Say Yes to the Marquess (Castles Ever After #2)(14)

When he collided, bodily, with someone coming the other way.

Clio.

“Oof.”

She recoiled with the force of the impact, like a grasshopper bouncing off the flank of a galloping horse.

He caught her by the wrist, steadying her. “Sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

She might be fine, but Rafe needed a moment. In just the brief instant of their collision, he felt like he’d been branded with her body. The impression of lush, curvy warmth lingered in inconvenient places.

A few sprints up the staircase weren’t enough. He needed to run tomorrow. Far, and hard. He needed to hit and lift things, too. Many times.

“I was just dashing down to the drawing room,” he said.

“Then you were dashing in the wrong direction.”

Rafe shrugged. “This place is a maze. And you’re supposed to be downstairs with your sisters, making the guest list.”

“I slipped away. You seemed . . . agitated when you left dinner. I wanted to make certain you were well.”

He couldn’t believe it. After all her brother-in-law’s snide remarks at the dinner table, she was concerned about Rafe’s feelings?

She touched his arm. “You seemed uneasy through the whole meal, actually. Is there anything you need?”

God. There were a great many things he needed, and a full half of them were squeezed in that gesture alone. He told himself not to make too much of her kindness. She’d been groomed to be the consummate hostess, always thinking of her guests’ comfort.

“Get married,” he said. “Then I’ll feel fine.”

They turned and began walking down the corridor together.

She sighed. “This wedding-planning nonsense. Can’t you see that it’s just wasted time? Not to mention, trifling with my sisters’ feelings.”

“Strange, then, how you don’t simply tell your family you plan to call the wedding off.”

“Before the papers are signed? I don’t dare. Then I’d have all four of you bent on changing my mind. No, thank you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’ll forgive you for showing up like this.”

“You’ve forgiven me worse.”

“If you’re speaking of the way you reserved the third dance at my debut ball, then failed to attend?” Her clipped footsteps accelerated. “I’m still vexed over that.”

“That was doing you a favor.” He matched her pace as they turned to traverse a long, narrow gallery. “I was thinking of the birthday party where I dipped your gloves in the punch.”

“Ah, yes. And then there was the time when I was eight and you were eleven, and you scorched my frock with an ember.” She slanted him a look. “But that was nothing compared to when you humiliated me at indoor tennis that rainy week at Oakhaven. Winning four times in a row? The height of ungentlemanly behavior.”

“Should I have let you win just because you were a girl? I wanted the silver cup.”

“It was an old copper blancmange mold,” she said. “Anyhow, I had my revenge when I bested you at footracing.”

He frowned. “You never bested me at footracing.”

“Yes, I did.”

“When?”

“Well, let’s see.” She halted in the center of the gallery, pondering. “That would have been right about . . . Now.”

She kicked off her slippers. Hiking her skirts, she took off in a dash, sprinting down the length of the gallery. When she neared the end, she stopped running. The momentum carried her forward, and she coasted on stocking feet, skating over the polished hardwood until the doors at the other end caught her.

“There.” She turned to regard him, breathless and smiling. “You lose.”

Rafe stared at her, struck immobile.

If this was losing, he never wanted to win.

Good Lord, look at her. Her hair coming loose from its pins, her throat flushed the shade of china roses . . . and that labored breathing doing magic—a dark, wicked kind of magic—on her abundant bosom.

Most alluring of all, that glint of laughter in her eyes.

The girl needs finishing.

That had been the common wisdom, back when the engagement was first announced. While Piers sailed for India to launch his diplomatic career, Clio was meant to remain in London for “finishing.” Rafe didn’t know what the devil “finishing” meant, but he knew he didn’t like it. Within a few years, she’d been finished indeed. Everything remotely unique or spirited about her had been scrubbed off, pinned back, or drilled straight out of her demeanor.

So he’d thought.

But apparently, the old Clio was still in there somewhere—the Clio he’d rather liked, before the dragons had taken her in their clutches and stifled her with ten coats of lacquer.

The Clio he had no right to be admiring now.

Damn. He had to bring himself under control. He wasn’t here to ogle her. He was here to make certain that in a few weeks’ time she walked down the aisle and married another man.

Not just “another man.” His own brother.

“We did have fun in those days,” she said. “Before the engagement was settled and everything grew . . . complicated. Well, at least the two of us had fun. Phoebe and Daphne were just babies then, and even in my earliest memories, Piers had grown too old for such games.”