She bit her lip and regarded him. “Are you worried you’ll lose interest in me?”
“That’s different. You’re different.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked.
“How can you even question it?”
The words came out too forcefully. They sounded angry, even to his ears.
His conscience—that living, breathing spirit of a lifetime’s accumulated sins—was screaming at him now. Retreat, it said, before he went too far. Said something he didn’t mean.
“Fighting is who I am,” he said. “If you want a man who’ll be happy pushing papers around a desk . . . maybe you should marry Piers.”
As soon as he heard his own words, he regretted them.
Rafe, you idiot.
She winced. “I can’t believe you said that.”
He rubbed his face with one hand. He wished he could claim the same surprise. His whole life was a string of rash words and actions he wished he could take back. Last night, those impulses had worked out in ways that pleased her. But he’d known it was only a matter of time before he cocked it up.
There was just too much of the devil in him. He was doomed to push away the people he loved most. He would never be able to hold anything good.
If he lost Clio now, that would be no worse than he deserved.
Hell, as far as she was concerned, it would probably be for the best.
“Listen,” he said, “I shouldn’t have . . .”
And then—just because it was exactly what Rafe’s life didn’t need that moment—Bruiser appeared in the doorway.
“There you two are. I trust the ball was enjoyable. I”—Bruiser clapped his hands together—“have good news.”
Rafe doubted it. He made throat-slashing, shut-it gestures.
Bruiser, naturally, ignored them.
“First, Miss Whitmore, I’m happy to report the engagement ring has, er . . . reappeared.”
“Really?” Clio said. “What interesting timing. We were just discussing the wedding plans. Weren’t we, Rafe?”
Damn it.
“And second,” Bruiser went on, “your new gowns have arrived from London. They’re made expressly for you, and they are magnificent. The dressmakers are waiting in the sitting room.”
Rafe shook his head. “She doesn’t want to—”
“Oh, but I do.” Her cool gaze met Rafe’s. “I do, Mr. Montague. I can’t wait to try the gowns.”
Chapter Twenty-four
In actuality, being fitted for yet more flouncy gowns was the last thing Clio wanted to do this morning. But she and Rafe needed some space from each other, and this seemed the best way.
After an entire week of telling her she couldn’t break an engagement she’d entered into at the age of seventeen . . . They had one argument, and Rafe was calling off theirs?
It was a touch alarming, how quickly his mind leapt from the realm of “mild disagreement” to “irreparable rift.”
Maybe you should marry Piers.
Of all the things to say.
But she knew he didn’t mean it. And she should have known better than to put him on the spot like that, in a setting so far removed from his strengths.
He’d warned her, hadn’t he? Ballrooms, drawing rooms, schoolrooms, offices . . . When he felt ill at ease, something brash would result.
But what she admired in him was that Rafe understood this about himself. He’d found his own ways to not only succeed but flourish. If she wanted to build a life with him, she would need to understand and respect that, too.
She owed him an apology, but she doubted he was ready to hear it yet. To pass the time, she might as well try on a pretty gown.
As she was making her way to the sitting room, she heard the coach pulling into the drive. One by one, her family alighted from the carriage.
Clio rushed to greet them in the entrance hall. “Phoebe. How are you?”
“Exceedingly fatigued.” With that, her youngest sister disappeared in the direction of the library.
Well. Clio could stop worrying, she supposed. That was Phoebe as usual.
Daphne and Teddy came in next.
Clio curtsied to her brother-in-law. He jammed his hat down to shade his bruised face, barely acknowledging her with a nod before proceeding upstairs.
Daphne sidled up to explain. “Clio, you had better be grateful. We overstayed our welcome with the Penningtons in the worst way.”
“You, overstaying a welcome? How difficult to believe.”
“I was determined that we would be the last guests at the ball,” she said. “We had to manage the rumors, you know. Teddy was a saint on your behalf. He laughed off the punch as a bit of sport between friends. We told every person who asked that you swooned and Lord Rafe escorted you home.” Her sister regarded her closely. “That is what happened, isn’t it?”
“More or less.”
The events didn’t unfold in exactly the order Daphne might assume, and a great deal more had happened besides. But strictly speaking, it was a truthful statement.
“Then good,” her sister said, inhaling sharply. “That’s that.”
Clio didn’t fool herself. She knew Daphne and Teddy’s scrambling was as much about preserving their own social status as it was to do with hers.
But if the potential for scandal was already managed, there wasn’t any need for a hasty elopement. She could have whatever sort of wedding she wished.
All the choices were still hers.