Page 20 of How to Court a Rake (Wed Within a Year #1)

H er arrow struck the centre of the butt sure and true with a satisfying thump, the tip sinking dip into the hay target. Mary was certain Caine had ordered the butts set up for her. What she wasn’t sure of was what did it mean? Had it been the act of a thoughtful host? Or dare she read anything more into it? After yesterday, perhaps it was a subtext involving Cupid’s arrow finding its mark?

Deep down, Caine was a romantic, but he was also a rake. Nights like last night were commonplace for him. Just like carriage rides, or games involving forfeits. He lived a far more decadent and experienced life than she when it came to such things. She was out of her depth here. Boldness without knowledge behind it could only carry one so far.

Mary nocked another arrow on to the bow and sighted the further target. What did it matter if it was romantic? It would be a short-term affair that ended when she left Sandmore. She let the arrow fly, satisfied with the shot just a hair off centre. She’d not shot since the archery competition at the Harlow house party. That party belonged to a different life, a different person.

She strode towards the butts to collect the arrows. That young woman would not have dreamed of taking a lover, of challenging the rules she’d been brought up to obey. That young woman would not have made love beneath the stars, or left home with no plan, no resources for her next step. She would not have discovered her inner strength, or her own power. Her own identity would have escaped her entirely given time.

She did not despise that young woman. That young woman had her own strength to be sure, a successful debutante didn’t survive without it, but that young woman would have missed so much. It had been worth it. The refrain from last night still echoed today.

The poche at her hip refilled, Mary walked off the paces and scanned the gardens behind her for any sign of Caine. She’d not seen him since he’d laid down beside her in bed—the quiet eroticism of sleeping skin to skin with him was not something she’d soon forget.

He’d been gone when she woke and the breakfast room had been deserted when she’d finally made her way downstairs. She’d been disappointed, but perhaps he was giving her time to be alone to think.

What did one say to someone after they’d spent the night exploring one another’s bodies? Did one talk about it? Or did one say ‘pass the toast, please’ and carry on as if the night had never happened? Was that what Caine was signalling with his absence? It was to be business as usual between them? Although that business had its own murkiness to it. The lines between friends and lovers had been blurred nearly the entirety of their association. Still, Mary felt they ought to talk about last night—would it happen again? What did it mean, if anything?

Mary looked at the sky. The sun of yesterday had been replaced by heavy, cloudy summer skies portending a storm later today. Had Caine gone riding without her? That would be disappointing. She’d have liked to ride with him. Mary prepared to shoot again, a motion at the lake shore catching the corner of her eye. She turned towards the movement and her breath caught at the sight of him: Caine rising from the lake, water sluicing from dark hair, his body slick.

The arrow in her bow fell to the ground, forgotten. All her thought was riveted by the man—the naked man—emerging from the waters like a masculine rendition of the Birth of Venus. Neptune Rising. He looked even better in daylight than he had by moonlight. This was the man who’d strode naked through the gardens, who’d carried her to bed and slept beside her. She took a very long look.

Caine bent and retrieved a towel, offering her a glimpse of his buttocks in profile. Then he slipped his shirt over his head and the show was over. He nearly had his breeches fastened before he saw her. He raised a hand and waved to her, walking her direction barefoot, boots in hand. ‘Good morning, Minx.’ He kissed her cheek. He smelled of fresh lake water and summertime. ‘How long have you been watching me?’ he teased, his dark eyes dancing.

‘Long enough,’ she replied with a coy smile.

‘See anything you like?’ He bent down to retrieve her forgotten arrow.

‘Maybe.’ She couldn’t stop smiling. Would she always feel this way around him? As if she could burst with life? He fairly vibrated with it—life, adventure, all rolled into one man, all the things the dutiful debutante she once was had been taught to stifle, taught to be afraid of, even. She put a hand on his arm and lowered her voice. ‘I missed you this morning.’

He answered with a slow kiss that lingered at her lips, his eyes half-lidded. ‘I had business with Grandfather.’ Before she could ask about that, he hurried the conversation on. ‘How are the archery butts? Shall we shoot a little? I asked to have lunch brought down.’

They spent the next half-hour in a fun, spirited competition, Mary besting him in shooting. Caine was an adequate archer, but in his own words, he was ‘much better with pistols’.

‘Maybe you can teach me to shoot a weapon of your choice next time.’ Mary leaned her bow against the little canopied pavilion erected for lunch.

‘Perhaps I should. You should definitely know how to handle a gun.’ Caine grinned, but she didn’t miss the scrutiny in his gaze, which didn’t match the teasing in his voice. It was not like him to prevaricate and he was not in the habit of mincing words, but he was hiding something now.

Did it have to do with last night? Did he think she expected anything as a result of it? Or had he heard from her father? Did it have to do with Caine’s business with his grandfather? Had there been news about Stepan? Perhaps he needed to leave and follow a lead?

She assembled a small plate from the meat, cheese and bread laid out, but her attention was fixed on Caine. Something was on his mind. Had all the fun beforehand been a way of easing her towards it? Her stomach tightened as scenarios ran through her mind. Was he going to say last night was a mistake? That he was returning to town? That she needed to leave?

‘Is that all you want?’ Caine nodded to her plate. ‘You’re not hungry?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No, I’m quite nervous in fact. You have something on your mind and I’m not sure I’m going to like it.’ She sat down and set her plate aside. ‘Perhaps we might just cut right to it because the suspense has killed my appetite.’ And her hopes that there might be more lovemaking after lunch, that perhaps the little pavilion had been erected with a few purposes in mind, had been dashed as well.

‘Well, if you’re nervous, that makes two of us.’ Caine knelt before her, grasping her hands in his. ‘I had meant to go about this a little differently, but perhaps it would be better to start at the end and then work back to the beginning.’

Her pulse began to race. She knew a prelude to a proposal when she heard one and this one bore all the trappings. If there was one thing that would make Caine Parkhurst nervous, it would be marriage. She bit her lip, her mind sped. What to do? What to say? Nothing in her training had prepared her for this. This might be a proposal, but it was not like the proposal she’d refused from the Viscount in her first Season, or any of the other carefully curated offers where everyone knew their lines and the rules.

‘Mary, I want to ask you if you would consider doing me the honour of being my wife, if you find the idea of marriage to me satisfactory after I share some things with you.’ His dark eyes were holding her captive with his gaze, making any kind of thought difficult, let alone formulating a logical response.

‘Why are you doing this? Is it because of last night?’ She found her voice, found her logic at last. ‘I expect nothing in that regard. You have no obligation.’

Caine chuckled, but did not let go of her hands. ‘Did you not enjoy last night? I was under the impression you did. I did. One might say I’d be interested in having last night every night. Last night was a pretty good audition for marriage in my opinion. We had some other successful auditions, too.’

‘Oh, hush! You’re wicked.’ She blushed, but she smiled as she said it. ‘One needs more than that to make a marriage.’

‘Yes, but it’s a start. A good start. There’re worse ways to begin than with sexual compatibility.’ A seductive smile teased at his mouth.

‘It won’t last, that sort of thing never does, not when that’s all there is. It’s not enough to hold a man who can find that excitement elsewhere,’ she cautioned.

‘Says who?’ Caine challenged. She bit her lip, not wanting to say. But Caine guessed anyway. ‘Is that one of the scintillating and valuable pieces of advice Lady Morestad imparted to you at the musicale?’ He shook his head. ‘Philomena Morestad is not someone anyone should take marital advice from.’

‘I expect fidelity, Caine. You don’t have a reputation for such.’ It would indeed cut to the quick to know he was doing with another woman what he’d done with her.

‘Don’t I? Perhaps you might consider measuring fidelity with markers other than dalliances with opera singers and ton nish women of low morals, where fidelity was never asked for.’

Another thought occurred to her. ‘Is this because of the condition of your title? I am to be an expedient solution? Or is this because you want to protect me from the scandal that is currently making its way through society?’

Caine sat back on his heels. ‘Careful, you might walk yourself into a contradiction, Mary. A few minutes ago you were questioning my ability to be faithful and now you’re holding my fidelity against me. You can’t have it both ways. Either I am faithful to you, or I am not.’ He laughed. ‘This proposal isn’t going well. All I asked is if you wanted to marry me.’

Mary gave a coy smile. ‘Let me reframe the conversation. I will ask you a question. Why do you want to marry me?’

It was his turn to feel uncomfortable. She’d already shot down the reasons he would have offered: to stop the scandal and to satisfy the King’s requirement, because if he had to marry it should be to someone he trusted. ‘Because I care for you, Mary. I care what happens to you and I can affect that in a positive way. And, yes, there are secondary benefits that make it a practical solution. I need to wed and you need to wed to escape social ostracising.’

‘Do you love me, Caine?’

Damn, but she knew how to ask hard questions. Would she be able to handle even harder answers when he gave them? ‘I don’t deal in love, Mary, because I can’t. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.’ He’d meant to lead with that, with his life as a Horseman, lead into her father’s potential involvement with the sabotage in Wapping and then give her the choice. But the worry in her eyes had derailed him and he’d leapt straight to what had become the most salient point of the conversation—the proposal. ‘The Four Horsemen, my brothers and I, we do unofficial diplomatic work for my grandfather.’

‘You’re diplomats?’ Mary tried to follow and couldn’t piece it together.

‘Not per se. We prevent undiplomatic things from happening so that diplomatic things can. The ton thinks the Four Horsemen are about being rakes. But it’s really about preventing disaster from striking. We stand between destruction like war, death, pestilence, famine.’ He gave her a moment, watching her head nod slowly.

‘That night in Wapping,’ she said slowly, ‘that was for your grandfather?’

‘Yes.’ He reached for her hands again. ‘There was a ship carrying cargo meant for an important military engagement on the Continent.’ He tried to be as specifically non-specific as he could be. Secrets were burdens. ‘There was an attack planned on it. We foiled it.’

‘At the expense of your brother,’ she said softly, squeezing his hands in commiseration. Good Lord, this woman could break him with the simplest of gestures, each of them full of sincerity. Here before him sat a good person who would truly care about him if he’d let her. He did not deserve such goodness, should not drag such goodness into his world, tarnish it with the moral ambiguity of a Horseman’s life.

It took him a moment to respond, knowing that his response would shake her world, and his, perhaps to their foundations. ‘There’s more, Mary. It will be hard to hear.’ He felt her hands tighten on his as if he were her anchor. ‘Amesbury is responsible for arranging the attack. Our visit to Prince Baklanov confirmed that the Amesbury family is still in league with an arms supplier named Cabot Roan. They sell arms to any who is buying. They’re rich, successful, powerful and entirely corrupt, devoid of any ethics.’

He could see dread growing in Mary’s grey eyes. ‘Did he think to use my family as social connections?’ Her mind was racing, trying to figure out the last piece.

‘Yes, I have reason to believe Roan wanted Amesbury to be his dealer in England since Roan can’t step foot on English soil. As a duke, Amesbury would have connection and resources in the most powerful nation on the planet. He’d need a bride of your quality and not everyone was interested. The current Duke is from a very thin branch of the Amesbury family tree, not like Harlow who is a direct descendant.’

‘But my father was interested?’ Mary had begun to pale.

‘More than interested. He is involved. Your father is part-owner of the munitions factory and he owes Amesbury a small fortune. His finances are in tatters, Mary.’ He explained the failed attempt to win the arms bid from the Prometheus Club. ‘Being exiled from the club will only further impact your father’s finances negatively. Amesbury is the only thing keeping your father afloat at present.’

Mary began to shake. He hurried to mitigate the damage. ‘All this is true. What I don’t know is what your father knew. Does he know Roan is involved? Does he know the long-standing effects if that shipment had been destroyed? We simply don’t know.’ He hated defending the man, but he would be fair.

‘You have proof?’ Mary asked after a while.

‘Yes. The night of the musicale, I entered your father’s office, found the deed in his safe and tore pages from his ledger. Other sources corroborate the documents and what they indicate.’

‘By other sources, you mean the people here for dinner last night?’ There was an edge to Mary’s voice. She was overwhelmed and anger was a defensive response to feeling that things were beyond one’s control. Caine had dealt with that reaction before, but never with someone who tugged at his heart, someone he didn’t want to hurt, someone he cared for.

‘Yes. I will not lie to you, Mary. We have proof and the dots all connect. Your father is either involved and knows what is going on or he oblivious to the further-reaching implications. If the latter is true, he is in danger because as long as he owes Amesbury money, he can be manipulated. But either way, you are in danger. If Amesbury has you, that is another string that ties your father to him, that ensures Amesbury has the entrée into society he and Roan need.’

‘So I am supposed to wed you in order to put myself beyond the danger?’ Her tone was cold, her grey eyes stormy as waves of realisation crashed in her mind. ‘But who will protect me from you, Caine Parkhurst? That night at the Carfords’ ball, I thought you asked me to dance for the sake of an apology, but that was after Wapping.’ She was running the timeline in her mind and coming to the conclusion Caine did not want her to reach.

‘You bastard. The whole time you were flirting with me, drinking port with me, sending roses, you were investigating my father!’ She let out a yelp of disgust. ‘No wonder you came to my aid at the opera—it was a perfect opportunity for you and you just kept coming. I was so foolish. I kept thinking he’s not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. Society has misjudged him. Beneath this rakish exterior is a romantic, an honourable man.’ She rose from her chair and gave her foot a little stomp of frustration. ‘I cannot believe I was so stupid.’

Caine fought the urge to go to her. She would not want to be touched, not by him. ‘You’re overwhelmed, Mary. Take some time, think through it and you’ll see that is not true. I care for you. I took you away from Amesbury, I saw you to safety.’

Mary held up a hand. ‘Stop. You are not making it better. You are no different than Amesbury, just aggressive in a different way. You both want me to make you look decent. You spirited me away to have me to yourself.’

That stung. ‘Mary, you’re not thinking straight. The scandal is on the other foot now. It’s not me who needs you to become decent, it’s you who needs me—the Marquess—to redeem yourself in society’s eyes,’ he growled—the comparison to Amesbury had hurt. He was ten times the man Amesbury was. ‘Marry me for your safety, if nothing else, Mary.’

‘Absolutely not. This, this whole proposal, is just Horsemen work and I will not be the next disaster the Four Horsemen avert.’ She grabbed the bow and poche from their resting spots and stormed off, headed for the house as the first clap of thunder rumbled through the sky.