He made a low sound in his throat, rather like a feral animal. “I’m not saying my name is Abram. It’s flash for saying I’m naked. I was trying to keep your sensibilities in mind, you being a lady and such. Are you a lady?”
He did not mean lady in the sense she feared, she told herself, though her heart was hammering wildly and her mouth had gone dry.
“I am a respectable woman, Mr. Sutton,” she said coolly. “If you are in en dishabille, the fault is yours. I was most distressed with your behavior last night.”
He paled.
She knew the swift pinprick of guilt, then feverishly tamped it down.
“I didn’t… Hell.” He raked a hand through his tousled curls, the effect rendered somewhat comical by his attempt to hold the counterpane with one hand instead of two. He nearly dropped the right side, and the most shameless part of her would not have minded if he had one whit. “What happened between us, Miss Wren? Last night?”
Nothing was the proper answer.
Although, to be fair, that was rather concise. The truth was that he had been pleasant and charming, fretting over the welfare of his sister-in-law, Lady Octavia, who had been attacked by a madwoman and who had required stitching up by a surgeon. Thanks to the upended nature of the household, the two of them had been closeted away with Persephone’s charges, attempting to distract them from the surrounding mayhem.
But after the girls had gone to sleep in the nursery for the evening, the attention he had paid her had triggered all the fears she had tried so hard to bury after what had happened at her last situation. She had panicked. Armed with the laudanum she had been carrying with her ever since that awful night, she had struck when Rafe Sutton had been distractedly pacing the salon. But she had given him far too much. Before her scattered wits had been able to comprehend what she should do to rectify her error, he swooped down upon her, taking up his glass. He had swallowed his brandy in a mad rush, the laudanum too.
But she could not tell him that. Because she needed this position. She needed to remain where she was.
Only without Rafe Sutton’s interference and vexing presence.
“Miss Wren?” he prompted, waiting.
“You do not recall?” she returned, her mind whirling.
She needed to be certain he had no memory of the manner in which he had fallen so easily. If he were to go to his brother with concerns regarding her character…
She could not bear to think it.
“Of course I do not,” he gritted. “If I did, I’d have no need to ask.”
The sounds of other servants moving about could be heard in the hall, and her heart plummeted to her toes. It was one thing for the girls to have witnessed their uncle at her door—children could be easily bribed, she had discovered—but it was another for any of the domestics to find Mr. Rafe Sutton here in her room, alone and naked, with her.
“You must dress and go at once,” she hissed, careful to keep her voice low lest any curious ears were listening near to the door. Her years of experience as a governess had taught her to expect anything.
He was frowning at her, his displeasure evident in the crinkle of his brow. “Miss Wren, I insist—”
“You have already done enough damage,” she interrupted, fear making her throat go thick. “Dress and go before anyone else finds you here.”
He regarded her, jaw clenched, stare impenetrable. And then, without a word, he turned away and set about hunting his discarded garments from the floor. On any other occasion, she would have laughed at the sight of this big, masculine man struggling to maintain his modesty in the counterpane whilst thrusting himself into yesterday’s coat. But as the sun rose higher and the danger of discovery grew, all she could do was bite her lip and watch as he finished his hasty dressing and sent a glare over his shoulder in her direction, along with a warning.
“This is not the last you shall hear of this, Miss Wren.”
He shrugged the counterpane to the floor. Where was his cravat? She could not say.
She told herself it was his warning that sent the shiver shuddering through her and not the sight of that strong, lean form, striding from her chamber.
But then, Persephone Wren was a dissembler, and she had been one for nearly the last seven years. That was hardly new. However, in the past, it had never been herself she had been deceiving.
CHAPTER 2
Having been born to the rookery and lived all his life there, Rafe had never minded it. The stench was almost familiar. The danger, quite expected, if not appreciated. The desperation, an eternal reason to continue working one’s fingers to the bleeding knuckles. And so it was, that as he returned to The Sinner’s Palace after fleeing his brother’s Mayfair town house with yesterday’s togs—sans his damned cravat, which he had never found in his hasty search of Miss Wren’s quarters—he inhaled deeply. A lungful of chamber pots, horse dung, and stale piss, as it happened.
With a slight tinge of sour wine and fish.
Of course, it was raining, which never helped matters much.
A flurry of movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye, and he turned, thinking he had spied the figure of a cove there. Hope rose that his brother Loge, who had gone missing, was still somewhere about. There had been the mysterious chap who had come to Lady Octavia’s aid and then disappeared the night before to bolster this optimism, for he had resembled a Sutton. But the street was empty. Must have been his tired eyes playing tricks on him. With a sigh, Rafe trudged on.