Page 53 of In Want of a Wife
He swallowed his patience, shifting in his seat before finally he gathered the courage to look up at Lily.
“Perhaps it’s time to retire for the night,” his mother said, jumping in.
Lily rose, clutching a book in her hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Davies. It has been a lovely day, but I would be so grateful to rest.”
“Of course, dear.”
His mother grabbed Lily’s hand and led her down the hallway, leaving him alone with Mari.
She turned, looking up at him with wide, gray eyes. “You haven’t even written.”
He scratched his chin, swallowing down the panic clawing at his chest.
Rafe had, eventually. He wrote to his mother every Thursday evening. “I’m sorry, Fish.”
She brushed back the long hair she wore to hide what had happened. But he knew what was there. He remembered that afternoon when he wished more than anything he could forget it.
“I think your wife is very lovely.” She softly laughed to herself, reaching for her kit. She carefully slipped in her charcoal pieces into the canvas and rolled them up. It was a ritual she perfected as a child, now at nearly twenty-six, nothing had changed.
“She isn’t my wife. She is going to marry Henry.”
“Why isn’t Henry here?”
He was so bloody tired. “He’s at his house, Cliffstone, now. I came to help…”
“Henry won’t like her.”
Rafe frowned. “Why ever not?”
Finn trotted in, volleyed glances between Mari and Rafe, then decided to attempt to crawl into his lap as if he were still a puppy. The giant dog settled his weight on Rafe, and he groaned as Mari threw back her head and laughed.
She laughed as if he hadn’t almost killed her that afternoon longago. As if what happened afterward hadn’t changed the course of her life. As if she wasn’t permanently scarred across the right side of her head, and he hadn’t damaged her mind.
But he had.
Mari had suffered a serious head injury and never fully recovered. She was nearly twenty-six and acted as if she were still thirteen. In between memory problems, she also struggled with her temper and emotions.
And she was laughing that a giant sheepdog had just crushed him. As if it were an ordinary Tuesday evening in late June on the Welsh seacoast. As if she had accepted what had happened that afternoon.
“Off, Finn!” Rafe jumped to his feet, anger bubbling up within.
“Why have you visited?” she asked again.
She had asked the same question throughout the afternoon. He had answered at first, then chose not to because it didn’t matter. Not truly. She would forget and ask again. And again, he would have to look her in the eyes and pretend as if she hadn’t just ripped his heart apart.
“I love you, Mari. I’m going to bed now. You should, too.”
She nodded, pressing a kiss into her palm and holding it against his cheek. She had done the same even as a toddler. Then she called out to Finn who trotted down the hall behind her.
Rafe hadn’t even said goodnight to Lily. But judging by the way she had glared at him throughout the afternoon as his mother’s friends clucked over him and threw pretty, meaningless flirtations in his direction, he would assume she wanted nothing to do with his company.
Which was entirely annoying because what he wished most at that moment was to laugh with her.
They hadn’t even known each other for a week, and yet she had crawled under his skin and had made a home for herself somewhere close to where his heart would be located if he had one.
But he didn’t.
And he had vowed one kiss with her. That became one night in one bed.
