Sally whirled about and ran back into the darkness of the house.
Rafe looked as puzzled as Thea felt. “How the hell do you two know each other?”
Ventnor took a deep breath, the color returning to his cheeks, and when he spoke, he only said, “You harmed my family, Luxborough, by enabling my son to marry so far beneath him. I shall ruin you.”
“You will not,” Thea said. “Lord Luxborough is a horrid, beastly, lying liar, but apart from that, he is kind and caring and honorable and gentle.”
“Gentle? You foolish girl. He broke my walking stick.”
“Yes, but he broke it very gently.”
“And if you don’t leave, Ventnor, I shall shoot you gently too.”
Ventnor, lip curled, climbed into his carriage. As soon as Rafe had shut the door and stepped away, the footmen leaped onto the back, the coachman clucked at the horses, and the carriage made its escape.
“I still don’t understand.” Thea shivered in her wet clothes, while Rafe stood as impervious as a rock. “The whole time I thought he was your ally and you were doing his bidding, but the whole time you and I were actually on the same side. Nothing is as I thought it was. I worried you would be angry with me, and now I am angry with you, and I don’t feel I have a right to be angry, and that makes me even angrier. And when you kissed me, it wasn’t because you believed you had a right but because… And you did nice things for me, but you didn’t have to do nice things, because you knew I wasn’t your wife, and I felt so guilty but you…”
Rafe ran a hand through his wet hair. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s finished. Your sister is married. I got the money and the orchids. It went as planned. The game is up.”
“And now?”
He looked down at the lake and then back at Thea.
“And now it’s time for you to go.”
Rafe was almost grateful to Ventnor for the timely reminder of Rafe’s unsuitability for marriage; when Thea was in his arms, it was easy to forget.
Everything was as it was meant to be, he lectured himself, but his eyes strayed back to the lake, as if he might catch a glimpse of a man and woman frolicking together in the water.
Blithering muttonhead, indeed.
Resolutely, he walked into the house. In the foyer, servants appeared with dry towels, and Rafe handed one to Thea without looking at her. After drying himself as best he could, he started up the stairs. A backward glance showed that Thea was struggling, burdened by the oversized coat and wet gown, her hair tumbling haphazardly around her shoulders.
“Your breeches are askew,” she said. “It looks uncomfortable.”
“It is.”
“Good. I hope you get chafing.”
He marched back down. “Do you want me to carry you up the stairs?”
“I want you to explain why Ventnor knows Sally, and why you lied to me, and what happened to Katharine.”
“I already told you about Katharine.”
“Except for the tiny details about the lunatic asylum and why she feared you.”
Rafe muttered a dark oath. “I’m going to carry you or we’ll be here all day.”
“Very well. But I shan’t enjoy it, and I may be compelled to scream.”
“If you must.”
Rafe bent and scooped her up. Everything about them was cold and damp and uncomfortable, yet her weight felt right in his arms, and her softness perfect against his body. She looped an arm around his neck, for although this was new to them, they had already mastered it. Like those kisses, like their games and conversations. They learned each other so quickly. Rafe dared himself to look at her face. Her gaze searched his, and a pang echoed through his chest. Tightening his arms around her, he closed his eyes to her beauty and emotion, but still he saw her, still he felt her. If he were a different man, he could carry his bride like this. Lay her down and show her such bliss she would never want to leave.
But he was not a different man.
He opened his eyes and headed up the stairs and toward her rooms.
The sunlight was streaming into Thea’s sitting room, where her traveling trunk crouched, gaping and empty, a pile of underclothes beside it. Rafe lowered Thea to the floor and dumped the clothes into the trunk. He went into the dressing room for another armful, and came back to see her remove everything from the trunk and hurl it across the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” He looked around at the bright, peach-colored room, the furniture dripping with sunlit stockings and shifts and the devil knew what. One stocking was curled around a vase of yellow and white roses.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me about Katharine.”
“Katharine died years ago.” He dropped the armful of clothes into the trunk. “She has nothing to do with anything.”