Page 11 of Dare to Risk it All

Who the hell was talking about getting married? Certainly not him!

“Are you quite well, my lord?”

Raphe blinked, realising he had been staring at the handcart for some time without saying a word.

“Er… yes. Yes, sorry. I was thinking.”

“Not happy thoughts by the looks of it,” Miss Cadogan offered, her tone careful.

Raphe let out a huff of laughter. “Nothing to concern yourself about. Come along, we had best get back.”

They walked in silence for a while, with Raphe pulling the handcart behind him. Thankfully, the frozen ground allowed it to roll easily enough, bumping over ruts in the narrow path that led back to Rowsley. They were making their way through a small copse of trees with the birds singing about them—and Raphe was just considering how pleasant walking through the wintery countryside with the lovely Miss Cadogan was—when she had to go and spoil it.

“Are you going to the ball?”

“Lady Bainbridge’s?”

She nodded, watching him.

“Yes, of course. Bainbridge is an old friend. He’ll have my hide if I don’t turn up.”

“Will you dance with me?”

Raphe stared at her, wondering why the devil he was shocked. She was outrageous, that much was clear. He had known, of course. The Cadogan family, or at least Jerome Cadogan’s branch of it, was wild. Everyone knew that. The girls were hoydens… well, all but Elspeth, but even she’d got herself embroiled in a scandal with Dare which had forced their marriage. Yet, he was startled all the same to find the wretched girl asking him to dance.

“Young ladies must wait to be asked,” he said, hating the pompous sound of his own voice. Like he gave a good goddamn for propriety.

“Oh, pooh.” Miss Cadogan waved this away with an impatient hand. “What nonsense. I want to dance with you, and if you’re going to be all silly about even talking to me, no doubt you’ll believe you need to be noble and not dance with me, either.”

“Well, it won’t do your reputation any good, will it?” he said irritably, setting the cart down for a rest.

She gave a laugh at that, and Raphe could not help but turn to look at her. God but she was lovely, so bright and lively and… sweet. Longing swept over him. It was as though he’d spent his life eating sweetmeats until he was sick, and she was a tart, green apple. His mouth watered.

“I don’t think a dance or two will make a sea change in people’s opinions, my lord. They already think me a hoyden. Besides which, who cares? There are limits to how far I can push my luck, but I will push it as far as I can. Life is too short to live in fear of censure, to let other people’s opinions stop you from being happy.”

Raphe stared at her, his admiration for her growing despite his best efforts to hold her at arm’s length. How the devil was he to get through the next weeks in her company when she had already got beneath his skin? Words burned on his tongue, and he knew he ought not speak them aloud, but the devil was rattling his cage.

“Dancing with me would make you happy?” he asked, aware that the timbre of his voice had dropped to something low and intimate.

She was standing too close to him, the scent of her reaching for him and pulling him in as surely as if she’d taken hold of his cravat and tugged. It was fresh and inviting, pure, and the wickedest temptation ever offered him in his entire life.

“Yes,” she said, staring up at him with a look in her eyes that he recognised all too well, and that one word had held a breathless quality that seemed to Raphe to give him permission.

Somewhere, in the very far distance, an alarm bell was ringing. It was faint, though, so faint he could not hear it over the rushing of blood in his veins, over the inner demon who was urging him on and chanting, mine, mine. Mine.

“What else would make you happy, Miss Cadogan?” he asked, moving closer to her. “For you’ve made no secret of your interest in me since the minute you arrived. I’d go as far to say that you are pursuing me. You sought me out, alone, when you knew you ought not. Is there something in particular you want?”

Her breath hitched, and Raphe’s pulse accelerated.

“I…” she began, the crests of her cheeks pink now, but she did not turn away from him, nor take a step back. “Want?”

“Mm-hm.” Raphe reached out a hand and traced a lazy finger down the line of her jaw. Miss Cadogan gasped but still did not move away. “What do you want, my sweet little innocent? Do you want a taste of danger, is that it? Do you have a secret desire for something you ought not have?”

Her throat worked as she swallowed, her gaze never leaving his, as if he’d hypnotised her. A snake charmer, that was what he was, he thought in disgust, and yet he could not make himself move away either. He was caught too, just as much as she was, captured by her green gaze, by the lure of something he ought not to want and had no right to but was wicked enough to take anyway. She was the kind of girl you married, not the kind to dally with.

Walk away, he told himself, but his heart was thundering now despite his outward calm.

Walk away, but he wanted, wanted like he had wanted nothing in his life before.