The Angel and the Aristocrat by Merry Farmer

Chapter 3

Rafe never slept particularly well when he was under someone else’s roof. It was something about the unfamiliar sounds and creaks. They always caught him off guard. He didn’t like the idea that people he didn’t know could creep into his room while he was asleep, even if it was just a maid come to light a fire. The unfamiliar unnerved him.

Which was probably, or so he told himself, the reason he felt so unnerved by Lady Angeline. She was as unfamiliar to him, as women went, as the strange bedroom he found himself in now. He couldn’t stop thinking about her as he tossed and turned through the night, plumping the pillows behind him, flopping from one side to the other. He blamed his unease on everything but the truth that was staring him in the face. Lady Angeline had stooped to help pick up the flowers and pieces of vase that she’d been responsible for upsetting. She’d danced beautifully with him, smiled, and attempted to converse, even though he gave her so little to discuss. She radiated a sort of Irish sunshine that made his brain hurt.

Every woman Rafe had ever known—at least in a way that marked them as an eligible marriage prospect—had been cunning, vain, and more concerned with his fortune and title than himself. Perhaps he’d just been unlucky in the women he’d attracted, but that was the way things had been. Lady Farrah had seemed like the least offensive of the sparkling young things who had thrown themselves at him during the last season, but even she had proven herself to be fickle and selfish.

Lady Angeline was the opposite of all of those things. She was every bit as beautiful as Lady Farrah, though in an artless, unspoiled way. She was petite and shapely, and he could just imagine how perfectly her body would fit against his curled up in bed. But it wasn’t carnal thoughts that left Rafe writhing and overstimulated—not to mention seriously considering taking himself in hand to relieve his relentless cockstand, even though he was a guest in someone else’s house. It was the memory of the pure light in Lady Angeline’s eyes, the kindness that radiated from her, and the mellifluous sound of her laugh.

By morning, Rafe was determined to cure himself of whatever disease it was that had poisoned his brain and made him unable to think of anything but Lady Angeline. As he headed downstairs to breakfast, dressed as impeccably as he could manage so that his outward appearance wouldn’t reflect his inner turmoil, he determined that he would spend as much of the day as was possible with Lady Angeline. Proximity would prove that he was mistaken in all his positive assessments of the lady. She would inevitably do something to prove that he had made her into an angel in his head when, in fact, she was a harpy, like every other fortune-hunting miss.

“Oh, Lord Rothbury, don’t you look handsome this morning,” Lady Angeline greeted him the moment he walked into the large, bustling breakfast room, the light of the morning star in her eyes.

Rafe cleared his throat gruffly and gave her a stiff nod. “You are too kind, my lady,” he mumbled, praying his face didn’t go red. So much for familiarity breeding contempt. “Oh, and you look quite fetching yourself this morning,” he added, cursing himself over the fact that it sounded like an afterthought.

In truth, Lady Angeline was stunning. Rafe knew nothing about women’s fashion except how it made them look. The gown Lady Angeline wore was light and frothy, in a shade that reminded him of sunlight, and had bits of embroidery on it that looked like clovers. Of course, he had to stare particularly hard at her bodice to make them out, and only after the fact did he realize that made it appear as though he were staring at her breasts. It took every effort of will Rafe had not to huff and roll his eyes at himself before walking to the sideboard to fix himself a plate for breakfast.

The conversation at the table was already underway by the time he had filled his plate and moved to find a seat.

“I’m just so uncertain,” Lady Raina said, glancing out the window to one side. “Those clouds do not look particularly inviting.”

Lady Raina had the pleasure of sitting beside Lady Angeline, who answered, “They don’t look all that threatening to me.”

Rafe tried to focus on his breakfast rather than hanging on whatever word Lady Angeline might say next.

“Now, now, ladies,” Lady Fangfoss said from the foot of the table. “This morning’s activity is already decided. We shall take a walk through my darling husband’s extensive properties so that we might all get our exercise.”

Dorset, who was seated to Rafe’s left, chuckled. “It sounds to me as though someone has been reading a bit too much about these modern ideas of ladies and exercise.”

Rafe shrugged. “Exercise improves one’s health,” he said. “Be it a lady or a gentleman.”

Or perhaps he only thought so because it would be a delight to walk out with Lady Angeline, where they could put some distance between themselves and the others without being considered unchaperoned. Under circumstances like that, the woman was bound to say something that would put him off, and he could have his heart and mind to himself again.

Those thoughts were arrested when he had a buttered crumpet halfway to his mouth as he glanced across the table to find Lord Avery O’Shea glaring at him. It was all Rafe could do to continue eating without choking. A wave of incongruous guilt hit him, which he considered ridiculous. He’d done nothing at all to offend the man. He hadn’t even spoken to him yet. What could possibly have put that dire expression on the young man’s face?

But, of course, the answer was obvious. O’Shea must have seen him speaking with Lady Angeline at some point, or perhaps dancing with her the night before, and not approved. Rafe tried to avoid the man’s stare by spending the rest of breakfast talking to Dorset, and to Fangfoss, once the man addressed him to ask about Rafe’s investments in South Africa, but O’Shea was like a dog with a bone.

The matter came to a head when breakfast was finished and the ladies hurried off to fetch hats and shawls for the scheduled walk. Rafe lingered with some of the others in the patio garden at the back of the house, right off of the ballroom, waiting. That was where O’Shea found him, approaching like a lion tamer come to hold a vicious beast at bay.

“O’Shea,” Rafe greeted him with a polite nod.

“Rothbury.” The young man bowed as he came to a stop a few yards away, as if he shouldn’t get too close to Rafe. He frowned, then launched straight into, “Sir, what are your intentions toward my sister?”

Rafe didn’t know whether to be offended or amused by the young man’s directness. He also didn’t have an honest answer for the question. So instead of answering, he said, “Forgive me, sir, have I done something to offend you?”

O’Shea let out a breath, dropped his head for a moment, then move in closer. “I saw the way my sister looked at you while the two of you were dancing last night,” he said. “And then I asked around about you.”

“You did?” Rafe couldn’t think of any other reply.

O’Shea cleared his throat. “I regret to inform you, sir, that I cannot approve of any attachment between you and my sister.”

Rafe wasn’t an old man, not by anyone’s assessment, but at that moment, he felt as though he had the weight of too much experience on his shoulders. Unlike O’Shea, who was doing his duty toward his sister with a little too much ferocity. “What have I done to deserve this assessment, my lord?” he asked, addressing the young man as formally as the situation deserved.

O’Shea had the decency to look a bit embarrassed as he said, “It has come to my attention that you have recently ended an engagement to one Lady Farrah Beauregard.”

Rafe would have sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration, if he thought it would do any good.

“And it has further come to my attention,” O’Shea went on, “that you did so after ruining the virtue of the lady in question.”

It had only been months, but Rafe had the horrible, sinking feeling that if he didn’t do something to quell the rumors, they would follow him for the rest of his life. “You have been misinformed, sir,” he said, switching to the less formal, more confrontational way O’Shea had addressed him in the first place. “The story you have been told is not only incorrect, the few correct details have been exaggerated to make me look like a villain on purpose.”

That didn’t seem to appease O’Shea at all. “Are you calling a lady a liar?”

The conversation wasn’t going to go well anyhow, so Rafe rolled his shoulders slightly, then said, “I am calling the lady in question less than truthful.”

O’Shea’s back went straight. “Then, sir, that is all the more reason for you not to have anything to do with my sister. Do we understand each other?”

Rafe’s mouth dropped open, but he wasn’t certain what he wanted to say. He understood O’Shea, all right, but he also thought the young man was an overstepping young fool.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to answer. A bundle of young ladies stepped through one of the ballroom’s French doors, chattering up a storm, and looking lovely in their plumed hats and shawls. Lady Angeline was among them, and as soon as she spotted Rafe speaking with her brother, her face lit up so much that it compensated for the clouds in the sky above them.

“Isn’t this delightful?” she asked, nearly skipping her way between them. “I had so hoped that the two of you would become friends. I was going to make the introductions myself, but it looks as though I won’t have to now.”

“Er…no,” Rafe said, not wanting to disappoint her by pointing out that he and her brother were anything but friends.

“Angel, could I have a word with you?” O’Shea asked her in a low murmur.

Rafe’s brow went up slightly at what he assumed was a nickname. “An angel” was exactly how he’d thought of Lady Angeline himself.

“Could it wait until after our walk?” Lady Angeline asked her brother in return with a pleading look. She darted her eyes sideways toward Rafe for the barest of moments, which shocked Rafe. The beautiful angel couldn’t possibly actually want to spend time with him, could she?

“No, it cannot wait,” O’Shea said, offering Lady Angeline his arm.

“Now, now,” Lady Fangfoss said, sweeping in and breaking the siblings apart. “I haven’t invited you all here so that brothers and sisters can entertain each other. Lord Rothbury is right here to escort Lady Angeline, and you, Lord O’Shea, would make a perfect companion for Miss Pennypacker. She’s American, after all, and I hear the Americans are awfully fond of the Irish.”

O’Shea sighed as Lady Fangfoss dragged him off. He sent Rafe a final, warning look as he went.

“I hope Avery wasn’t bothering you too much,” Lady Angeline said with an apologetic smile that made Rafe’s blood run hot. “He feels responsible for me, you see. He feels responsible for a great many things, since our father passed away six months ago.”

An unexpected knot formed in Rafe’s throat. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

Lady Angeline clasped her hands together in front of her, weaving her gloved fingers together. She glanced down, sadness radiating from her, and said, “Papa was sick for years. That’s why I returned to Ireland after finishing at Twittingham Academy instead of taking part in the season and finding a husband. Papa’s illness was the wasting kind, and I became his nurse, tending to him and doing everything I could to make him comfortable as he declined.”

Rafe’s gut clenched. Spending time with Lady Angeline was supposed to drop the scales from his eyes and make him see her for who she truly was. The trouble was that Lady Angeline appeared to be every bit the angel he’d initially believed her to be.

“Come along, you two,” Lady Fangfoss’s overly happy voice called to them from the path that the rest of the couples she’d mashed together had started along. “We wouldn’t want to leave you behind.”

Rafe offered his arm with a somber look, as though scolded by the countess. Lady Angeline giggled lightly—a sound that went straight to his balls—and took his arm.

“You must have regretted all the balls and society events you missed,” Rafe said, hoping to find a way to prompt Lady Angeline in to proving she actually was shallow.

Instead, Lady Angeline hummed and tilted her head to the side. “I missed my friends,” she said carefully as they made their way to the start of the path. Lady Fangfoss shooed them along after the others, then doubled back to nudge a few other couples into the walk. “There were six of us who became particularly close in finishing school,” Lady Angeline continued to explain. “We were devoted to each other then, and we are still dear friends now. I missed being able to support them in their triumphs and their defeats.”

A woman who actually sought to support the others of her sex instead of cutting them down and undermining them at every turn? Rafe could hardly believe it. “But still,” he went on, “you must have missed the gowns and the jewels, the box seats at the theater, trips to Paris, and all of the other accoutrements of society life.”

“I’ve never been to Paris,” she said a bit breathlessly, her eyes shining like emeralds. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful and elegant. I long to sip coffee and eat pain au chocolate while looking out over the River Seine on a sparkling April afternoon.”

Rafe was speechless. When Lady Farrah had talked of going to Paris, she’d prattled on endlessly about the modistes and shops and laughed about how much of his money she would spend. Not only had Lady Angeline not said the same, at her words, Rafe found himself imagining what it would be like to take her to the museums and tell her the little he knew about art, as if he were an expert. He wouldn’t just buy her coffee and sweets, he would hire a chef for the day, rent a boat, and float idly along the Seine with her lounging in his arms as the spring sunlight warmed them and—

And what in God’s name was he thinking? The purpose of the walk was for him to desire Lady Angeline less, not more.

“Do not misunderstand me, Lord Rothbury,” Lady Angeline went on as they turned away from the more formal gardens at the back of the estate and ambled along a path that wound over hillsides filled with tall grass and wildflowers. The River Derwent flowed past in the distance to their left, while the site of the excavation of some Roman ruins that had recently been discovered stood on their right. “I enjoyed the time I was able to spend with Papa, even if it meant I wasn’t able to go to Paris or attend balls in London.”

“You did?” Rafe asked. “Even though you were nursing an invalid?”

Lady Angeline blinked in surprise. “That invalid was my father, and that time was all that I had left with him. Papa was a bit of a distant man when Avery and I were young, so these last few years were absolutely precious to me. I was able to love Papa and find love from him in a way neither of us would have had otherwise. No, I wasn’t in society, but I believe those were the happiest years of my life, and even though he was ill, I believe they were the happiest for Papa as well.”

God help him, Rafe was in over his head. His heart throbbed for Lady Angeline. His knees felt weak in the face of her beauty and her kindness. He wanted to weep with sentimentality at the way she spoke of her love for her father. Weep! Him! His own father was a drunken curmudgeon who hadn’t so much as looked at him until he graduated from Oxford, and who had grumbled about him doing his duty—whatever that meant—until the day he died of a liver disease, making Rafe the marquess. Listening to Lady Angeline made Rafe long for things he’d never given a second thought to before. And it wasn’t entirely a chaste love either, even though part of him said it should be. He wanted to tumble into bed with her, spread her under him, and give her so much pleasure that she came repeatedly, all while sighing his name.

“Lord Rothbury, are you quite all right?” she asked with a concerned look.

Rafe cleared his throat. “Er…yes, I’m fine.”

“It’s just that you’ve gone all red and splotchy,” she said. “I haven’t upset you with my story, have I? I can be a bit maudlin sometimes.”

“No, it’s not that at all,” he mumbled.

As if the moment couldn’t get any more like something out of a fairy story, a small, colorful butterfly landed on Lady Angeline’s cheek, as though her face was a flower. Rafe thought his heart might explode in his chest.

Lady Angeline, on the other hand, yelped and brushed at her face, startled by something as light as a butterfly’s kiss. She swatted at the poor thing until she saw it was only a butterfly, then she burst into a laugh that was like heaven’s bells. “Oh, dear,” she said, clapping a hand to her mouth to smother her giggles.

“Allow me,” Rafe said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket to take out a handkerchief so he could brush the dust from the butterfly’s wings off of her porcelain cheek.

He’d no sooner brought the handkerchief out into the open than the same mysterious boy who had snatched a billiard ball from Hubert leapt out from behind him and snatched the handkerchief, then tore off into the grass before Rafe could react.