You, you, you.
He didn’t acknowledge the compliment. “Why is your stomach empty? Didn’t you eat before the ball?”
“Of course she didn’t,” Daphne said. “A lady never eats before a ball.”
Rafe looked only at Clio. “When’s the last time you had a proper meal?”
She hedged. “That’s not . . .”
“Answer me.”
With reluctance, she admitted, “Breakfast.”
He swore under his breath.
“It’s a bad habit.” A habit Clio knew she needed to break. If she was going to guard Phoebe from damaging expectations, she had to extend the same protection to herself. “All I need is a cup of lemonade or barley water, and I’ll be fine.”
He pulled her to her feet, lacing her arm through his. “You need proper food. I’m taking you in to supper.”
Daphne held them back. “But you can’t. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
Goodness. Clio had never seen him wear an expression so stern. The furrow in his brow could have crushed walnuts.
But Daphne, being Daphne, shrugged off his obvious anger. “There’s an order to these things. Perhaps you’ve been out of circulation so long, you’ve forgotten it. But we don’t all flock to the buffet like gulls. We go in to supper according to precedence. Beginning with the highest ranked, down to the last.”
“Then I can take her in first,” Rafe said. “I’m the son of a marquess. No one here outranks me.”
Daphne corrected him. “We go by the ladies’ rank. And my sister, as unmarried Miss Whitmore, is near the end of the queue.”
“She’s engaged to marry a lord.”
“She’s not married to him yet.”
Rafe clenched his jaw. “This is bollocks.”
Daphne smiled. “This is society.”
“At the moment, Lady Cambourne, I don’t see a difference between the two.” He tightened his arm, drawing Clio close. “We’re going in to supper. Precedence be damned.”
“Truly, I can wait,” Clio murmured.
“But you won’t.” His deep voice shivered to the soles of her feet. Barely controlled anger radiated from him. “Not tonight. When I’m around, you don’t wait out dances. You don’t go hungry. And you sure as hell don’t come at the end of any line.”
Good heavens. It was a struggle not to swoon all over again. But she didn’t want this to mean the end of their evening.
“I promise, I can wait. I’m already feeling better.”
“That’s a good girl,” Teddy said. He nudged Rafe in the side. “We do have to permit the ladies their vanities, Brandon. It’s like I’ve told our dumpling again and again. Best to go easy on the supper buffet. Lord Granville already has one heavyweight in the family.”
Her brother-in-law chuckled merrily at his own joke.
Clio wanted to disappear.
“That’s right,” Rafe said, sounding amused. “Lord Granville does.”
Thwack.
No one saw the punch coming. Not Clio, not Daphne. Certainly not Teddy, whose head whipped to the side with the force of Rafe’s blow.
He blinked. Then he staggered backward and fell, dropping on his arse with a weak, undramatic “oof.” A dull thud that seemed to sum up the man’s whole existence.
She wanted to cheer.
“Teddy!” Daphne cried. She knelt beside her husband, drawing the handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and pressing it to his bloodied lip. Then she turned a scathing gaze in Rafe’s direction. “What’s wrong with you? You’re like some kind of animal.”
But Rafe wasn’t there to hear it.
When Clio searched the crowd for him, he was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Well. That was that.
Rafe’s great return to society was over before it had even begun.
A crowd gathered at once. Crowds were always drawn to blood.
From the moment he’d entered the ballroom, they’d all been hoping for a scene like this. Rafe had half expected it, too. This was why he’d told the grooms to keep his gelding saddled.
As he carved through the crush of bodies on his way to the door, whispers and rumors buzzed about him like bees, stinging from all sides.
They knew he didn’t belong here.
He knew it, too.
He was an impulsive, reckless devil with no sense of comportment. There was only one reason he had any interest in attending balls or claiming the privilege that accompanied his given title: to pay his debts to Clio. Well, his aristocratic birthright couldn’t even get her into the damned supper room. And he couldn’t last ten minutes without unleashing his inner brute.
Now the best thing he could do for her was to leave.
A steady rain had started, turning the drives and pathways to mud. He turned up the lapels of his coat and made his way to the stables. He wouldn’t get far in weather like this, but he would get somewhere.
“Rafe! Rafe, wait.”
He turned. She came dashing to meet him, wet silk clinging to her legs. For that matter, wet silk was clinging to her everywhere.
And of course the silk would be pink. It had to be pink.
He drew her into the stables. “Clio, what are you doing? Go back in the house.”
“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving with you.”
He threw a glance toward the grooms and lowered his voice. “Don’t be absurd. It’s raining. You’ll catch a chill. And for Christ’s sake, you still haven’t eaten. Go inside at once.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going back. There’s no going back.”
There’s no going back.
He didn’t know what those words meant to her, but the possibilities both thrilled and horrified him.
He shook off his damp coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, taking the chance to search her expression.
Locks of golden hair were plastered to her face, and raindrops dappled her cheeks. Her nose was red. But her eyes had never been so clear and determined.
Beautiful, foolish, impossible woman.
“What about Phoebe?”
“I asked her. She would be more upset if I didn’t go after you.”
“If you want to leave, I can order your carriage driver to . . .”
“I don’t want the carriage. Not unless you mean to ride in it, too. Rafe, can’t you understand this? I’m not running away from the party. I’m following you.”
No, no. Don’t say that. Take it back.
He could resist anything but those words.