a wedding. She wasn’t a machine, after all. Of course she had feelings—she’d married this man! She could wish that things were different between them—that they were different people, who had gone about this in a very different way—without acting upon that wish. Who knew what she would actually feel, once the wedding day itself was over? Once they made it through whatever their wedding night might hold? The intensity of the occasion had simply got into her head, she reasoned. That and the seriousness of it all, of what she’d agreed to as she’d said those words. Understandable, really, that the enormity of this—of the huge, extraordinary step she’d taken with this man—would take a bit of processing. With or without her inconvenient desire for him.
Her smile felt less forced, suddenly. “I’ve never moved anywhere without having to spend day and night packing up boxes and making endless arrangements,” she said then, her voice deliberately light to dispel the tension in the very air between them, thick and treacherous. “It never occurred to me that it could simply happen while I was off doing other things. Wealth really does make everything so very convenient, doesn’t it?”
That ghost of something not quite a smile played with his hard mouth, and seemed to call out shadows in the cold gray of his gaze.
“It has its uses,” he agreed in that low voice that vibrated along the length of her spine. That single brow of his rose, dark and aristocratic. Demanding. “It has brought me you, has it not?”
“My goodness, Lord Pembroke,” she said softly, keeping that easy flirtatious tone in her voice. She found that she did not have to force herself to relax against the seat then—that she did it without thought. “Has the ceremony gone to your head? Do you think this is a romance?”
She took entirely too much pleasure in throwing his own words right back to him. Especially given what she’d been feeling all morning.
His dark eyes lit with something appreciative and purely male, and the way they met hers, so bold and knowing, made Angel’s heart stutter in her chest. She was sure he moved closer then, she was sure of it, and she leaned toward him as if drawn by some dark compulsion she couldn’t even see—but then he turned away, dropping the dizzying force of his attention to the mobile buzzing in his pocket.
Angel told herself she was relieved. She was. She wanted no part of this … mad whirl of sensation she couldn’t even name, much less begin to understand. It all felt too big, too impossible. It was too dangerous by far.
Liar, that little voice whispered. What was dangerous was her reaction to him. What was impossible was this overwhelming urge to simply sink into him and disappear. But this wasn’t a romance. There would be no happily ever after, not in the classic sense. If they were lucky, they would manage this union well, and get along with each other. Maybe even become friendly. That was all she should hope for.
That was all she could allow herself to hope for.
Rafe spoke into his phone, his voice clipped and sure, and she tuned him out, looking out at the passing London streets. Everything was going to be fine. Of course it would.
Today, it was all real—that desperate scheme she’d cooked up in her wildly uncomfortable coach class seat, on her way to see her favorite stepsister become a real, live princess. Her wildest imaginings had come true. She was married to an earl. She was a countess. She remembered Rafe’s dire warnings as they’d danced in the Palazzo Santina, Allegra’s engagement ball and the usual Jackson family antics no more than a blur to her. That he was not modern. Or fashionable. Or, if she recalled correctly, open-minded.
But what did that matter, really? He was an important man. A busy one, if his current conversation was any indication. She could soon be busy too, putting the generous monthly allowance he’d placed into an account with her name on it to excellent use around London. No more waiting around, cobbling together what paying gigs she could find, hoping she made the rent this month. Those days were over. That life was finished.
She could make herself over completely into one of those Sloane Rangers she’d never quite had the money to wholly emulate, flinging herself in and out of Harvey Nicks with a charge card in her hand and nothing more important on her mind than her next lunch date. She could even become one of those fixtures on the London charity circuit, forever attending this or that ball, draped in fabulous gowns and envy-inducing jewels, mouthing platitudes to every reporter she encountered about the great philanthropic work she was doing in all her couture. She was newly rich, and had married a pedigree. She could choose any life she wanted, surely. She could buy it, come to that.
And only contend with her husband—she still wasn’t used to that word, and wondered if she’d ever be, if it would ever simply be a term she used instead of something more like a bomb—on the odd occasions they crossed paths. Which, if she knew anything about busy men with great amounts of wealth, a subject she had studied in some detail for some time, as it happened, would be increasingly rare as time wore on. That was how these marriages worked, no matter what claims Rafe might have made about how unmodern he planned to be.
She folded her hands together in her lap, and only then remembered that she now wore a ring on her formerly bare finger. Once she noticed it, it was impossible to ignore the alien feeling of metal and stone on her hand, digging into her flesh. For the first time, she looked down at her hand and really took a close look at the ring he’d put there.
It was stunning. As was, she reflected, every single thing of his she’d seen, from his suits to his car to his lovely town house. Of course the ring was gorgeous. The man, clearly, had exquisite taste. He was far too good for the likes of her, Angel knew, and the truth of that seemed to twist inside of her in a new, unpleasant way. She concentrated on the ring instead.
A large dark blue, square-cut sapphire rose above a bed of gleaming diamonds and platinum. One ring of diamonds circled the blue stone, while two other rings of diamonds sat on either side, though lower, each circling another, bigger diamond. The dark blue center stone glittered softly as Angel turned her hand this way and that, and something about it seemed to echo deep inside of her, hitting hard at that same well of sensation Rafe seemed to arouse in her so easily.
“It suits you,” Rafe said, breaking into another surge of panic—surely it was panic this time, and none of that far more dangerous desire—that was rushing through Angel, making it hard to breathe. She was almost grateful.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, unable to look at him. Too afraid of what he might see if she did.
“It was my grandmother’s.” There was something in his voice then, some kind of emotion. She didn’t know how to respond to it. She didn’t know why she wanted to, with an intense and sudden surge of that same protectiveness as before. “I’m glad it will finally be worn again.”
“Do you have your mother’s ring as well?” Angel asked.
She didn’t realize that was, possibly, an impertinent question—impolite, at the very least, when she’d only meant to make a bit of conversation—until his silence made her glance over at him. His face was shadowed. Dark.
“Sorry—” she began, but he shook his head.
“My mother gave her wedding rings to my older brother,” he said after a moment, his voice entirely too calm. And distant. “They had a similar aesthetic, while my sensibilities were always more closely aligned with my grandmother’s—my father’s side of the family.”
Angel had the sense he was choosing his words carefully. Then she focused on the most important word.
“Had?” she echoed hesitantly. She was conscious, suddenly, of that same urge she’d felt in the registry office. She did not want to cause this man pain. Even with an innocent question.
“They both died some time ago,” Rafe said matter-of-factly, any emotion she might have sensed gone as if it had never been, hidden away beneath his scars. He shifted slightly in his seat, turning to better face her, the stern set to his mouth discouraging any further comment. “Is it really the time to discuss our pasts, Angel? We are already married. Perhaps it would be better