Page 32 of A Sporting Affair (The Corinthians #1)
Genevieve tugged the shawl around her shoulders to stave off the chill. The hidden snug was an inexplicably drafty room. Despite the curtains drawn open, no friendly moonlight shone, the dark room lit by a single candelabra. It was sufficient. She burrowed into the fireside chair, her knees drawn up, a book open for her reading pleasure.
From time to time, voices drifted into the snug, distant but inebriated enough to be heard two rooms over. Papa was entertaining. A gentleman’s evening, he called it. Thankfully, they were at the card table in the games room rather than in the billiard room, which in this monstrosity of a mansion were two distinct rooms, as were the stag saloon and smoking parlor, not to mention the anteroom with its private entrance to the library mezzanine.
As interruptive as the voices were to her reading, they brought a smile. Papa was enjoying himself. He loved nothing more than the company of fellow gentlemen, more so with a festive spirit and wagers laid bare. Despite being a goer, he struggled to make alliances. Unlike Genevieve, he tried. He put himself about as much as he could, but neighbors were either wary of a stranger or, she suspected, found him too obsequious. Simply put, he tried too hard. That Lord Karras had called said more for the aristocrat’s desire for a horse than his interest in forming an alliance with Mr. Roland Slade. Sir Courtney appeared to like him, though. And then there was Mr. Anthony Fitz-Stephens.
The party this evening consisted of those two men, as well as the Fitz-Stephens boys, Rafe included.
The ladies were not invited. Gentlemen only, Papa had huffed. Once Cecilia got wind that Mr. Rafe Fitz-Stephens would be present, Genevieve knew not a moment’s peace.
One of Cecilia’s arguments being, “I could pretend to have left something in the games room—an excuse to enter uninvited. And how breathtaking I’ll look in your lace and satin!”
Another being, “We could fancy a game of billiards, and so enraptured by the sound of the balls, they’ll wish to join us, or at least Rafe Fitz-Stephens and his brothers will, not Papa and his friends,” the last said with a wrinkle of her pert nose.
With a new scheme every quarter hour, Genevieve had taken to hiding, first the garden room, then the parlor, after that the library, then her bedchamber…. Cecilia found her every time. Until now. Cecilia did not know about the snug. Genevieve wished Cecilia likewise did not know about the betrothal’s end. As relieving as it was to be free of Papa’s force, Genevieve regretted telling Cecilia. By that token, she had decided not to tell anyone else yet, or at least not fan about the fact.
“Do you think I could compromise a betrothal if I sneaked into his bedchamber as he did yours?” Cecilia had asked with all the impertinence and indelicacy of a girl of fifteen.
A pity there were no nunneries to which she could send her sister.
She turned a page in her book, read the first line, then realized she had not paid attention to the previous page. Flipping back, she began reading again with more attention.
The spirit of Miss Margland was as haughty as her intellects were weak; and her disposition was so querulous, that, in her constant suspicion of humiliation, she seemed always looking for an affront, and ready primed for a contest.
Genevieve huffed. “In my defense, at least my intellect is not weak,” she said aloud to the empty room. “I sympathize with the inequitable characterization, Miss Margland. You’ve been unfairly maligned. Querulous and looking for an affront, indeed. Fanny Burney has done you a grave injustice.” With a harrumph, she continued to read from Camilla .
Mid-way through the next page, a thump and scrape drew her attention. A quick look about the room confirmed she was alone. She strained to listen. Shuffle, scuffle, scrape . Rats? She shuddered, drawing the shawl tighter. In the distance, the guffaws of the gentlemen could still be heard. Closer, just behind her, were the softer sounds.
Unfurling from her folded comfort, she stole a glance behind the chair.
She shrieked, then clasped a hand over her mouth.
Rafe leaned against the paneled wall, taking in her dishabille.
“How… what… why ?” she stammered.
“Hidden panel,” he said with a hollow tap against the wall’s recess, “should answer the how —which should not surprise you, but I’m simply delighted it did. What is more difficult to answer. To which what do you refer? Why is easier. I came to retrieve a book.”
“A book,” she echoed, struggling to gain her bearings.
How did he always manage to catch her at the most inopportune moments?
“Indeed. A book. Why else should I sneak in here?” His eyes twinkled mischief in the candlelight.
“I thought you were gaming. What could you possibly want with a book?” She narrowed her gaze. “Are you foxed?”
“Not I, fair maiden. I cannot say the same for Otis, who is acting quite the young buck this evening, and I suspect will have a head for his troubles in the morning. In his cups already and nowhere near midnight. Noel, at least, is behaving with a modicum more respectability, but I suspect that’ll only last for one or two more games before he, too, succumbs to Dionysus’ seduction. I’ll say this much for them—they’ll only do it once.”
Ignoring everything else he had said, she probed, “What book?”
“You question my intention?” The face of innocence stared back at her with large, round eyes. Then, with impish transformation, his features sparked into a devilish grin. “Would you be flattered or affronted if I used the excuse as a ruse to seek you out?”
She tossed her gaze to the ceiling. “Now I know you truly are seeking a book. Carry on, sir.” Cozying back into her chair, she stared at the next page as though enthralled.
The chuckle behind her was so close, she squeaked a meep .
Rafe leaned over her, his arm cradling the top of the chair. “Alone in a secret room. Think of the sundry ways I could take advantage of the opportunity.”
She inhaled sharply, then wished she had not, for her nostrils filled with the romance of his rose and citrus perfume.
Closing her book, she rose and set it in the chair. “Don’t be a numpty. We both know you are too much of a gentleman to do anything untoward.”
“If I recall correctly, the last we spoke, you informed me I was not a gentleman. An invitation if ever I heard one.” Arm still draped over the top of the chair, he stepped around and closer to her.
She sidestepped to one of the bookshelves. “Now, let me see. Have you come for The Sorrows of Young Werther ? Or perhaps Candide ? Oh, here’s one by Tyndale on equitation, which you ought to read if you expect to keep pace with me on horseback. No, no, this is more your style.” She retrieved from the shelf a leather-bound book and waved it. “ Thomas Shandy , am I right?”
“Successful fencing lesson, I take it?” His eyes danced with laughter. “I’ve come for Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds .”
“Birds? What a Banbury tale!”
“Not in the least. I’ve recently taken up ornithology.”
“Identify any rare birds lately?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “One fine lady bird.”
Pursing her lips, she shelved Shandy, searched for the Bewick book, then shoved it at him with a quelling stare.
When he tried to take it, she held fast. “Do you not mean a bird o f prey ?”
He tugged the book free. “That’s my girl.”
After a sharp bark of laughter, she quipped, “I am, emphatically, not —”
A toss of the book onto the chair atop Camilla , he lunged forward with the grace of a seasoned swordsman and pulled her against him with a single sweep of his arm about her waist.
She gasped, her hands instinctively pressing against his waistcoat. Beneath her palms, she could feel the beat of his heart.
He leaned closer until the whisper of his words caressed her cheek. “Aren’t you?”
His smirk lingered, but his eyes searched hers, the blue of his irises dark in the dimly lit room, his pupils hard and penetrating. Rafe dipped his gaze to her lips and lingered. As she relaxed against him, her heart in her throat and her pulse racing, he inched away, releasing his hold with lingering allure.
In one fell movement, he snatched the book and strode to the hidden panel. Just before he ducked through the passage, he turned back to admire her so openly, her knees nearly caved. Then, with a wink, he was gone.