As for myself, I’m sure I cannot even recall your face as it has been so long since I’ve seen it.
Your once, but now forgotten,
Professor
After his second read, Raven had found it amusing. He could imagine Jane scolding him with her hands on her hips, tapping the toe of her slippers on the floor.
But now, with Sanders here sniffing through his shaving kit, Raven didn’t find it amusing in the least.
He hadn’t meant to respond to her at all. It was best to avoid temptation, after all. Under the circumstances, however, he was too furious to think about bedding her.
So, he went to his desk for a scrap of paper. His mouth curled in a cold smile as he stabbed the surface of the ink with his pen. She wasn’t the only one who could send a missive.
* * *
Less than an hour later, Raven heard his front door open and then a rapid patter of footsteps on the stairs.
Jane appeared, breathless and wide-eyed. To the valet, she said, “Oh, thank goodness you’re still alive.”
In turn, Mr. Sanders stared back at her perplexedly. “I am indeed, miss.”
Raven crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “So, you’ve come to beg my forgiveness, have you?”
“Not in the least,” she said with an exasperated sigh as she jerked the ends of her moss-green ribbons before setting the straw bonnet down onto the bedside table. “I came because of your missive. If you didn’t want me here, then you shouldn’t have written the words, and I quote: Dear Jane, I am about to commit murder. Be warned, I’m laying the corpse on your doorstep.”
Raven speared the meddlesome valet with a deadly look.
“Pay no attention to him,” she said to Sanders, who turned three shades paler as he took a step back. “He’s all growl and thunder.”
“He tried to shave me, Jane. Came at me with a razor.”
She grimaced and shook her head as she patted the valet on the shoulder. “Well, perhaps, it would be best to wait downstairs for a moment. I’ll talk with him.”
Sanders left without argument. But when the door at the end of the hall opened, Raven heard the sound of thumps from the main floor and then a high, piercing war cry. And it sounded uncannily like one of her brothers.
Raven stared out the open door to the hall and then back at her, dubious. “Did you bring the children?”
“Well, it is Sunday,” she said as if that explained everything. “Many of the servants have a portion of the day off from their duties, including the governess and the nurse. We usually fend for ourselves.”
“And your parents?”
“Having tea with Lord and Lady Sutcliffe.”
No sooner had the valet’s steps descended than Raven heard someone tromping back up, along with a crescendo of wailing as it drew closer. Then eleven-year-old Charles appeared, his short-cropped hair sticking up in brown tufts, his eyes wide in an unmistakable expression of being at his wits’ end. Raven imagined he looked the same.
“Jane, you’ve got to take Anne. She just won’t stop crying. I’ve tried everything, but I think she hates men.”
“Nonsense,” Jane said and summarily plucked the plump, mop-headed, bawling Anne out of Charles’s arms and handed her off to Raven.
Stunned, he didn’t know what to do with the soggy-faced creature.
Reflexively, he drew her against his chest so he wouldn’t drop her, one hand tucked beneath her nappy-pinned bottom, and the other over the center of her back. The baby quieted after a series of stuttered, snuffling hiccups. She stared up at him with glistening blue eyes surrounded by wet, thorn-shaped lashes as she flexed her little hands on his shirtsleeves.
“Gah,” she said. Accompanying the sound, a rainbow-prismed bubble of drool formed from her rosebud mouth.
Then Jane added to her brother, “You see, it’s all in the manner in which she is held. She needs to feel secure and safe. You tend to hold her as if she has the plague.”
“I just don’t want her to wet on me again.”
“Believe me, I felt the same way about you.” Jane grinned and ruffled his hair. “Go on, now. Keep watch over the rest. Make sure Peter keeps all his clothes, and inform me if the twins start to plot against the valet. I’ll keep Anne up here for a minute.”
Charles was off like a shot and Raven . . .
Well, he was left holding the baby.
Jane turned a pair of doe eyes on him, her head tilted to the side, her lips curving softly.
“No,” he said and quickly put little, sweet-smelling Anne back in her sister’s arms. “You’re not allowed to look at me that way with those midnight eyes, which are likely calculating a three-part plan of domesticity. And aye, I see you shaking your head in denial, but you are biting your lip. That always means you’re not saying all your thoughts aloud.”
She frowned, adjusting her sister on her hip. “An entire library of charts and graphs wouldn’t form enough of a plan to domesticate you. You’ll always be untamed.”
“Never forget that,” he said sharply as he pivoted on his heel and stormed back into his bedchamber. “In case you’re not aware of it, I’m angry with you. All this madness is due to whatever you said to my”—he growled, frustrated that he still felt like a pretender—“to Warrister. And it was you who told him, wasn’t it?”
“I may have sent him a missive, as a courtesy.” She sniffed, indignant. “At least he responded. At least he didn’t forget my very existence, like you have done this past week.”
Raven detected a twinge of hurt in her tone and that irritated him even more. “No! You don’t get to come here with your accusations and soft smiles as if you’re the aggrieved party. Because of you, I’m forced to deal with a valet barging into my house, determined to fit me for a suit of clothes in order to attend a ball that I never agreed to go to in the first place.”
“I tried to prepare you, but you didn’t answer your door. If anything, this entire ordeal should convince you to hire—”
His growl cut her off.
He jerked open his bedside table drawer and picked up a pink letter, unfolding it with a single irritated shake. “You should have discussed this with me before you mentioned anything to Warrister.”
“For what purpose? You would have refused the invitation, regardless,” she whispered as her sister yawned sleepily in her arms.
“Correct,” he vehemently whispered in return, tension roped between his shoulders.
Raven hissed out a breath through his teeth. Then, looking down at the letter, he folded it with care and tucked it back in the drawer before locking it for safekeeping.
When he faced Jane again, he saw her gaze drift absently from him to the tasseled key. Her lips moved briefly in a silent murmur as if she were making a mental note of something.
But he refused to ask her what it was about. Instead he crossed his arms as another edgy growl vibrated in his throat.
When she spoke aloud, her tone was contrite, tender. “I will write to Ableforth this very day to make amends.”
“Fine.”
She rocked the baby back and forth, stroking her hand along the layers of tiny scalloped ruffles. Gradually, the heavy cherub head settled into the curve of her neck on a soft sigh, a fan of lashes falling against the plump crests of her cheeks. “I suppose I lost my head for a moment.”
Raven watched as she pressed her lips to those butterscotch curls and was struck with a strange tug at the center of his chest—a pull that forced an image to form in his mind, of Jane with her own child. But instead of brown hair and blue eyes, he saw a tumble of inky black curls and gray eyes.
A disconcerting jolt rifled through him.
He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck to free himself of the thought and sensation. “That doesn’t sound like you, losing your head.”
“No, indeed,” she said wryly. “It struck me quite by surprise. You see, I didn’t even believe I would have the opportunity to attend Aversleigh’s ball. But when I m
entioned that to Ableforth, he decreed that he would ensure my parents’ acceptance of the invitation. Less than an hour transpired before a messenger from the earl himself arrived at the door. With all pomp and circumstance, he stated his lordship’s desire to renew acquaintances with many members of society and hoping to do so at the marquess’s ball. Flattered and quite proud of themselves, my parents accepted the invitation on the spot.” A laughing breath escaped her as she rolled her eyes. “I then told Ellie and she was thrilled. She was sure that we would find plenty of dancing partners among all the officers and tradesmen invited.”
“What officers? What tradesmen?”
“The ones who will be in attendance, of course. The marquess’s daughter is marrying a wealthy American tradesman and this is her betrothal ball.” She lifted her shoulders in a half shrug, but there was a mysterious glint in her eyes. “Besides, that is the purpose of the Season—for unmarried men and women to become more familiar with each other. And as Ellie began to proclaim how we were bound to wear out our slippers . . . Well, I’d had one of my epiphanies.”
“And just what was your epiphany?” He growled again, folding his arms across his chest.
Her soft smile returned as she rested her cheek on the baby’s head and looked up at him. “That I only wanted to dance with you.”
He felt that tug again. But this time, it was harder. It ripped through him as if he’d been speared by a harpoon and hauled from the depths of the ocean to break the surface.
He drew in a gulp of air, lungs tight. Bloody hell. What is this?
“Very well,” he said, disgruntled and pressing a fist to the center of his chest. “Send that blasted Sanders back upstairs.”
Chapter 22
Raven didn’t need any more lessons. But Jane was determined to teach him to dance like a proper gentleman, and had doggedly cajoled him until he’d given in.
Since he was still brooding over her mention of tradesmen and officers, what else could he have done?
Even so, before she’d left with the horde—as she called them—he’d made it clear that he was attending this ball as himself. There would be no formal introduction to society as Merrick Northcott. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
The truth was, he’d rather just continue on like this, one foot in each world. If only everyone else could see how much simpler that would be. Then he’d have everything he wanted.
The following afternoon, Raven arrived at the conservatory for his first dancing lesson.
He found Jane building some sort of contraption. It was a box with interconnecting notched wooden cogwheels, fixed to a turn-crank handle that rotated—what looked to be—a large tin grater inside.
So absorbed in her work, she didn’t notice that he’d arrived. Not even when he handed her the mallet that had fallen on the floor, out of her reach.
She was disheveled and driven, her hair falling loose from a twisted topknot, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and the remains of a forgotten wedge of toast balanced on the edge of the trestle table.
He drew closer and lifted his hand, unable to resist tucking a few of those silken brown-and-gold strands behind her ear. “What are you building, little professor?”
She muttered something barely discernible about a snowflake maker under her breath as she turned the crank, peered into the box, then frowned at the unmoving grater.
“Want me to have a go?” he asked. “I’m fairly good with my hands.”
He didn’t mean it as a flirtation, but it managed to pull her out of her fog with a blush on her cheeks. She blinked at him several times, her pupils contracting then dilating warmly.
“You’re here,” she said, the whisper of her sweet breath flavoring the air between them.
Damn, he wanted to kiss her. It had been ages since he’d tasted her mouth. But it was that very desire that gave him reason to hold back. He was only a temporary fixture in her life. She belonged in society and he . . . didn’t know where he fit yet.
So, Raven settled for wiping the smudge off her cheek, then nodded to her contraption. “A ‘snowflake maker’?”
She smiled and slipped a handkerchief from her sleeve to swipe at her cheek. “Indeed. This is for our toboggan race on Christmas morning. You cannot always depend on Mother Nature to bring the snow precisely when you wish for it, so I thought I’d make some myself. The children and I love Christmas, even if most of the ton—including my parents—look at it as a silliness enjoyed by rustics. But the children and I put together a grand celebration. It’s our little tradition. We enjoy making puddings and sugar-dusted biscuits and we hang garlands and ribbons from the staircase.”
She smiled and her gaze went distant as if she were picturing all the years of merriment. And Raven had a burning need to know what that felt like. To be surrounded by family. To have traditions to look forward to, year after year.
Feeling like a mawkish fool, he turned his attention to the mechanism. After a brief examination, he saw why it was failing and reached inside to secure the coupling.
“And what about you? Do you have any favorite Christmastide—” She broke off abruptly and her hand fell on his sleeve. “I apologize. That was thoughtless of me.”
He shook his head, absolving her. The last thing he wanted was to diminish her joy with the reminder of his past. So, he made light of it for her sake.
“Let’s see . . .” he mused. “One year, I got a peppermint stick and a lengthy hug from the cook. Lost the sweetie, but the memory of that big-bosomed embrace will linger in my heart forever.”
Looking over his shoulder, he winked at Jane and she swatted him on the shoulder.
“Scoundrel,” she chided, almost tenderly. Then she reached for his hand. “Come along then. It’s time for your lesson.”
Raven let her tow him from the conservatory before he mentioned, “I already know how to dance.”
She cast him a doubting look. “I don’t know what type of dancing you’ve been doing with your ladies of the evening—and I’m sure I shouldn’t want to know—but today’s lesson is learning the proper steps and the proper form. Every position you present to your partner will also be viewed and judged by the entire ton.”
Unconcerned, he focused his attention on the long expanse of columns, arched niches, and murals in the main hall. At the far end, Charles, Phillipa, and the twins were carrying chairs and tufted hassocks out of a nearby room and placing them on the Axminister runner.
“What’s going on over there?” he asked her.
“Merely a history lesson. The children are reenacting the battle of Trafalgar.” Then she briefly paused in her trek toward the staircase and called out, “But remember, children, there will be no eggs, apples, or any foodstuffs for that matter, used in your cannon fire. I don’t want a repeat of the Battle of Flodden. The carnage and the resulting odors of that were nearly enough to cause Mr. Miggins to quit us all on the spot, and he’d already lived through several actual wars.”
A quickly chorused “Yes, Jane” answered.
Suspicious, Raven eyed the four of them huddled close and whispering.
“You know,” he mused, “if I had an entire houseful of potential projectiles at my disposal and was only given orders against using food . . . Well, I’d instantly start thinking of all the other things I could use that would do the most damage—rocks, clay pots, actual cannon balls if I could lay my hands on them.”
“Newton’s apple! We have several of those in the garret. Father collected them at one time. Mother had them gilded,” she said absently and stopped on the bottom tread. Then, in a surprisingly resounding voice from her small form, she issued a warning. “Your artillery can have no greater mass or weight than a pair of Peter’s woolen stockings rolled together. Is that clear?”
Groans of disappointment preceded another, far less enthusiastic, chorus of “Yes, Jane.”
She slid Raven a glance and curled her hand over his arm as they continued up the stairs. “Thank you. You’re terribly clever about ant
icipating mischief.”
“That’s how I first found you, after all,” he teased and couldn’t resist adding, “and your glove.” He even tsked her. “Naughty, Jane.”
She tensed at his side and drew in a breath, doubtless to claim that it was all innocent, once again. But the appearance of Miggins at the top of the stairs quieted her excuse and left Raven with the upper hand.
Miggins bowed. “A pleasant day, Mr. Raven?”
Looking down at the pink color staining Jane’s cheeks, he grinned. “Getting more pleasant by the minute, Miggins. And you?”
“I have nothing of which to complain, sir. Miss Jane,” he added, turning his attention to the blushing mistress of the house. “Would you care for a tray sent to the ballroom before we begin?”
“No, that won’t be—”
“I’m positively famished, Miggins. I could eat a horse.”
“I’m afraid the last of the horse was served at dinner,” the butler said, completely deadpan. Not even a quiver of jowls. It was all the more hilarious when Jane—who was trying so hard to be offended and self-righteous—suddenly erupted in laughter too hearty to be stifled behind her hand.
Raven grinned at the ever-sedate butler. “I’ll take whatever Jane usually fancies.”
“Very good, sir.”
Jane gradually quieted on a hiccup as the butler left through a camouflaged door, tucked into the staircase landing.
She dabbed the wetness from the corner of her eyes. “I always knew there was mirth hiding in those jowls. Leave it to you to bring it out of him.”
“I take no credit. It was obvious from the day I met him that he’s content to be here with all of you.”
“And we love him dearly,” Jane said and Raven felt something like a pang of envy in the pit of his stomach. He sobered at the thought. “Which is one of the reasons why I’ve asked if he shouldn’t mind assisting us for your lesson. He and I will demonstrate while you observe. I believe you’ll have the steps sorted rather quickly.”
My Kind of Earl Page 21
