“Of course not.” She laughed a little. “Rafe, I’m asking you.”
Her partner? He didn’t know what to say.
“I thought you might have some hesitation,” she said. “I’m prepared for it, actually.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Prepare to be dazzled.”
Dazzled.
“Forget anything I said the other day about punching tankards into walls.” She went to the office entryway. “Imagine your name on the door. Right here. Lord Rafe Brandon, Partner in Brandon Brewery.”
“Clio . . .”
“No, no. I’m just getting started.” She gestured widely around the room. “Imagine, this is your office. You’d have papers and ledgers. And a secretary to sit right here.” She flew to a smaller desk at the side of the room and sat behind it, posing with a quill. “Shall I take a letter, my lord?”
“A secretary.” He leaned back in his chair. “Would she be as pretty as you?”
“He would be middle-aged and balding, but very efficient.” She rose from the desk, drifting back toward the door. “And people would come to meet with you, all day long. Important people.
“People like . . .” She ducked outside the door, and after a minute returned, wearing an old, borrowed coat and a straw hat. In one hand, she clutched a garden rake. “Farmers.”
Again, she went out, then reappeared wearing a cap, holding a pewter mug in one hand and using the other hand to drape a finger-moustache over her top lip.
She made her voice deep. “Or brewers.”
Rafe fought the urge to smile. He lost the battle. She was adorable. Ridiculous, and possibly addled in the mind, but adorable.
She disappeared one more time. He waited for her to reappear in the doorway, brandishing another outlandish prop or dressed in costume.
Instead, what appeared in the doorway was Ellingworth. Decked out in a tall hat. And spectacles.
“Even esquires,” she said.
Now he couldn’t help but laugh.
She emerged from behind the doorjamb to give the bulldog an affectionate rub. “Actually, meetings with esquires are unlikely. Barristers, no. Solicitors, yes.”
Solicitors. Bloody hell.
Rafe rubbed his face. He didn’t know what to say, other than the truth. “I’m not suited to office work.”
“But that’s the best part. You wouldn’t be here all the time. Once the day’s business is concluded, you’d be off to walk the fields, or to consult with the cooper about new casks, or to taste the latest brew. I can promise you all the beer you can drink. And I’ll even throw my heart in the bargain.” She popped up to sit on the desk before him, her feet dangling. “Well? Aren’t you a little bit tempted?”
Tempted?
Rafe had three toes over the threshold of Perdition. The picture she made before him would tempt a saint. But this arrangement she proposed? Managing, record-keeping, correspondence . . .
She swung her legs back and forth. “Well?”
“I mean to provide for you,” he said. “Take care of you. But I’m a prizefighter. Not a clerk.”
Rafe knew himself too well. He could want to be good at this. He could make her promises and try his damnedest, for a while. But in the end, he would let her down.
“It’s out of the question for now. I’ve got to get back in the ring. As soon as we’re married, I’ll go back to training and—”
“As soon as we’re married? As soon as we’re married, you’re leaving to train for a rematch with Dubose?”
“Of course. If it’s the brewery you’re concerned about, you should want that, too. No one will want to drink Brandon’s Loser Ale. I’ll be more help to you when I’ve won my championship back.”
“You’ll be more help to me if you have your health.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I love you. I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”