No, Raven didn’t need any words from any Gypsy tarot echoing through her head to tell her what she already comprehended. She was still half convinced the twins had stacked the deck. It would be just like one of their pranks. But a prank made sense, whereas her suspicions…well, she didn’t want to consider them.
“Drive on past Colford’s entrance,” she instructed, as the towering gates grew visible in the rainy distance. “I don’t live on the main estate, but in a small cottage toward the far end.”
“Yes, I know,” he replied, with an enigmatic half smile.
Once more, she suffered questions of how he knew so much about her. Raven admitted, “One wonders why you’re familiar with such details of my life. My shoulder blades itch like a target’s been painted there.”
He gave a soft, throaty laugh that sent a shiver up her spine. “All women have targets. ‘Tis the nature of the game. In this case, however, it’s nothing quite so baffling. The Montgomeries are frequently splashed across the newspapers—in the business and social sections. This charity gala received a lot of coverage. I just moved to the area. It’s a small community, which by nature tends to be incestuous. Gossip is the favorite pastime. Spend an evening down at The Fox and Garter and you’d be surprised how much you can suss out.”
“Generalities—not personal minutiae,” she argued. “A newspaper reporter wouldn’t report me living in the gardener’s cottage.”
“Depends upon the rag, wouldn’t you say? In any case, they don’t employ the local font of knowledge as a housekeeper. Mystery solved…revealing no mystery at all: the woman who cleans my offices is the daughter of Colford’s housekeeper. I also hired her to help me get my things settled in my new flat, and to come in twice a week to tidy up after me. So let’s say I’ve heard quite a bit about the beautiful Montgomerie sisters, especially Raven.”
“You hired Jilly?”
He nodded. “Hard worker, but her mouth doesn’t come with an off switch, I fear.”
“None that I’ve seen,” Raven agreed. “I grew up playing with Jilly. I suppose my ears should’ve been burning. You must’ve been bored to tears, since my life is rather humdrum.” She could bet Jilly had been entertaining him. Her friend had a penchant for pretty men, and Trevelyn Sinclair was as pretty as they came. Jilly wouldn’t resist the challenge.
Trev tilted his head in a shrug. “Let’s say what I learnt of Raven Montgomerie little prepared me for the mystery of the woman herself.”
Raven’s breath caught and held; she was taken aback by his tone, his words. By the truth in them. She tried to draw a steadying breath but found it futile, as if Trevelyn had sucked all the oxygen from the car interior. The potent male pheromones he exuded simply fried her nervous system.
Smart women, ones with strong survival instincts, learned the hard lesson that pretty men quickly develop tricks to deceive, the right things to say or do, the way to batter down all resistance. It didn’t lessen the effect, just made an inner voice scream not to trust him. Her foolish heart wasn’t listening. Or, worse, in her present mood it didn’t care. She’d been living alone in a small world fashioned from a gardener’s cottage for the last five years, desperately needing that time and space to heal. Only of late, a restlessness was growing within her, one that might see her willing to toss caution to the wind.
“Maybe I’m suicidal,” she muttered, thinking he wouldn’t hear.
“Beg pardon?” By the arch of his brow and the twinkle in his eyes, it was clear he’d heard perfectly. That keen wolf hearing.
“I said, ‘Maybe slow the car idle,’” she tried to cover. That was so idiotic she nearly winced in pain, only she couldn’t come up with anything else. Ignoring his mildly amused look, she said, “The turnoff is ahead on the left.”
A cell phone rang in the holder mounted on the dashboard. Trev glanced to Raven, hesitated a heartbeat, and then reached for it. Instead of hitting the speaker button, he picked the phone up and put it to his ear. “Hello? Hello?” Frowning, he pulled it away from his head and glared at it. “Odd, I could’ve sworn it was fully charged. Battery’s so down there’s not even warning beeps.”
Raven chuckled. “More likely it’s me being near. I do that to watches, cell phones…” She shrugged, “Technology and I don’t get along.”
“Really?” His too expressive face conveyed he didn’t believe her.
“I’m serious. I can’t wear a watch. It always stops within a few hours. About ten years ago, a jeweler suggested a quartz watch. I purchased one with a lifetime guarantee. Stopped in a week. I sent it in for repairs, they fixed and sent it back. The blasted thing died in two days. I returned it. They said they’d fix it one last time, but not to send it again because I was doing something to abuse the watch, which voided the warranty. The jeweler claimed the crystal was melted. It only ran a day before it stopped. I haven’t worn one since. I ruin cell phones, computers, watches, and oddly, even seem to destroy cars over a period of time. I must’ve replaced the generator on the MGB at least once a year for the past two decades. Did the same with two other cars I owned.”
“Well, if the call was urgent, they’ll ring back.” Putting the phone back into the cradle, Trev asked as he slowed the car, “Is this the turnoff?”
“Yes, go at a crawl. The driveway needs grading again.” But, Raven frowned. Trevelyn’s question sounded as though he already knew the answer and was just going through a pretense. She dismissed the suspicion, fearing she was growing paranoid.
Trev shifted gears and eased into the turn. Rain slashed at the windscreen, leaving it hard to see anything. Poor man winced when the vehicle dragged over a rut. Men and their babies, she thought.
He watched her in the dim dashboard light. “Call me curious, but why do you live all the way out here when you could reside in regal splendor at Colford, servants waiting on you hand and foot?”
What to say? One’s divorce and breakdown weren’t exactly ideal topics for an interested woman to discuss with a handsome man. Raven nearly cringed when she considered Jilly’s mouth not only ran at warp speed, but didn’t have any filters. Finally, she decided to answer a question with a question, and in a jesting tone: “You mean, Jilly didn’t tell you?”
He shrugged. “Let’s say I want to hear it from you.”
“The simplified version? I needed space. I come from a large family—which you clearly know—and too many of my sisters and brothers still live there. You’d be surprised: though the manor is huge, it can be hard to find a spot to be alone. My siblings are jokingly called the meddling Montgomeries, and boy, do they ever! I wasn’t permitted to sit and feel blue without the whole pack of them rushing in like a troop of clowns from Ringling Brothers to insist I must get happy instantly. I require solitude so I can paint. Their continual interruptions left me frustrated, so I found the solution of moving to the old gardener’s cottage. I always loved the place. It seemed magical to me. As a child I thought it was straight from a Tolkien book. And now the family is close—but not too close.”
“What’s the complicated version?” he prompted, sounding truly interested.
Raven forced a smile. “I shan’t bore you with it. And…it’s simply pouring out, so you don’t have to walk me to the door.”
Swinging the roadster into her driveway, Trevelyn brought it to a halt at the side of the house where she usually parked the MGB, instead of pulling around the circle in front meant for guests. He ignored her suggestion, cut the motor and removed the keys. “I guess I should be thankful your brothers returned the Lamborghini before the night was out.”
“Did they burn up all your petrol?” Raven paused. Skittish, she hoped Trevelyn would let her go. Prayed he’d allow her escape. Then she wouldn’t have to face decisions.
“They left about half a tank.” He gave her a warm grin.
“I’m sure they enjoyed it. Thank you for being so kind. They’re spirited but good lads. You might hit them up for a wash and wax job for payment.” She was jabbering i
nanely, her hand trembling as she frantically searched for the door handle. She needed to get out and away from this pheromone-saturated air. It was making her woozy and weak. Hungry. “Oh, bugger, how does one open a gullwing door?”
Trevelyn reached across her lap and caught her arm. Slowly pulling it to him, he placed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist, his lips searing her flesh like a brand. “Red Riding Hood is to sit while I get out and come around to assist her like a gentleman. I may be a wolf, love, but I am a well-mannered one.”
Lightning crawled across the landscape, striking a tree nearby. In that breathless instant, the inky darkness was vanquished by a blue-white glow, an eerie radiance pouring over everything and leeching the color from all but Trevelyn’s piercing eyes. Time lengthened as she stared at him, held spellbound and unable to breathe. A force slammed into her chest, as if the electrical bolt had struck her. Dizziness swirled through Raven’s brain and body; she couldn’t move, seeing and yet not wanting to believe. She knew these green eyes only too well. For that jagged fraction of a moment her answer was there, a solution to the unspoken riddle tantalizingly before her, almost within grasp.
Then the darkness fell again. Raven’s heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Trevelyn was close. Too close. She could smell the faint woodsy notes of his cologne, interlaced with a mysterious, earthier one underneath, the combination guaranteed to fry her mind. Coupled with the heat off his body, it left her intoxicated. The moment lengthened as he merely stared at her, his warm breath fanning her lips, forcing her to inhale and almost taste him. In the dim interior his features were shadowy, but the low parking lights illuminated those hungry eyes. He wanted to kiss her. She wanted that, too, her body twisting into knots with a craving so intense that her womb spasmed with need. It overrode all logic and self-preservation clamoring within her mind. Nothing else mattered but this man.
Mortifying, infuriating, he knew full well how he was affecting her. With a slight lift at the left corner of his mouth, he pulled back. He opened the sports car’s strange, futuristic door, and then pushed outside.
Raven almost collapsed against her plush seat, aflutter with pulsating sexual tension. Lifting the hood of her cloak she grumbled, “Stop acting like a blethering teenager. He’s a wolf. A bloody wolf. A Red Riding Hood should never trust a wolf. Never be stupid enough to trust a wolf. Maybe if I repeat it one hundred times it’ll sink in.”
Through the windscreen, she watched him walk around the front of the car and come to the passenger door. It opened, and Trevelyn extended his hand for her to take. She looked at it, the beautiful long fingers, the broad palm, fearing if she accepted there’d be no turning back; she’d be giving a piece of her soul to the devil’s keeping, and something told her Trevelyn Sinclair wasn’t the kind to return what he claimed.
“Then again, learning by rote has never been my strong suit.” She swallowed hard and put her hand in his.
Chapter Nine
Rain sheeting down upon them, Trev followed steps behind Raven, who hurried to the front of the cottage and onto the roofed porch. Twice she tried to pull her hand free from his grip, but he held tight, sensing she was in full retreat and tossing up barriers to avoid inviting him inside. An old Scottish adage was: It’s easier to leave a cat out than put him out. He had a feeling this fey Scots lass was applying it to wolves as well.
Yes, Raven was resolute in keeping him outside so that she need not confront putting him out. In frankness, she had admitted she did not deal well with conflict. This Tolkien world she had built far away from everything was a testament to that. Only, this time, circumstances would force Raven into meeting her hidden desires head-on.
If he’d stayed in the car as she pointedly suggested, she could’ve escaped without having to handle him.
Well, too bad, Red. I checked that little maneuver.
She was now attempting another gambit. He watched her stop on the small stoop, turn and block him from coming any farther, deliberately leaving him on the steps in the pouring rain. Silly wench, she hoped denying him shelter from the storm would hasten him back to his car. But, pitiful drops of water wouldn’t keep him from this woman. Bloody hell, a whole herd of fire-breathing dragons couldn’t deter him from Raven. He smiled, and then realized the expression was a first—a smile that seemed to go soul deep.
Standing in her old-fashioned cape with its huge floppy hood, the stoop hardly stopping the slashing rain from soaking her, Raven appeared ethereal, a sorceress, more than a simple being of this world. She was the Fairy Queen, weaving enchantments to trap poor Tamlin’s mind, and just like that besotted Scottish fool Trev suddenly welcomed her witchy lures. He would slay all the orcs in Isengard, duel blue-eyed Gypsies, and topple kingdoms for her. He would—
Feeling ridiculous, he closed his eyes and tried to exorcise his mind of these alien thoughts. This night was making him loopy. Fairy tales, wolves and Riding Hoods were morphing him into a blethering moron! Long ago he had accepted that he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body—or so he’d thought. If he suddenly cried out, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks!” he was going home to soak his head.
Oddly, ludicrously, wonderfully, he didn’t feel the rain. It was beyond his explaining, but there was some quality about this night that was so elemental, nearly supernatural, that the storm merely seemed part of its extraordinary enchantment. Opening his eyes, he put his foot on the top step and then slowly raised himself up, his stare never leaving Raven’s face, cosseted inside that red velvet hood. She was tall, around five seven, and with her on the porch and he on the step, that put their gazes on the same level.
Letting go of Raven’s hand, he curled his fingers into his palms to keep from seizing her. He sighed in frustration. It was friggin’ tough for a wolf to be gentlemanly.
“Well…um…you should get out of the rain. It’s pouring. Thank you again for everything.” She managed a tight little laugh, naively thinking escape was in sight.
But words seemed outside Trev’s grasp. Struck a mindless tomfool, he swallowed hard and then slowly reached up with both hands. The moment lengthened, spun out to where the world ceased to turn on its axis. His heart slowed, beating painfully. His fingers took hold of Raven’s hood and slowly pushed it off her head, allowing slanting spray to mist upon her long hair. Spellbound, she stared back.
All he could think to say was, “You’re beautiful in the rain.” And she was. Sadly, her velvet cape would be ruined, though he deemed that a small price. The image of her haunting face, the power of this point in time was forever seared into his memory. He so wanted to kiss her, to taste the cool sweetness of the rain on her lips. Instead, he simply remained frozen in this crystalline moment, wondering if he’d fallen down a rabbit hole.
Raven’s lashes lowered. He’d seen reflected in her sad eyes that she didn’t believe him—and that made him want to smash Beechcroft in the face all over again.
His immediate goal was to get inside her cozy little bungalow. Only three little steps to the door, they were steps Raven was going to prevent him from traversing if possible. If he could achieve that much, he’d next stamp out the seeds of self-doubt that had taken root within her, would teach her how special and rare she was.
“You are, you know.” His thumbs brushed under her chin to gently lift her head. Once more, the urge to kiss her slammed through his entire being, tensing muscles and spreading a strange tightness in his chest. “Very beautiful.”
Her eyes remained lowered, and she evaded his probing stare, her voice barely audible over the rain pattering down around them. “Please don’t. I told you about me. I’m not the kind of woman a wolf wants. Let me go.”
Her hand shook as she opened her small clutch, frantically searching for her keys. They rattled in her grasp and then slipped through her wet fingers. Before they hit the wooden porch, Trev snatched them midair. Her head jerked up, and she held out her hand. Only, he took that step she didn’t want him to take; she h
ad to back up or their bodies would brush. He offered her an easy smile and moved past her to the door. Raven had just gifted him with the key to his goal—literally and figuratively.
“A gentleman always sees a lady to the door.”
Recovering a bit of equilibrium, she laughed. “Is that what you are? This night you wear many masks. Devil? Wolf? Gentleman? Which is the real Trevelyn Sinclair?”
Her question hit home, more than she could ever suspect. Yes, he was wearing a mask tonight, and one even he didn’t recognize. The whole evening was a mockery of what he had foolishly envisioned. Instead of sweeping Raven off her feet, he’d been sucked up in a confusing, whimsical whirlwind of emotion, dreams and hopes he’d never imagined. He’d only had two drinks, and that faint buzz had been burned up in his annoying confrontation with Beechcroft. He was stone-cold sober—and yet was drunk from her presence. It scared the bloody hell out of him.
“You might say a bit of all three.” He inserted the key in an antiquated lock, and his mouth compressed into a frown. This was the only defense she employed against the world? It was as if she expected no menace would dare invade the bubble protecting her quaint bungalow on the corner of the vast Colford estate.
He tried to push the door open, but it held fast—and not from the inadequate lock. Behind him Raven suggested, “You have to shove hard. In wet weather it sticks.”
Trevelyn chuckled. “Wet weather? Which is nearly every day in jolly ol’ England.” Putting both hands to the frame, he gave a strong push and the door finally popped and swung inward. Then, in a neat little maneuver he removed the key from the lock and stepped into her warm cottage.
The only illumination was the dim bulb of a floor lamp in the kitchen. The living room was a contrast of shadows and that light. Trev held out his free hand, gesturing for Raven to enter. Poor Riding Hood, she’d have to put the wolf out now that he had deftly slipped within. And she knew it, too. Instead of coming in, she remained beyond the threshold. Those luminous eyes watched him, knowledge that she’d lost the game reflected in their amber brown depths.
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