I Adored a Lord (24 page)

“I am obliged to. You were not screaming for him to stop, but I don't believe that you wished him to . . . to do that. Your father must be told.”

“Tell Papa, if you must. But not the prince. I beg of you, Miss Caulfield. Do not tell his highness. Mama would—­” Her voice broke and she released Ravenna and pressed her hand against her mouth.

“What will your mother do?”

Grace shook her head. Her eyes seemed oddly glassy as they welled with tears anew. “I beg of you.”

She nodded. She would tell Lord Vitor and he would undoubtedly tell the prince. In this case the partial lie was justified.

“Ladies?” Petti's bright voice came from behind Ravenna. “What an interesting spot for two delightful girls to find amusement. All about us thrusting swords and spears, yet not a man in the place to employ them.” His eyes twinkled.

“Petti, Lady Grace is overset. She has just had an unpleasant encounter with a—­a wild animal.”

“In the castle! What an adventuresome place this has turned out to be. And everybody said the Franche-­Comté was the most civilized place in the world. Ah, well. What does everybody know anyway?” He came forward and took Grace's hand between his palms. He patted her fondly. “Dear girl, allow me to see you to your room to rest. After that I will share with you my secret recipe for cucumber and rose tonic.” He drew her gently toward the door. “Oh, no, you never drink it, m'dear. You soak a warm cotton square in it and lay it over both eyes, and the nose, should that be required. Within a quarter hour you will be as lovely as you were before this unfortunate incident. But it must be cotton. Linen won't do and wool will have the very opposite effect desired. Cotton is absolutely required.”

He was still offering her beauty advice when they moved out of Ravenna's hearing. He must have done the same for her any number of times, though not about her
toilette
, which he knew she didn't care about. But in the past months he had drawn her from a brown study with stories about the pugs or invented complaints about the birds. An alarmed report of a stray colt had become a long, strolling search across a frost-­covered field during which he had regaled her with outrageous stories from his scandalous days on the town. Returning home she found the colt in its own stall.

Petti was a treasure, and she could not imagine life without him.

But if she moved to America, he would be lost to her. Sir Beverley would write her long letters; he did so when he and Petti were only in London or visiting with friends elsewhere in England. But Petti was a creature of the moment, a light soul with a wise, kind, and pleasure-­loving heart. He would not write, at least not at length, and she would miss him beyond telling. She could not bear to lose another piece of her heart so soon. But when again would she receive such an opportunity for employment like this? It was unheard of, though perhaps not in America. She'd heard that in America the rules of society were much less strict. Perhaps in America women served as stewards and groundsmen just like in England they could be shopkeepers.

She left the armory as the prince's butler crossed the hall. Lord Whitebarrow could wait. Grace was in safe hands now, and while Ravenna wished it could be otherwise, she must share her news with Lord Vitor before she did anything else.

Would he sleep all day? Would he recall anything of the night's events?

Arabella had once told her that men were wolves. Lord Whitebarrow, Martin Anders, the rapacious guard . . . they proved her sister's words true. But if men were wolves, that did not necessarily make women hare. She had encouraged his kiss and begged for him to take her in the stable. Delicate ladies like Grace might be prey, but she was not. She would not be left broken and bleeding in the snow.

She waylaid Monsieur Brazil.

He bowed.

“Has—

“
Oui
, mademoiselle.” Again he anticipated her question. “Lord Viton departed an hour ago with Père Denis.”

She stared. “Departed?” With the priest? “He couldn't have.” What sort of man was close to death by poisoning yet six hours later rode up a snowy mountainside?

A man with extraordinary reserves of strength and discipline, it seemed.

“Claude saddled his horse, mademoiselle, and I watched him depart through the gates myself. Would you like your cloak?”

“Yes,” she said, perplexed.

The forecourt had melted to sloshing snow and puddles, but the going beyond the gates proved treacherous with packed ice. Ravenna trudged and slipped until she reached the trees and moved into the mottled shadows where the snow had not penetrated as deeply.

Grabbing onto the bared trunk of a young beech to propel herself up an incline, she saw him leaning back against a spruce that soared to the sky. The sky shone silvery-­gold through branches bared of leaves or prickly with conifer spikes. Two reddish-­black birds perched on leafless branches, speaking to each other in the silence of the morning. White and dark, there was solitude and a kind of stark peace in the scene. Farther up the path, a tall gray Andalusian stood tied to a tree branch, its head turned toward her, ears pricked high.

Lord Vitor also watched her approach. “You should not be here.”

So this was how it would be: unvarnished rejection.

Ravenna squared her shoulders. “As I came here to tell you news, I will not remain more than a minute. I don't want to see you any more than you want to see me.”

He pushed away from the tree. “Ravenna—­”

“No.” She thrust up a hand. “Don't say anything, I beg of you. I hope only that you remember very little of it.” She added, “Preferably nothing at all.”

“Sebastiao told me what you did. I am grateful.”

She nodded, unable to ask what she wished. “I discovered a guard—­one of those that watch the castle gate—­with Lady Grace in the armor room not an hour ago. When I came upon them she was protesting, but afterward she vowed to me that she had invited his attentions. I don't believe her. He did no real harm to her, I think, but she was distressed and her gown was torn. If she did invite him, it was not because she wished it.”

He stepped closer to her. “Did you tell any other of this? The prince?”

“Not yet. Mr. Pettigrew took her in hand and I looked for you, to be told that you had already left the castle. You are remarkably quick to recover.”

“I don't believe the poison was meant to kill, only to incapacitate.”

He hadn't been in the least bit incapacitated in the stable. Rather, the opposite. Her body remembered it now with delicious little thrills. She pressed down upon the sensations.

“Did anyone see you leave the castle?” he said.

“The guards at the gate, of course, and my progress up the road to the path may have been noticed by villagers if their attention was pointed in that direction. Likewise someone at a north-­facing window in the castle. Do you suspect that the same person who put the drug in the wine is watching me today?”

“I have no reason to suspect otherwise.”

His brother's name hung between them unspoken.

“What if the drug had been intended for someone else?” she said.

“Do you believe it was?”

“I don't know. But I don't see any reason why someone would wish me incapacitated. Except the most obvious reason.” She looked away and to the ground. “He is enamored of Miss Dijon. He challenged Martin Anders for the sake of her honor. He was turning pages for her at the piano only half an hour before I encountered him in the stable.” She looked up at him. “Do you truly believe your brother would have left her to come seduce me?”

His face seemed severe in the pale light. “I do not wish to. But I would not have you harmed. I will consider all possible threats to you and take whatever action necessary to protect you.”

Her heart turned over.

“Do you—­” Her throat caught.

He touched her chin and another half step brought him to her. Slowly, his gaze traveled her features. “Do I?”

“Do you remember what happened between us in the stable?” she forced out. “What the drug caused you to do?”

His palm curved around her jaw and his thumb stroked across her cheek. “I remember. And I can assure you that I would have done the same if I had not been drugged.”

“The same—­as in, recoiling in horror when you discovered I was a virgin?”

The crease ticked in his cheek. He bent his head and whispered across her lips, “Guess again.”

 

Chapter 16

The New Promise

H
e touched his lips to hers so gently that for a moment she ceased to breathe.

Then he kissed her. She tasted no wine or other spirit, only warmth and his desire. He held her face between his hands and made of their mouths a tender, passionate coupling, with every caress a deeper meeting of lips and tongues until her knees grew weak and she reached for him. He drew her against him. Then Ravenna discovered what it was to be touched on her shoulders and back, to be held with broad, strong hands as though she were delicate crystal that at any moment might shatter. Thrilling. Intoxicating. Humbling. It was as though he wished to show her that he believed her to be a lady.

Then, with a deep rumble in his chest, he turned her back to the tree trunk and all evidence of gentlemanly restraint vanished. With his mouth and hands he demanded. She submitted—enthusiastically. Their bodies came together taut and needy, the parting of greatcoat and cloak allowing for a fleeting satisfaction that left only frustration for greater contact. He kissed her deeply, breathlessly, his hands tangling in her hair and the slow, powerful rhythm of their bodies pressing together driving the ache inside her. She had only known his kiss a day, yet the flavor of his lips and the perfect cadence with which their mouths met and bodies hungered felt deliriously familiar. Her thighs parted to his urging and the meeting of her need to his forced a moan from her throat.

“Ravenna.” He whispered her name with urgency. “I wish to make love to you. I must make love to you. Properly.”

She clung to him, her breasts tender against his chest. “Properly?”

He kissed the joining of her lips, her jaw, the sensitive curve of her throat. She shivered upon the pleasure of his touch and ran her fingers into his hair, stretching her neck to allow him to continue kissing her and making her ache for him.

“Tonight,” he said.

She couldn't get enough of his mouth on her skin, his hands on her waist, his hard, powerful body pressed to hers. “Why not now?”

“Because now,” he said, muffled behind her ear where his kisses made her tremble, “for all that I would have you here in an instant, you deserve better. And I must meet someone shortly. He will be at our meeting place in moments, damn him to Hades.” He kissed her lips and cupped her face in his palms. “I wish it were otherwise.” The certainty in his eyes rocked her.

“A moment ago you told me I should not be here.”

“A moment ago you were not in my arms and I still possessed a breath of self-­restraint. But, good Lord, however much your lips entrance me”—­he kissed her again—­“I prefer them pink to blue. You are frozen and I am expected elsewhere. You must go. Immediately.” But he did not release her. Instead he tilted her head back and his gaze now traced her face as though searching. The severity she had seen before returned to his eyes. “Ravenna . . .”

“I don't want your money or estates or whatever else despicably wealthy second sons have,” she said hastily.

A moment's pause, then his voice came quietly: “What?”

“I wish to be clear.” She was trembling. “So there is no misunderstanding between us. I am not trying to entrap you into marriage.”

Anger flashed in his midnight eyes. “Aren't you?”

“No! I hadn't a thought of it.”

For a moment he seemed to seek something in her features again. Then abruptly he released her and swung away, his boots crunching in the snow as he started up the path. “Go, Ravenna. Rouse Father Denis from his prayer and with his escort return to the castle,” he threw over his shoulder. “Return to your tower,” he said in a lower voice.

“My bedchamber is not in the tower,” she called after him.

He only shook his head.

“Will you come to it?” she made herself say, the tangles of heat and longing never more confused. “To my bedchamber—­my bed—­tonight?”

He slowed, then, and turned partially to her, but his backward footsteps continued to move him away. “I will.”

Her heart beat hard enough to bruise her ribs. As though he knew it, a smile crossed his lips, full of confident dash. “Neither wild dogs nor tame would keep me from it.”

He reached his horse, climbed into the saddle with grace that made her peculiarly breathless, and disappeared between the trees. Feet sunk in snow and insides aching and unsteady, Ravenna felt like the hare left by the wolf with the promise that he would return later to finish his meal.

As instructed, she headed toward the hermit's hut and an afternoon of waiting to prove that she could be a wolf too.

C
OLLAR HOT AND
fists tight, Vitor was entirely prepared to pummel his elder brother's face the moment Wesley appeared on the path before him. He knew Wesley would come in response to his note, and he knew what he would say. He only wished to hear it from his mouth before he made him suffer for it.

Now he had not only justification and motivation, he had frustrated anger that required an outlet. Wesley's face would do. For beginners.

She was willing—­indeed eager—­to give him her body, but she neither anticipated nor apparently wished for anything from him beyond that. He had breached her virtue but not her faith. That she wanted him he did not doubt. That she was prepared to avail herself of his ser­vices then continue along her merry way seemed likewise clear. Unprecedented and astonishing, but clear.

He considered for a brief moment holding her off until she gave him what he wanted most, with as much fervor as she gave him her kisses. But that moment proved exceedingly brief. He couldn't wait another night to have her. That he must wait even hours was a noxious burden whose blame he would gladly place at his brother's feet.

The sooner he got to it, the better. Pressing his heels into Ashdod's flanks, he urged him up the icy path.

“Vitor!” His brother's shout came upon the snap of gunshot.

The walloping crack to the back of his head came an instant later.

E
VENING FELL TO
the sparkling glory of hundreds of candles throughout the castle. Monsieur Brazil had enjoined the footmen to illuminate the chandelier in the great hall. The cook, again with his retinue of assistants, prepared a feast for his master and guests. Everybody dressed in their finest: the younger gentlemen arrayed in starched cravats and coats of gorgeous colors; the older men garbed in elegant black satin knee breeches; and the ladies resplendent in gowns that showed off their arms, long gloves, superbly styled coiffures, and jewels glittering upon wrists, earlobes, necks, and in their hair. Ann came to Ravenna's room an hour before dinner and presented her with a ball gown. Cut from watery blue silk and embroidered with delicate white lace and tiny mother-­of-­pearl beads, it was fit for a true lady.

“I spent the day removing ruffles and lace and I think it came out well, don't you?” Ann said shyly. “I hope you will wear it tonight, even if you do not keep it afterward. Lord Vitor will enjoy seeing you in it, I think.”

Ravenna could think of nothing to say that would not send heat to her betraying cheeks. She accepted the gown with thanks, then accepted Ann's assistance in dressing her hair as well.

A knock sounded upon her door. While her heart jumped, she knew that he would not come to her bedchamber door at this hour, no matter what promises he had made for later.

Ann opened the door. Garbed with sublime elegance, Sir Beverley and Petti bowed to her. Ann smiled and slipped away.

“You are both remarkably handsome,” Ravenna said. “I never knew you could clean up so well.”

“I might say the same to you,” Sir Beverley said, gesturing for Petti to take the chair before the fireplace. “But I am not a hoydenish girl who resisted learning manners since the day I was born, so I shan't.”

She smiled, the joy of celebration and wicked anticipation for the night to come filling her up despite her certainty that the murderer had not been found. But one night could be enjoyed—­one night in which she might be wanted.

Petti settled himself into the chair and perused her thoroughly. “Splendid, m'dear. You are a princess indeed.”

“I don't wish to be a princess, of course.” Only
pretty
.

“That is a shame,” Sir Beverley said, coming to her side and producing a small leather case from behind his back. He flipped open the lid and Ravenna gasped. “I suppose we will have to give this to some other young lady, Francis.”

Upon a bed of sapphire velvet the color of Lord Vitor's eyes rested a circlet of gleaming silver decorated with diamonds.

“That is not for me,” she stated. Her hand crept to her mouth. “That is for
me
?” she whispered.

“Our princess,” Petti said fondly.

She kissed them both, first Sir Beverley on the cheek, then Petti upon the brow. Then she threw her arms about Petti and squeezed him. “Thank you. Thank you. I never wanted such a thing in my life. But thank you for thinking I should have it.”

“Now, now, m'dear, my valet will disapprove of this wanton destruction of my neck cloth.”

“Oh!” She released him and tweaked the starched cloth with her fingertips. “Oh, no. I'm sorry, Petti dear.”

He caught her hands and kissed her knuckles gallantly. “For you, princess, I would suffer a crushed cravat. At least until I can return to my room and require Archer to fold a new one.”

“That was the most inelegant thanks I have ever heard,” Sir Beverley said. “You are an impertinent girl.”

She curtsied, grabbed the box from him, and went to the mirror. Drawing the glittering circlet from its bed, she set it atop the curls that Ann's efforts had partially tamed. It sparkled brilliantly. “Oh, my,” she sighed.

“She is happy with our little gift, Bev.”

“Mm. I daresay.”

On Petti's arm, she floated to the drawing room. Nearly everybody was there, gorgeous and giddy to begin the prince's party in earnest. Except Lord Vitor. Ravenna tried to enjoy Iona's whispered commentary on the gentlemen's finery. But each time the door opened to admit another of the prince's guests, her stomach climbed to her throat, then fell to her toes when the newcomer was not the only man she wanted to see. Finally the prince arrived wearing a military-­styled coat sparkling with the medals he claimed were merely decorative nonsense but nevertheless rendered him elegantly regal. Moving directly to Ann, he lifted her hand and kissed her gloved knuckles, then teased her for the blush that rose to her round cheeks.

“Shall we go in to dinner?” he said to everyone.

“Whit o' Lord Case, yer highness,” the duchess said, looking about. “An' Lord Vitor?”

A footman was sent to fetch them. But the Courtenay men were not to be found in their bedchambers. The prince dispersed more footmen to search the battlements and below stairs. Everybody chatted gaily as they waited and Ravenna's heart beat quicker.

The towers and servants' realm did not produce the missing gentlemen. Brow puckered, the prince greeted Monsieur Brazil's appearance at the drawing room door with evident relief.

The butler bowed. “Your highness, the dinner is served.”

“Excellent. Come, everybody. Our friends are no doubt occupied with some important task and will find their way to dinner when they are able. Monsieur Brazil, enquire of their manservants when the earl and Lord Vitor are expected back, then send one of my guards to the village to hasten their return,” he said in a quiet aside as the guests moved toward the door. “Ten to one they're drunk as emperors in that wretched wine shop, relieved that the murderer is found at last.” He winked and took the duchess's hand upon his arm.

Dread sped through Ravenna's belly. The murderer was not found and Lord Vitor was not drunk on wine or anything else, not after last night, and not with the promise he had made to her today. She could not believe it.

Mr. Anders approached her and extended his arm. “Miss Caulfield, I am delighted to learn that you are to be my dinner companion tonight. May I walk you in?”

“I—­ Yes.” She took his arm, but before they reached the corridor she released him. He turned to her, the swatch of hair swinging across one eye.

“I beg your forgiveness, Miss Caulfield,” he said swiftly and quietly. “Will you ever forgive me for the insult I offered you the other night at your door—­”

“No. Yes,” she said. “I don't care about that.”

“But—­”

“Yes. Yes, I forgive you.”

His face fell into relief. “I am grateful beyond—­”

“Oh,
hush
.” She gripped his arm. “Mr. Anders, I must beg a favor of you.”

“Anything,” he said fervently. “I am yours to command. Yours, that is,” he added with light chagrin, “until after dinner when my dearest Miss Abraccia must claim all my attention.”