little beings, smelling of milk and that distinctive baby smell. He allowed himself to remember the yearning, aching longing that enveloped him every time. The fierceness of his desire to keep them safe. The regret each time he handed them back to their mothers. The anxiety each time he watched mother and baby leave.
Relief so immense as to be palpable made him limp. He would not have rejected his own child. He might have wished it born under different circumstances, he might have continued to wish himself free of its mother, but he would not have rejected it. Henrietta was right about that, too. ‘God dammit, of course she was!’ Rafe exclaimed.
He smiled to himself, for he never used to talk to himself out loud, until he met Henrietta. Henrietta Markham, who had made him face up to some excruciatingly painful truths, who had not flinched from pointing out his wrongs, yet whose sympathy and empathy he never doubted. Henrietta Markham, who said she loved him.
Rafe sat bolt upright. Henrietta loved him. She was in love with him! Bloody hell, she was in love with him. She’d told him so and he’d been so damned caught up in everything else that he’d barely even registered it.
She loved him. Henrietta loved him. What a fool he had been not to see it before. Nothing else would have induced her to give herself to him. No wonder she had been so hurt by his offer. No wonder it was not enough, nor ever could be. Henrietta loved him. Being Henrietta, she would never, ever settle for anything less than everything.
And he? God, what a mull of it he had made. That damned stupid halfway-house proposition of his must have seemed contemptuous, as if he had thrown her love back in her face! ‘Dammit, what a bloody, blind, damned fool I’ve been.’ Rafe threw his Madeira glass across the room. It shattered with a satisfying crack on the claw foot of his desk, spraying the rug with wine.
All or nothing. All or nothing. He had chosen nothing and it felt fundamentally wrong. They were meant to be together. He could see that now, so clearly. Unbearably clearly. Just as he could see that he needed to do something about it, and urgently. Because—because…
‘Dammit, because I love her!’
He loved her. That was why he was now so certain that he had never loved Julia. He loved Henrietta and it felt utterly different from anything he had ever felt before. He loved her. It was true. It must be true, because the bars of the cell in which he had deliberately imprisoned his heart had been suddenly flung open. All he had to do was to step forwards into the light and claim the prize. All he had to do was forgive himself. To stop paying penance, and start the process of redemption. Could he?
Rafe closed his eyes. He took each of his sins and held it up for inspection. Then he laid each down, saying a solemn farewell. The past was not gone, but already the scars were fading. He did not yet feel he deserved to be happy, but he did feel he deserved to try. Love. Love for Henrietta would be his redemption. From their love would grow happiness. A future worth inhabiting.
He wanted to start inhabiting it now. Galvanised by this thought into action, Rafe threw open the door of the library. If happiness really was within his grasp, he would reach out and take it. ‘Now, without further ado,’ he said to his startled footman.
‘My lord?’
‘My hat. My gloves,’ Rafe said. ‘Quickly, man, quickly.’
The items were handed over. Before Edward could pluck up the courage to point out to his master that he was expected to dine with the Dowager Countess in an hour and could not do so in pantaloons and a tailcoat, Rafe was out of the door, down the stairs and heading for Berkeley Square on foot.
* * *
It had taken him less than five minutes to reach Lady Gwendolyn’s house. He rang the bell impatiently, pushed past her butler impatiently, demanded even more impatiently that Miss Markham be produced at once.
‘Miss Markham has retired for the night, my lord,’ the butler informed him. ‘She gave us most strict instructions that she should not be disturbed. Lady Gwendolyn said—’
‘Where is her ladyship?’ Rafe demanded, forgetting all about his promise made earlier that day never to cross the threshold of Berkeley Square again uninvited. ‘Fetch her, she will rouse Henrietta.’
‘Lady Gwendolyn has gone to Lady Cowper’s for dinner. I think Miss Markham has the migraine, she did not look at all well when she returned,’ the butler said confidentially, though he was beginning to harbour a suspicion that Lord Pentland was the source of Miss Markham’s illness.
‘Then what I am about to tell her may affect the cure. Fetch her.’
‘Lord Pentland…’
‘Fetch her now, or I will fetch her myself. In fact, if you tell me where her bedchamber is…’
‘My lord! Please, I beg of you, I cannot allow you to do that, her ladyship would have me summarily dismissed— I beseech you, if you will just wait in one of the salons I will endeavour to wake her.’
‘Very well, see that you do. Tell her she has five minutes, or I’ll come and get her myself.’
Scandalised and fascinated, Lady Gwendolyn’s butler scurried up the stairs with Rafe at his heels. Showing his lordship, who had clearly gone quite mad, into a small but elegant withdrawing room, he continued to the second floor, there to tap tentatively on Miss Markham’s bedchamber door.
Henrietta was still awake, still in shock, still unable to cry. She ignored the gentle knock on the door, but it came again, louder and more insistent this time. Clutching a wrapper around her, she dragged herself to the door and opened it tentatively.
‘Beg pardon, miss,’ the butler said, ‘I know this is most irregular, but Lord Pentland is downstairs and absolutely insists on seeing you.’
‘I can’t see him, I won’t.’
‘Miss, I fear that if you do not—’
‘If you do not, I will drag you out of your room myself,’ Rafe said, making the butler, who had not heard his footsteps on the stairs, jump clean into the air.
‘My lord, you should not—’
‘Rafe! What are you doing here?’
‘Henrietta, I need to talk to you. It is imperative that I talk to you.’
‘No. I can’t. There is nothing more left to say.’
‘Henrietta…’
‘My lord, if you would just…’
‘Rafe, just go away.’
‘Henrietta! I love you.’
It was hard to say who was more astounded by this declaration. Lady Gwendolyn’s stately butler’s jaw dropped in a most un-stately manner. Henrietta clutched at the doorknob, letting her hold on her wrapper go and revealing to both Rafe and the butler rather more of the satin and lace she wore next to her skin than either was prepared for.
Rafe himself was so astonished that he could for a moment think of nothing else to say aft
er such momentous words, uttered in such completely mundane circumstances, though he recovered his poise more quickly than his audience.
‘Now you know why my business with Miss Markham was so urgent. You can leave us alone and you would be doing me an enormous service if you would ensure our privacy is undisturbed,’ he said to the butler. ‘As you can imagine, there are a number of delicate matters that require further discussion.’ He then prised Henrietta’s hand free of the door handle. ‘I think it would be safer to talk downstairs rather than in your chamber,’ he said, leading her quickly past the gaping butler, back to the room on the first floor to which he had been originally shown.
‘Rafe, I—’
‘Sit down.’
‘Rafe, I—’
‘And listen.’
Henrietta sat down. She had no option, for her knees were shaking so much.
Rafe sat by her side and took her hand, rubbing it between his to heat it. The elation that had carried him from Mount Street to here had deserted him. Now he was so nervous it felt as if a cloud of small butterflies were flapping their wings frantically inside his stomach. ‘You were right,’ he said finally.
‘What about?’
‘Everything?’ His smile made a brief appearance. He swallowed hard. ‘You were right. I’ve been hiding. I’ve been afraid.’ Now he had started, it was getting easier. ‘I’ve been hiding behind the terrible things that happened, allowing the pain and the guilt to blind me to the truth. I let guilt dictate how I behaved, who I was. I closed myself off lest I expose myself to hurt again. You were right. I’ve not been living, I’ve merely been existing, lurking in the shadows of life, holding it cheap. You were right about that, too, Henrietta.’ His smile made another brief appearance. ‘You see, I meant it. You were right about it all.’
‘Oh.’
Rafe laughed. He picked up her hand and rubbed it against his cheek. ‘Did you think I wasn’t listening to you?’
‘I thought you didn’t want to,’ she said frankly.
‘I didn’t, but in the end I had no option because there was something I wanted far more and until I faced up to the past I could never hope to have it.’
‘What?’
‘You.’
‘Oh.’
‘Henrietta, I know I’m not innocent of blame. I’m not as black as I’ve painted myself, but I’m no saint. I can’t undo the wrongs I’ve done. I can’t escape the fact that I’ve done wrong, but I can do as you said. I can forgive myself.’
‘Oh, Rafe, do you mean it?’
‘Really and truly,’ he said, his smile breaking through again. ‘You’ve made me see that I can. Ever since I set eyes on you, you’ve been like a shaft of sunshine forcing its way through the clouds. Like a blinding ray of pure light coming through a door which is only slightly ajar. I knew what I felt for you was different, right from the start. But the very intensity of it frightened me. I felt exposed. Raw. Vulnerable.’
Her heart was thudding in a peculiar new way. Heavy beats that still left her breathless. She was afraid to hope. Like Rafe, she could see the light shining through the door, but he was still on the other side.
‘I love you, Henrietta. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ Rafe slipped on to the floor and knelt at her feet, clasping her hand between his. ‘I love you, and I hope—I hope so very, very much—that you have it in your heart to forgive me for being such an idiot as not to recognise it before. Please, darling Henrietta, say it’s not too late.’
‘Oh, Rafe, of course it’s not too late. I love you. I will always love you. How could you ever have doubted it?’
It was all he needed to hear. He swept her into his arms and kissed her. For the first time in his life, he kissed a lover’s kiss, the kiss of a man who loves and is loved in return. Her mouth tasted all the sweeter. Her embrace felt infinitely more delightful. It was a kiss that was a promise of kisses to come, a kiss that lit up the world, forcing the cloud that had hung over him for so long to scud over the horizon and be for ever lost. He got back down on to one knee. ‘Henrietta, I most humbly ask you to do me the honour of becoming my wife. Darling, dearest, most enchanting and true Henrietta, marry me.’
‘Oh, Rafe. Oh, Rafe. Do you mean it? Really? Truly?’
He pulled her towards him and kissed her lids. ‘I mean it.’ Her cheeks. ‘Really.’ Her upturned little nose. ‘Truly.’ He feathered kisses into the corners of her smiling mouth. ‘I promise.’ He rained kisses on to her brow. ‘I love you. I love you, Henrietta Markham. I love you really and truly. I promise.’
She had toppled on to the floor beside him now. Their kisses were becoming feverish, their hands, anxious for the reassurance of the other’s touch, plucking at clothes to reach skin. Henrietta’s wrapper was cast to one side. ‘Silk and lace,’ Rafe murmured with a wolfish smile, burying his head between her breasts, where the lace edge of her chemise foamed over her flesh. His fingers were already undoing the laces of her stays. He pulled the chemise down to expose her nipples and, with a sigh of satisfaction, took one rosy pink bud into his mouth and sucked.
A jolt, like falling, ran between her nipples and her belly and her sex. Henrietta moaned deeply. Her head fell back to rest on the chaise on which she had been sitting only moments before. Rafe’s mouth was doing the most delightful things. His fingers rolling her other nipple, tugging the most exquisitely intense shards of pleasure, sending waves of heat rolling and rippling through her. His coat and waistcoat lay discarded beside her wrapper. She slipped her hands under his shirt, tugging it free from his pantaloons. She could see the hard, solid length of his shaft clearly outlined. She stroked it through the tight-knit material, making him shudder, making herself shudder, too, in anticipation.
She wanted him now. She wanted him inside her now. Claiming her. Owning her. Possessing her. She wanted to feel skin on skin. Flesh inside flesh. Deep inside. Hard inside. Hot inside. ‘Rafe,’ she said urgently, tugging at his shirt. ‘Rafe, please.’
He understood. Standing to disrobe quickly, without finesse, clothes landing incongruously on the furnishings of Lady Gwendolyn’s salon, his shirt draped over a painted fire screen, his pantaloons wrapped around the delicately scrolled leg of a Hepplewhite pier table, though neither of them noticed. Wriggling out of her stays, her undergarments, Henrietta kept her eyes on Rafe. He was magnificent, naked. Her heart flip-flopped and stepped up to a higher rate as she stared with unashamed relish at the silken length of his manhood, nudging his belly. On her knees before him, she caressed it with her fingertips, then her tongue, the salty heat of him making her belly tighten, swelling and tensing the knot of arousal that burned between her thighs. She cupped him and he moaned again.
‘Henrietta, I don’t think I can wait much longer.’
‘Rafe, I don’t want you to.’
He pulled her to him. Kissed her deeply on the mouth. Pressed her hard against him, her breasts crushed to his chest, her thighs enveloping his erection. He kissed her again, then sank down on to the chaise-longue, pulling her down with him, on top of him, entering her with one long, swift, hard thrust that made them both gasp.
It was almost too much. Rafe felt himself tighten, his shaft thicken, the prelude of the pulsing that would be his climax. Clutching on to the delightful curve of Henrietta’s bottom, he held her still, breathing deep, resisting the overpowering urge to thrust up, waiting, breathing, holding her still, reaching down, between her dimpled thighs, to stroke the delicious wetness of her.
He stroked and Henrietta shuddered. She clenched her muscles around him, desperate for the thrusting friction that brought such delectable pleasure. Friction that his sliding, gliding fingers were rousing as they coaxed and then commanded the hard nub of her sex towards its climax. She could feel the rippling prelude. She tried to resist it, but it was too strong, a tide of feeling whipping her up, making her moan and arch; just when she thought she could bear it no longer, she climaxed, and into the ebb and flow of her orgasm Rafe gripped her waist and
lifted her up, then let her fall, thrusting into her as she did, the force of her climaxing opening her for him.
She panted, picking up the rhythm, gripping his shoulders, lifting herself now, then encasing him, writhing on him as he thrust higher than before, and then again, and again, each lift and sheathing and thrust pulsing the purest of pleasure through her. With a moan that seemed to come from the depths of his being, he came, spurting his hot seed high inside her and telling her over and over that he loved her, loved her, loved her, gazing deep into her eyes, his face raw, ablaze with love, alight with the passion which that love fuelled. He kissed her again. She had never tasted such a kiss. It felt as if she were on the edge of the world. She had never kissed such a kiss, knowing that she loved and was loved. Would always be loved. For ever.
‘Always,’ Rafe said, reading her thoughts, stroking the wild curls that had become entangled with her lashes clear of her face, so that he could look into her eyes. Chocolate brown, striped with gold, glazed with love. ‘I will love you always. I promise.’
‘Darling Rafe, I believe you.’
‘Darling Henrietta,’ he said, looking over her shoulder at the chaos they had caused, ‘you realise we are quite naked in your aunt’s parlour and you have not yet formally agreed to be my wife. I had not thought you the type to prevaricate.’
Henrietta giggled. ‘I think the fact that I am naked with you in my aunt’s parlour is answer enough. Goodness, we didn’t even lock the door.’
‘I don’t care about the door. Or the servants. Or even your aunt. Let me pose the question again. Henrietta Markham, will you marry me?’
She caught her breath as he smiled at her. His real smile. Somehow she knew she would be seeing a lot more of it in the future. ‘Rafe St Alban, just try to stop me,’ Henrietta replied.
Epilogue
It was not to be expected that Henrietta’s parents would welcome their daughter’s marriage to a notorious rake, no matter how well born or wealthy, without serious reservations. They had arrived in London, in response to the letter sent by Lady Gwendolyn when Henrietta had first arrived on her doorstep, to be greeted by this most unexpected and startling news. The explanation as to how this remarkable turn of events had come to pass, and so swiftly, necessitated their being appraised of the lurid tale of the Ipswich diamonds.
Rake with a Frozen Heart Page 22
