Raven's Vow

by Gayle Wilson

  Raven let her go, but he stood watching her a moment. His high cheekbones were slightly flushed, the crystal eyes still lucidly shining in that dark face, and, Catherine was pleased to notice, his breathing was a trifle uneven.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I—I suppose I was remembering yesterday. What Gerald did,” she said, grasping at any explanation he might believe, rather than the one that was really responsible for her retreat from what had been happening. From what she had been revealing about her feelings for him, feelings she knew he didn’t share.

  “Liar,” he said, smiling at her.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, the conventional delay when one didn’t have a response. Liar she certainly was. The memory of Gerald’s assault had faded under the touch of Raven’s lips, except as a contrast to how right this was as opposed to how wrong the other had been.

  “I was afraid that bastard might have spoiled you for this. And then I was…delighted to find that I’d nothing to worry about. You aren’t afraid of me.”

  “Of course not. You are my husband.”

  “Convenient,” Raven said softly.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A convenient marriage. I believe that’s the term you told me was used for our sort of arrangement.”

  Our sort of arrangement, her mind echoed bitterly.The sort where you waltz off to Scotland while I sit at home thinking every hour about what you might be doing. She wondered suddenly if he were going to Scotland at all. All these “business” trips… Veryconvenient for visiting some discreet address somewhere. Like an idiot, she’d never thought to question his travel. She wondered now how many of those journeys had been undertaken not to examine some coal mine or foundry, but rather to visit his mistress. The mistress he’d acknowledged quite openly.

  “Scotland, I believe you said?” Catherine questioned.

  “Lancaster first, and then perhaps across the Borden.”

  Manchester, she thought. Raven had very definitely told her Manchester before.Damn him, I was right. This isn’t a business trip. And I suppose the interlude this morning was simply a warm-up to what he has in mind for later in the day. Or night.

  She took another step backward, away from the warmth and the now-familiar fragrance of his body, which, despite the confirmation of what she suspected, was so appealing. Her knees were still trembling with the aftermath of his touch.

  “Have a good trip,” she said, unable to hide the trace of bitterness at her discovery.

  Raven’s head tilted slightly, questioning that tone, and a small crease she’d never noticed before appeared between the sweep of his dark brows.

  “Thank you,” he answered, his attitude outwardly as correct as hers. “No goodbye kiss for your husband?” he suggested.

  “I think you’ve had your kiss.”

  “Do you?” he questioned, his lips quirking slightly at her primness. “And by the rules, husbands are limited to only one?”

  “How many are lovers limited to?” she asked, her anger making her bold.

  “I don’t believe there’s a limit to lovers’ kisses. I think they’re allowed as many as they are able to steal. Don’t you think that’s probably how it works?”

  “I don’t know, I assure you. I’ve never had a lover.”

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s try to keep it that way, shall we?”

  “And if Amberton calls?” she asked tauntingly.

  Raven was puzzled by her sudden shift in tactics. She had only a few minutes before been meltingly responsive in his arms.

  “Lord Amberton won’t call. On that you have my word. And do you know, Catherine, I don’t believe that husbands are limited to one kiss, after all. And if in England they are, that should certainly be changed. By an act of Parliament if necessary.”

  Even as he was speaking, he caught her up again into his embrace, his right arm moving commandingly behind her back and lifting her to meet his descending lips. There was no hesitation in the contact of his mouth over hers as there had been before. He had been afraid that Gerald’s attack might have made her reluctant to endure a man’s embrace, but her willing response had given Raven ample reason to know that was not the case.

  His tongue pushed into her mouth, which, almost against her will, opened eagerly. Her tongue met his, matching the caressing quality of its movements. She seemed to be unable to deny him anything he wanted. Because, she knew, mistress or not, she wanted this, too. And had wanted it rather desperately now for several weeks.

  Catherine couldn’t have said how long his embrace lasted. Every bit of strength she possessed seemed to be draining f rom her body by the hard, sweet union of Raven’s mouth with hers. She found that her hands had lifted to rest on those massive shoulders, holding him, not wanting him to leave when she had only just discovered how much she enjoyed his lovemaking. Perhaps if she became more adept at this, as he certainly could teach her to be, then he wouldn’t want to seek out his mistress again. Maybe he’d choose instead to stay here with her. Maybe.

  A vow, his grandmother’s voice whispered into Raven’s consciousness. Freedom, he remembered. He had promised Catherine freedom from this. Freedom until she wanted him as he had always wanted her. Gradually the movement of his tongue against hers stilled.

  His mouth began to lift away, and unwilling to let the kiss end, unwilling to let him leave, Catherine clung damply to his lips with hers. Raven touched his mouth gently against those clinging lips, once, and then again, before he finally broke the contact. He turned his head so that his cheek rested, warm and wonderfully close, against hers. She could feel the slight roughness of his skin against the softness of hers.

  “Manchester,” she whispered.

  “What?” he questioned, turning his face so that his lips caressed her eyelids, which were still closed.

  “You said Manchester before,” she said.Deny it, she prayed.Make me believe that you’re not rushing off to some other woman.

  “Did I?”

  “Manchester,” she repeated, nodding slightly against the movement of his lips over her face. They had now begun trailing warmly down her slightly retrousse” and very fashionable nose.

  “I must have been thinking of something else,” he whispered. He kissed the tip of her nose and then lifted his head enough to look down into her face.

  She opened her eyes, to find the startlingly bright blue of his own set in the beautiful stark planes of his face. And the golden bronze of his skin. She could see the pulse of the vein in his temple, the sheen of midnight hair, still unfashionably long and pulled back from those strong features.

  “Then it is Manchester?” she managed to ask. What did it matter? she wondered. She was wasting the last few precious minutes he’d be here, asking ridiculous questions. She had no right to censure his behavior. This was what they had agreed to. He had never hidden the fact that he had a mistress. Most men of her class did. She had grown up accepting that reality. Gentlemen were entitled to their ladybirds as long as they fulfilled all the responsibilities of their legal bonds. But she had been forced to admit this morning that she didn’t want Raven to hold another woman as he had just held her. Or to kiss her. Ridiculously gothic, she supposed, but true.

  “Does it matter?” he asked, smiling at her. “I have interests in both. I didn’t mean to mislead you. As soon as my plans are finalized, I’ll have Reynolds inform you.”

  “You could write me,” she suggested softly. She had no pride left. Next she’d be begging him to let her go with him.

  “That may not be possible,” he said. His eyes were no longer smiling, and there was something serious in the quietness of his deep voice.

  “I understand,” she whispered. And again she retreated, stepping back from the too-dangerous nearness of his hard body.

  “Probably not,” Raven said, touching his lips lightly to her forehead.

  She raised both hands suddenly, her fingers caressing the dark hair that swept back from
his face. Smiling into his watching eyes, she pulled his head down to move her lips against one lean cheek, delighting in the slight roughness of his closely shaved skin. His flesh felt too hot under the brush of her cool lips. On fire, she realized suddenly. And then he lifted his head abruptly and stepped around her and through the open doorway at her back. She listened without moving to the click of his boot heels striking decisively against the marble floor of the hall. And the murmur of voices, his and Edwards. And finally, her heart sinking, she listened to the closing of the front door.

  Chapter Eight

  When Oliver Reynolds had received the hand-delivered communication from his wealthiest client, he’d wondered at the abrupt instructions it contained. Despite his wealth, John Raven had never before ordered him to do anything, and certainly not anything as bizarre as this. Not the legal aspect, of course.That Reynolds had unsuccessfully sought to bring to Mr. Raven’s attention on at least two occasions during the last three months. No, it was rather the location the American had chosen for the consummation of the business that seemed so unusual. As his coach stopped before the shaded doorway, Reynolds again wondered at the motives behind Raven’s suggestion that they meet at this out-of-the-way hostelry, situated less than ten miles from the capital.

  Slowly descending the narrow steps the coachman lowered for him, the old man felt the cost of this ridiculous journey in his aching bones. He had taken a few days longer than absolutely necessary to prepare the documents he carried today because he had found himself stubbornly thinking that, as rich as John Raven was, he did not control Oliver Reynolds. The man of business was too old to be at the beck and call of every client requiring his undivided attention. To give the American credit, however, he had, after the first, sent no more demanding letters of instruction.

  Leaning more heavily than usual on the walking stick he liked to consider simply a fashionable affectation left over from his youth, Reynolds entered the low doorway of the inn. The hostess, having judged the quality not only of his attire but also of the carriage that stood under the shadows of the ancient oak from which the White Oak Inn had taken its name, approached, wiping her hands on her apron, which crackled softly with the starch her girls had laundered into it. She smiled at the banker and then shot a glance over her shoulder at her husband.

  “I’m Oliver Reynolds,” the old man said, fighting to keep his shortness of breath from being obvious. He was too old to be traipsing about the countryside, even at the behest of so valuable a client as John Raven. And he thought he might tell the American that. “I believe Mr. Raven’s expecting me.”

  “Oh, sir,” the woman said, her nervousness apparent in the work-reddened fingers now twisting a fold of the crisp cotton. “I swear I didn’t know what I should do. Although as to that, Mr. Raven’s instructions was clear enough, but it don’t seem Christian somehow to leave him all alone. I brought him the willow, leaves and bark, like he asked me, and I even offered to help with the brewing, but he said no. I imagine if you’re a friend, you know what he’s like, right enough. Set on having his own way, it seems to me.”

  “Indeed,” the banker said, thinking that he could with good conscience agree to that assessment, though, of course, he certainly did not intend to discuss John Raven’s idiosyncrasies with the innkeeper’s wife. “If you would be so good, Mrs…?”

  “Hawthorne, sir. I’m Mrs. Hawthorne and that’s my man that keeps the public house.”

  “Then if you or your husband would be so good, Mrs. Hawthorne, to tell Mr. Raven I’m awaiting him in the parlor, I should be very grateful.”

  The silence that greeted his very reasonable suggestion stretched, and still the woman made no move to deliver his message. “He’s upstairs, sir,” she said instead, glancing again at her husband. “He insisted he needed a fireplace, although with this awful heat, you’d think… And then there was the rocks, although he paid well enough for the carrying up of those, and to be sure, I’m not the kind to be begrudging a guest things that make him comfortable.”

  Especially a guest with as generous a hand as he knew John Raven to have, Reynolds thought cynically as Mrs. Hawthorne continued.

  “And Ioffered to call the doctor, but he’d have none of that, so I don’t really know what else I could have done,” she finished apologetically. “But, I swear, as I said to my husband, it don’t somehow seem Christian to me, despite what he says—”

  “The doctor?” the banker repeated, his hand suddenly arrested in the act of wiping the perspiration from his brow. Definitely too old to be traipsing around the countryside, he’d been thinking again when the woman’s explanation had finally penetrated. “For what reason should you summon a physician, my good woman? If ever in my life I’ve seen a man less in need of the services of a sawbones, it’s John Raven.”

  She hesitated, the brown eyes rich with concern, and her fidgeting fingers found another fold. “That’s what he said when I suggested it three days ago, but if you could see him now, Mr. Reynolds, you’d understand. I swear, as I told the mister just this morning, that shoulder’s swelled like a cow with the colic. And he just sits there with his eyes closed and those rocks steaming around him. It’s enough to make a body think…I don’t mind telling you, sir, that I don’t know what to think. Heathen’s what I call it, but then he’s such a gentleman. There’s no denying that, no matter what strange ideas about healing he’s got in his head. It’s just that…” She paused, allowing the country shrewdness that had made her husband’s business a success to show briefly in the dark eyes. “It’s just that deathsain’t good for an establishment, if you take my meaning. They ain’t good for business. The doctor’s what we need, I said to Mr. Hawthorne just this morning. And I’ve had a mind, Mr. Reynolds, to send for one, orders or no.”

  The banker closed his mouth, which had fallen open, whether with the information just imparted or with the exertions of his descent from the carriage, he wasn’t entirely certain.

  “Upstairs,” he repeated faintly. Rich or not, John Raven was proving to be a far-more-troublesome client than Oliver Reynolds had bargained for.

  When Mrs. Hawthorne opened the door, steam wafted into the narrow hallway, curling whitely around the black serge of the banker’s suit and wisping out of the way of the woman’s determined entry. It was obvious she believed she’d found an ally in Mr. Reynolds.

  A still figure was seated cross-legged before the blazing fire on the open hearth, where several dark rocks gleamed wetly, their sizzling moisture obviously responsible for the steam. As they watched, Raven’s right hand slowly grasped a ladle that rested on the floor beside him and dipped it into the now empty china basin he’d taken from the washstand. When the metal rang sharply against the porcelain, the dark hand relaxed, releasing the ladle, which dropped again to the floor. The massive shoulders slumped and his head drooped, the black hair, loosened from its customary restraint, falling forward to hide his profile.

  Oliver Reynolds walked the few steps that separated him from his client, and at the sound of his footsteps across the wooden floor, John Raven’s head lifted, the fever-bright eyes blinking like an owl’s as he tried to focus on the intruder. He realized only vaguely that this was what he had been waiting for, and the cracked lips opened to say the word he had imprinted on his brain, its normal intelligence seared by the heat of his illness.

  “Will?” he asked hoarsely, and at Reynolds’s nod, he finally allowed his lids to close in relief. There was something else he had to do, Raven knew. Something… He couldn’t think. He had felt his mind slipping away into the steam. Something he had to do… for Catherine. And with her image, the task he’d been waiting to complete fluttered into the forefront of the darkness that was trying to rob him of the ability to think.

  “Sign it,” he whispered, but his eyes didn’t open. At some level he was aware of the old man’s trembling fingers touching his injured shoulder, but he couldn’t really feel them against the familiar agony. That was something he had closed away fou
r days ago, had locked outside of his consciousness and denied its ability to intrude on his prayers. Control of pain was one of the first lessons he had been taught, carefully instructed by the old woman, the ancient words whispering in his boy’s mind like the drone of bees on a summer’s day.

  He had prayed to the All-Spirit, but the visions that had come, curling like the steam, had not been of strength and reassurance. He had defeated the pain, but the sickness that had entered his body through the hole Amberton had opened to the spirits would not be controlled. And there were, he had thought with regret, so many things he had wanted to finish.

  He had allowed himself to hold her, to kiss her, knowing that if this time came, those memories would offer comfort. Catherine, he thought again, and knew he must have said it aloud when the old man spoke.

  “I have it here,” Mr. Reynolds said softly, but it seemed to take a long time before Raven was aware of the pen pressed into his right hand. He couldn’t see the document, its inked lines wavering before him, and when the banker finally understood, he guided his hand until it was done. Raven had to trust the old man that the instructions he’d written out so carefully that morning, some morning, had been followed. His holdings in New York were to go to his family, and everything else was Catherine’s. Everything… Raven allowed his eyes to drift closed over the fire that burned inside them. So hot. But it didn’t matter because… He couldn’t remember why it didn’t matter, but he knew that whatever he had been waiting for was finished.

  The massive figure tilted gently to the side, and once begun, the momentum carried his body downward like a ship listing in a storm. And by the time his cheek was resting against Mrs. Hawthorne’s gleaming oaken floor, John Raven was no longer aware of the storm that still raged through his body.