An Inconvenient Arrangement

Chapter 51: Rafe

Raphael's head was an awful, jumbled, irrecoverable mess by the time he stepped out of the carriage feeling mildly faint. He could hardly believe what had happened. He had been practically assured of the outcome, he had taken it for granted. It had all made so much sense to him, in his mind, he had already figured out everything and now it felt as if someone had snatched the rug out from under him.

She had refused him?

She had refused him!

His throat was stinging, his stomach felt as if someone had dropped rocks at the pit of it, and his heart felt as if it were beating off rhythm. Each beat sent a wave of pain rooting through his veins so that it felt as if his very chest was radiating it.

He was...hurt? The thought was startling and entirely baffling. What did he have to be hurt about? He didn't want to get married. He had been just fine before she had come along. He had been, if not happy, then entirely satisfied with his life. He was just trying to be honorable and take care of her.

Was a future tied to him so very terrible for her? Was the thought of having his child so very laughable to her? Was the idea of them creating a beautiful life together something that she would not even blink at? She had laughed at him, as if it were a grand jest. She had found the idea bloody hilarious, not even meriting a moment of serious consideration.

If anything it should have been him who was coming up with logical excuses as to why there was no need to marry. Why, the chances of conception were slim-

Oh, God.

There was likely going to be no child.

Where was the relief? Where was the lightening of the weight around his shoulders? The loosening of the vice that was tied around his lungs, squeezing tighter and tighter?

Why did he feel as though his heart was shattering at the thought of not becoming a father? Of never becoming a father? He felt damned desolated at her refusal. At her flippant dismissal of the chance that they may become parents.

Did that mean that he wanted to be a father? When for so long he had taken every single step possible to avoid that very thing?

And yet.......

Had he been ever so wise at sixteen that the decisions he had made nearly two decades ago were entirely immovable? Was he not allowed to change his mind now, at the age of three and thirty?

As a child, he had seen what a disaster marriage had become for both of his parents. He had seen what the loss of love had done to his father, the years of grief and shame that he had endured because of it and it had seemed that marriage was more trouble than it was worth.

But hadn't he also seen his friends? One had defied all conventions to marry a nobody far beneath his station, another had publically acknowledged his bastard and had adopted a whole passel of orphans, and then there was the Duke of Rothbury who had taken up the task of procreating as if the entire population of Britain was dependent on him to keep from going extinct.

They were all happy in their domestic lives.

And after seeing all of that, wasn't it only natural that his own opinions would modify? It just had never occurred to him to want those things for himself. But now that he had someone in his life that showed him what it could be like? When he had experienced the completeness that Sylvie and Jane had brought him? In those moments that the three of them were laughing together, having fun, he had felt as if something inside him had clicked into place, hadn't he?

His other reason had been his profession. A reason so ironclad that no amount of justification could convince him that his decision had been the wrong one. There was always going to be danger for anyone he let close as long as he worked for The Collective.