Page 38 of How to Court a Rake
The arrow in her bow fell to the ground, forgotten. All her thought was riveted by the man—thenakedman—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,ifyou 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.Idid. 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 andtonnish 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.’
