“Actually, I believe I should like to go to our room now, if you don’t mind, Elaine.” Rafael rose as he spoke, reaching out his hand to Victoria. She came to stand beside him.
“I believe,” Damien said, “that Elaine has put you in the Pewter Room.”
Victoria stared at her cousin for a moment, quite taken aback. It was a beautiful room, all shades of silver and gray. Three decades before, it had been used as the master bedchamber, and wasn’t used now, for no guests were considered worthy. This was indeed a surprise.
As for Rafael, he saw that Elaine hadn’t assigned this room to them. Damien had. Indeed, she looked somewhat miffed. Now, why, he wondered, would his brother assign him and Victoria such a grand suite? He gave a mental shrug. Could it be that his errant twin wanted to make peace?
No, that was doubtful in the extreme.
Some minutes later, Victoria was looking about the large,
airy room with something akin to awe. “I don’t understand,” she said, more to herself than to Rafael. “Goodness, I have never seen so many beautiful shades of gray. Even though the gray silk on this chair is a bit worn, it is still exquisite, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Actually, I don’t understand either. And Elaine didn’t assign us this suite, Victoria, it was Damien, I’m quite certain. Another mystery I’ve got on my hands.”
“What do you mean by another mystery?”
He recovered quickly. He stepped closer to her and gently clasped her shoulders in his hands. “You, Victoria, are a veritable bundle of mysteries. First of all, you have yet to regale me with your famous or infamous confession, as the case may be. Second, you have yet to show me your malformed toe.” He stared over her head toward the wide windows that gave toward the sea. “And now my twin. Very invigorating, don’t you agree?” He didn’t add the damnable mystery of the Hellfire club, regenerated, as Lord Walton called it. He’d been a fool to agree. He came back to his senses and the Pewter Room to see Victoria looking up at him hungrily.
“Don’t do that.” His voice was sharp, harsh. “That look makes me want to ravish you, right here, right now.” He gave her a pained smile. “But I can’t, so don’t tempt me.”
“But I didn’t do anything. I can’t help the way I look. Truly.”
“Your expression is—rather, was—so ravenous, I felt like the Christmas-dinner goose.”
She tried to pull away from him. He wouldn’t release her. “No, don’t be embarrassed, Victoria. It’s healthy to feel desire for your husband, makes your husband feel like the grandest lover in the world. What’s more, I like it excessively.”
“I don’t like you, Rafael.”
Again his good humor flowed over her, like warm, smooth honey. “Why ever not? Don’t wound me, Victoria. Tell me you forgive me for my moment, my very brief moment, of male stupidity.”
“You never believed me. How can I forgive you that?”
He was on the point of telling her flatly that a woman’s duty was to be the forgiving one, since men weren’t. But he saw the pain in her eyes, the disappointment, the confusion and uncertainty. “Truly,” he said, very softly now, “I am sorry, Victoria. Shall I go slay a dragon for you to prove what a contrite fellow I am?”
“You know there are no dragons, so your offer is quite meaningless.”
“You are a hard woman to satisfy,” he said, then immediately added, his tone wicked, “No, I didn’t mean that at all.” She slammed him in the stomach with her fist. He grunted obligingly. “What I meant, dear one, was that I shall have to come up with another daring deed that will prove my abject sincerity.”
“Abject sincerity?”
His inexhaustible supply of good humor and his easy wit were wearing her down. He knew it, of course. She knew that he knew it, curse him.
“I’m fatigued,” she said, on a big yawn.
“Let’s nap together, all right? I always wanted to sleep in that grand bed. As boys, Damien and I weren’t allowed in here. I’ll wager that bed is raised a good three feet off the floor. Shall we close the draperies at night?”
She was on the point of telling him that the evening air was quite healthy, when she realized he’d offered her complete and utter darkness to hide in.
“Yes, I should like that very much. It will be like we are the only two people on earth.”
He listened to the brightness of her voice, and quickly realized that he’d offered her a way around his seeing her body. And her ugliness. He sighed. He couldn’t very well retract now. It was all becoming too ridiculous. He wondered if the kitchen at Drago Hall were ever emptied of servants. The kitchen floor at Honeycutt Cottage had made him sing hallelujahs.
“Dinner is at six o’clock, if I remember rightly.”
“You remember. We dress for dinner. Elaine insists upon it.”
“Wear your peach silk, Victoria. You look more edible than a strawberry tart.”