Chasing Raven (14 page)

"She died after only a few years. He lost a child too, I believe. A tragic business."

"A child?"

"It's not talked of. But then he seldom talks of his private life."

Again, Raven thought of how she had teased him about boring people to death and putting women in graves. Could she possibly have said anything worse?

"How terrible," she muttered, biting her lip.

If not for that icy little heart she might be very moved. A dead child was an awful thing. Children were so innocent, it was particularly cruel when they were taken, but it happened too often. She frowned and adjusted her riding hat with one hand, fussing with the net veil. "Is...is that why he stays away from society?"

"I think he's the quiet sort by nature, but I daresay grief kept him away for a while."

Raven considered all this as they rode along the path.

It did seem strange that a man with so many advantages had remained alone for a decade. After all, he was in possession of a title, an estate and a comfortable fortune. Even if he was beastly arrogant and not
very
handsome. Well...not in the conventional sense...not boyishly so.

Some women were mercenary enough not to care.

Perhaps he had not found another woman who met his high standards. So what on earth did he want with
her—
the one woman who had made it clear that she would never conform to his tightly regimented life? Already she had cost him a black eye and the price of an antique vase.

"So our mama has taken up with a new lover," Ransom said suddenly. "Anything we should be concerned about?"

Raven groaned. "His name is Alphonse Reynaux, a man from her past."

"Reynaux? Christ, what is she doing with him?"

"You know him?"

"A little. Enough." Ransom's face turned grim. "Our father had him banned from Deverell's a few years ago for unpaid debts. He's a troublemaker, cunning. I'd better warn him off, for mother's sake."

"I wish you the best of luck with that endeavor. Mama will cling. She never listens to reason when in the throes of an affair. I have tried. And as you like to say," she muttered dryly, "I am better at managing her than you are."

"I never heard him say he knew our mother."

"A long time ago, when she was eighteen. But he had been abroad for years he said and only just returned."

Ransom gave her a dark look. "Reynaux has been in London two years at least." Then he paused. "Ah, but of course, he did not bother to make himself known to our mother again until recently."

"What do you mean?"

"When she acquired a useful and wealthy friend... through her daughter. I'm sure Reynaux is not the only old acquaintance who will suddenly seek our mother out again to rekindle whatever fragile connection they once had. Hale is tremendously influential, but you knew that, surely."

"Oh." She felt foolish for not seeing that Reynaux meeting her mother in the street was more than a twist of fate.

Her brother's suspicions were likely justified, she realized with a sinking heart. Their mother, who always preached about the way of the world turning on what one person could get from another, ought to know that there was no coincidence of Reynaux reappearing in her life only a few days after Hale made a stir by dancing with Raven. The whole town had been alight with the gossip after the Winstanleys’ ball, and Reynaux could not have avoided hearing of it. According to Ransom, the Frenchman had been in London for much longer than he'd told them, so there had been ample time to reunite with Lady Charlotte, if that was purely his intention. Yet she had not been of any interest until their sudden turn of fortune.

No good could possibly come of this for their mother, and Raven shuddered to think what Hale would make of them dragging a debt-ridden cheat into his small, select circle of acquaintance. He would rue the day he ever met her. But she had tried to warn him.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to take her mother off into the countryside without her French gentleman. Let him move on to another attachment while they were gone.

The prospect of Oxfordshire and Greyledge began to look far more attractive.

Chapter
Fourteen

"Raven, you know very well that women are not allowed here. And that includes you, whether you would rather be a man or not." Her brother stood from behind his desk as she was shown into his office at the club that evening. The butler who had accompanied her gave a crisp bow and left them alone.

Raven looked around the office, swinging her reticule. "Papa used to bring me here all the time when I was young. I had to sit in the corner there and read aloud or practice my letters." These were some of her favorite memories from youth— sitting in her father's office, watching him shout at people, count money, and put his booted feet up on that large desk while he whistled. Sometimes, if he was in a good mood, he taught his daughter card tricks and other useful talents, such as how to empty a man's pockets without him feeling a thing. All lessons, of course, that caused her mother to scream at him that he was unfit to be a father.

Ransom sniffed. "He only brought you here with him because you were such a terror to any unfortunate woman he hired as a nanny, and he feared one of them might be reduced to throttling you one day."

"Ha ha! But the name of the place is Deverell's, is it not? And since I am one, I should at least be familiar with how father made his fortune. He might even decide to leave all this to me one day, especially if you shoot at him again."

"You never tire of trying the boundaries, do you?"

"Certainly not." She noticed the half empty decanter of brandy on his desk— something he had supposedly given up after the tragic curricle accident that left a young woman dead and himself suspected of murder. "But at least I learn from my mistakes," she added, terse.

Ransom threw her a scowl and flopped back to his chair. "What are you doing here?"

"You said Hale sleeps and dines here most evenings, and I need to see him. Alone."

"I'm not sure I should allow it."

"Try."

He looked at her thoughtfully, the fingers of one hand tapping on his desk. "Will you accept his invitation to Greyledge, then? Does mama know you're here?"

"Perhaps. And no. There are a few things I need to know, before I make up my mind and this is the only chance I have to see him alone."

Eventually he agreed to let her wait in one of the small private rooms, although he warned her, "Hale won't like this. He's very much against women being allowed into clubs like Deverell's."

She sighed. "And you wonder why I hesitate to accept his invitation to Greyledge? Even if mama is blind to everything but her own needs,
you
must see why he and I are totally unsuited."

Ransom ought to understand her more than anyone, she thought. As children they had survived their parents’ tumultuous marriage together, and as young adults they had endured the infamy of that divorce. They both knew, therefore, the far-reaching disaster that could occur when the wrong two people became connected, even briefly. Ransom was just as averse to marriage as she was.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Hale had not proposed, nor made any suggestion that courtship was on his mind. The few times he'd touched her may have been incidental, even if it felt as if the world stopped when it happened. His lips brushing her cheek could have been an unfortunate miscalculation of distance and space in the moonlight. And he escaped in haste immediately after, so perhaps he was embarrassed by it.

She had clearly heard the man say he was not looking for a wife.

Yet he followed her about and the way his eyes scoured her was not disinterested. His fierce regard was a wildfire, leaving scorched earth in its wake.

Argh! It was most infuriating that she could not ascertain his motive.

The man showed very little of his thoughts and feelings, and that was quite the opposite to her own family's habits. She suspected he wouldn't think it gentlemanly to have so much expression on his face, which made it all very difficult for her.

As her father always said, it was better to get these things into the open, and if there was something one wanted to know, one should ask.

* * * *

She was standing just inside the door, as if about to take flight. When he entered, she stepped back, her reticule clasped in both hands, looking unusually nervous.

What had she done now, he mused. It must be something very bad this time, since she actually looked guilty.

"Miss Deverell," he exclaimed. "What are you—"

"It was the only opportunity to meet with you alone, sir. And before you object, I came through the back entrance of the club and no one but my brother knows I'm here." She gave a half smile. "Your delicate sensibilities about the rules won't be affected too badly."

In fact, on this occasion he did not mind a broken rule. Not that he would tell her that.

He gestured for her to sit. "You must have something very important to talk about."

But she refused the chair and gripped her purse tighter. "I wanted to apologize, sir, for those things I said when we danced. About death and women being safe in graves." She lowered her lashes, studying the floor between them. "It was a terrible thing to say."

Hale scratched his brow, confused. "That's what you came to see me about?"

"Not only that." She looked up again, and he suffered a sharp pain under his ribs. He had never seen eyes so beguiling, so lushly framed by thick, black lashes. "You and I have only just met, sir," she said softly. "Do you think it wise to invite me to your house?"

Now he went from pain to amusement. "Why? Might you burn it down? Incite the household staff to rioting?"

She frowned. "Tell me why you invited me, sir. I must know."

"I see. You mean to ask my intentions yourself. I should have expected that from a woman who prides herself on being a rebel." Again he gestured for her to sit, and again she shook her head. He walked to the fireplace and stood there a moment, hands behind his back, staring at the flames. Finally he turned to look at her again, feeling as if he had retained his composure after the very pleasant shock of seeing her waiting there for him. "I thought it would be a good deed to invite you to Greyledge," he said.

Her lips parted; her frown deepened. "For me?" she exclaimed crossly. "Charity? I can assure you I don't need it."

Hale cleared his throat before a laugh might escape from it. "Not for you. For anyone else whose house you might have decided to visit. I will save them the consternation by inviting you to mine instead."

Slowly her frown cleared. "You're teasing me."

"Are you sure?"

She wrinkled her nose like a naughty child and walked around the room, swinging her reticule on a little black ribbon, clearly churning it all over in her mind. "Matthew Bourne claims that you are responsible for his brother's death somehow. Why would he say that? Did Douglas not die of a fever while he was abroad?"

He groaned softly. Of course he could not tell her the entire truth of how Douglas Bourne died. The madness and suicide was not his secret to tell, but he could let her know the extent of his involvement. So he said carefully, "Young Matthew does not want to believe the facts of his brother's death. He must blame somebody for what happened and so I have become his target."

"But why you?"

"I caught Douglas Bourne cheating at cards and privately warned him that it could not happen again. It did and so I called him out on it publicly. After that, several other instances of his dishonesty came to light and his family sent him abroad to escape the scandal. His brother, therefore, sees me as the catalyst for the unfortunate events that followed. Because I would not allow Douglas to break the rules and escape without consequences." He ran splayed fingers back through his hair. "Matthew has spent the last two years trying to get his vengeance upon me. It gives the boy a purpose, I suppose."

She was looking at him steadily, head tilted to one side, taking it all in. The coals in the grate crackled softly behind him and that was the only sound as they studied each other in the soft, flickering bronze light of fire and gas lamp.

"I'll have to believe you," she said finally with a little shrug. "You just have one of those damnably infuriating faces."

"Thank you," he muttered, bemused.

There followed a pause while they studied each other in the firelight. Hale realized this was the first time they'd been alone together. Truly alone. It was certainly not something of which his aunts would approve.

"When I saw you waiting here, Miss Deverell, I thought it meant you had decided upon your answer. That you'd come to tell me the good news." If she had decided to turn him down, she would surely send a note, not come in person.

He felt like a boy, he realized in some mortification; a boy with sweaty palms, standing in mute anxiety waiting to hear an examination result.

"Will you not join me to eat?" he added. "I am dining informally, as you see. No waiters or other diners to disturb us."

"Would that be proper?"

He couldn't answer that because he knew there was nothing proper about her being there and he should have told her to leave at once. It was the shock, he supposed, that stopped him from chasing the miscreant out. But he was lucky to get one sight of the beautiful menace in a day, let alone two encounters.

"Your lordship, at the Winstanley ball, you said quite firmly that you and I could never be friends."

That comment must have stuck in her mind. Surprised to find it bothered her to such a degree, Hale felt a smile tugging at his lips and he allowed it some freedom to stretch. Just a little. "That is indeed what I said."

"And now?"

He ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his cheek, mentally weighing the danger. According to his aunts she was out to seduce him— a wager with her brother. But Hale was confident he could manage this. At Greyledge he would have the upper hand, but first he had to get her there.

Finally he said, "I am willing to try. You must show me how these things are done. I am quite at a loss as to how one would proceed with such a friendship."

"Don't you have friends?"

"Not young, unattached, attractive female friends. That would be most...unusual." That, of course, was what he meant when he made the comment to her at the ball. But apparently she had heard it as an insult.

She was breathing fast, the polished jet buttons on her coat winking in the candlelight. Down swept those fluttering lashes. A little pink stained her cheeks. "You know my reputation, sir. Why would you—"

"Yes, I have heard all the stories, but as you said,
some
tales are exaggerated. I prefer to find out the truth for myself."

She had claimed not to need his approval— that, of course, was part of the Deverell image, the bravado— and yet, when he ran into her at the theatre, she took the time to let him know that his impression of her was inaccurate. That she was not all bad, whatever he'd heard. Why tell him that when she cared nothing for his, or anybody's, good opinion? Apparently he confused her.

Well, he knew that feeling only too well himself.

One moment she tried to avoid him, in the next she was pushing her way into his view again, just to question him, as no other woman would dare. As if she felt the same pull that he did, and she too tried, in vain, to fight against it.

He slowly walked up to her. "I mean to find out what the infamous Raven Deverell really feels and thinks and wants. What truly makes her smile, and whether anything ever makes her sorry. I want to know the
genuine
Raven Deverell, not the facade she shows to everybody else. That, madam, is why I invited you to Greyledge."

* * * *

Now at last she knew why she suffered this anxiety, like a knot tightening in her chest. He wanted too much from her and once embarked upon a path, he would not give up. Somehow she'd known the danger from that first dance, when he held her too tightly, too possessively.

He had looked into her eyes with that dark, searching gaze and sought to strip her bare, rattling away at her armor and the iron nails that sealed it.

"I have been accused of sitting high above you all and passing judgment without knowing the facts. So I will discover for myself," he said, "whether you are really as wicked as rumor tells." His head bent toward her, and she could barely breathe. "So you will come, won't you, and give me the chance to find out? It is only fair."

Raven's thoughts were scattered, almost deafened by the pounding of her heart. Most men were happy enough with what she gave them— the daring rebel who laughed and teased, the girl their parents warned them against. It was always lighthearted fun, never serious, never a commitment. If they ever wanted more and tried coming closer, she quickly set them aside and moved on.

But from the beginning she had been unable to set this man aside. He was immoveable, unshakable.

And in spite of the great value she placed on her independence, Raven could not help but be drawn to his quiet strength.

She took a deep breath and forged ahead. "Well...my mama
is
very excited at the prospect."

"And you wouldn't want to disappoint her."

She wound the ribbon of her reticule around one finger. "My mother could also benefit from some time away from her temptations here in town."

"Indeed. Her French gentleman." He raised his eyebrows in a disapproving manner. "At least he has not set his sights upon you."

She was amused by that idea. "Would you be jealous of poor old Monsieur Reynaux?"

He didn't answer, but suddenly looked rather bewildered. This expression was familiar to her now.

Raven set her reticule down. "If you have no objection, sir...there is something I must do." It had been killing her since she first saw him. Now, while he stood in speechless confusion, she raised her hands to his neck cloth and began to retie it in a more fashionable knot. "Your wardrobe is in dire need of some refreshment."

While amending someone's attire, she felt the soles of her feet get their balance on sturdier, more familiar ground.