Lady Falls (Black Rose Trilogy)

by Renee Bernard

  “Are you not jumping into the fray, Mr. Warrick?” Lord Trent asked at his elbow.

  “Ah, not just yet.” Phillip kept his hands politely clasped behind his back. “I’m surveying the battlefield first.”

  “Wise boy,” Trent nodded. “Though you’d best make your move soon. I’ve had no less than three very keen mothers inquire as to your marital status and financial disposition.”

  “God.”

  “Yes, and because I am a wicked friend, I may have hinted that you were genuinely looking for the next Countess Warrick.”

  “You did not, sir!” Phillip was aghast at the prospect. “I’ll be dodging milk toast all night!”

  “Let us hope so,” Trent said sagely, a wry grin lighting up his features. “Let us hope so.” Trent strolled away, openly pleased with his mischief and the scowl on Phillip’s face.

  So much for hiding in these ferns!

  Phillip stepped out but only to go back out into the main hall, overtly removing himself from the line of fire. Since most of the guests had already arrived and the receiving line was finished, it was a good place to catch his breath. But it also allowed for another view of the manor’s grand staircase if Raven ever—

  Dear Mother of Heaven…how did I ever think to take this in stride?

  His lover and the ruler of his heart was perched at the top of the staircase in the most regal and striking shade of purple he had ever seen. Only when her eyes found him, did she smile and begin her descent. Her gaze never wavered from him and Phillip had to grip the ornately carved ballistrade to stop himself from rushing toward her.

  A small diamond tiara in her hair and a wide collar of stones at her throat only completed the illusion of a conquering princess alighting to bless her lowly captain of the guards. She held out a gloved hand, the soft kid leather dyed to compliment her dress, and allowed him to kiss her fingers in greeting. “Mr. Warrick! Did I keep you waiting long?”

  He shook his head. Hell, I’d have waited until dawn if seeing you like this is my reward. “Raven,” he whispered. “You look…”

  “Like a grape?” she teased.

  He smiled. “Yes. You are the most beautiful and alluring grape I have ever seen.”

  She laughed. “Such a compliment! However will I resist you, sir?”

  He leaned in, levity giving way to desire. “You won’t,” he said softly. Phillip stepped back, retaining his hold of her hand. “May I have this dance?”

  Raven’s cheeks blushed as she silently nodded her assent.

  He escorted her to the ballroom and marveled at how different the sensation was to enter with Raven on his arm. A hushed ripple of admiration and speculation pooled out around them and every eye turned to see the black haired beauty at his side. Her fingers tightened their grip on his arm and Phillip tried to ease her anxiety. “They are in awe of you, Miss Wells.”

  She smiled. “They are studying me closely to see if I have some glorious flaw.”

  “Like a humped back?” he played along.

  “It would make for a better gothic tale,” she agreed. “If the earl took in some poor scarred and misshapen creature…”

  “I’m sure they are just as happy to see a fairy tale princess in their midst.”

  Raven looked at him askance. “Now who is the optimist?”

  He pulled her out onto the marble floor as the musicians began a waltz, and then into his arms. “Dance with me, Raven Wells.”

  She instinctively relaxed in the circle of his hold, tipping her head back as the world fell away. His eyes were on her and she was transformed into a creature of air and light, the heat from his body surrounding her and shielding her from all care. It was a waltz but she could not hear the music over the beating of her own heart.

  Nothing tied her to fear, anxiety over the gossip of her peers as inconsequential as dust. Phillip masterfully guided them through the kaleidoscope of dancers and she forgot to hide her pleasure.

  “What are you smiling about, Miss Wells?”

  “I am grinning like a fool because all my feminine schemes to impress you with how cool and unaffected I am and how mature I can be; are all for naught! I am giddy, sir, and even knowing how unbecoming it is, I don’t care!”

  “I like you when you are giddy and it is far more appealing than you suspect.” They skirted the far side of the room closest to the open windows and then moved back into the heart of the floor. The music carried them both and he leaned forward slightly to whisper in the sensitive shell of her ear, “Will you come to me again tonight, Raven?”

  “Yes!” Raven answered. “I must reward you for the patience you will be forced to show tonight, sir.”

  “My patience?”

  “For I will have to dance with as many men as it takes to repair my reputation after making such a spectacle of myself in your arms,” she sighed sweetly. “No one looking at us will fail to notice how I feel about you, Mr. Warrick.”

  “Good!” It was his turn to laugh. “Let them envy me and by all means, dance with every ugly man in the room if you must. I shall be as patient as a saint.”

  “Only the ugly ones?” she teased with a pout.

  “Very well. Not just the ugly ones. You may also dance with any man over the age of seventy, no matter how handsome he is.”

  “Phillip!” she protested gently. “Let us say fifty.”

  “A compromise. Sixty?”

  “Sixty it is,” she conceded then dared a glance over his shoulder to assess the company. “Oh, dear. There are quite a few men who fall into those categories. I may have overstepped the mark.”

  “Too late now,” he declared. “You will have to make the best of it and I will simply have to do my best to console you later. I will not stay to watch, Miss Wells. I have a good understanding of my limits.”

  The music ended before she could serve him a saucy reply. Raven curtsied deeply. “Thank you, Mr. Warrick. That was a waltz I shall never forget.”

  He bowed and then formally escorted her from the floor. Raven was sure that her slippers were not touching the ground. She’d jested about dancing with other men but Raven wasn’t completely confident that—

  “May I have this dance, Miss Wells?”

  She turned to be faced with a man who was neither unattractive nor elderly, but no matter how much she adored her Mr. Warrick; Raven was a young woman at her first dance and she was not going to forego her merriment.

  “Why, yes! How kind of you!” She took his proffered hand and stole one quick glance at the grim jealous gleam in Phillip’s eyes before he retreated from the ballroom. Good, then. He has my heart and my body, so perhaps it is good for him to simmer a bit.

  The power of her feminine wiles was a heady thing and Raven innocently explored the polite edges of the game as one dance request, became another, and another. Between partners, there was no time to leave the floor until the orchestra finally took a brief pause. Then the competition for glasses of punch and refreshments created a comical rush of men seeking to vie for the honor of bringing her a piece of cake or arguing that a rival had failed to relinquish her quickly enough to allow them to bring her a small iced dessert.

  She felt like a lily floating in a pond with dozens of fish nipping at her ankles for attention. By the time Lord Trent appeared, she was grateful for the reprieve. “Come, Raven! Dance with your crusty old guardian and let these men shamelessly fight over your card while we take a turn.”

  “Gentlemen,” she smiled at them apologetically as she took Geoffrey’s hand, “if you’ll excuse me.”

  They dramatically lamented her loss and Geoffrey ignored every single one of them to pull her out onto the floor. “God, what have the young men of this country come to? Did that one boy mumble something about surviving on the dew of moonbeams until you returned to his side? Dear Lord! Worst prose in the history of history!”

  “Not everyone has your natural gifts, Lord Trent,” she demurred. “I heard Lady Baybrook say that you could charm a blackberry bramble
into giving you roses if you set your mind to it.”

  “Ah! I knew I invited that old sow to visit for good reason!” Trent smiled as they turned. “Took her long enough to earn her oats, wouldn’t you say?”

  She gasped at his humor but took it in stride. “All right then. But let me take this fleeting chance to thank you, your lordship.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything. For tonight, and the silks, and the jewels and…you are generous to me in too many ways to name but I did not want you to think it had gone unnoticed.”

  His brow furrowed. “Don’t turn maudlin. I like it better when you pout about not having enough bonnets, girl.”

  “Very well. I am happier for having said it.”

  “And?” he pushed gently.

  “And,” she gifted him with a wicked smile. “I will make a note to pout and ask you for more things if that is the only thing that pleases you.”

  “Good girl,” Lord Trent nodded. “By the way, I love the way you sent Warrick packing, Raven. He looked as crestfallen as a pup when he left just then.”

  “Did he?” She swallowed hard, unease creeping across her skin. “I didn’t mean to bruise his feelings.”

  “Are you doing as I’ve asked, Raven? Are you leading him a merry chase?” he asked.

  When did you ask me to lead him on a merry chase?

  “I must confess that I—“

  “Shhh! Do I look like a priest to you? It’s a ball, Raven, and no place for confessions. Besides, I have not forbidden your attachment, have I?”

  “No. You didn’t.” She tried to ignore the sensation that something was wrong. “You thought he would avoid me if he thought I had no dowry but—“

  “I don’t want to talk about this now, Raven. Besides, I’ve made such broad hints of your fortunes, perhaps that strategy was useless.” He smiled as if they were discussing his favorite dogs. “Do whatever you wish but do not ask me about Warrick again.”

  “Your lordship?”

  The dance ended and he stepped back curtly. “No more talk of Warrick. Don’t ruin my evening.”

  He turned and left her on the floor, a scandalous move since manners dictated that no unmarried woman cross the dance floor alone. Thankfully, one of her admirers swept in to save her and her humiliation was averted. Within minutes, she’d put the incident from her mind for a time. When her new partner stomped on her toes, she laughed and used it as an excuse to pardon herself from the throng.

  Raven slipped away to steal a few private moments. She took advantage of one of the servants’ doors and walked outside to absorb the cold night’s air and admire the view of the glittering party through the windows. By deliberately keeping out of the light’s touch on the grass, she knew she was completely invisible to the guests inside.

  Can you die from the thrill of giddy social triumph?

  Raven hugged her elbows at the notion, wishing that she could clasp this sensation of strange joy tightly enough to keep it forever, to soak it into her bones.

  “Are you catching your breath?”

  She turned with a gasp at the unfamiliar gravel in the man’s voice. “Sir?”

  “I am the Duke of Northland.” He inclined his snow white covered head a single inch. “At your service.”

  She curtsied in one graceful motion, trembling at the prospect of meeting such a man out of her element. “Your Grace. I am Raven Wells, ward to the Earl of Trent.”

  “Charmed. If you are not catching your breath, then are you hiding from some anticipated horror, Miss Wells?"

  “What horrors could possibly touch me on a night like this?” she said with a smile. “You are too melancholy, Your Grace.”

  He smiled, stepping out from the shadows but not entirely embracing the light from the room. “Am I?”

  She nodded, the euphoria dancing still clouding her senses. “As your reputation demands, I expect.”

  “How did he manage it? In one gentle frame to have raised a creature so wild and so adept at the trappings of civilization?”

  She pressed her fingertips to her cheeks. “I spoke without censure!”

  “It is your youth that speaks so and it is your greatest asset. But then youth would also be your greatest weakness. I allude to horror and you deny its existence. God,” he let out a soft sigh, “may life never teach you the error in that.”

  “I—I did not hear you announced and my guardian and your host, Lord Trent would be mortified to think I’d met such a peer while I was hiding out on the lawn.”

  The duke shook his head. “I am not expected. He invites me to everything but I, I never attend. Anything. As my reputation demands.”

  Raven tipped her head to one side to take a different measure of the man. The mysterious Duke of Northland had been more of a ghostly figure than anything else for as long as she could remember. She’d seen his name on a card on her guardian’s desk years ago and Geoffrey had forbidden her to speak his name aloud. But the duke was on every guest list that Lord Trent kept. Their correspondence was always under lock and key and provided more security than any treasure or trinket in the house.

  But here he was. A man, after all, and not a ghost.

  “I should have recognized you, Your Grace.”

  “How is that, Miss Wells?” he asked.

  “Two years ago, I was in Stathmore to visit a friend of Trent’s and to shop when your carriage stopped on a journey to London I imagine. It caused quite a stir. Just your coat of arms on the carriage door was enough to send every woman who possessed a decent gown scurrying for her powders.”

  “Did they indeed?”

  “I’ll admit I was as eager as any to see what a duke looks like.”

  “Did I disappoint?”

  It was an open invitation for flattery that she ignored, not out of malice but simply because she didn’t think someone as elevated as a duke had much need for the convention. “You weren’t what I expected but I don’t think it’s possible to disappoint when even your footmen have gilt on their sleeves.”

  “What did you expect to see in a duke?”

  “I don’t wish to say.”

  Silence was his reproach and she relented with a small twinge of misery. “Very well but before I answer I wish to say that of all the meetings with a duke I had envisioned, none of my fantasies included me making such a muck and mess of it!”

  “Understood.”

  “I thought you would be much taller and not quite as chubby,” she confessed miserably. “And while the livery was very shiny, you were wearing the dullest waistcoat I’ve ever seen. There. I’m made despicable.”

  “I love your honesty.”

  His voice caught and Raven was stilled by a strange flash of emotion in his eyes. “Your Grace?”

  “Tell me what my reputation demands, Miss Wells. What kind of man am I?”

  “You are…as unknown to me as a star in the heavens, Your Grace. As far above me and as distant, I’m afraid to say. But imagination and rumor takes hold and I have only heard whispers of a lonely man who rarely ventures out into the world that he is the master of.”

  “Am I a cruel man?” he asked.

  She stared at him in shock at the question. Eyes the color of gray smoke like her own reflected only pain and without thinking she reached out a gloved hand to touch his arm. “Never! No one could think it! And if they claimed such a thing, I would amend their opinion with my own!”

  “And what is your opinion to counter theirs?”

  “That whatever has driven you from the world, must have been terrible, indeed and…that it is not our place to judge such a great man. I am no one, Your Grace. Truly. But if a girl who is nothing can befriend an element in the heavens, I hope you will accept my care.”

  “How did he manage it?” His smile lacked warmth and never touched the agony in his eyes as he retreated from her touch. “I never thought to meet you, my dear but I am glad that my reason was overruled by my curiosity. I wanted to see Trent’s ward for myself.”


  “Your Grace?”

  “Good evening, Miss Wells.”

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” she said, and curtseyed again, well aware that her audience with him had come to an end and that there was no argument or amendments she could make before he turned on his heels and left without another word.

  I cannot believe I spoke so boldly to a duke!

  And that he still manages to wear the most dreadful waistcoats I have ever seen…

  Chapter Fifteen

  She’d left Phillip’s bed just before dawn and he awoke more determined than ever to end the secrecy that enveloped them both. Clandestine romances were all well and good, but he was convinced that Trent would not appreciate their deception.

  Well, that and the sight of her like a glorious flower with all those pesky male bees around her…

  He waited in the dining room for his host to emerge and was finally rewarded closer to the lunch hour than breakfast. “Good morning, your lordship.”

  The earl held up his hand as if to ward off cheer. “Not so loud, dear boy. God, what was I thinking? After wounding myself on our little hunt with all that whiskey, why in the world would I think to stupidly sample all that punch?”

  So much for catching him in a good mood to talk.

  “The evening was a triumph,” Phillip said levelly, lowering his voice slightly to earn a smile from his host.

  “Yours certainly was!” Trent tapped his cup and was instantly provided with a steaming cup of black coffee by one of the footmen. “Mrs. Pratt confided that her daughter is completely in love after you honored her with a quadrille.”

  “Gracious! As quick as that!” Phillip took a bite of eggs. “A shame I don’t even remember the girl and I sure as hell didn’t dance a quadrille. Perhaps she has lost her heart to Mr. Sheffield?”

  “Are you not going to even ask what her dowry entails before you throw her over?”

  Phillip shook his head. “No.”

  Trent shook his head. “A sad state of affairs! Clementine Pratt has tits the size of watermelons and a dowry to match! Where is your enthusiasm for the hunt?”