She feared him.
Rafe wanted to throw back his head and howl. Tear the door off its hinges and smash every glass vessel in the room. Then she’d have a reason to fear him!
His own fault. Threatening her friend. Teasing her for a kiss. Being surly and silent and solitary. Wandering about while intoxicated on bhang. No wonder Thea feared him. Just as Katharine had feared him, at the end.
Blast it! Thea had not feared him last night.
Not when she had taken his hand, or softened her body against his. In his drug-addled memory, the feel of her danced over his skin like quicksilver. Last night she had looked after him, and trusted him. And just now, when he saw her darting through the clearing like an inept spy, he had laughed and set out to talk and tease.
Until he saw her face, with its patent apprehension.
“You found my dead wife’s grave,” he snarled.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice was anxious, her face pale.
Damn her, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Damn them both, he should bundle her into a carriage and send her away forever. He should take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. But neither was possible, so he thumped the table and the glass vessels rattled.
“Do you want to know how she died, you with your endless questions? Did I poison her? Ensorcell her? Or was it commonplace cruelty that made her flee? Do you ask yourself what kind of monster I must be?” Fury stole his reason, taking charge of his tongue and turning him irrational. He waved an arm at Martha’s curiosities and the instruments of her science. “You must be pleased to have found such excellent answers—Demons. Poisons. Sorcery.”
“Rafe. I mean, my lord. Please.”
Worried. She sounded worried. Fearful.
Rafe grabbed the skeleton’s bony hand in a grotesque wave. “Do you imagine I killed this one too? Or that these are instruments of my evil?”
He bounded across to Martha’s collection of curiosities, flicked the glass jar holding the two-headed viper.
Thea edged closer, her head tilted.
“Yes, indeed, I practice witchcraft and this snake is my familiar,” he snarled. The monkey fetus: “This baby is the Devil’s spawn. And behold—the remains of a human sacrifice.” He slammed his hand down on the jar holding a horse’s heart bigger than a cabbage. “This is the heart of a virgin.”
“That heart is giant,” she said, eyeing it dubiously.
He glared at her. “The virgin was a giant.”
She studied the heart, clearly not squeamish, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were big and round. Her lips were pressed together. Her shoulders slightly shook.
She was trying not to laugh.
Rafe’s irrational rage evaporated as quickly as it had come. Bloody hell. If only he could go back, start this conversation differently. Because if it started differently, it might end differently. It might end with them laughing together. With him pulling her into his arms and kissing her as he had dreamed of kissing her last night.
Instead he… Oh, the devil take him. What a fool he was!
Hot embarrassment slithered over his skin. In a few strides, Rafe reached the door and yanked it open.
“My lord?”
He ignored her and escaped into the sunlight, blinking against its brightness.
“Luxborough?”
He kept walking through the grass, he knew not where. From behind came the sound of the door closing, the light tread of her feet.
“Rafe?”
He stopped. A note of hurt threaded through her voice and he hated that. He hated himself for hating that, when she was playing her game and he was playing his, and soon—perhaps tonight—she would be gone.
But he didn’t move, except to turn toward her as she reached his side.
Her only head covering was a dark bandeau, and the sunlight brought out the red in her chestnut hair. He knew, now, how that hair felt against his cheek, how her face felt under his palms, how her body felt pressed against his.
“I don’t believe you harmed your wife,” she said gently.
“You fear me.”
“No.”
“Your face hides nothing.”
“You gave me one rule and I broke it. And I…I cannot bear it when people are angry and disappointed. I’m such a coward and I’m so sorry.”
Her expression was earnest. The breeze played with her hair and the hem of her cloak brushed his leg. He clasped his hands behind his back and said nothing, hot with lingering embarrassment.
“I certainly don’t believe in witchcraft,” she added. Her fingers were dancing again, winding around each other as she talked. “Many people still do, I know, but not me. And I saw the books: Materia Medica. I don’t need a fancy education to figure out the meaning. Besides, I’ve visited apothecaries in London, and a cunning woman. Last night you said something about easing pain. You make medicines, don’t you?”