Because she had got it all wrong. Too late, she realized what she had done.
She had tested him.
She had wanted to be wanted, and she wanted that so badly that she had lost all chance of having it. She had tested her parents’ love, and they had failed her test. And then she had tested Rafe, and the one who failed that test was her.
All that time she’d been talking about her home in London, priding herself on forming no attachments, hiding even from herself the secret hope that he would beg her to stay. But why would he? When all she had ever said was that she wanted to leave. She liked him chasing her, but that was a game—a fun game, an erotic game, but only a game. She had played a game she didn’t understand, and she had lost.
What if she had not played this foolish game? What if she had not tested him? What if she had not run in the hope he would chase her? If she had been brave and simply told him the truth: “I love you and I want to be with you always.”
Because a direct statement demanded a direct response, and Thea was not so brave as she wished. When her dream lay before her—the dream of loving and being loved; of having a safe, loving home with a strong, caring man—she had not dared to believe in it. Instead, she had run.
In the bathtub, Thea hugged her legs and pressed her eyes to her knees, and wept. The crying made her body hot, and the sobs made her sides ache, but she could not stop. When the storm had passed, the water was cooling and her hair still smelled of smoke.
Contorting herself, she sank her head beneath the surface to wet her hair, then lathered lavender-scented soap through it. By the time she was dressed again, with her hair dry and brushed and tied in a plait, and she had eaten some food and slid into bed, she felt strangely calm.
She would soon be in possession of a fortune. The first thing she would do was hire a carriage and drive to Brinkley End.
Rafe had nothing to do but wait. Wait and roam aimlessly, haunting his own house, until he wound up in the library, where he spied the pages Thea had left behind. He sat in that big leather chair to read them, and soon found himself engrossed in her strange, funny tale of the outcast heroine taken to a castle and the cursed, half-naked man living in the lake. Thea’s voice was in every line, and, for the briefest of moments, he could fool himself that she was by his side.
“Found something to laugh at then?”
Rafe looked up to see Nicholas dressed in green and wreathed in flowers. “Puck?”
“I make a good Shakespearean sprite, don’t I?” Nicholas said. “I do hope our Thea will be at the costume party.”
Rafe imagined her in that cat mask. No, no masks. He longed to see her face. He curled his fingers around the pages, then remembered himself and smoothed them out.
Nicholas flipped the green sleeves of his tunic. “I wonder if our friend William Dudley’s theatre troupe is still performing that play about Rosamund. Although they really need to change the ending. If you came to London, you could see it too.”
“I’ve already seen it,” Rafe reminded him. “The original performance.”
How innocent he had been back then, that first night, scowling as Thea told her story. How enthralled her audience had been. Then he and Thea had stood together in the moonlight, where she had ignored his clumsy attempts to comfort her, and cradled his face to comfort him instead.
Pain shot through him. The pages spilled from his hands and his forehead landed on the desk with a thud.
“Oh so help me,” he groaned into the wood. “I miss her so bloody much.”
A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder. Rafe sat back up and stared at the bishop. “I’ve done this all wrong, haven’t I?”
“You did the best you knew how at the time.”
“But what if I’ve lost her? What if she needs my help and I’m not there? Anything could be happening in London and I’m not bloody well there.”
Rafe stared out the window. Down by the lake, Sally and Martha were strolling arm in arm, heads together as they talked. He watched them absently, two more misfits who had found a home here with him, a home he was able to offer only because he was an earl.
He had never wanted to be an earl—he’d much rather his brother was alive—but he was. The only way he could stop being an earl was to die, and he was not ready to leave this world for good. He had to decide, and decide now, whether or not he wished to be part of this world.
It was suddenly a very easy decision: This world had Thea in it, and Rafe wanted to be part of anything that had Thea in it.
Nicholas reached past him and tidied the pages. “One of the many things I admire about you, Rafe, is the way you always went after what you wanted. You never bothered yourself with what anyone else thought; you simply decided and went.” He sighed dramatically. “My carriage is ready, and I must be on my way. How horrid you are, my boy, to make me travel back to London all on my lonesome.”