Cambourne glanced to the window, dismayed. “It looks like rain. And these are new boots.”
“We don’t have time for these things,” Daphne said. “There are seventeen items on Phoebe’s list. Seventeen.”
“Are you sure there aren’t sixteen, my lady?” a new voice inquired. “Or perhaps it’s eighteen.” Bruiser leaned over her shoulder, examining the list with the aid of his quizzing glass.
If that quizzing glass survived the week without meeting the heel of Rafe’s boot, it would be a miracle.
“Seventeen,” he pronounced at length. “I ought to never have doubted you, Miss Phoebe. Where would we be without your sterling accomplishment in counting?”
“What about flowers?” Clio asked. “Are flowers one of the seventeen items?”
“But of course they are.”
“Then we can compromise. We’ll all take a stroll in the castle gardens, and I can decide which blooms I like for the bouquet.”
Rafe supposed flowers were as good a start as anything.
As they made their way toward the summer garden, Cambourne approached him. The man dug an elbow into Rafe’s side in a manner that Rafe guessed was meant to be chummy.
He didn’t want to be chums.
“Say, Brandon. I was a few years behind your brother at Eton. But I don’t recall crossing paths with you there.”
“I wasn’t there. Not for long, anyway.” Rafe hadn’t lasted one term with the snobbish prigs at Eton. “Sent down for fighting.”
“Right-o. ’Course you were.”
It was mostly the truth.
Rafe had never taken to book learning. He preferred to be out of doors, riding his horse or chasing clouds of starlings from the fields.
He’d struggled through those early years with tutors at home, but by Eton he’d fallen behind other boys his age. He’d been embarrassed to sit in lecture, not having completed his work for the day, unable to focus on what went on around him. He was an undisciplined, unruly scamp, his masters agreed. So Rafe played the role they assigned him. He started fights, and he won them. He’d rather be sent down for fighting than stupidity.
That elbow again. “Do you know,” Cambourne said, “I dabbled in a bit of pugilism myself, in my day.”
“You don’t say.”
“Champion at the club, two years running.” He thrust his tongue in his cheek. “I say, how about it, Brandon? Fancy a few rounds of sparring? I wouldn’t mind testing myself against you.”
Rafe sized up the man. A solidly built fellow, with a florid complexion, scarlet waistcoat to match, and a smug grin. What with his comments to Clio at dinner last night, the man had all but painted a target on his jaw.
Rafe would have enjoyed punching that face. Immensely.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Oh-ho-ho.” The man boxed Rafe’s biceps with a clumsy jab that might as well have been a fleabite. “Not in top form anymore? Afraid of embarrassing yourself in front of the ladies?”
No. I’m afraid of killing you in front of the ladies, you idiot.
Rafe would never spar with an untutored amateur—and especially not with a man he personally disliked. The danger for his opponent would be too great. He enjoyed cultivating a dangerous, brutish reputation, but he stopped well short of maiming.
Anger might have made him a fighter, but discipline had made him a champion. The best thing boxing had done for him was teaching him when not to punch. Without the sport, Rafe probably would have landed in prison by now. If not a grave.
“This isn’t the time or place for sparring,” he said. “We’re here so Miss Whitmore can choose her flowers.”
No sooner had Rafe spoken the words than Clio lifted a clutch of blossoms.
“Well, that’s done,” she declared. “Now we can take a wander over the meadows. There are deer in the park.”
He crossed to her. “You can’t be finished already.”