Chapter Two

eeping up appearances meant the occasional meal taken at his elder brother's home, and Rafe could feel Marcus' gaze upon his face over the pages of the paper he held in his hands. But he'd had years innumerable to perfect his bland, blank expression, and he clung to it fiercely as he carved a neat slice out of the bit of ham upon his plate.

He knew well enough how to hold his silence. How to deflect and dodge, bob and weave. How to disappear into the shadows, and how to slip into the outer edges of a group and behave as if he had always been there. How to be invisible.

For well over a decade he'd trained himself in these things, but the truth was that he'd started learning them practically from the cradle. A spare had a purpose, and he'd served his well enough: to be secondary even within his own family. For most of his childhood—indeed, well beyond it—he'd had the strangest sensation that he'd been forged of glass. Utterly transparent. Not only overlooked, but looked clean through.

He'd even grown to enjoy it, after a fashion. It had meant that the brunt of their Father's contempt had rarely fallen upon him, that he had borne the burden of few responsibilities and fewer still expectations. It had meant that the bulk of attention had fallen upon Marcus, and he and their younger sister, Diana, had been more or less left to their own devices. And since Marcus had always been hale and healthy and had lately produced a son, thus negating even the tiniest possibility that the title might fall to Rafe, Rafe had been largely overlooked even at social events. No appropriately-enterprising woman aspired to only a spare, even if that spare happened to be the son of a marquess. And most especially not since little Edward's birth had shunted Rafe down the line of inheritance.

He'd been invisible. And he'd quite liked it that way. No one much cared what he did or where he went. To all outward appearances, he led a charmed life. Prestigious enough in social standing to merit invitations practically anywhere he wished, but without all the headache of managing a vast estate or dodging matrimonial traps that might have been laid for a man of greater eligibility. Pleasant enough, affable enough, to find all manner of doors open to him. And yet forgettable enough to the owners of those very doors for his absence to be of no particular note if he slipped away.

He'd gone to great lengths to be exactly that sort of man; one only remembered when present and swiftly forgotten when not. He'd gone to greater lengths to avert suspicion, to ensure that his public perception was of the idle and genial second-son he was expected to be.

Only now, years into his convoluted ruse, had Marcus grown doubtful of it. His own fault, there. He'd made too much use of his skills—his training—in the service of resolving certain family matters. One or two instances might have been brushed off, but he'd meddled enough for any three men, and more ably than most. Of course it had roused Marcus' suspicions.

"Problem?" Rafe asked mildly, popping a bit of scone into his mouth.

"No." The paper rustled, but Marcus' dark eyes did not waver. "Not a problem, per se. More of a…curiosity."

Not a question. Good. One of Rafe's very first lessons had been never to volunteer information. People, as a whole, were uncomfortable with silence. Too given to filling it with unnecessary and revealing information. The weight of silent suspicion could coax forth the confession of all manner of sins. But not from him. He'd learned to revel in that silence, to let it hang over him, and to maintain a fa?ade of indifference in the face of it—as if he hadn't noticed it at all. People tended to read innocence into that.

By and large, people tended to see what they wished to see. Hear what they wished to hear. It was a simple fact which had served him well over the years.

"It occurs to me," Marcus said, "that you always seem to be in possession of a great deal of information."

Always was a strong word. In fact, Marcus could not possibly be aware of how much more Rafe knew than even Marcus suspected. Rafe lifted his shoulders in a blasé shrug and tore off another bite of scone.

"I didn't mark it at first," Marcus said. "I suppose there was no real reason for me to do so."

Again, notably not a question. Rafe stirred a second lump of sugar into his tea, contriving to let a little frown etch itself into his brow. "I don't take your meaning."

The paper rustled again, and Marcus folded it up and set it aside. "First," he said, "there was all of that to-do with Lydia."

"Mm. And where is she this morning?" Deflect. Dodge. It was how he'd lived his life for years.

"She took Edward"—his son, and Lydia's, just two years old—"to breakfast with Diana's family. I suppose she'll spend most of the day there. Said something about putting their house in order before a certain blessed event."

Ah. Rafe supposed he must mean sorting out a proper spot for a nursery, given that Diana and her husband were expecting a child sometime in the coming months. They were newly returned to town, after Christmas spent at their estate in Hertfordshire.

Marcus had been diverted only briefly. "I didn't mark it years ago, and perhaps I ought to have done. But you followed Lydia—"

"You asked me to do so." Not a lie. Marcus had asked, years ago, when he and Lydia had still been at such severe odds with one another. "If you'll recall, I also refused you." At first, at least. He, like Marcus and Lydia both, had not known, then, the true cause of their rift which had happened years even before that. Of course, Rafe had discovered it eventually, and had told Marcus what he had learned.

"I suppose so," Marcus grumbled; a minor concession at best. "But still I must wonder at your suspicions. How it was that you had them, when even I failed to suspect."

That was no great mystery; Rafe had learned to expect perfidy. Even from those most trusted. Perhaps especially from those most trusted. But for the most part, those outside of his line of work did not. They never saw the flash of the dagger coming for them in the darkness, and felt only the pain of it when it was too late to do anything of it. Marcus had never suspected their own father of such treachery because he was a good man, an honorable one. Naturally, he expected the same of everyone.

Rafe, conversely, expected the worst, and he had rarely been disappointed. "Only distance," he said. "Of course you couldn't see it yourself. You were far too close to all of it."

Marcus remained unconvinced. "I'll confess it had nearly slipped my mind entirely," he said. Which was not a surprise, given that it had all ended up well enough for Marcus and Lydia. One tended not to question one's good fortune, when it was made real. The ends justified the means, after a fashion. Like most, Marcus had been satisfied enough to have won his wife, to have achieved the happiness that had long eluded him. What manner of man put a question to how it had been done, when the result had been such a grand one?

"But then, Diana," Marcus mused. "How could you have known, Rafe?"

Ah, yes. That had been the spark to the kindling of whatever bits of suspicion might have lurked at the very back of Marcus' mind. That Rafe had managed to track down a man who had been missing for a decade—Diana's long-lost fiancé, the Earl of Weatherford, whom she had recently married.

In all actuality, it hadn't been so very difficult a thing to manage. The man had been involved in the business of mining graphite, and during the wars, the bulk of graphite had been used for military applications, which meant that the government had long kept meticulous records of those buying and selling it. He had stumbled across the earl's name within those records quite by chance, and, out of love for his sister, had passed the information he'd acquired along to her.

The difficulty was in explaining how, precisely, he had come across that information in the first place. "I listen," he said. "I observe." No one ever paid much attention to a second son. "What I do not do is betray confidences." Another neat weave. Insinuating that he was protecting someone else would make it a matter of honor rather than a matter of secrecy.

The feint worked. Though the tiniest frown still creased Marcus' brow, his hand drifted back toward his abandoned paper, and he shook it out once again. "Hm," he said, as his eyes scanned the lines. "Do you know, Rafe, if I didn't know better, I'd say you had the makings of a rather proficient spy."

Rafe lifted his brows and took a sip of his tea. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, on a low, dismissive chortle.

It wasn't true, of course. He was not, in point of fact, rather proficient.

He was one of the most valuable spies in all of England.

∞∞∞

"Christ." Rafe slanted a glare at Chris as he slammed the door of his study closed. "Penny post is less effort than breaking in, surely. You might have sent a damned note."

"Couldn't risk putting it to paper," Chris said from his chair, stretching out his legs before him, planting his gloved hands upon his knees. "Your housekeeper leaves at four. Thought it would be safe enough for a chat."

Only because Rafe had not much house to keep. His home suited him well enough, but it was just a small townhouse in Soho. Only a few rooms, most of which he got little enough use out of. But Chris had all the subtlety of a club, when most situations required a scalpel's precision. He'd sooner break a window than pick a lock—and Rafe would not have put it past him to bust a few panes free of their moorings to let himself inside.

"The usual place, then. Thursday," Rafe said, tugging at the knot of his cravat. They had often enough made do with regular meetings at a run-down tavern near the docks, where the patrons had more interest in the cheap whisky than they did in what company they kept.

"Couldn't wait, either," Chris said, flexing his knuckles. A muscle in his jaw jumped. "Em saw you, evening last. So did I."

"Rubbish."

"She didn't recognize you, o' course."

Naturally she wouldn't have done. She didn't even know him. For years he had existed at the very periphery of her life. She might, in some small manner of speaking, be distantly aware of him as a facet of Diana's life, since they were such dear friends.

But they had never met. Had never been formally introduced. He'd contrived to keep it that way.

"I'd say I was surprised to ‘ave seen you there," Chris said. "But I weren't."

"Wasn't." Rafe chucked his discarded cravat across the room with perhaps a little more force than was truly necessary as he sank into his own chair at his desk. "Wasn't surprised."

"I weren't." Bending one lanky arm, Chris settled his chin in his palm. "Ye go to her, too, then, on the day," he said. "Same as me. And she don't even know you."

"Doesn't." Rafe scowled, knowing well enough that Chris was needling him deliberately with his speech. The coarse accent might have been the one of his youth, but he could just as easily shift his speech toward the refined if he so chose. Generally he seemed to prefer some godawful amalgamation of the two, peppering his speech with dropped aitches and half-enunciated words. "Why are you here? Just to warn me away from Emma?" That had never been necessary. He'd stayed clear of her of his own volition for more years than he cared to admit.

"Just the opposite, in fact."

Something about the clearly-enunciated syllables gave Rafe pause, as if Chris had deigned to correct his speech to make a particular point. His fingers hovered just above a half-finished missive that he'd abandoned earlier in the day when he'd left to take breakfast with Marcus. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we've got a problem. Two problems, in fact. And I'm making them your responsibility." Chris shifted in his seat, his jaw tensing. "Ambrose left a journal."

"Impossible," Rafe said. "I damn well searched—"

"Not fucking well enough, it seems." Those glacial eyes damned him with accusation. "Em found it. Seems she's finally decided to let go of the bastard. She hasn't read it, but just the fact that it exists…"

"Hell." Rafe rubbed at his chest, at the strange ache that had settled there. Worry, he thought, the likes of which he'd not experienced in some time. Nearly ten years now, he expected. "Has she mentioned it to anyone but you?"

Chris shrugged. "Impossible to say, and I couldn't ask her besides."

True. What reason would he give for such curiosity? But if anyone else were to learn of its existence—

Emma could be in danger. And she wouldn't even know it. "We'll have to retrieve it somehow." Already he dreaded the prospect. It had been ten years since last he'd taken up that unsavory task. The very night she'd been informed of her husband's death. Still he could remember her wail of grief, so piercing, so heartrending that it had slid over into his dreams for years. And he'd been a floor above her, rooting around within her husband's study at the time.

"Which brings me to the second problem," Chris said. "Em asked me to find her a paramour. I figured you'd do well enough."

"What." It ought to have been question, except it wasn't. It was a flat, incredulous statement.

"Call it killing two birds with one stone," Chris said, with a forced attempt at joviality.

"I will not."

"Would you rather I send her someone else? Send her some pox-ridden gent who won't have a care with her feelings, just so she can have a man betwixt her thighs again?" Chris canted his head speculatively. "Or have you got the pox, then?"

"Of course I haven't got the bloody pox." It was a searing hiss. Of rage. Of inconvenient longing.

"Leastwise, I know you'll have a care with her," Chris said.

"Are you mad? You don't offer your sister to your damned friends."

"Half-sister," Chris corrected blithely. "And why not, then? I've done it before."

That had been a different thing entirely, and he hadn't offered so much as Ambrose had asked Chris' permission to offer for her. They had all been friends once, the three of them—Rafe, Chris, and Ambrose. Before they had known that there had been a reason not to be.

"You always wanted her," Chris said. "Even before Ambrose got her. I knew it then. Only—"

Only Ambrose had had so much more to offer her. He hadn't been titled, but he'd come from a wealthy merchant family. And Rafe had had little else to his name but his role as the spare to a marquessate that no one expected him to inherit.

Ambrose had been the better match. Objectively. Or so they had thought. Until Ambrose had nearly dragged her down into ruin with him.

"I should have let you have her," Chris said, a telling rasp in his voice. "Even then."

But she hadn't been Chris' to give. Emma had chosen Ambrose—because Ambrose had been the one to offer for her. Ambrose who had called upon her, courted her, married her. Ambrose who had betrayed her. Ambrose who had betrayed all of them.

Ambrose who, even from the grave, might yet present a danger to her safety, to the very security they had wrestled for her from the precipice of a ruin she had not even been aware existed.

"Christ." Rafe pressed his fingertips to his temples, rubbing in aggravation. "I can get the journal," he said. It wouldn't have been his first time housebreaking. It wouldn't even have been his first time breaking into her house. "I can get it. But I can't—"

Couldn't bed her. He had no right to touch her, knowing every way in which he had failed her. He had no right even to beg an introduction.

"Haven't the faintest idea of where she's put it," Chris said. "That house is too damned big. You could spend weeks searching and come up empty. No; best you take this opportunity, because it comes with an invitation." And he was right, there. Nothing would be said were he to be caught wandering the halls if he had an invitation from the house's mistress. "Rafe," Chris said severely, leaning forward, bracing his arms upon his knees. "There's no other choice."

No. Not when the situation called for the scalpel. His stomach roiled at the thought of adding one more heaping pile of betrayal upon the rest of it, but then—there had never been a chance for him, anyway. He'd known it years and years ago.

He'd known it from that night ten years ago, when he'd destroyed three hearts: Ambrose's, Emma's, and his own. Three lives wrecked in a single moment, and with just one bullet…the one he'd lodged within Ambrose's back.