Chapter Two

Resisting his attraction to Julia was like resisting the wind—bone-wearying and, ultimately, fruitless. Every time Julia laughed, every time she absentmindedly touched her cheek, Rayne practically vibrated with sharpened awareness.

And then, when she slipped out alone, an inner directive arose—go to her…now!

To deliver his apology, of course, of course, of course.

An apology that would force her specter to cease haunting his mind.

Or so he consoled himself as he hovered in the corridor directly outside Southford’s wedding-transformed billiards room.

Julia’s solitary figure graced the far corner of a billiards-table-turned-gift-depository. She ran her fingers across the intricate carvings on a silver soup tureen. A decorative ribbon dangled from the wax tray beneath the chandelier, occasionally wafting against her skin.

What he wouldn’t give to gently brush his fingers against the curve of her neck in the same way. Doubtless, she’d swat him away, too.

Not that he would blame her. Not in the least. Who knew better than he his capacity to harm? He’d thought he’d polished his emptiness smooth, but his anger had ruptured the surface, and he’d shown who he was to those he’d cared for most.

He neither deserved—nor would he stoop to request—a second chance.

She looked up from the table, pinning him with her too-perceptive gaze. This time, she did not look away.

“Everyone disappeared from the dining hall,” he said.

She tilted her head, listening. “Then why do I hear voices?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of people left in there. But Clarissa went upstairs, and Markham followed soon after. Moments later, Katherine and Bromton left as well.” He lifted a brow. “What is it about this place?”

She shrugged. “Weddings make some people amorous, I suppose.”

And you? He strolled into the room. Do weddings make you amorous? He wanted to know.

And he definitely did not want to know.

She hefted the bowl and made a show of ignoring him in favor of closely examining silver-rendered insects.

“Dragonflies are an interesting choice for a soup tureen, don’t you think?” he asked.

“You are mistaken.” She set down the bowl. “They’re clearly damselflies.”

“Are they?” He leaned over her shoulder to get a closer look. “But a damselfly’s wings are closed when at rest.”

“Who says they’re at rest? They could be fluttering about, as flies are wont to do.” She shifted, slowly lifting her gaze. “Besides, if they were dragonflies, their front and back wings would have different shapes.”

“I see, now.” He reached from behind her and ran a finger over a veined wing. “Damselflies, indeed. They have more delicate bodies.”

“Deceptively delicate. Remember…damsels can be predators”—her short, puffed P puckered her lips—“too.”

Such a mouth she had. And such a face. Even a gifted artist would despair, trying to capture her changeling spirit in pigment. “Do you have an interest in entomology?”

“I’ve always been drawn to insects.” She folded her arms. “As you should know.”

Anger, he understood. Hers bore down on him—a deliberately placed heel. She would crush him if she could. Which made him want to respond in unspeakable—possibly even illegal—ways…all of them erotic.

The taste of rancid shame pooled beneath his tongue. He must apologize and get out. Fast.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

“I’ve been avoiding you?” Her lids narrowed to slits. “You put oceans between us.”

“One,” he replied softly. “One ocean.” One soot-watered, lightning-capped ocean, churning, at this moment, beneath his ribs.

“One ocean”—she swallowed—“was more than enough.”

Had it been?

In an instant, time and distance withered to nothing. The fruits of his sweat, pain, and self-recrimination? Gone.

Her pull stretched and deepened his inner mayhem. He wanted to pin her down, let her claw him all she wished, so long as she whimpered please when he pressed his lips against the vulnerable column of her throat.

Her woman-scented skin visibly prickled with gooseflesh. Not so much an invitation as evidence—proof she was no more immune than he was inoculated.

Attraction. Simple.

Lust. Common enough.

No reason to plunge into waters and drown.

“I sought you out to apologize,” he said.

She paled, even as the bright spots in her cheeks darkened. The contrast made her less intimidating, more doll-like. Now, he wanted to take her into his care.

As if she needed care.

As if he knew how to care for anything.

“Markham”—she turned her face away—“already delivered your apology.”

“As asked. I didn’t want to address you directly.” Then, after he’d seen her, he realized he had no choice.

She snorted. “Not surprising.”

There. Right there. Sarcasm.

Instinctively, he searched for the pain. “What, exactly, did Markham tell you?”

“He said you acknowledged the wrong of”—her breath skipped—“toying with an innocent.”

Toying. He’d set out to use her, yes, but she’d been anything but a toy. She’d been a danger to him then. She was a danger to him now.

She ignited something shadowy—perverse, inner directives that felt essential. And, from the moment they’d met, she’d known exactly how she affected him.

She may not have guessed the exact nature of his thoughts, but she’d sure as hell recognized his desire. Her certainty had infused her with power and sensuality beyond her experience.

Yet now, she doubted.

If he could heal nothing else, at least he could return her pride.

“Julia, whatever you believe, understand I was…” He searched for the right word. “Taken with you.”

Taken. Stolen. Thieved. Stripped of all protective illusions. Left wanting things he didn’t understand.

Kissing her, teasing her, tempting her with decadent dissolution had been wrong, but his desire had been real. Destructively real.

“That doesn’t change the fact that knowing how innocent you were”—knowing he had nothing to offer her but corrupted want, the shell of a home, and a family history of callous indifference—“I should never have allowed—”

“Allowed?” Her eyes flashed. “I was not a child, Rayne.”

God, he was aware.

“And I’m not innocent.” She covered his stubbled cheek, softly running the tips of her fingers through his beard. “Not anymore.”

Her eyes were pools of fury muddied with carnal craving. Again, she became an impossible combination of banshee and seductress. A combination he longed to bind…and then languidly unravel.

“Rayne,” she whispered, her voice raw with hunger.

He recognized her tone, her expression.

I know you want what I want.

Her words from long ago echoed in his mind. Then, as now, she’d been so alive, so exquisitely determined, ripe fruit dripping with readiness to be plucked.

Kiss me, Rayne.

Same lips, softly parted. Same breath, short but warm. Again, so close, so easily claimed.

His heart thumped in demand, so he forced his mind to another memory.

“You will go, because you know you are in the wrong,” Bromton said.

“I am in the wrong? All I did was allow a relentless minx to hound me into one kiss, after which I sent her directly to bed, virtue intact. Which, by the way, I did not have to do. I wager she would have let me lift her skirts right there on the landing, and I am sure I would have found her wet and—”

Reflexively, Rayne stepped back, stretching his jaw and holding the spot where Bromton’s fist had landed—a fatal wound to the friendship on which he’d built his entire world.

Worse still, he could not blame Bromton for the blow at all.

“That was”—she blinked, eyes filling—“horrible of you.”

She had no idea.

He wanted to kiss her again, more than a starving man wanted food. He wanted to stoke all his latent cravings, be consumed by them, and then be remade into something new that was hers and hers alone. For the first time since he’d returned, he sensed a home.

Lies born of temptation, nothing more. He had no heart to lay at her feet.

Moreover, he wasn’t certain he wouldn’t have done everything he’d sneeringly described to Bromton. He could have—in the grip of that fatal mix of self-righteous anger and vivid desire—devoured everything Julia had offered, and then purposely, unfeelingly, cast her aside.

As his father had cast aside his wife, his children.

He hadn’t lied. He’d been taken by Julia. But he’d also been a very real threat. Something everyone but Julia had understood.

And, by wounding her again, he’d just proven them right.

He lifted her fingers from his cheek. “Be well, minx.” He tenderly kissed the back of her hand. “And forgive me one day.”

With that, he turned on his heel, else he fulfill the very thing that had sent him running in the first place: the destruction of the one person—innocent and good—who’d cared for him without question.

…

Hell and damnation.

Even a seditious inner curse didn’t help.

Absent Rayne’s presence, the room shriveled, just as Julia’s world had shriveled the last time he’d left. One moment he’d been there, glowing, brilliant, alive with a heat so strong tendrils of warmth had penetrated her limbs, joining them, even though they barely touched.

Then, in the next moment, the room and her heart were empty—a rubbish bin which had its contents tossed.

And that’s exactly what Rayne was—rubbish.

She wiped her cheekbones with her palm and then hit the billiards table with a closed fist, jostling the smaller gifts.

Familiar emptiness ached within—stronger now than ever.

Horrible. Unthinkable. How could she—even for a moment—have allowed a libertine with no weapon more meaningful than animal lust to hook her hope once again?

Stupid Rayne and his stupid walk, stupid coaxing voice that made her want things she couldn’t envision or define. Stupid hands. Stupid face. Stupid Southford. Stupid wedding. Stupid gifts. Stupid—

She stood straight and sniffed, frowned, and then sniffed again.

The distinct scent of pipe smoke tickled the bridge of her nose.

“You can come out, now, Farring,” she huffed. “Show’s finished.”

“Unfair, my dear. Unfair.” Farring inched out from beneath the tablecloth and stood up. “After all, I didn’t ask to be trapped beneath the table, now did I? I was a captive audience.”

She put her fists against her hips. “What were you doing down there in the first place?”

“Hiding, obviously.”

“Hiding from what?”

Farring glanced to the floor and back. “Never you mind. The more important question is, how did you know I was there?”

“I caught your scent.”

“Ah. Her Grace warned me my dreadful habit would be my demise.” He straightened his waistcoat. “Although I don’t think being discovered beneath a table was the demise she had in mind.” He lifted his arm and inhaled against his sleeve. “Not that bad. You, my dear, have the olfactory sense of a bloodhound.”

Julia closed one eye. “How much did you hear?”

“Everything.” He tsked. “And I must say, I am disappointed in you, Jules. You had him, you know. He was cooked the moment you sighed”—he mimicked her voice—“‘Rayne.’ Your mistake? Leaving a sullen man in silence for too long. They think…thoughts. Then”—he snapped his fingers—“you’re done.”

“Had him?” She made a dismissive pffing sound. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m deadly serious.”

“You’re never serious.”

“I am serious.” Farring put a hand on his hip and laid the other on her shoulder. “When it comes to the lives of those nearest and dearest to me. If you want Rayne—”

“I don’t care a whit for Rayne.”

“Ha.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “You know I never make the same mistake twice.”

“Not yet, you haven’t. But you’re about to.”

“Just what are you implying?”

“Drop your hackles. I’m your friend, remember? And, as I was saying, before you impolitely interrupted, if you want—” He sighed, narrowing his eyes. “Well, in the interest of avoiding another onslaught, allow me to rephrase. You. Want. Rayne. That’s an indisputable fact.” He glowered over his glasses. “Don’t bother contradicting again. You want him, so you might as well take advice from one of his oldest—well, as long as we are calling a spade a spade, or, in this case, a diamond—his only current friend.”

“Do you actually believe your puppy-eyed speech is going to make me feel one ounce of sympathy for Rayne after what he just—”

“What did he do?” Farring cut in. “He apologized! Ask me if he ever apologized to me.”

“Did he?”

“No. Well, maybe once. But there’d been a goat involved, my favorite woolen waistcoat, several newly delivered dresses, at least three of my sisters, and my mother’s Ming vase. And you know how my mother—”

“Stop trying to make me smile.”

“Tactic change.” He propped his foot on his ankle. “Take note of the effortless pivot.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Close enough to a smile. Now that we have that out of the way, listen.” The humor vanished from his expression. “You may be the last hope Rayne has. If anyone can reach him, it’s you.”

“Why, in Zeus’s name, should I even try?”

Farring shrugged. “The challenge?”

She turned away. He circled in front, blocking her path. The table creaked at the same time he leaned. Or had it been a second before?

She frowned down at the gifts.

“Over here, love.” Farring waved his hand. “You can’t argue with this: Rayne left in confusion and returned positively feral.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m not sure I like the beard. Do you like the beard?”

She rather preferred his clean-shaven, angled— She pursed her lips. “Rayne changed? I hadn’t noticed,” she lied. “He was a rogue when he left. He’s a rogue now. He’ll always be a rogue.”

“By your tone, I don’t think you mean rogue in the traditional sense of idle vagrant.”

“Rake, if you’d rather. Or, better yet, libertine.”

“No.” Farring shook his head. “I’ve known plenty of libertines. Nasty men. Debauched, corrupted creatures. Incapable of respect, of humility, and of…dare I say it? Love.”

She swallowed hard. “What’s Rayne, then—in your estimable opinion?”

“Rayne’s capable of those things but has no idea how to get out of his own way.” Farring pondered a moment. “He’s what you might call a lost soul.”

“Hardly.”

“Remember—I know things about him you don’t. For instance, the Grange hasn’t a trace of feminine influence, as if his mother, who barely lived long enough for him to know, never existed. As for his father—I doubt anyone ever saw him smile…when they saw him at all. You see…” Farring adjusted his glasses. “Nothing in Rayne’s experience prepared him for you.”

“And?”

“And, Rayne wants you, thinks he shouldn’t have you, and is now at sixes and sevens. Tell me you didn’t feel his confusion. Tell me something behind his gaze didn’t tug you beneath your ribs?” He caught her chin, preventing her from looking away. “It did, didn’t it? That’s why you, wee warrior fiend, went all soft.”

“You”—she removed his hand—“need a vocation.”

“I have one.” He hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “I help people. Same as you.”

She lifted her right brow.

“You think I haven’t noticed? You’re hardly subtle, my dear.”

Farring pushed aside a few wedding gifts and sat on the billiards table, clutching the edges and swinging his feet, looking like anything but a ducal heir in his third decade.

“Here’s the only question that matters,” he continued. “How outrageous an action would you take, if you were assured success?”

She scowled. “Define success.”

“Please. We both know the answer. Rayne, wrapped around your little finger—a personal and social triumph.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I never—”

“Make the same mistake twice,” he interrupted. “Exactly my point. Last time, you believed him when he told you he held you in no regard. You’re about to make the same mistake again.”

“He doesn’t.” Pain seared her chest. “His actions just proved—”

“I didn’t see the play, but I sure as heaven heard the dialogue. Taken, Rayne said.” Farring leaned forward. “Taken.”

She’d never forget the way Rayne had spoken the word—hard and low and rumbly as crushed stone. “I haven’t a reason in the world to believe him.”

“How many men flee their perfectly comfortable lives for the wilds of some uncivilized nation just to preserve the reputations of ladies for whom they have no particular regard?”

“Uncivilized? He was in New York City!”

“Pardon me.” He touched his chest. “I should have said completely uncivilized.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m incorrigible, I know.” He drummed his fingers against the table. “And I’m also heartily sick of intervening in the lives of the rest of the card suit, blinded as they are to their own need. Since your own meddling has proven equal to the task, this time you’ll do the intervening all on your own.”

“You? What did you have to do with Bromton and Katherine, Markham and Clarissa?”

“More than you know, my dear, more than you know.” He tilted his head. “Though you were a help, I credit. But that’s beside the point…we’re talking about you and Rayne. You cannot lie to me about how you feel. I rode with you the day after Rayne left, remember?”

She remembered too well. She’d been grateful for Farring’s ear, for his shoulder, for his seemingly endless supply of clean handkerchiefs. She’d poured out her heart. Told Farring everything. And, in return, he’d soothed and coddled until she’d found calm.

Later, he’d even assured her social success by convincing his influential mother to allow her to make her curtsy with his sister, Horatia.

“You”—she narrowed her gaze—“were just keeping me occupied the whole time, weren’t you? Why? Were you ‘preserving’ me for Rayne?!”

“How positively medieval, Jules.” He made a sour face. “Preserve. As if you were a strawberry. I intervened. I’m not God. I happen to find you charming. And if, in the time since, you’d found some pasty-faced thing that set your heart tiresomely aflutter, I would have happily attended your wedding. But you didn’t. You hardly even tried.”

She hadn’t, because no one had compared to Rayne. Truth was, a part of her had been waiting for him to come home.

“Besides,” Farring continued, “I couldn’t have preserved you, even if such a thing weren’t contrary to everything I believe. I had no idea how Rayne felt about you until he returned.”

Her heart stopped. “What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t need to tell me anything. You should have seen his face when you kissed that little boy in the churchyard. Pitiful thing. A man of his considerable strength and height, jealous of a boy no higher than his knee.”

“Stop. Just stop.” She waved her hands. “I don’t want to feel anything for Rayne.”

Farring nodded. “I’ve no doubt he wishes exactly the same thing.”

Shock rippled through her body.

“Too bad.” Farring grasped his knees. “Love’s inconvenient.”

Inconvenient, painful, confusing as the heavens. She’d honestly believed Rayne was going to kiss her again. He’d focused on her lips—his expression taut. She’d dropped her defenses, willing, despite everything, to follow the strange, ardent fascination, and then, he…

Well, she’d thought he’d humiliated her on purpose. Another lesson of some aberrant sort. But what if he’d pulled away because he was as apprehensive of his feelings for her as she was unable to contain her feelings for him?

Farring picked up the soup tureen and snorted. “Just as I suspected.” He peered over his glasses. “Damselflies on one side. Dragonflies on the other.”

“I should know. I happen to like the pretty, winged predators. The tureen was my gift to Markham and Clarissa.”

He wrapped his arms around the bowl. “What else should you know?”

“Better than to meddle with Rayne or listen to you.”

“Now you sound like my father. Not a good thing, either. Sound patriarch he may be, but given to forgiveness? Never. Someday, I’ll tell you a story that will curdle your blood…but I digress.” He set aside the bowl. “Back to you. You cannot navigate life using other people’s mistakes—trust me, I know. You simply have to take chances and make your own. So, are you going to be brave, or are you just going to continue to busy yourself keeping ledgers on everyone around you so you don’t get hurt?”

She blinked away the burn in her eyes. “Don’t! I’m careful because I have to be. You’ve no idea what it is to be a young, unmarried woman. Every man is a danger.”

“You’re right. I apologize,” Farring said softly. “I went too far. Look, Jules, you’re bright. You’re clever. You’re kind, and you’re insightful. If you tell me again you don’t want Rayne, I will concede and leave you to your musings.” Farring sighed heavily. “But I can’t forget the way you were that day. You’re the one who vowed to make Rayne sorry.”

She snorted. “And so I did.”

“And so you did,” he repeated. “But you cannot make him as sorry as he’ll be if he permanently abandons his duty, his friends, and everything he could make of the privileges he’s been given.”

She sniffed, sent Farring a scorching glance beneath her lashes, then snatched his proffered handkerchief. “What advice would you give me if I admit I might still want him?”

“You’d be interested to know, about an hour ago, I took Miss Watson home, as she wasn’t feeling quite the thing. I also told Bromton I will take you there, too, once you are ready to leave.”

“Kind of you, but how is any of this related to Rayne?”

He glanced up. “On the ride to her cottage, I informed Miss Watson you changed your mind about staying with her and will, instead, be traveling to London with the caravan.”

“Farring!” she exclaimed in a whisper. “You had no right!”

“None at all,” he agreed. “But as a result of my impertinence, you now have options.” He held up a finger. “Option one—go back to London.”

“And listen to Horatia ceaselessly sigh over her betrothed? I think not.”

“My sister is rather besotted, I’m afraid. Option two…” He held up a second finger. “I take you to Miss Watson, tell her I was mistaken, and you rusticate here at Southford as you originally planned.”

She scrunched her brow. “I’m afraid to ask for option three.”

“You should be.” His gaze glittered. “Because option three involves you going after what you truly desire.”

Her heartbeat drummed in her chest.

“Allow me to rephrase my earlier question,” Farring continued. “How outrageous an action would you take for Rayne, if you were assured success?”

Make. Something. Happen. “For love, I’d go to my ruin.”

“Ruin need not apply… I’m fairly certain.” He lifted his brows. “Disguises, definitely. Some mild coercion, perhaps. Misdirection, to be sure, and, depending on what you decide when the adventure is over—Gretna Green on one hand, or the safety of your brother-in-law’s nearby abode, Bromton Castle, on the other.”

“Wait just a moment. Gretna? Bromton Castle? Are you suggesting I abduct Rayne?”

Farring broke into a gleeful grin. “I’m so glad you caught on.” He jumped off the table. “I can see plans already spinning behind your eyes.”

“Madness,” she scoffed. However, the idea did bring a certain balance into the equation—power she’d lacked from the start. “Do you actually believe abducting Rayne is possible?”

“More than possible.” He took her hand. “Necessary. He’s about to put into irrevocable motion some colossally short-sighted decisions. So, either you stop him, or I will. And don’t think I wouldn’t lock him in that hovel he should be calling home until he comes to his senses, stops shirking his duty, and behaves like the man I know.”

“Why Farring, underneath all that pleasant affability, you’re positively ruthless.”

He adjusted his coat. “I prefer to think of myself as expedient. Here’s what you need to know. Rayne volunteered to deliver the duke’s traveling chariot to my step-grandmother. Someone, by the way, I think you’d get on with very well.”

“Pardon?”

Farring waved his hand. “So much easier for you to see when you get there than for me to explain. Anyway, the salient point is that Gretna’s not two days drive from Periwinkle Gate. And, since he’ll be traveling—”

“Just how long have you been thinking about this?” she interrupted.

He shrugged. “A few days. Or weeks. Or longer. Does it matter?” Farring put his hands behind his back. “As I was saying, since he’ll be traveling without servants and using postilions, you have a perfect opportunity to accompany him without him knowing. That is, if you think you can manage to ride on the rear rail.”

“You want me to pose as his footman?”

“Not the whole way, of course. Only until he’s too far north to insist you return home.”

She massaged her temples. “Distance doesn’t matter. As soon as he discovers I’m there, he’ll turn straight around.”

“He won’t.”

She sent Farring a narrow-eyed glare. “You have more confidence in him than I do.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I have more confidence in you than you do.”

“And what if the plan goes awry?”

“They always do, of course. But how do you mean?”

“I could fall off.”

He squeezed her upper arm. “You feel strong enough to me.”

“We could be set upon by highwaymen.”

“Rare, these days, especially in the more populated areas—like the ground you’ll cover first.”

“What if, when I confront him, Rayne refuses to engage?”

“I’ve already considered the possibility. Lord only knows what stories he’s been using to justify his deplorable decisions. Which is why, if something should go wrong, you’ll take refuge at the nearest inn and send word directly to me. Under those unlikely circumstances, I’ll offer myself as an alternative means to restore your reputation.”

She threw up her hands. “Now I’m certain you’ve lost your mind.”

“Why?” He shrugged. “I’d say ‘future duchess’ would be quite the consolation, wouldn’t you? And I hate to inform you, but you have risen to the top of my mother’s list.”

She cleared her throat. “Flattered as I am, for one, you don’t love me.”

“No,” he cheerfully agreed. “But I like you, and that’s more than I can say for most.”

“You like everybody.”

He pushed up his glasses. “No. No, I don’t.”

“What about Mrs. Van—”

He put his fingers to her lips.

She pulled them away. “You,” she said with narrowed eyes, “want me to kidnap Rayne, but you won’t let me say aloud what everyone already knows?”

“Rather more an earlnap than a kidnap. And one hopeless situation at a time, my dear. One at a time.” He smiled. “So…do we have a plan?”

His idea was more absurd than anything she’d ever devised on her own, and that was saying something. Then again, a familiar rush was skidding through her body, making her feel more alive than she had for weeks.

Which begged the question—did she actually want to abduct Rayne…?

Of course she did. She’d never felt anything as strong as the current between them. She wanted him. Badly. Wasted love was the worst thing she could imagine.

And what if she did successfully manage to expropriate Rayne’s carriage and he still refused to acknowledge their connection?

Well then, she’d settle for making him very, very sorry.

She took a deep breath and shook Farring’s outstretched hand. “We have a plan.”

She was going to abduct an earl.

Exactly what she’d do with him once she had him depended entirely on him.