Raven's Vow

by Gayle Wilson

  “You’re so cold,” she said. “Come back to bed.” But her eyes closed again even as she made the suggestion.

  Raven lay down beside her, his hand still resting on her thigh. She eased her body back into his.

  “Did you have to get up?” she questioned.

  He didn’t answer, and because it was such a pointless question, she let it go, cuddling into the hard strength behind her, preparing to return to sleep.

  But the bandaged hand began to move upward, drifting over her hip bone. Her eyes opened in the darkness, and she waited. The abrasive cloth that swathed his palm brushed slowly over the small mound of her belly and then slipped lower, his bare fingertips edging nearer the hidden area between her legs. Unthinkingly she parted her thighs, her bones suddenly molten at the simple promise of Raven’s touch. She eased onto her back so she could look at him. He was propped on his left elbow, his chest elevated above her, his damaged hand still making its slow and inexorable journey. She closed her eyes suddenly, her breath released in a soft gasp as he stopped that movement and began another. As he touched her with one finger, his hard mouth lowered to her throat. Her hands found either side of his head, tangling in the long dark hair, holding his mouth captive against her body. His lips moved against the tip of her breast. Almost with that same motion, he suckled, pulling strongly, and her hips arched into the compelling movement of his finger.

  “Raven,” she said, her own fingers tightening in his hair. He bit gently and then withdrew slightly. His tongue circled the pearled nipple, and then he suckled again. Harder. Already her breathing was heavy, her lungs gasping, seeking enough air. His mouth deserted her breast and found her lips. He thrust his tongue against hers, blocking the small moaning noises she hadn’t even been aware she was making. She had forgotten to think why his skin was so cold, moving over the warmth of hers. She didn’t wonder anymore where he had been. She couldn’t think of anything but the demands he was making on her body. He could make her mindless in seconds. If he were not Raven, she would be frightened by how easily he could control her responses. Frightened by what he could make her feel.

  His mouth left hers and returned to her breast, pulling and teasing. Wet and hot and hard. His tongue against her body. Demanding. Giving what she wanted. And what she knew he wanted.

  He stirred in the darkness, his mouth again removed from the aching contact with her breast. She wanted him there, and she wondered why he was deserting her. And then, with his shift over her, she knew. His face was against her hair. She could hear his harsh breathing beside her ear, and he was no longer touching her. Instead she felt him slip into the wanting moisture he had coaxed from her. At the heavy sensation of his body filling hers, she moaned again.

  He held his weight off her slenderness with his elbows. She could feel the movement of his knees against her legs and the shattering entry and retreat of his body, into and then almost out of hers. To the edge of no return. Slowly retreating, and then the sure, hard invasion. Rocking her. The hammering intensity of the sensations surging upward through her body. Wave after wave of force, building in a power that she could not deny, even had she wanted to. And then she exploded, her body arching under his, almost faint with what she felt.

  This was not, of course, the first time he had carried her here. But before, he had stopped, easing the pressure and letting her rest with the ebbing tide of sensation. Now he continued, allowing no rest, no luxury of release while he had waited, patient with her pleasure, waiting for her to rejoin him in fulfilling his own need. This time the demand was relentless, and she felt the sensations begin again. Her fingers tightened into his back, nails biting as the surging peak built yet again. So quickly this time. Her body bucked under the power of his, but she was too small to force him to stop. And when the sensations began to grow again in the center of her body, she knew she didn’t want him to stop. She thought she might really lose consciousness she was so lost in sheer physical response.

  When the explosion of release came this time, she cried out, lifting again and again at the relentless, inexorable demand his body was making. She heard the echo of her own wordless ecstasy somewhere inside her mind, but she was unaware enough of its reality to be surprised when Raven’s voice whispered, “Shh, my darling. Your father will hear.”

  She couldn’t imagine why Raven thought her father would hear her. Or why he cared. Or thought she would. To make him stop talking to her and concentrate on what her body wanted, she bit into the damp skin of the broad shoulder that was against her mouth. Bit hard. And was rewarded by the pulsing thrust of Raven’s body into hers. Deep, so deep. And again.

  She cupped her palms over the hard muscles of the driving buttocks, feeling them contract with each movement. Her nails dug, urging him inside, pulling him to her. Wanting him. She felt the shuddering explosion everywhere. Inside her. Under her hands. His body slamming downward into her stomach. Bone beating into bone. Hard and exciting. She heard the harsh, guttural shout of his release, and thought fleetingly of what he had said about her father. And then finding, in the midst of his spiraling emotion, her own release, she thought about nothing at all. Not for a long time.

  Again they lay entwined, exhausted. Drained. They were learning each other. How to trigger the most intense passions, the deepest responses. If there were no longer mysteries, there were still surprises, as this had been. Not in the fulfillment, but in the degree. In the profoundness.

  They were still joined. Raven had rolled over, pulling her on top of his still-heaving body as soon as he could think about some reasoned movement. Protecting her from his size. Careful of her comfort even at the height of his surrender.

  “Cold,” she whispered, her lips moving against the dampness of his skin.

  He held her shivering slimness against his heat. He was so warm now. He felt so good against her trembling body. So strong and secure, keeping her safe. Her lips lifted at the thought of any threat defying Raven’s strength. When she was a child, her father had protected her. And now Raven did. She wondered idly if there were any other woman in London as fortunate as she. He had promised her freedom, so long ago. And he had kept that promise. But she knew now that what she had believed to be freedom was so incomplete. Now she was complete. Free to belong to Raven. Free to confess that belonging.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He said nothing. Only his lips moved to answer that acknowledgment of his power over her. Power he never used to control her. For, of course, she could exercise a like control over him. Bondage.

  For a man born to a freedom few in this confined society could understand, a freedom of open vistas, unpeopled and unexplored, Raven had recognized long before she had the intimate bonds of marriage. Had recognized them and still had sought them. And would never regret giving himself into her hands.

  Turning into his body, she moved to guide him, offering help. He relished the feel of small fingers willingly handling his body in the most intimate of ways. He whispered something then, phrases strangely sibilant, their softness lost as his mouth brushed across her temple to find her eyelid.

  “What did you say?” she asked, her hands still moving against him.

  “A vow,” he whispered in English. “The marriage vow.”

  “I think you’re a little late for wedding vows,” she said, laughing. “I believe we took care of that legality in Scotland.”

  “There are legalities,” he said, his lips over hers, “and then there are marriages.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Marriages are forever, vows or no vows. Didn’t you know?”

  “I do now,” she agreed, lifting to match his movements.

  “I love you, Catherine Montfort MacLeod Raven,” he whispered.

  Smiling, she once more gave herself willingly into the sweet bondage of Raven’s love.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  The scarred fingers suddenly unclenched their grip on the crystal tumbler. Finally, from th
e floor above, the soft wail of a newborn had drifted down. Raven closed his eyes in a quick prayer of thanksgiving, and then realized that the birth of the child did not guarantee the safety of the mother, which was for him, of course, the more important consideration.

  “Congratulations,” the Duke of Montfort said, raising his glass in salute. “It seems that Catherine has finally made you a father.”

  “I have to know she’s all right,” Raven said, putting the brandy down and standing. Surely now he would be allowed into the sanctum of the bedroom. He had been banished, first by Stevenson, when the fashionable London practitioner had given them no hope of the safe delivery of the too-large infant or the survival of the slender mother who struggled so valiantly to give birth, and then by the stem but loving command of the old woman he had at last gone to for help.

  His grandmother’s unexpected arrival at the door of the Mayfair mansion a week ago had been a shock. Although Raven had urged his family in America to join him in London, now that he knew this would be his home, he had never dreamed that the matriarch of that beloved clan would be the one to undertake the hazards of the incredibly long journey.

  Catherine, uncomfortably in the last stages of her pregnancy, had made a charming effort to be the welcoming hostess, but the old woman’s unfathomable black eyes had simply watched her, studying her every move. As if she were evaluating her suitability to be Raven’s wife, a worried Catherine had confessed privately to her husband.

  As Raven bounded up the stairs, he met his grandmother halfway down, the child held securely in her arms.

  “You have a son, my Raven. A strong and beautiful son.” She pulled back the swaddling to reveal the baby, the tiny head covered with the same black hair as his father. After glancing at the small, perfect face of his son, Raven’s eyes came back to his grandmother’s.

  “Catherine?” he asked.

  The wrinkled features softened, the dark eyes smiling into the sapphire blue. “I deliveredyou, John Raven, and you were bigger even than this one. I would not let anything happen to your Catherine.”

  Raven took a deep breath, the first real breath, it seemed, in the long hours he had been waiting. He knew that the old woman would never have given him that assurance unless it was true. The long, still-elegant fingers of Raven’s scarred hand reached out to caress the head of the babe. He dropped a kiss on the child’s forehead, and then his gaze moved to the top of the stairs.

  “Go,” his grandmother said. “She has been asking for you.”

  “Thank you,” Raven whispered, and they both knew that it was not gratitude for that permission. It was acknowledgment that she had again been the one who had protected John Raven and those who belonged to him.

  “You chose well, my Raven,” she said. “A woman worthy of what you are. Worthy to bear your children.”

  “I think, perhaps, I had some…help,” he suggested.

  The old woman’s thin lips moved, the enigmatic smile very much like Raven’s own. “A small intervention,” she agreed. “For your own good, of course.”

  “Would you do one other thing for me?” Raven asked. “Catherine’s father is downstairs. Would you show him the baby?”

  The dark eyes held his for a moment, again evaluating. “I will show this English lord what fine sons the Raven clan makes,” she said. “And you will go and hold the brave girl who waits for you.”

  The room was shadowed. The draperies had been drawn to allow Catherine to sleep, but the russet eyes opened as soon as he knelt beside the bed.

  “Have you seen him?” Catherine asked, her voice hoarse with exhaustion.

  “He’s perfect,” Raven said. He bent to touch his lips against the sweat-dampened curls at her temple. “Although I had hoped he might have the wisdom to take after his mother…”

  “Perfect,” she whispered, denying the idea that anyone could be disappointed in a child so much like her beautiful Raven.

  “I hope your father will think so. I asked my grandmother to take the baby down. I thought it was time they met.”

  She wondered what her father would make of the old woman, and then, her lips tilting, she thought about how much she would have liked to see that particular meeting.

  “She was so kind to me, Raven. I was afraid that she’d be disappointed you’d married me, but…I don’t think that’s true. It was like having my own mother here. And unlike Dr. Stevenson, she didn’t make me afraid. Suddenly, I knew that I could trust her to see to it that everything would be all right.”

  “You don’t have to worry about her approval. After all, Catherine, she chose you,” he said.

  The question was in her eyes, but despite her desire to understand, her mind had begun to drift. Everything was perfect. The baby. And Raven was here. She’d ask him what he meant when she woke up, when she wasn’t so tired.

  The Duke of Montfort lifted the gold lorgnette to survey from head to foot the strange figure which had entered the formal salon where he and his son-in-law had awaited Catherine’s delivery. Despite the woman’s obvious age, her braided hair was as long and as dark as Raven’s. The eyes were different, of course, almost black in the seamed face, but as unintimidated, despite his deliberate attempt to intimidate, as his son-in-law’s.

  “This is your grandson,” she said, holding out the baby for his inspection. “Born of the clans Raven and MacLeod.”

  One of the duke’s white brows arched, and then he said simply, employing a tone reserved for those whose conduct approached familiarity, “Indeed.”

  The calm black eyes met his, and she moved across the room to stand before him. Because she had known that the girl would need her help, she had this morning donned the white ceremonial dress, made of the finest doeskin and decorated with beading that had required hours of careful work, so that she might be properly attired for the important events of this day. And she was too old and far too wise to be impressed by this Englishman’s title or his posturing.

  Finally the duke glanced down at the child. Despite his intent to allow nothing of his emotions to be revealed, he touched the small fingers very gently with the tip of the glass he held.

  “You may hold him,” the old woman offered.

  Montfort raised his gaze to her, desire to do just that warring with his arrogant pride.

  “He will be the comfort of your old age,” she said very softly, looking into his eyes. “The son you never had. And like his father, he will be a builder. The new has come home to the old. New blood—rich and powerful—to blend forever with the strength of yours.”

  The soft syllables had slipped into a smooth singsong, almost mesmerizing Montfort with the force of their conviction, and their power held him speechless for a moment.

  “Indeed,” he said finally, fighting to keep the customary sarcasm in place, despite the emotional pull of that promise.

  A small enigmatic movement of the thin lips was the only answer she made, still holding the child out between them.

  The duke gestured her dismissal with a quick upward movement of the lorgnette. She still watched him a moment, and then she inclined her head with all the dignity of her own royal line. She turned, carrying the babe she intended to instruct as she had instructed his father. This man could choose, as he wished or no, to be part of that circle. When she reached the door, the duke’s voice stopped her.

  “And the clan Montfort,” he offered. A challenge which they both recognized.

  She turned back and looked at the English aristocrat whose blood also flowed in this baby’s veins. “Raven and MacLeod,” she said again, and then she added.“And the clan Montfort.”

  The old man smiled and, picking up his glass from the table, raised it in silent salute to the mingled heritage of the child she held. And to the future.

  * * * * *

  eISBN 978-14592-6786-2

  RAVEN’S VOW

  Copyright © 1997 by Mona Gay Thomas

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or uti
lization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all Incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Gayle Wilson

  Gayle Wilson

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Copyright