Chapter Thirty-five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Daphne awoke with a splitting headache and a bundle of nerves in her belly. She hadn’t slept well. What had happened with Rafe last night kept replaying itself over and over in her mind. The bedsheets still smelled like him. Maddening, that. She snuggled into them and breathed deeply.

His speech had sounded heartfelt and sincere when they’d been drinking, but that was the problem with drinking, wasn’t it? It confused things. Gave you a fuzzy head. Hadn’t he said as much himself?

The truly frightening part was she’d nearly given herself to him last night. She had no doubt if they hadn’t been interrupted, she would no longer be a maiden. Rafe had apparently been so overcome that he was willing to defy Julian’s edict and put himself in danger just to have her. But a night of passion wouldn’t change the fact that he couldn’t be trusted and they weren’t suitable for one another. Yet another reason not to drink.

Daphne spent the day practicing with her knife, and by the time they loaded into the rowboat to go ashore, she had firmed her resolve in two quarters. She wasn’t about to let alcohol touch her lips again when she was anywhere near Rafe Cavendish, and she was not— was not —going to kiss him again. Ever.

The ride to shore was mostly silent. In fact they’d barely spoken to each other all day. It was more of an awkward silence than anything else. They both seemed hyperaware of the enormity of the mistake they’d come so close to making last night.

They were in the rowboat alone but the rest of the crew had already come to shore. The men of the True Love were on alert tonight. They would blend into the crowd in and around the tavern to keep an eye on things.

Daphne breathed deep. The docks stank but she couldn’t help but feel a certain exhilaration. This was the type of moment she’d never have sipping tea in drawing rooms, painting with watercolors, playing whist with the other ladies of the ton. She pulled the oar with all her might, matching Rafe’s strokes.

As soon as the rowboat hit the dock, Daphne made to leap from the vessel, but Rafe’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Be careful,” he whispered.

Daphne nodded. She took her favorite knife out of her back pocket and slipped it into her boot.