In his imagination, she was flushed and breathless with laughter, and they’d been . . . racing, in a fashion.
A horizontal fashion.
His blood stirred, just at the memory.
Damn it. Ten miles, he had run that morning. Ten miles through the misty Kentish countryside should have left him too sapped of energy to contemplate carnality.
He wasn’t quite sapped enough.
No, he could do with a touch more sapping.
Daphne snatched the list from her sister. “We’ll need to send to London for many of these items on the list. Sample gowns for fitting. Bunting and ribbons for the décor. For the invitations, fine paper and ink.”
Clio looked up. “I have ink.”
“You don’t have the right ink. But while we’re waiting on supplies, there are some things we can tackle.”
“Toast?”
Daphne kept her gaze on her list. “No, no. The toasts and speeches can wait. Though we should start testing the punch recipe.”
“I meant this kind.” With a smile, Clio passed a plate of white and brown toast points.
“Oh.” Daphne took a point of white and immediately leveled it at Rafe, like a buttered weapon. “But come to think of it, my lord, you should start writing a draft.”
“A draft of what?”
“The toast. You are the best man.”
Then she turned away, giving some direction to her husband, who was moving down the sideboard and loading two plates as he went.
Not this again. Rafe had no intention of performing any best-man duties at his brother’s wedding. They’d scarcely spoken in a decade, and Rafe didn’t expect they’d be mixing much in years to come, either. The only thing more uncomfortable and inappropriate than harboring lust for his brother’s intended bride would be harboring lust for his brother’s wife.
No, he was only here to make certain the wedding took place. Then he’d hand over the marquessate duties and get back to his life. His career. His title.
His women.
Not that there’d been many women of late. No doubt that was part of his sapping problem.
“Today, we’ll meet with the vicar to start planning the ceremony,” Daphne announced. “After that, the menus.”
“Must we do all that today?” Clio asked. “You’ve only just arrived, and I never had the chance to show you about. I’d love for you to see the castle grounds.”
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?”