Taming Rafe (5 page)

With a glance at the clock, she put her book back in the pile of tomes drying beneath the window and banked the fire to conserve wood. A stack of paintings in the dining room needed her attention, and she went to work separating the repairable ones from the hopelessly ruined.

A few minutes later, May raced into the room. “Lis, we’re going. Rafe said to ask if you had a list.”

“Oh, yes, I do. It’s in the kitchen.” She straightened and led the way down the hall. “You may have to read it for him, sweetling.”

“You think he can’t read?” her sister whispered.

“Most people can’t,” Felicity reminded her as she handed over the list. “Ask Mrs. Denwortle to add the expense to our account. Tell her I’ll send her a side of mutton on Wednesday.” Hopefully that would be enough to repay the shopkeeper. She couldn’t spare any more than that.

“All right.”

May skipped out the door, while Felicity followed behind her—and started thinking about pirates and heart-pounding adventure again.

Whatever Aristotle was, it was not broken-down. The bay was a big, beautifully proportioned hunter with one white sock on his left foreleg, and a long,
lovely mane and arched tail. Part Arabian, at least. He looked faster than the wind.

Her gaze lifted to his rider, and a grain of doubt over his supposedly fractured wits touched her mind. Even if Aristotle had been stolen, there was absolutely no escaping the fact that Rafael Bancroft knew how to ride. He sat relaxed and easy in the saddle, the reins loose in his right hand, and a slight smile on his lean, handsome face. When May reached him he shifted sideways, caught hold of her hand in his, and effortlessly lifted her up in front of him.

“Are you certain we can’t gallop?” May asked, patting Aristotle’s neck.

“Absolutely.” Rafe saluted Felicity. “We’ll be back soon, Miss Harrington.”

“You…” She cleared her throat. “Yes. Be careful.”

“We will.”

For several minutes after they disappeared down the lane, Felicity stood in the yard looking after them. Other than Nigel and a few distant relations, May was the only family she had. Since their parents had died, she’d barely allowed her little sister out of her sight. Yet there she was, riding off with a perfect stranger they’d pummeled into unconsciousness only the day before.

She folded her arms and leaned against the kitchen door frame. When he’d looked at her and said she could trust him, though, she’d somehow known she could. Although the last days had been extremely trying, she couldn’t believe she’d lost the ability to make rational decisions. And his very…capable appearance this morning had served to remind her that if his true aim had been to hurt her or May, he could have done it yesterday. Taking a deep breath, she went back inside to finish with the
paintings and see if she could salvage anything else from the west wing.

The curious looks Rafe had received on his way through Pelford yesterday increased tenfold as he swung down from Aristotle and then lifted May out of the saddle.

“Do you have the list?” he asked her. People stared at him all the time in London for various reasons, particularly when the Bancrofts made an appearance together. He noted the attention and then ignored it.

She produced the scrap of paper from a pocket of her flowered yellow muslin dress. “Yes. And I shall read it, so you don’t have to.”

Rafe resisted the urge to rub at the back of his head again. He didn’t need to touch it to know he had a knot the size of a peach pit growing out of his skull. “Thank you, my lady.”

May took his hand, and together they walked across the cobblestones to Mrs. Denwortle’s market shop. Rafe looked down at her as she tried to match her short legs to his long stride. He had very limited experience with children, and had classified them as an entirely different species than adults. The loud, drooly things certainly didn’t seem like anything he wanted about.

This one, though, seemed fairly rational. And exceedingly delicate and in desperate need of protection, despite her efficient manner of thwacking intruders on the head. “How old are you, May?”

“Eight and a half.” Dark brown eyes twinkled up at him. “How old are you?”

“
Twenty
-eight and a half,” he answered.

She laughed. “You’re old.”

Rafe lifted an eyebrow. “Well, thank you very much. How old are your brother and sister?”

“Nearly twenty-three. Nigel is one hour younger than Lis, but he hates it when she tries to boss him around.”

“I can imagine.”

In the store’s doorway she stopped and pulled on his sleeve. “Rafe, I have to tell you something.”

He bent down, despite the resultant pounding of his skull. “What is it?”

“I don’t like Mrs. Denwortle very much,” she whispered. “She says mean things about Nigel.” With a nod she continued into the small shop.

“Can’t fathom why,” Rafe murmured, following her.

“Why, Miss May,” a portly woman in a bright green muslin exclaimed, as she emerged from the shop’s back room. “Where is your sister?” Her gaze focused on Rafe. “And who have we here?”

“Felicity is at home. This is Rafe,” May announced, as though he were her pet dog.

He stifled a grin. “Good morning.”

“I have a list,” May continued, lifting it. She cleared her throat. “We need a loaf of bread, two pounds of flour, two pounds of salt, one—”

“I assume you brought payment with you?” Mrs. Denwortle said, her expression skeptical. “Or is that why your sister stayed home?”

Blissfully unaware of the sarcasm in the woman’s voice, May shook her head. “Felicity said for you to add it to our account, and she’d send you a side of mutton on Wednesday.”

The shopkeeper folded her arms over her chest, which couldn’t have been an easy feat considering her ample bosom. “I need to eat too, miss. And with that brother of yours, I may not receive payment until Judgment Day. You tell your sister that when she sends me a whole sheep—including the
wool—I’ll be pleased as a peach to extend the Harringtons credit again.”

“We don’t owe you a whole sheep,” the little girl argued.

The sarcasm hadn’t escaped Rafe. Technically, he supposed, the Harringtons didn’t owe the shopkeeper anything. Forton Hall was his, and its residents had now become his guests—whether he wanted them about, or not. “Excuse me, Mrs. Denwortle, isn’t it?”

“Yes”—and she looked pointedly at his well-made, if somewhat wrinkled attire—“sir?”

Damn, he was going to have to send for some of his things. “Precisely how much do the Harringtons owe you?”

She scowled at him. “What business might that be of yours?”

He returned her gaze coolly. “Do you want to be paid, or not?”

Mrs. Denwortle continued to glare at him. With a sniff, she finally pulled a ledger out from under the counter. “Seven pounds eight,” she said, consulting it.

Apparently Felicity hadn’t been able to pay her account for some time. With a sigh at the further depletion to his stake, Rafe reached into his pocket and produced a ten-pound note. “Get Miss May what she wants,” he said, dropping the money onto the counter, “and credit the rest to the Harrington account.”

She snatched up the blunt with grasping, pudgy fingers. “As pleases you, sir,” she agreed, her tone more respectful.

While May happily recommenced reading the list, Rafe took a stroll about the small shop. Everything from candles to bonnets and cloth, eggs, and perfumes adorned the shelves, while several sides
of beef hung just outside the door. From the variety, it appeared that she ran the only market shop in the area. And from the prices she charged, she was quite aware of that fact. He paused before a jar of bright-colored hard candies.

“May, do you like sweets?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Oh, yes! Lis loves them, too.”

Rafe recognized a plea when he heard one. Grinning, he removed the lid and a dozen candies. “These as well, Mrs. Denwortle.”

“Very good, sir.”

Finally they loaded everything into two large sacks and tied them over Aristotle’s saddle. The bay swung his head around to look at them, clearly disgusted at being reduced to a pack animal.

“Sorry, old boy,” Rafe chuckled, patting him on the withers.

“Where did you get thuch a wonderful horth as Arithtotle?” May asked around the piece of candy that puffed out one cheek.

He lifted her into the saddle and swung up behind her. “I purchased him, sight unseen, from the Earl of Montrose. Monty said he was the damnedest—ah, the most stubborn—colt he’d ever had the displeasure to be bitten by.” Rafe sent them off at a sedate walk down the lane toward Forton. “My brother, the Marquis of Warefield, had custody of him for a while, but I won him back.”

“I’m glad. He’s smashing.”

Rafe chuckled. “Where did you learn words like ‘smashing’ and ‘top of the trees’, anyway?”

“Nigel. Felicity says it sounds knot-headed, but I like it.”

“You do it very well, I must say.”

She giggled. “Thank you. Rafe, do you really own Forton Hall?”

He looked down into her dark, innocent eyes and hesitated. “We’ll wait until your brother returns to decide that,” he hedged. “So what do you and Felicity do with yourselves all day?”

“I do my lessons, and Felicity mends our clothes. Then I help her, and we dust and sweep and clean, and feed the chickens. Twice a week we walk out to the far pasture to check on the cattle and sheep to get whatever milk we can chase down, and Lis makes cream and butter. She’s been growing cabbages and potatoes, too, but I think the last rain ruined them.”

Rafe sat silently for a moment. “That’s a great deal of work.”

“Felicity says we like hard work. Sitting about all day never got anything accomplished.”

“And she cooks for you, as well?”

“Oh, yes. She’s very good, except that we have chicken and rabbits a lot.”

As the little one continued to chat about the daily routine at Forton, Rafe could only marvel at Miss Harrington. He’d grown up with an army of servants at his beck and call, and even in the military he’d never had to mend his own clothes or cook for himself, unless he wanted to. His disgust for Nigel deepened. Whatever his intentions, going off and leaving his two sisters to manage an estate all on their own, with no funds to speak of, was exceedingly shabby—even if they’d accepted their situation. “And who catches the rabbits?” he asked, though he was fairly certain of the answer.

“Lis. She can do anything.”

Rafe smiled. “I’m beginning to believe you.”

“Lis,” May yelled from the opening gaping in the hallway, “we’re back!”

Felicity straightened, nearly lost her balance, and
wiped a dirty hand across her brow. “Don’t come over here,” she warned.

“I know, I know. It’s dangerous. Rafe and I will be in the kitchen.”

“All right.”

Stumbling again, Felicity grabbed onto a broken roof beam for support. It was strange, standing in the middle of where the drawing room used to be, and seeing her broken bedchamber furniture occupying the same space. She wanted to cry every time she looked at the rubble, but weeping wouldn’t help her dig out her jewelry box or the books piled in the wreck of the library.

Something caught her eye, and she bent down to free a glass figurine from the mess. It had been a colorful African parrot, but the head was missing and both feet were broken. She cast it into the corner she’d already picked through. Perhaps she could convince Rafe that the deed was real after all, but only included the west wing.

“When did this happen?”

Felicity jumped and turned around. “Mr. Bancroft, I didn’t hear you,” she said needlessly, unsettled again at his smooth, deep voice. “Four nights ago.”

“Rafe, please,” he reminded her. “What was this, the drawing room?”

“Yes.” She returned to digging through the mess. “And the remains of my bedchamber.”

“Just be glad you weren’t in it at the time.” Concern touched his sea-green eyes.

“When everything started shuddering and shaking, May and I decided to sleep in the morning room. Even so, it was a close call.”

“It looks as though a herd of elephants trampled it.” He pushed aside a smashed chair. “Two or three herds.”

Felicity put her hands on her hips. “And I suppose you’ve seen a herd of elephants?”

He squatted down to extricate another parrot. “Just the African ones,” he said absently, examining the figurine. “I think this one’s survived.”

“And where did you see these African elephants?”

“In Africa.” He perched the parrot on his shoulder and scrunched his left eye shut. “Excuse me, matey,” he drawled in a Cockney accent, “but would ye have some paper and a pen about?”

She chuckled. “Aye, Captain.”

Rafe grinned back at her. “Since I’ll apparently be stuck here for a time, I need to write my parents’ butler to send me some of my clothes.” He gestured at his splendid but well-worn attire. “I left London in a bit of a hurry.”

No doubt he had, if he’d stolen Aristotle at the same time. Felicity studied his face again as he set the parrot aside and dug for more buried treasures. Good God, he was handsome, and even with his head injury he moved with the grace of a born athlete. She sighed. It had to happen, she supposed, with every other calamity that had already occurred this year. A superbly attractive stranger finally appeared on her doorstep, so of course he had to turn out to be a charming, good-natured imbecile.

If he truly were of sound mind, he certainly wouldn’t be in Cheshire County trying to own Forton Hall. A son of the Duke of Highbarrow would have a thousand more interesting places to go. No doubt next he would claim to have fought side by side with Wellington at Waterloo.

“I generally look a good deal more presentable than this,” he said unexpectedly.

Realizing she’d been staring, Felicity looked away. “I’m sure that’s none of my concern,” she
said, blushing, and with exaggerated care freed a book and brushed at its water-stained cover.

He chuckled, and the warm, light sound tingled down her spine. “It’s just that my pride has been wounded over the past few days. I’m feeling rather…unkempt. No doubt you think me a complete fool.”

Finally he was making some sense. Felicity smiled. “Not a fool, Rafe. Simply overwhelmed by unexpected circumstances.” Poor dear, how humiliating to have been rendered unconscious by an eight-year-old.