Chasing Raven (8 page)

Is that what he had meant when he said she'd spoiled his sport before? If so, he had remembered her, which was gratifying to know.

Very few indiscretions do I consider worthy of my time to intervene
. But twice now he had come after her.

Matthew claimed Hale was vengeful and full of rage. Yes, perhaps. To be perfectly honest she had felt more thrill than fear when he tried to terrify her with his grim stare.

She smiled at her letter, picturing again Hale's muddy boots, trailing dirt across the Winstanleys’ carefully tended ballroom floor. No one daring to stop him as he barged his way in.

It was no good, she had to admire his sheer gall. The man might be domineering, but with that came a certain cool self-assurance and a lure of danger that was— dare she think it— attractive.

Perhaps it was just as well that he went back to the country when he did. For both their sakes.

Chapter
Ten

Bourne stood outside the club, his silhouette etched in gaslight.

"You had better stay away from Raven Deverell," he slurred, one hand gripping the black painted railings. "She belongs to me. Not to you."

Hale came to a sharp halt and quickly assessed the younger man's state, which was much as it often had been. Drunk. This time perhaps beyond the usual. "I believe Miss Deverell would take issue with the idea of anybody claiming ownership of her person."

"You know nothing about her."

"Go home, Bourne." A swift check of the street revealed no carriage waiting and no horse. A few folk passed along the pavement, giving the inebriated fellow a wide berth. "Let me arrange a Hansom cab to take you—"

But the other man swore and swung his fist. Hale ducked and his hat was knocked to the ground. "If you touch her, I'll kill you, you bastard!"

While Hale reached for his fallen hat, Bourne swung again, this time with his other fist and greater aim. He succeeded in making contact with the edge of Hale's cheekbone, just missing his eye, leaving a bloody scratch with the insignia ring on his finger.

"Don't think you can take her away from me," the young man spat. "I told you she's not for sale." Tilting sharply to one side, he reached for the railings to steady himself but missed. Overcompensating for the tilt, he swayed back on his heels and was suddenly spinning.

Hale caught Bourne under the arms before he fell to the ground, and then he called for the startled doorman of Deverell's to help summon a Hansom. They loaded the barely conscious Bourne inside and told the driver to take him home to the Marquess of Redvers in Redvers Square.

"You're bleeding, sir!" the doorman exclaimed.

"It is just a scratch." He held a folded kerchief to the cut and pressed lightly, surprised at the sting. Tomorrow there would be a bruise. It was years since anybody raised a fist to him and he had forgotten how it felt. In fact, he had forgotten how a great many things felt, including the waist of a women curving against his palm.

He looked down at the blood on his kerchief.

Perhaps Raven Deverell was right and he had been too long in his comfortable world with little to challenge him.

* * * *

The next few days passed in much the usual way, with her mother dragging her about to any event for which she could pry an invitation, but Raven could raise not the slightest enthusiasm for anything. She was bored and she was irritable. Frequently at the same time.

Although she was not pining for Matthew, whatever her mother thought, there was definitely something wrong with her.

"The town is very dreary this year," she exclaimed one day. "I feel as if there is nothing to see that hasn't been seen, nothing to taste that hasn't been tasted a million times, and nothing to know about that hasn't already been learned."

"Oh lord, save me from one of your deep ravines of despair, Raven. You're always so dramatic falling in, and yet, before we know it, you're out again and leaping over the moon for the smallest of reasons. My head spins sometimes trying to follow your moods."

She might have pointed out that this was something else— along with her bad taste in men— that she'd inherited from her mother, but she could not be bothered to open her lips for anything more than a listless sigh.

The next evening they went to the theatre to hear Jenny Lind perform. Monsieur Reynaux had somehow cadged an invitation to use the box of an elderly dowager duchess who was indisposed. Despite this lucky chance, Lady Charlotte complained that she would much rather have attended the evening of Mrs. Lind's debut earlier that month, since the Royal family had been present at the theatre then.

"Who cares now?" she muttered to her daughter. "Nobody of any account will be there tonight. People only want to be seen at the opening of a performance in the presence of royalty, and after that it's old news. Nothing keeps its sheen very long these days, and this Jenny Lind person was merely a curiosity. I daresay we will have the place to ourselves."

But she was wrong. The theatre was crowded and hot. Mrs. Lind's popularity had not waned after the first few nights of performances, and the "Swedish Nightingale" remained a great attraction.

"Look, mama," Raven clutched her mother's arm in the crush of bodies merging in the foyer of the theatre. "There is Damon!"

"Why on earth would I care that one of your father's bastards is present? I have no interest in that boy."

She sighed, her fingers slipping from her mother's rigid arm. "Of course. I was just taken by surprise to see him here."

Damon had seen her wave, but he knew well enough to stay away from her mother. He looked over, smiled and nodded, but made no move toward them.

"He's grown tall, I see," her mother muttered. "The very image of your despicable father."

Raven nodded, but made no reply. True Deverell's bastards were, naturally, a difficult subject to discuss with her mother. Damon was one of three illegitimate sons. Their father had never distinguished between his children born in or out of wedlock, and that had caused almost as much scandal as the divorce.

"I suppose he has benefitted from a fine university education," Lady Charlotte snapped. "Your father was always generous with his money when it came to his by-blows."

"He is very generous to all of us, mama."

"Except me."

"If you do not mind, I would like to speak with Damon."

"I do mind. It is sixpence each time the box-keeper opens the door for us. You'll come and take your seat now with Monsieur Reynaux and I. Besides, these corridors are filled with unsavory characters selling ginger beer and bottles of stout."

Of course, no expense usually troubled her mother at all, but a mere sixpence could not be spent in this case. So Raven followed her mother, annoyed but having no choice at present. At least the company of Monsieur Reynaux and some champagne would keep Lady Charlotte entertained in the interval, while she slipped away to visit her half-brother.

They entered the box and Raven looked out over the velvet-edged balcony, pondering how much excitement she might cause by leaping from it and landing in somebody's lap below. That might make the season a little less humdrum this year. A few years ago, for a good wager, she would have done it, but in her current mood even that would not have raised her spirits. Besides, she thought dourly, there was not a solitary handsome face among the rows. No lap worth landing upon in the whole of London. They had all deserted her tonight.

As she stood there, contemplating the audience below, a sound caught her attention. A familiar man's voice. She looked around, her gaze scanning the nearby boxes.

And then her pulse jigged sideways.

Hale. In the next box. Seated with a woman. A moderately attractive woman with unfortunate taste in fashion.

Raven dropped heavily to her seat and flicked open her fan with such an angry snap that her mother looked at her. "What ails you, child?"

"I'm not a child." She glared at the stage curtain and fanned herself rapidly. "I'm just...it doesn't matter."

"You are surely not angry because I refused to let you speak with your father's bastard."

No, but she
was
infuriated by supposedly-proper gentlemen who said they were going into the country when they absolutely were not. Arrogant men who liked to wield their power and put a stop to her fun, by threatening her and telling tales to her mama. A meddler in the lives of other people.

He had accused her of being "a practiced and accomplished flirt" and an "impossible, pampered chit of a girl."

Apparently no one had told him that he was a curmudgeonly old bugger, she thought angrily. Well, the next time she had the opportunity she'd be prepared.

She was quite certain now that her restlessness these past few days— her feeling of discontent with everything and everybody— was Hale's fault.

For the life of her she didn't know why his insults had bothered her so. He was nobody in her opinion, however fine and above reproach he might think himself. In the entire course of her life she had never—

"There's Hale! For pity's sake, he's still in London!" Her mother peered through a small brass set of opera glasses.

Raven cringed in her seat and slowed her fan to what she hoped was a nonchalant pace. "Really? Where?"

"Over in the next box. With the Bosworths and that plain, widowed daughter of theirs. Oh, what is her name?"

"I'm sure I do not know," she managed through gritted teeth. "Nor can I summon even the faintest glimmer of curiosity to know."

"Why, I believe it's Lady Jane Newcombe. Her husband was knighted for services in the war against Bonaparte. He was much older than her, of course, and she's been a widow some years now. Dreadful, mawkish creature. Has a very shifty manner about her. What on earth does she have on her head?"

"I took it to be a dead pigeon." Raven stared ahead, her lips barely moving behind her fan. "Perhaps it’s one Hale shot for her. He strikes me as the sort that has to kill anything wild that dares venture into his line of sight."

"But when I invited Hale to tea, he told us he was returning to his estate." Her mother lowered the opera glasses. "Well, that is odd!"

"I daresay it was the first excuse he could think of," she managed on a tight breath. "We ought to be accustomed to slights, mama. His is nothing new."

You are an impossible, spoiled chit of a girl.
I very much doubt you and I could ever be friends, Miss Deverell.

Monsieur Reynaux now became aware of her mother's agitation and looked over at the other box. "That is the Earl of Southerton? A very fine gentleman, so I hear. You 'ave a connection with 'im, n'est-ce pas?"

"Oh, yes." Lady Charlotte replied in one of her loud whispers, "Dear,
dear
, Hale! He is such a friend. Lent us his carriage only a few days ago and whenever we are at the same ball he refuses to dance with anybody but Raven."

"Un grand honneur!"

"Of course, she is too young and foolish to appreciate it. Thinks she can put her nose in the air and get better than him."

Hale now glanced their way and probably heard every word uttered between her mother and Reynaux.

"Ah, these young girls, eh?" Reynaux looked over at Raven and leered. "They need...chatiment...what is the word?...
discipline
."

"It is quite impossible to manage her when she listens to her scoundrel father and he puts ideas in her head. She thinks that because
he
survived by never once bending to any rule, she can do the same."

The Frenchman laughed hard, exhaling a gale of tobacco. Raven winced, turning her head away, flapping her fan faster.

"Young girls are like baton de saule...the sticks of willow," he assured her mother. "Strong, yet supple. Always they can be made to bend."

"I would not advise you to try it," Raven replied swiftly. "I can guarantee your soft parts will bend with greater alacrity than mine."

"Raven, you will dispense with that tone at once and apologize to Monsieur Reynaux!"

"Ah, it is only the high spirits, madam. All young girls should have them, for it makes the
entrainement
so much more
satisfaisant
."

Suddenly Raven wished— with a powerful intensity— that she was in Cornwall with her father and far away from this theatre. She could be riding with him across the sands, enjoying the fresh sea air. That was it! Tomorrow she would send him a letter and suggest that she visit. Her mother would protest, of course, because she expected Raven to spend the busy social season in town with her every year, but she must simply be made to understand.

If her mother didn't want to see her sulking "dark" face looking all "foreign", then she'd let her go. In any case, summer was almost full upon them and then all the upper classes would flee the stench of London to enjoy their country estates. The season would be over then until next spring.

Monsieur Reynaux marveled, "The Earl does not go out much in public, so I 'ave 'eard, but tonight I 'ave sight of 'im at last, mon dieu."

As if the gentleman seated in the next box was a rare beast, near extinction.

Her mother leaned over to whisper angrily, "This is your fault, Raven. Had you smiled and been charming on our carriage ride, Hale would have accepted the invitation to tea."

Now her temper boiled over. "Then I'm glad I didn't smile at him. He wouldn't appreciate one of my smiles anyway. They're not perfect enough. And ...
I despise tea
!"

The last three words were exhaled in a loud rush that set her mother back in her seat just as the house lights were lowered and the performance began.

Raven swallowed hard, keeping her gaze upon the stage, her fan now gently fluttering under her chin. Although she did not turn her head, she knew, without a doubt, that Hale was watching her. Once again she'd secured his notice, when it was the last thing she wanted.

Or thought she wanted.