Chasing Raven

by Jayne Fresina

  "Arrogant?"

  "High handed." His gaze returned to her face. "In which case, I apologize."

  "Oh." With hesitant fingers she touched the pearls at her throat. A confession of regret or guilt were the last things she expected from him.

  "It is a misfortune that you and I were not introduced under different, more conventional circumstances, Miss Deverell. Although, I suppose, that would never have happened. Since I hear you despise tea."

  Aha! Was that a smile? Yes. A little bit of one.

  She struggled to keep her own in check. After all, she'd promised herself that she would be very stern and no-nonsense this time. "Indeed. That I came to your notice at all, sir, was entirely by regrettable chance."

  He took a step closer and his eyes narrowed. "Chance? Will you pretend that you did not wink at me from the back of that horse?"

  "I had something in my eye. A...a little," she raised her thumb and forefinger to show him the approximate size, "tiny speck of mud."

  "Is that so?"

  "Did you think I schemed to win your notice?" She backed away a step.

  "You would not be the first young lady to do so."

  Well, she would crush that idea at once. "You may rest assured, your lordship, that you are safe from me. I am in pursuit of my own contentment, not of a husband."

  "You're very... forthright, Miss Deverell."

  "Yes, I'm told it runs in my family."

  He resumed the turning of his hat brim between those restive fingers. "In the matter of your mother, I am duly chastened and will remember your rebuke the next time I think of assisting a lady. How very despicable of me. I must be out of practice in these matters too. As I am in the art of losing."

  His features were so steady now, she had no idea whether he teased her. After waiting in vain for another little change in his features to give him away, she finally replied cautiously, "Well, I suppose you meant to be helpful. I may have over-reacted, in which case I apologize."

  "Very occasionally the desire strikes me to do a good deed." His lip bent up stiffly at one corner and wobbled before he straightened it ruthlessly again.

  "And you could not possibly have expected to get something in return, because you are a gentleman— according to my mother— and not a wolf, like some men."

  "Am I?" His gaze stroked her hair yet again. What was he looking for?

  Suddenly she knew what it was about her first sight of him that had struck her as sad. His damned hat. The brim of it was misshapen and wilted. Now she saw how it was abused. The pitiable object must have been tormented for years and it seemed as if he wore the same hat for all occasions. A man of his wealth ought to be able to afford a new hat for every day of the week, yet he showed clear preference for the old one.

  "What happened to your eye?" she asked, curiosity winning out over her determination not to care.

  "A slight mishap."

  "You should apply raw beef-steak."

  "Ah. Is that so?"

  "Of course. Don't you have anybody to look after you?" As soon as she spoke she wished the words back, remembering that he was a widower.

  He stared at her, apparently perplexed by the question.

  More people now filled the corridor, slyly observing the two of them. She looked for Damon, preparing to make her escape before she said anything worse.

  "I hope the formal announcement of Lord Bourne's engagement has not caused you too much upset," Hale muttered suddenly, just as she was about to walk away.

  "Do not worry about me, your lordship. My father raised all his children to be survivors. People might not think much of Deverells, he likes to say, but they can't ignore us because we're not going away and we'll outlive them all." She didn't really know why she said all that, but it seemed important that he know. "Excuse me." She'd finally caught sight of Damon.

  Hale said nothing, so she gave a sort of curtsey and began her way down the steps to where her half-brother stood with some of his friends. The surging crowd of people, however, slowed her progress, almost to a stop.

  A group of young women looked her way, sneering and smug, gossiping behind their fans.

  "Isn't that the Deverell girl?"

  "Why, I believe it is. They say Matthew Bourne's father was desperate to get him out of her clutches."

  "What father wouldn't be?" Scornful laughter. "She's no better than her brothers."

  And then an attempt at hushed concern. "The Bournes have had enough tragedy."

  "Precisely."

  "Most decent folk will not disport themselves at any party where Deverells are invited. I am shocked the Winstanleys took such a risk."

  Raven kept her head high. It was nothing she hadn't heard before. But while moving forward rapidly now, she missed her footing on the edge of a carpeted step and slipped.

  Two hands came behind her, catching her around the waist a split second before she fell back.

  She knew it was Hale.

  He gripped her around the waist as if she was a priceless ornament that had almost fallen from his grasp. When she looked up over her shoulder, her hands upon his, her gallant rescuer's expression was tightly guarded.

  "Beware, Miss Deverell," he muttered softly in her ear. "A gentleman like myself might be a very reserved and patient wolf. But he's still a wolf."

  After a breathless moment he released her, turned, retrieved the hat he'd dropped, and walked back up the steps with his long stride. He passed the gossiping women and silenced them with a single glance of brutal disdain. They were left to stare in astonishment, humiliation and mild outrage from behind those aggressively fluttering fans.

  Chapter Twelve

  With unsteady hands, Raven picked up her skirt and continued her descent toward Damon, whose attention had also been caught by the speediness of his sister's rescue. Indeed, it seemed as if that one act on the red-carpeted stairs had stopped time for everybody there in the theatre. Real life was slow to find its familiar pace again.

  So was her heartbeat. It thumped madly in a disjointed rhythm. She felt suddenly several inches taller, and conspicuously flushed.

  "Wasn't that the Earl of Southerton?" Damon exclaimed. "I believe I've seen him at Deverell's before."

  She fussed with her evening gloves. Was she smiling? Her lips felt numb suddenly and she could not be certain of what they did or how to make them behave.

  Accustomed to hearing unflattering things about herself, she didn't like to think of Hale hearing them too. Not that his opinion of her was unbesmirched already. Still...she took a deep breath and smoothed a hand over her corseted bodice...she didn't want him thinking any worse of her.

  That caused her a moment's pause, for she'd never before cared for a man's good opinion, other than her father's.

  "You've seen him at Deverell's?" she asked finally, still recovering her breath, opening her fan again to cool her face.

  "Yes. It's the only place he attends usually in town." Damon kissed her cheek. "How are you, sister? Not managing to stay out of trouble this season, if the rumors are true."

  She was very fond of Damon, although he could be a cheeky little bastard at times. "What is that?" Warily she eyed his glass and the very dark liquid it contained under a thick head of creamy froth.

  "Stout, sister. Try it. It is most fortifying."

  "Mama would not approve."

  "All the more reason then," he chuckled.

  "I fear there are folk who would say I am already fortified enough." Raven studied her half brother and realized he had grown much taller over the summer. Of all her father's sons he bore the most resemblance, as her mother had disdainfully remarked. He would soon be lethal for any young woman. "What have you been up to lately, Damon?"

  "Well, I have my eye on a certain little darling, but currently she doesn't know I breathe."

  "Which one?" Raven asked eagerly, trying not to think about Hale and the dangerous effect he had on her blood heat. Anxious to occupy her mind with something else, she urged, "Do tell!"r />
  "Don't look now, but she's the pretty little blonde angel behind, to your left, standing with her short, square aunt...I said, don't look now! What word of the sentence did you not comprehend?"

  "That small girl with the sharp eyes? You can do better. She's an incorrigible little flirt."

  "Ha ha! Pot meet kettle. Or, in the immortal— and oh so fitting— words of Shakespeare, the raven chides blackness."

  "Your meaning?"

  "You know very well what I mean. You're the worst temptress that ever batted an eyelash. Cannot prevent yourself. You're a woman who is never happy unless every man in the room is besotted with you. According to papa, you got it from your mother. The difference is, while she will cling on with her fingernails until the man is bloody, once you have a man's adoration, you don't want him anymore and he is abandoned, left adrift."

  "That is utterly untrue."

  "How many broken hearts have you left in your wake?"

  She gasped. "I do no such thing." Was everybody out to insult her today? She'd been good all week— bored but behaved— and apparently it was not worth the effort.

  "I hear you danced with Hale at the Winstanleys' ball last week." Damon gave a teasing grin. "It's all over town, you know. Hale, who hasn't been seen to dance in a decade, finally came out of his shell to chase that wicked nuisance Raven Deverell around a ballroom. I hope you know what you're about this time. He is nothing like your other conquests."

  "He did not chase me anywhere." Her cheeks grew even warmer. "It was one little dance. Really! Has nobody anything more important to talk about?"

  "It seems not."Damon eyed her violently wielded fan. "Fret not, sister. They will have far more to talk about, now that they've all seen him put his hands on you again in public." He nodded toward the crimson carpeted steps where she'd almost fallen. "The poor fellow courts danger by following you about."

  "I didn't ask him to follow me anywhere," she hissed, ignoring the little pang of guilt she felt for winking at Hale. "Now kindly talk about something else."

  "Very well." He took a swig of his stout and smacked his lips— another thing of which her mother would not approve. "Have you met the newest member of the Deverell clan yet?"

  She shook her head. Sadly it was another boy, leaving her even further outnumbered. "I may go home to Roscarrock soon. A baby is a good cause to visit, and I should like to see Olivia."

  "What about your mama? She won't like you leaving London."

  "Let Ransom chaperone her for a while." It was time her elder brother took on part of the task, she thought. "It might do them both a benefit. Keep them both out of trouble."

  Speaking of which...she suddenly spied Monsieur Reynaux, who must have been sent out to find champagne. He was in deep and unusually somber conversation with a very attractive, very young woman in lilac satin. The lady put a hand on his arm and he leaned down to hear her intimate whisper. His lips brushed her brow as he whispered in reply.

  It shouldn't be a surprise, of course, and it wouldn't be to anyone but Lady Charlotte, who— for some reason— expected men to be faithful when she took up with them. Years of crushing disappointment had not taught her the futility of such expectation.

  Raven knew her mother may soon leave the box since she'd been abandoned there, and if the champagne did not arrive promptly enough she would come looking for it. Better make the most of her last few uninterrupted moments with Damon, and find out whatever she could.

  "So what do you know about Hale? Tell me all his filthy secrets."

  "I thought you wanted to change the subject."

  She licked her lips and said tartly, "Tell me what you know about him, or I shall tell papa about that married woman you were with last year."

  "Do you refer to my plain Latin tutor?"

  "Oh, I'm sure she taught you a great many things and only some of it in Latin. And from what I hear she is far from plain." She poked his chest with her fan. "Tell me what you know about Hale."

  "Give a man chance to think, sister!" Damon considered carefully, his gaze roving over the plaster cherubs on the ceiling. "Well....from what I've seen of him at Deverell's he holds his drink well, wagers high and prefers games of strategy to games of chance. Beyond that..." He took another sip from his glass and shrugged. "He manages a great estate in Oxfordshire and a Cotswold stone quarry."

  Stone, she mused. How appropriate.

  "Does he have family?"

  "Perhaps. Doesn't everybody?"

  "I heard he's a widower."

  "I wouldn't know about that."

  "Lord, you don't know much, do you?"

  "Look, ask Ransom. He's closer to Hale's age and I know they've been dining together at the club lately, suddenly the best of friends." He cast her a sly, sideways glance and then sputtered. "Don't tell me you're actually interested in Hale? Oh, that is sweet indeed! Raven Deverell finally takes interest in a man and she can't have him."

  "Can't have him? Why not?"

  "Because he's Hale, sister darling. And you're...well...you." He broke into lusty chuckles. "And I mean that to be kind, Raven dear. I say it as your beloved little brother. You'd be wasting your time, but I wish you luck."

  "Why would I want him?"

  "The challenge, of course. He is completely and utterly out of your reach. We ought to have a wager."

  "What sort of wager?"

  "That you can't make Hale fall in love with you by the end of the summer. By the grouse shooting."

  "I'm not interested."

  "What's the matter? Lost your gumption? Think you can't win that wager? At last, you've found a very proper gentleman who would never succumb to your wicked charms."

  "You're boring me, and I'm going back to the box." Raven snatched the glass from his hand and finished the "fortifying" contents in one unladylike gulp.

  If people really were talking still about their dance at the Winstanleys' ball— so much so that even Damon and his group of socially mutinous young students had heard about it— Hale would probably do all in his power to avoid her from now on. The Earl of Southerton had his sterling reputation to preserve.

  But he couldn't help himself when it came to gallant rescues, apparently. She still felt the firm print of his fingers on her waist. He had set her nerves asunder like a spilled pot of pins and needles, and her brother's teasing did not help retrieve the scattered pieces.

  Where had Hale gone— leaving abruptly in the midst of the performance? It must be something important that called him away from Lady Jane Newcombe and her pigeon feather headdress. Ha! If he was with Raven he would not want to leave her side. She would see to it.

  And just like that the pain began again, under her ribs.

  It must be the sign of something terrible, she decided grimly. The beginning of the end.

  She left her brother with a quick kiss and a warning, which she felt was necessary since she was a whole two years his senior and much wiser in the ways of the world. "No more Latin teachers for you, young sir. She has made you altogether too saucy. And your cockiness did not need any encouragement."

  Damon grinned. "What can I say? She corrupted me, sister. But you be wary too, or you might be responsible for doing the same to poor Hale. Corruptio optimi pessima."

  * * * *

  He was just getting up from the chair to go back to his own box when the door opened and Raven entered. Seeing him there with her mother, her eyes grew very large and she halted abruptly. The color quite drained out of her face.

  "Where have you been, Raven? I have wonderful news. His lordship has invited us to join him at his estate when he leaves London again at the end of next week. Is that not very generous of him?"

  Her lips moved but no sound emerged.

  Lady Charlotte laughed giddily over her tilting glass of champagne. "As you can see, she is overwhelmed by your invitation, your lordship."

  "Yes. So it would seem."

  "I thought you were leaving the theatre," the wayward young lady exclaimed.

>   "It would be rude to leave without paying my respects to your mother."

  She looked askance, as if nobody had ever thought it necessary to pay her mother any respects before.

  "I hope you will give my invitation some—"

  "Why are you bothering with us?"

  "Raven!" her mother exclaimed.

  "I mean...it will play havoc with your reputation, sir."

  She cared about his reputation? Yes, the little scowl of concern was quite endearing. He replied civilly, "Lady Charlotte tells me that you've been downcast of late and that you grow weary of town already, Miss Deverell. Since I am soon to go into Oxfordshire, I suggested you both might like to accompany me." He walked up to Raven and took her hand. It was warm through her glove. "I have some horses you might be interested to see, and I understand that is something of a passion of yours. But I shall leave the decision with you and your mama, of course." He raised her hand to his mouth and brushed her silk-clad knuckles very lightly with his lips. "I'm sure you have other offers."

  To his surprise she didn't immediately reclaim her hand, but her fingers lay limp in his, as if she'd forgotten about them. "Horses?"

  "Yes, Miss Deverell. I breed horses at my stud in Oxfordshire."

  A renewed twinkle gleamed under her lowered lashes. He saw he had tempted her, but she was still in the mood to tease. "Where ladies only ride side saddle and with caution, well behind the men so as not to get in their way?"

  His pulse picked up a hopeful pace. "Yes. As a lady should ride."

  "In your opinion." She still did not take her hand from his.

  "On my estate, Miss Deverell, my opinion is law."

  "And nobody breaks your laws?"

  "No. Because my rules are for their own safety." He paused, gripping her fingers a little tighter. "Surely you're not afraid, Miss Deverell? I believe you lectured me recently on the importance of trying something new once in a while."

  She looked up at him in some confusion, then turned her back to her mother and whispered, "I warned you to stay away, or she'll get ideas about us."