“Wait!” she cried. “My skirts.”
Rafe turned. “Do you need me to carry you?”
“I despise you right now.”
“Yes, but do you need me to carry you?”
“If you would.”
He waded back to her. “Put your arms around my neck.” She hesitated. Ventnor yelled again but neither paid him any mind. “It didn’t bother you a moment ago,” Rafe growled.
“A moment ago, I didn’t know you were a lying, betraying, deviously deceitful liar.”
“Exquisite sentiment from a woman who faked her identity, knowingly entered into a fraudulent marriage, and used my money to buy items to resell.”
“It’s only what you deserved.”
“Probably. Now put your arms around my neck so I can bloody well get you out of here.”
This time, she obeyed, and tried not to enjoy the feeling of being lifted out of the water and carried to the bank.
Ventnor sneered and shook his ebony cane at them. “You two disgust me. Canoodling in the water like a pair of stray dogs.”
“Stray otters, if you please,” Thea snapped.
Well, look at that. He no longer frightened her. Perhaps she was too hurt and confused and guilty to feel any fear. Or perhaps it was the effect of being in Rafe’s arms, which made her feel bolder and uncaring of Ventnor’s ire.
Even though Rafe was a devious, deceitful, beastly beast of a lying liar.
“Careful, Ventnor.” Rafe lowered Thea to the ground beside his discarded clothes. “Or you might find yourself taking a swim too.”
“Do not threaten me, you scoundrel.”
“Put that on.” Rafe tossed his coat to Thea. “Get inside and warm up. I’ll handle him.”
Water still trickling down his bare skin, Rafe shook out his breeches and yanked them on. Thea averted her eyes and fought her wet dress to shove her arms into the coat’s sleeves. She gathered the lapels under her chin, and tried to work out what was going on.
“Luxborough, you have made a complete mess of everything,” Ventnor said.
“Hmm?”
Ventnor pointed the silver knob of his walking stick at Thea. “That woman is not Helen Knight.”
“Hmm.”
“I sent you to stop Helen Knight from sneaking off to beguile Beau. You said you accomplished that by marrying her yourself, but you married the wrong woman, you blithering muttonhead!”
Rafe straightened and fastened his falls, looking as unbothered as Ventnor was riled. He shook the water from his hair and pulled on his shirt; it clung to his wet skin, but he didn’t seem to care. Thea looked from one man to the other, as confused as if she had walked onstage in the middle of a play, and she did not know what the story was, or who was the hero and who was the villain, or if she was the heroine or a hapless fool.
“You sent me off to do your dirty work and expected me to obey your commands. Who’s really the blithering muttonhead, Ventnor?”
“My heir is married to a shop girl because you cannot follow a simple instruction.”
Rafe started gathering up his boots and the rest of his clothing. “Your heir is married to the woman of his own choosing because he could no longer tolerate you treating him like a child.”
“You promised to keep Helen Knight away from Beau in exchange for the orchids.”
“I lied.”
“I want those orchids back.”
“Oh, go away, Ventnor.”
“I don’t understand,” Thea said to Rafe. “You seem to loathe him, but I thought you were allies. He’s your father-in-law.”
“A connection I would rather forget. Can you walk in those wet skirts?”
“Damn you, Luxborough. Stop talking to your harlot and listen to me!”
Rafe gestured at the viscount with a hand full of boot. “Speak of her like that again, and you will go in the lake. Thea, do you need my help?”
“I can walk. I’ll have to show my legs, but the best harlots always do.”
Defiantly, she lifted her sodden skirts to her knees and marched up the lawn. Rafe fell into step beside her.
“You needed a marriage certificate to get the money, and you didn’t want to marry again, so an invalid marriage to me did the trick,” she summarized.
“Yes. That’s it.”
“Then you kissed me.”
“And then I stopped kissing you.”
“Do not ignore me!” Ventnor stalked around in front of them. “I traveled all the way here to confront you, Luxborough.”
“And now you can travel all the way back.”
Thea and Rafe went around him and kept walking. Ventnor’s black carriage stood outside the house, spattered with mud and pulled by a mismatched set of rented horses. Only the three matching purple footmen did not seem the worse for travel, standing smartly to attention at their approach.
“So you never meant to separate them?” Thea said to Rafe. “Helen and Beau Russell?”
“I told you, I don’t care who marries whom, but I did like the idea of upsetting him.”
“Damn you, Luxborough. I will not be ignored. You will listen to me or I shall—”
“Or what, Ventnor?” Rafe sounded irritable and bored. “What will you do this time? Hire more actors to spread your lies that I practice sorcery and poisoned Katharine?”
Thea’s world tilted again. “Ventnor started the rumors? So the zealot outside your London house was William Dudley the actor?”
“Yes. Apparently, Ventnor placed scores of actors around the country. Everyone needs a hobby, and spreading rumors is his.”
“But why?”
Ventnor offered her a kind, patient smile. “His lordship started it, when he published ludicrous claims that my daughter was insane.”
“Yet it was you who put her in a lunatic asylum,” Rafe snarled.
“No!” Thea said
Ventnor continued as if neither of them had spoken. “For the sake of my family, I could not allow such damaging allegations to pass unchallenged. Naturally, I countered by claiming that Luxborough kidnapped, brutalized, and poisoned Katharine, and thus turned her mind.” With a derisive snort, he indicated Rafe with his stick. “But when he came back with those marks on his face, and his brothers’ deaths making him the earl, it was only a matter of time before the gulls of the world believed he had forged some bargain with the Devil. I would never have dreamed up anything so outlandish, but I confess I played along, as I rather enjoyed the effect.”
“The whole lot is nonsense,” Thea said. “Rafe would never harm anyone.”
“Silence!” The viscount shuddered. “How charming, Luxborough, that your harlot comes to your defense.”
“Enough.” Rafe dumped his clothes and marched to the carriage, sending the footmen scattering like bewigged purple chickens. He yanked open the door. “Get in before I throw you in. I’ll not strike a man your age, but I have no such qualms about shooting you.”
But the viscount only turned to Thea, and added, his tone affable, “Did he tell you how Katharine died? She rode off during a storm, fleeing him. Do you know why she fled?”
And Thea could not help but ask, “Why?”
Rafe looked bleak. “You know why. Katharine feared me.”