“I don’t know how you taste those things.”
“I think we’re all attuned to detail somehow, we Whitmore girls. Phoebe’s a marvel with anything mathematic. Daphne could tell you who made a bit of lace, and where and during what season, just by glancing at a three-inch sample.” She shrugged and sipped. “I can taste the lavender border that grew next to the hops.”
“Daphne and Phoebe don’t hide their talents, though.”
She filled the rest of the glass. “I’m already the dumpling of the family, and I’m the one with a knack for tasting? You can imagine the teasing I’d suffer. From my brother-in-law alone.” She slid him his beer. “But we’re not here to talk about me.”
No, they weren’t. Rafe drew up a stool. “It’s a long story.”
“It’s a large cake.” She pushed a fork in his direction. “And before we begin, I should like one thing noted. I knew you had Secret Pain.”
His chest lifted with a humorless chuckle. “After tonight, it won’t be so secret anymore.”
“Well. At least that’s something I can claim. None of your other women ever came this far.”
She had no idea. No other woman had even come close.
She poked at the cake with her fork, teasing berries out of the filling and popping one into her mouth. As she swallowed, her eyes closed involuntarily.
When she opened them, she caught him staring at her.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
“Doing what?” she asked, her mouth still partly full.
“Cake sounds.”
“Sorry.” She swallowed. “I didn’t even notice.”
“I noticed. I always noticed. I’m a bastard that way.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.” She set down her fork and stacked her arms on the table. “No, I mean this, Rafe. You throw that word about so casually, and I’ve been wrong not to object before now. I think a great deal of you, and . . . And it hurts to hear you disparaged that way, by anyone.”
Sweet girl.
“It fits, though. I always felt fatherless. From boyhood, I was always the odd one out. Piers was cast from my father’s mold, and I . . . I just wasn’t. I was a miserable student. I didn’t excel at their gentlemanly pursuits. I didn’t have the right upper-crust friends. I was big and rough, not handsome and refined.” He took a draught of his porter. “Piers could sneeze, and the old man would beam with pride. I was always the mistake. Sometimes I wondered if I was even his natural son.”
“Of course you were his son. How could you doubt it?”
“Because he doubted it. He didn’t even want to claim me. I must be the Devil’s own boy, he always said.”
“Your own father gave you that name?”
He tapped his fork against the table. “ ‘No son of mine.’ I can’t count how many times I heard that growing up. He was always after me for one thing or another. ‘No son of mine will run with the common boys.’ ‘No son of mine will be sent down from Eton.’ ‘No son of mine will engage in fisticuffs.’ ”
With each sentence, he jabbed deeper into the cake.
“He couldn’t understand me. Hell, I couldn’t understand me. As a boy, I wanted, more than anything, to be the son he could love. To do well in my studies. To make him proud, as Piers did. To cease fighting with everyone. But I never could manage it.” He gestured vaguely toward his chest. “I’m too damned restless and impulsive. By now I’ve learned to check my punches. But I’ve always had a habit of blurting out words I wish I hadn’t.”
“Words like, ‘Clio, I think I’ll die of wanting you’?”
“No. Words like, ‘I don’t want to be your son, I don’t want a penny of your money, and I hope to never see you again.’ ”
Her fork paused in midair, and she sucked in her breath. “Those words would be more difficult to retract.”
“Where my father was concerned? Not merely difficult. Impossible.”