Chapter 5

5

Rafe hated being here. He had few unshadowed happy memories of this house, the house his mother had lived miserably and died cruelly young in, tearing his world apart and banishing any real sense of security forever. From his earliest years, he’d been aware of her deep unhappiness and shared it, knowing without ever voicing the knowledge that it was caused by Lord Wyverne. His father had been a cold, critical, sarcastic presence and a constant source of unease and confusion, if not outright fear, that affected everyone around him, including the servants and the estate children who’d been young Rafe’s only playmates. After his mother’s death, his first stepmother had soon taken her place, and she had been kind to him, though of course she could never replace his mama, but she too had lived unhappily and died early.

Wyverne Hall remained his father’s chief residence, showplace for his treasures, thoroughly imbued with his sinister personality, and had been – still was – the scene of his most notorious debauches. Now, of course, his father’s third wife presided over it. Rosanna.

Rafe wasn’t obliged to actually live here. That was something. He had a small estate of his own a few miles away, inherited from his uncle, his mother’s brother, so he need never sleep under this roof again, not while his father was alive. If it was too late or too dark to ride all the way home, he stayed with his friend Simon at the rectory in the village.

He wouldn’t be here at all, he wouldn’t so much as set foot in the place, if his grandmother weren’t here. It wasn’t really clear to him why his father insisted on her living here, and certainly she’d have been more than welcome in his own home. If Lord Wyverne ever went to see her in her suite of rooms, he must do it at odd times of the day or night, because Rafe never encountered him there. It would be ridiculous to assume that there was any great affection between them. She never spoke of him unless she had to (and God knows he, Rafe, never raised the topic with her). If the mother and child bond – mother and firstborn son – was proverbially the strongest in nature, something had gone seriously wrong here, and many years since.

It had sometimes occurred to Rafe that Lord Wyverne kept his elderly, fragile mother in his principal seat chiefly so that he could enjoy the sight of her being obliged to acknowledge and be civil to the woman he had taken as his third wife. It was, perhaps, a twisted form of punishment, though Rafe was unsure what crime his father believed the Dowager had committed to merit such treatment. She’d not been faithful to her husband, true, but he’d been a legendary womaniser long before he’d met her and throughout their marriage, so to judge her harshly hardly seemed fair. But when had the Marquess ever been fair to anyone?

It might even be the case that Wyverne had married Rosanna, with all her shocking past, not in spite of the fearful scandal it had caused, but precisely because of it. Certainly he took a perverse pleasure in flaunting her in the face of the world, and especially in the faces of his own family – his mother, his heir. But if it hurt Delphine to accept Rosanna as her successor as marchioness and mistress of the house and the estate, she never showed the least sign of it. Not in public; not, as far as Rafe knew, in private either. Whether this lack of obvious reaction was a disappointment to his father or not, he could not venture to say. It would be an enormous understatement to say that they were not close.

Rafe stood on the steps and looked out over the artificially natural landscape that would one day be his. Wyverne was damnably beautiful, there was no denying that. It was spring, and a light breeze ruffled the surface of the nearest lake. Clouds scudded fast across the eggshell-blue sky, daffodils nodded bravely under specimen trees, and leaves were just unfurling in freshest green. Each eminence was crowned by a temple or a folly, each ride ended in an obelisk or a statue, placed with supreme taste and confidence in exactly the right place. The scene was heartbreakingly lovely, implausibly idyllic, but there was no place for him here now, and if he could not be with his grandmother he should be at home, where he was needed.

He felt eyes upon him, and turned to see that the Frenchwoman was standing waiting. Watching him with those big dark eyes. A slight flush had crept up into her pale cheeks once more – he presumed she was irked that he had caught her observing him – and she spoke some inconsequential words to gloss over the awkward moment. He offered his arm, she took it with poorly concealed reluctance, and they descended the broad steps together.

It was perfectly true, as she had most impudently implied a few moments ago, that he had taken very little interest in his grandmother’s previous companions. He wanted Grand-mère to be happy, and therefore he wanted her companion to suit her, but he was beginning to think that the woman who’d do that – who’d read those ridiculous novels to her satisfaction, and converse to her amusement, and not bore her to death in a week – did not exist. Or if she existed somewhere, she was living a life of her own, not looking for employment as a paid companion. There had been so many of those, and none of them had lasted long. There was no reason this girl should be any different.

And yet… she was different. It wasn’t just that she was somewhat younger than all the rest. That was of no consequence; the world was full of young women. It wasn’t that she was attractive, though she was that too. The world was full enough of attractive young women, for that matter. Women whose charms were all too obvious, displayed to tempt the casual observer. There was nothing obvious about her , and she wasn’t laying out any wiles to catch his attention. If he’d been forced to describe her in words, nothing he’d be able to say would have conveyed any special sort of allure. She was inconspicuous, or should be: not tall, not short, not thin nor plump, not especially graceful in her movements though not clumsy either, her hair a sober brown, her eyes dark brown too. Her skin was good, it was true, her hair lustrous, her features regular, and she appeared to be in excellent health and have her own teeth. But one might say as much and more about a horse. A spaniel bitch. There was nothing in any of this to hold the gaze. To hold his gaze, in particular. But… earlier in his grandmother’s room and now, he couldn’t look away. Something about her sheer presence, her enormous self-possession, and the depth of feeling that he was positive lay beneath it, though she almost never let it show, drew him. Held him.

And the devil of it was, he was certain he’d met her before. He knew in his bones he had. And not a fleeting, casual contact; she hadn’t passed him by common chance in the London street or anything of that nature. They’d met, been introduced, conversed.

Which was surely impossible.