Page 66 of In Want of a Wife
She sighed, throwing her hands down to her sides. “You make it so difficult, Rafe. Do you know that?”
“Hmm?”
“I wish I could hate you. I wish I couldn’t stand the sight of you, but I can’t help but…”
He licked his lips, waiting.
“I think, that is… I have never experienced this before. There is this feeling within me, like this warm buzzing, and it consumes me whenever you are around or when I think of you.”
“Do you think of me often?”
She reached for his half-untied cravat and pulled him close. “Only every other minute. It’s quite unfortunate.”
“Sounds terrible.”
“Oh, it’s horrible. I am sure that I am losing my mind.”
“But it’s such a lovely mind. It would be a grave loss to science.”
Lily laughed, then blinked hard, puzzling over what he had just said.
“I don’t believe anyone has ever said something like that to me before. You keep doing that. Keep surprising me. You are not what I had planned on.”
When he had started this whole scheme, he only thought to aggravate Henry, to push and prod until his brother finally snapped and told him to leave. But his brother hadn’t. And instead, Rafe had done the right thing and replied to each letter, apologizing, all except for Lily’s. He couldn’t turn her away. Her letter had been… special.
Rafe knew Lily was what Henry needed in life—someone who could bring in the sunshine, someone who would stand by him and do what was expected.
But that’s where the plan went wrong.
Because Lily needed to do anything other than what was expected. She had spent far too much time doing that already, and he couldn’t stand to see her dreams crushed.
“You’re thinking too much.” She pushed up onto her feet and kissed him until, for a moment, everything made sense.
They made sense.
And that voice in the back of his mind telling him to leave quieted.
Lily paced her room,tapping her fingers over the spine of her book. She couldn’t quiet her mind, couldn’t relax her body since playing in the surf with Rafe like some lovesick fool.
Which was unfortunate since she was beginning to suspect shewasa lovesick fool for Rafe Davies.
That damn crooked smile of his.
She flopped back onto the bed with a groan.
It was well past two in the morning, and she needed sleep. Tomorrow, they would leave to continue on to Cliffstone.
She sat up and pulled the dressing gown tightly around her, then poked her head out of her room. It was quiet. Lily crept down the hallway, past the kitchen and a sleeping Finn, and pushed open the door to the small library.
Then froze.
Rafe sat on the floor with a glass of brandy in one hand and a ring box in the other. He flipped it open and snapped it shut, over and again as if he were lost in thought. If he noticed her close the door and approach, he made no mention of it.
She slowly sank down to the floor and removed the brandy from his hand and then emptied the glass herself.
He turned to watch her, puzzled.
When she finished, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
