Page 28 of Raked Away in September

“I like her,” Julia murmured into his ear as she was leaving. “Don’t ruin it.”

He and Tamsin waved goodbye from the front steps, then went in for breakfast.

“I’m very glad they came to visit,” Tamsin told him. “What a lovely family. I like them all so much!”

“I’m glad,” Rowan agreed. “But I’m also glad they’re gone. I miss our time alone.”

A beautiful blush stained Tamsin’s cheeks. “I do, too.”

Rowan slid a small stack of invitations across the polished surface of the table toward her. “Unfortunately, we’re being inundated with invitations,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose we must accept one, in order to quell some of the gossip.”

Tamsin sighed as well. “If we must. Though I’d much rather spend another evening in the library with you.”

An unfamiliar surge of heat rose in his cheeks. Bloody hell. Was he blushing, too? Had he ever blushed in his life? But perhaps he would have if anyone had ever professed a desire to simply spend time with him. To have a meal and talk.

“I would rather do that as well,” he said simply. “Perhaps we should wait a few more days to accept one of these invitations.”

She bit her lip and then shook her head slowly. “No, I suppose we must. Other than our trip to the theater, we haven’t gone out in public at all.”

He couldn’t deny his disappointment, but he comforted himself with the thought that once they returned home, he could finally make love to Tamsin again.

His choice of words took him aback. He didn’t think he’d ever referred to it that way, not even in his head.

He cleared his throat. “Well, if we must, Lady Radcliff’s musicale sounds the least horrendous to me, but you’re free to pick something different if you’d prefer.”

“Lady Radcliff’s musicale, it is then,” she said with a wry smile, pushing the pile back toward him.

“Shall we go for a ride again this morning?” he asked. “Something pleasant before we must face the dreary entertainment ahead?”

“I’d love that,” she agreed.

The drawing room of Lady Radcliff’s Mayfair town house was bathed in the warm, deceptive glow of a hundred beeswax candles. It was an intimate gathering, a private musicale featuring a celebrated Italian harpist and an opera singer, but it was still far too crowded for Tamsin’s taste.

Tamsin sat beside Rowan on a small, velvet settee. She kept her posture perfectly straight, her hands gloved and folded in her lap, trying to focus on the delicate cascade of notes filling the room. But her attention kept drifting to the solid weight of the man beside her. Rowan smelled of fresh linen and the faint, crisp scent of the autumn air they had left outside. Every now and then, his shoulder would brush against hers, sending a small, electric tremor through her that she desperately tried to ignore.

Would they make love again tonight? He hadn’t touched her in all the days that his sister and her family had been in London, and she feared he had already lost interest in her.

The moment they’d arrived, she’d felt the stir of speculation in the room. Even now, people were watching them, looking for any crack in the façade. Would anyone looking at them believe that theirs had been a love match? She knew she probably gazed at him with her heart in her eyes, though she was not at all certain that he ever looked at her in the same way. She wished that Rose was here, or Lilliana. She desperately needed to see a friendly face.

When the harpist finished her first piece, the room erupted into polite applause. Under the cover of the sudden chatter, Rowan leaned in close, his breath warm against Tamsin’s ear. “Are you enjoying the performance, my love? Or shall we make a quiet escape before the soprano begins?”

His voice was laced with that private, teasing warmth she was slowly beginning to crave. And he’d called her “my love.” Tamsin turned to reply, a smile touching her lips, but the words died in her throat.

Winding her way through the crowded aisle toward their settee was a beautiful woman whose attention was focused on Rowan. She approached them as though she had every right to do so.

Tamsin’s heart did a slow, painful roll. She would recognize that woman anywhere. It was the dark-haired beauty she had seen wrapped in Rowan’s arms in the shadows of the Dark Walks. Tonight, the woman was resplendent in emerald silk that clung daringly to her curves, her dark eyes flashing with a predatory gleam.

“Rowan, darling,” the woman purred as she came to a halt in front of them. Her voice was like liquid honey, as she entirely ignored the silent crowd around them. “I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The elusive Lord Haversham, attending a boring musicale? I never thought I would see the day.”

Rowan stiffened beside Tamsin. The easy, relaxed warmth in his posture vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, aristocratic mask. “Elena,” he said, his voice polite but entirely devoid of his usual charm. “A pleasure.”

“Oh, is it?” Elena stepped closer, the hem of her emerald gown brushing Rowan’s boots. She flicked her fan open, her gaze sweeping over Tamsin with a brief, dismissive curiosity before locking back onto Rowan. “You have been terribly scarce, My Lord. The Obsidian Club has been utterly dull without you. And Vauxhall...” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, leaning in just enough that the heavy, cloying scent of her jasmine perfume drifted over Tamsin. “Vauxhall just hasn’t been the same without your company.”

Tamsin felt a sickening coil of heat tighten in her stomach. It was jealousy—painful and humiliatingly intense. Her fingers gripped her fan so tightly she feared the ivory ribs would snap. She knew Rowan’s past; she had married him knowing he was a rake. But seeing the casual, practiced familiarity of a woman who had held his attention, who had known his touch, was an entirely different matter.

Tamsin looked at Elena’s smooth, flawless skin and the daring cut of her bodice, and felt suddenly small, plain, and hopelessly out of her depth. This was the sort of woman a man like Rowan engaged in pleasurable pursuits with. Tamsin feared that he’d never do the intimate things with her that he’d done with this woman.

And why was a woman like this even at Lady Radcliff’s? Perhaps she was the acclaimed opera singer who would be performing later. Someone who walked the line of polite company. But how dare she come over and talk to Rowan when his wife was sitting right beside him? Everyone was staring at them. The Brazen Belle would probably write about this as well.