“Naturally, I’m a man.” He chuckled softly and drank the remainder of his second glass. “It seems a little bright in here.”
Rebecca went to the tall windows and drew the curtains closed, throwing the room into near darkness. Once her eyes had adjusted, she returned to the earl. “Anything else?”
“The bottle,” he admitted quietly. “Bring it to me.”
She picked up the bottle again, but Rafferty wouldn’t let her refill the glass.
He sighed and held out his hand. “I appreciate your assistance more than words can say, but you don’t need to see me at my worst. You should go. My head is killing me.”
“Very well.” She looked at the bottle and reluctantly handed it over. “Shall I have another sent up, too?”
He didn’t drink from it immediately, but he didn’t look at her again. “Probably should. Thank you.”
She nodded, appreciating his restraint in her presence. “Do you need anyone to sit with you, keep you company?”
“No, thank you.” Rafferty’s gaze darted toward her, and a shy smile twisted his lips. “I will rely on my imagination and the memory of your tender concern to comfort me.”
Rebecca threw up her hands. “Oh, you are impossible.”
He quickly caught one and brought it to his lips. “Do you realize my late wife would have left me completely in the servants’ care, were she still alive today?”
Rebecca blinked as Rafferty kissed the back of her hand. “Surely not,” she gasped, breath coming fast.
Rafferty smiled slyly as he released her. “You wouldn’t be the first to be surprised by that. I thought most wives the same until recently.”
“I thought yours a love match,” she admitted. “We all did.”
“That is what my late wife wanted everyone to think,” he confessed, looking away. “She loved the attention and envy of other women, so when she talked of our marriage, it was always with substantial embellishment of her part in it.”
Lady Rafferty had seemed an ideal wife, and Rafferty a devoted husband. Apparently, Rebecca had been wrong. “You didn’t love her.”
“I adored her until the very end,” he said, so quietly Rebecca shivered. He sounded so sad, and she was trying to think of a response when his gaze lifted. “Run along now and let me get drunk in privacy.”
“Of course.” She dropped a curtsy to Lord Rafferty. “My lord.”
He leaned in her direction. “But do come back when I’m feeling better, and we can continue our discussion. Do you hate sleeping alone, too?”
“Yes,” she said without thinking, and Rebecca’s face flamed with embarrassment. That was too bold. She did not talk like that, or discuss the regrets she harbored with anyone.
She turned away for the door on legs suddenly no longer steady.
At the doorway, Rebecca glanced back once, only to find Rafferty watching her closely. She waved her fingers at him like some silly nitwit with a beau and then fled into the hall.
Once outside, and confident she was alone, she shook her head. Lord Rafferty was a worse flirt than she’d ever imagined; even injured, all he could talk about was pleasures of the flesh.
But what was genuinely unaccounted for was that she could still feel the touch of his lips on her skin even now.
Chapter 3
Adam drank the afternoon away, acutely aware the pounding in his head accentuated a newfound dread for his own mortality. He might have died today. He would have died without an heir, too. Perhaps it was time to consider his future properly.
It was time to marry again.
Adam could not trust his future to fate. Even Whitfield knew he’d be the next man leg-shackled. Succession aside, there was also his daughter to consider. Adam couldn’t leave Ava all alone in the world, at the mercy of a distant relations kindness when they inherit everything that should have gone to a son.
Adam leaned back and closed his eyes. He had hoped, no exp
ected, to marry for love again. His first wife had appealed to him from the moment he’d laid eyes upon her sweet face. He’d asked for her hand within weeks of that first meeting and had never regretted his impulsive decision.