Bewitching the Baron (36 page)

“No. No, of course I would not mind,” he said.

“Unless you are eager to see it yourself,” she offered, thinking she had sensed a trace of disappointment in his answer.

“We can see it another night.”

Valerian smiled and took his arm, leaning into his side, feeling closer to him than she had for weeks. “Good. I find I miss quiet evenings at home. We have not had many chances to talk since coming to London. We are always racing about from one place to another, or you are out running errands, or whatever it is you do. You do not have another mistress stashed someplace in town, do you?” she teased, hiding the suspicion that he kept her busy with public amusements because he no longer enjoyed her solitary, depressing company.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, his tone telling her he did not take it as a joke. “Of course not. Whatever made you suggest such a thing?”

Valerian frowned up at him. “It was but a jest, Nathaniel.”

“And not a very good one.”

She pushed back from him, sitting up straight so she could see him better. “Nathaniel, has something been bothering you lately? You do not seem like yourself, and not once have you . . . well, you know.”

“I have not what?”

“At night. You know.” She rolled her eyes, then looked at him expectantly. He met her gaze only briefly, then looked away. She sighed, and made herself say it. “You have not slept with me.”

“I spend every night in your bed.”

“You know what I mean,” she complained. She screwed up her courage for the next question she knew she had to ask. It was what she had planned for, but still she had delayed seeking confirmation. “Have you lost your desire for me? You can tell me if ’tis so.”

He finally met her eyes, gazing at her for a long moment, and she could see that the fires of desire still burned in their depths. She felt her own body’s answer, and the yearning of her skin for his touch. She slowly leant forward, brushing her lips softly against his. He sat still, motionless as a stone as her lips played gently upon his, and then his arms came around her and he dragged her onto his lap, his lips taking charge of hers, then moving to caress her cheeks, her jaw, her ears.

He sucked at the bend between shoulder and neck, making her arch towards him, her breasts aching, her limbs weak with growing desire, and then he suddenly stopped. She felt him press his face into her neck, his arms still hard around her.

“Nathaniel?”

He raised his head, his face close to hers. “I will not do this to you. I will not!”

“Do what?”

“Keep you as my whore,” he rasped.

“Since when has making love to me been equated with whoredom?” she asked, anger and hurt flaring in her voice. “Do you think I care about money?”

“I know you do not.”

“Then what, Nathaniel? Why has what we do together suddenly made me a whore in your eyes?”

“You are not a whore!”

“Thank you for that,
my lord.”
She tried to shove her way off his lap, but he would not release her.

“I know you are not a whore, but I would make one of you if I continued this liaison as it is. You deserve better. A husband, a name for your children when they come.”

“You still want me to marry you,” she said, stunned. With the careful way he had been treating her, she had thought his determination had been tempered by sense. Had thought, in fact, that he had wanted to rescind the offer, and had been at a loss for how to do so.

“Have you considered it, Valerian? I want you as my wife. You deserve more than to be a man’s plaything.”

“Thank you very much again, for telling me how you have thought of me all this time,” she snapped. All this time, lying beside him at night, enjoying the comfort of his arms but briefly until he would roll away, his back to her. All the little hurts she felt, all the small rejections, had been because he was saving her from his desires in the perverted name of honor? Because he wanted to marry her?

“Do not pretend to misunderstand me,” he said. “The truth is subjective, it always has been. You know I could never think of you as a whore, but neither do I want others to think of you that way. You deserve a place in society. You deserve respectability, and it is my duty to give that to you.”

“So it is guilt that prompts this,” she said. Just as she had always thought!

“I have made mistakes in the past,” he said, his voice low. “I have caused harm to many people, not only Laetitia and her family, but my own family as well. I want to do this right. I do not want to see either you or my family hurt.”

“Not making love to me now does not change what has been.”

“Perhaps not to the outside world.”

Despite herself, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “When I ask you to make love to me, you
do
see a whore now. Everything you have said confirms it.”

He grasped her face tight between his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I see the woman I want to be my wife.”

She sniffed back tears, and pulled her head free of his hands, sliding off his lap and back onto the carriage seat beside him. She wanted nothing more than to have him hold her, to feel him wrap his arms around her and soothe the hurt of his words away, but she could not. He did not want her as his mistress, and she could not be his wife.

As she had known but had chosen to briefly forget, there was no future in this world for two such as them.

Chapter Thirty

“Oscar, I want you to pay attention to where we are. I do not want you getting lost. Someone might mistake you for a real raven and force you to live in the Tower with the others. You would not like that, I promise you. The food would not be half so good, for starters.”

Oscar ignored her, his talons sharp on her shoulder as he shifted about. She was frightened that he would lose track of her if she let him fly free here in London, but the guilt of keeping him trapped indoors, and his new trick of gnawing on the furniture out of boredom, had finally outweighed her worries.

She kicked at her grey silk skirts, and swished through the gates to the park, the maid Nathaniel had hired for her following behind. The girl, Tilly, had yet to grow accustomed to Oscar, and started each time he spoke. Her skittishness was getting on Valerian’s nerves, and if she could have gone to the park without Tilly, she would have. Unfortunately, Nathaniel had made her promise not to venture out unaccompanied, and as unfamiliar as she was with London and its dangers, she had thought it wise at the time to agree.

Where
he
was, she was not quite sure. He had mumbled something about business that needed attending to, and disappeared early this morning. The silences between them had been growing longer since their talk in the carriage, and her “quiet evenings” alone with him were anything but cozy.

Valerian ignored the eyes she felt on her as she walked through the park. To be sure, there were no other ladies about with ravens on their shoulders, and she supposed she made something of a novel sight. The park was surrounded by one of the better districts of town, and it served as a public garden for those who lived there.

Valerian led Tilly away from the main carriage way, where well-to-do residents rode or drove in their afternoon finery, and they wandered down a path away from all the people. The path led into a shaded, wooded area, with a small clearing dappled by sunlight. The oaks stretching their gnarled limbs overhead reminded her of the woods around the cottage, rousing a twinge of homesickness. London might be the most marvelous city in the world, but she could not imagine permanently exchanging the forest and cliffs of home for the city’s man-made wonders.

“Here now, Oscar, this looks a likely spot.” She transferred him from her shoulder to her hand. “You go have fun. Get some exercise for those underused wings.”

Oscar cocked his head at her, and ruffled his feathers. “Go on,” Valerian urged, giving him a boost with her arm.

“Rrrraaa, go for walk,” he said.

“Yes, go!”

At last he extended his wings, and with one mighty beat downwards, rose off her hand. He flew up into the branches overhead, settling on one and watching as Valerian directed Tilly to spread out a blanket on the grass.

“I shall stay right here,” Valerian told the bird. “You go for a nice flight, but behave yourself.”

Valerian was aware of him flitting from branch to branch, watching her settle onto the dark green blanket, reassuring himself that she would not go off and leave him. At last he flew off, and Valerian sighed and tried to get comfortable, the stays of her gown stiff around her body, her mind aware of the dangers of creasing the costly gown or staining it on the grass. She wished she were in one of her country skirts, and could take off her shoes and dig her toes into the grass.

“Your book, miss?” Tilly asked, holding out the small object.

“Yes, thank you. Will you not sit here, too, Tilly?” she asked, taking the book.

“Thank you, miss, but I could not.”

Valerian watched the girl spread out her own small blanket, more a towel, really, several feet away and sit down upon it. Valerian made a face behind Tilly’s back. Sometimes it felt she had been less alone in Greyfriars than she was here, surrounded by thousands of people.

She had to stop thinking like that. Greyfriars was no longer home, and never would be again. Soon she would have to pick a new place to live, and leave Nathaniel, for the longer she stayed with him, the more she felt her resolve waver, and the more tempting agreeing to marriage became. She needed to leave for her own sake as well as his, before it became impossible for her to say good-bye. That is, if it were not impossible already.

She picked up her book, a romantic novel that she had found at a bookseller’s stall. She blinked away her tears and began to read, trying to lose herself in the story.

She did not know how much time had passed when a God-awful screeching pulled her out of a particularly riveting scene involving villain and virgin in a haunted castle.

“Get it off me! Aieee, my hair, my head!”

Valerian lifted her head, listening, eyes going wide. “Oh, Oscar, no.” She dropped the book and scrambled up just as an auburn-haired woman stumbled into the clearing, swiping her hands at Oscar, who beat his wings about her ears in an attempt to become airborne with her hat.

“Finders keepers! Finders keepers!” Oscar cawed.

“Bad bird! Release her at once, Oscar. Oscar!” Valerian ran to the woman, searching for a handhold on the madly flapping bird.

“Waaaa aa aa aa. . . .” Oscar wailed in protest as she tried to pry his talons free of the silver lace trim of the hat.

“Stop it, stop it,” Valerian scolded, her cheeks red with mortification. “I do you a favor by letting you out, and look what you do! Do you want to spend our entire stay in my rooms?” At last she got him disentangled from the woman’s hat and hair, and transferred to her own shoulder. “Ah, madam, I am so very sorry. He meant no harm.”

The woman stood bent over, hands on her knees, body shaking, her face turned down as she caught her breath.

“Are you all right?” Valerian asked, becoming concerned.

“Mother! Mother, where are you?” a child’s voice cried from down the path.

“Lady Stanford!” a woman called.

At last the woman stood straight and raised her face, and a peculiar hiccoughing gasp escaped her as her eyes moved from Valerian’s face to Oscar, once quickly over Valerian’s dress, then back to her face again. “He is yours?” the woman asked.

“I am afraid so, yes,” Valerian admitted.

The woman stared for a moment longer, eyes wide, then dissolved into laughter. “Good lord, I have been attacked, and had my hat ravished by a lady’s pet crow.” She put her hand up to her coiffure, and the tatters of lace hanging from her hat.

“Raven, my lady,” Valerian corrected, lips twitching. “He meant you no harm. It is just this passion he has for shiny things.”

“Oh ho?” Another trill of laughter ensued, and then the owners of the calling voices stumbled into the clearing, a finely dressed woman and a little boy about six years old.

“Mother?” the little boy asked, running up to the woman, “Are you all right?”

“Lady Stanford, are you injured?” the other woman asked.

Lady Stanford wiped delicately under her eyes with the edges of her index fingers, removing the tears, chuckles still rumbling in her chest. “Good heavens, yes, Lucas, I am all right. And no, Catherine, I am not injured.”

“Oscar is a superior bird,” Oscar said.

The little boy’s eyes widened, and he sucked in a breath, shaking with excitement. “Ohhh, he talks! Mother, did you hear him?” He tugged at her skirts.

“Yes, I heard.”

Valerian lifted Oscar onto her hand, and knelt down on the grass in front of the boy, ignoring her skirts. “If you are very gentle, you can pet him,” she told the boy.

Lucas looked up at his mother for permission. Lady Stanford nodded, and the boy reached out a quivering hand. Oscar tilted his head, and Lucas jerked back his hand.

“He will not hurt you,” Valerian said. “He has been petted by many, many children.”

Lucas reached out again, and this time stroked Oscar’s back three quick times.

“Biscuit!” Oscar declared, making Lucas jump. “Poor hungry bird. Pooooor hungry bird.”

The women laughed, and Valerian smiled. After an unsure moment, Lucas smiled too, and stepped closer to get a better look at Oscar.

“Did you train him yourself?” Lady Stanford asked. “I did not know that ravens could talk.”

“I have had him since he was a chick,” Valerian explained, keeping her eye on Lucas and Oscar. “Ravens are intelligent birds. Smarter than parrots.”

“Can we show Clary?” Lucas asked, his fear all but gone. “She would like to see him. Can we?”

“We could not impose on this lady,” Lady Stanford said.

Valerian glanced up at the woman. “Who is Clary?”

“My daughter Clarissa. She is confined to the indoors, I am afraid. She is recovering from a nasty cold.”

“She loves birds,” Lucas said.

Valerian stood up, giving her skirts a brief shake that did nothing to remove the damp spots over the knees. “It would be no imposition to show her Oscar. I know how bored children can get, stuck indoors. I would be happy to provide her some entertainment.”