She sighed. “This wedding-planning nonsense. Can’t you see that it’s just wasted time? Not to mention, trifling with my sisters’ feelings.”
“Strange, then, how you don’t simply tell your family you plan to call the wedding off.”
“Before the papers are signed? I don’t dare. Then I’d have all four of you bent on changing my mind. No, thank you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’ll forgive you for showing up like this.”
“You’ve forgiven me worse.”
“If you’re speaking of the way you reserved the third dance at my debut ball, then failed to attend?” Her clipped footsteps accelerated. “I’m still vexed over that.”
“That was doing you a favor.” He matched her pace as they turned to traverse a long, narrow gallery. “I was thinking of the birthday party where I dipped your gloves in the punch.”
“Ah, yes. And then there was the time when I was eight and you were eleven, and you scorched my frock with an ember.” She slanted him a look. “But that was nothing compared to when you humiliated me at indoor tennis that rainy week at Oakhaven. Winning four times in a row? The height of ungentlemanly behavior.”
“Should I have let you win just because you were a girl? I wanted the silver cup.”
“It was an old copper blancmange mold,” she said. “Anyhow, I had my revenge when I bested you at footracing.”
He frowned. “You never bested me at footracing.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“Well, let’s see.” She halted in the center of the gallery, pondering. “That would have been right about . . . Now.”
She kicked off her slippers. Hiking her skirts, she took off in a dash, sprinting down the length of the gallery. When she neared the end, she stopped running. The momentum carried her forward, and she coasted on stocking feet, skating over the polished hardwood until the doors at the other end caught her.
“There.” She turned to regard him, breathless and smiling. “You lose.”
Rafe stared at her, struck immobile.
If this was losing, he never wanted to win.
Good Lord, look at her. Her hair coming loose from its pins, her throat flushed the shade of china roses . . . and that labored breathing doing magic—a dark, wicked kind of magic—on her abundant bosom.
Most alluring of all, that glint of laughter in her eyes.
The girl needs finishing.
That had been the common wisdom, back when the engagement was first announced. While Piers sailed for India to launch his diplomatic career, Clio was meant to remain in London for “finishing.” Rafe didn’t know what the devil “finishing” meant, but he knew he didn’t like it. Within a few years, she’d been finished indeed. Everything remotely unique or spirited about her had been scrubbed off, pinned back, or drilled straight out of her demeanor.
So he’d thought.
But apparently, the old Clio was still in there somewhere—the Clio he’d rather liked, before the dragons had taken her in their clutches and stifled her with ten coats of lacquer.
The Clio he had no right to be admiring now.
Damn. He had to bring himself under control. He wasn’t here to ogle her. He was here to make certain that in a few weeks’ time she walked down the aisle and married another man.
Not just “another man.” His own brother.
“We did have fun in those days,” she said. “Before the engagement was settled and everything grew . . . complicated. Well, at least the two of us had fun. Phoebe and Daphne were just babies then, and even in my earliest memories, Piers had grown too old for such games.”
“Piers was born too old for such games.”
“And it would seem I haven’t outgrown them. Another sign he and I are poorly matched.” She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear and shrugged. “I’ve been a very good girl for a very long time. I’m ready to have fun again.”
Don’t. Don’t say that.
“Do you know what’s great fun? Weddings.” Good God. The things that came out of his mouth this week. “Just give this a chance. You’ll have every indulgence you could ever dream. Doves released into the air. Swans in the pond. Peacocks wandering the gardens if you want them.”
“That’s a great many birds.”
“Never mind the birds.”
“I mean, there would be feathers everywhere. Not to mention their droppings.”
“No birds. Forget I said anything about birds.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “What I’m attempting to say is this. You shall have everything you want, and nothing you don’t. We’ll spare no expense.”
It was just as Bruiser said. A wedding was like a championship bout, and Clio’s head wasn’t yet in the ring. She needed to step into some gowns, plan a menu or two, start envisioning herself as the admired and envied bride on Piers’s arm. Triumphant. Victorious.
This would work. It had to work. He could not let her dissolve this engagement.
“It’s no use, Rafe.” She went to retrieve her slippers.
He tried not to watch as she lifted her skirts to slip her toes inside.
Tried, and failed.
“Even if I were so easily persuaded . . . It’s not as if my Uncle Humphrey left me a seaside cottage or a string of matched pearls.” She bounced up and down, wriggling her foot into the slipper.
Other parts of her wriggled, too.
Really, she was just torturing him now.
“I have a castle,” she said. “My very own castle. How can a wedding—even a lavish one with dozens of birds—possibly compete with this?”
“So it’s a castle. There are castles all over England. I’m certain the Granville title comes with one or two. If it’s a great, fancy house you’re after, you’ll be mistress of Oakhaven.”
“It’s not just a great, fancy house I’m after. It’s . . .” She looked to the corner and sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?” His pride was piqued, the way it always was when someone questioned his intelligence. He might not have graduated Oxford with top honors the way Piers had done, but he wasn’t a lummox.
“It’s hard to explain in words. Come along. I’ll try to show you.”
He shook his head. “Downstairs. The guest list.”
“Not yet.” She came to his side. “You want to understand why this place is different? Why I’m different now, too? Give me a chance to show you, and I promise I’ll join my sisters in the drawing room for the rest of the evening.”