Raven's Bride (3 page)

They would never reach the manor house by nightfall, Anna decided. She pulled her mother off the path and into the shelter of a nearby hayrick. She settled her mother against a bale of hay and spread some loose hay over her. At least they would keep warm tonight. Mrs. Woodleigh immediately closed her eyes. Anna shook her awake again. “Come, Mother. You must eat first. Then you may sleep for as long as you like.”

Anna undid their sack of food and took out the last of the rabbit pie and the rest of the small beer. She eyed the food hungrily, but there was not enough for the two of them. Her mother needed it more than she did.

Her mother was lying back with her eyes closed. Anna fed her the pie in small bites.

“Keep plenty for yourself,” Mrs. Woodleigh said in a weak voice, when not even a third of the food was gone. “You are young. You need the food more than I do.”

“I have already eaten,” Anna lied. “Now you must finish this little bit of pie to keep your strength up.”

Her mother looked confused, but she obediently ate the rest of the pie and drank the ale Anna gave her.

When the food was gone, Anna curled up close to her mother and pulled more straw over them. She fell asleep almost at once.

Throughout the night Anna was wakened several times by her mother’s coughing. The coughs racked her body and set her shivering and shaking. Anna cradled her mother closer to her, and smoothed her hair over her brow, until they both fell asleep again.

When dawn broke, Anna’s mother was still in a fitful sleep. Her mind was wandering, and every so often she raised her head, looked around her with unseeing eyes, and muttered something unintelligible.

Anna hated to leave her in such a state, but she knew her mother had to have help or she would die for sure of an inflammation of the lungs. She could not let that happen. She had promised her father on his deathbed that she would look after her mother.

It was a glorious spring morning outside, but Anna barely noticed. She ran to a tiny trickle of a stream she had noticed the previous night and filled up her flask with cool, clear water. She sponged her mother’s face and helped her to swallow a few mouthfuls of the water.

“
Keep safe,” Anna whispered. “I will be back as soon as I can.” Then she kissed her mother gently on her burning forehead and left.

Her mother had described the manor house to her so well that Anna was sure she would be able to find it. Still, it was nearly midday before she came to the wrought iron gates with the pair of standing lions that signaled her ancestral home.

Anna staggered through the gates, exhausted, thirsty and hungrier than she ever remembered feeling in her life. The winding drive through the old oak trees seemed interminable. Her feet felt like lead. Her breathing was labored, and her stomach pained her with each breath she drew.

At last the manor house came into view. Tall, red brick, with steep gables, just as her mother had described it. Anna stopped for a moment to pray aloud that she would find help here.

She started when a deep voice materialized at her elbow. “You need assistance?”

Anna turned around and came face to face with her guardian angel. Her angel was not handsome, but his eyes were the deepest, kindest shade of brown she had ever seen. She trusted him at once. She knew right away that she had found the help she needed. He would save her and her mother both.

“My mother is sick,” she panted. “I left her in a hayrick along the path. I have walked since dawn to reach you here. Please, we need your help.”

Anna knew, even as she spoke, that her guardian angel would look after her. The relief of being safe was too much for her to bear. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift away into blackness.

Chapter Two

Lord Ravensbourne looked at the unconscious girl crumpled at his feet. What had she said before collapsing? Something about her sick mother and a hayrick?

He bent down and picked the girl up, cradling her in his arms. She weighed barely more than a feather, and looked as unkempt as a seagull after a storm. Her black dress was muddy at the hem, her shawl was tattered, and there were bits of straw sticking in her hair. Her face was pale and wan, and her cheeks had the sunken look of one who has not eaten much for several days. For all this, though, she looked well brought up. The poor child must be desperate to be driven to beg a stranger for help.

He carried the girl into the manor house and rang for the footman. “Take the carriage and a couple of grooms,” he ordered, as soon as the footman appeared. “There is a sick woman in one of the hayricks along the road—Heaven knows which one. Look in every one until you find her, and don’t come back without her.”

The footman hurried away to do his bidding.

Lord Ravensbourne carried the girl upstairs and put her on the bed in the chamber next to that occupied by his sister. She was still asleep, or in a faint, he knew not which.

He knocked abruptly on the door of the adjoining chamber and strode in. His sister was curled up in the window seat, a French romance in her hand. She lifted her head when she saw him enter. “Tom,” she said, her voice registering surprise. “What do you want? What have I done now? Are you come to scold me for spending too much on my latest bonnet? Well, and if you are, let me tell you that Georgina Perkins spent at least three pounds, seven shillings and fourpence on...”

Ravensbourne cut her off mid-sentence. “I do not care if you spend every penny of your dowry on bonnets,” he said brusquely. “I need your help. Come with me.”

He led her to the adjoining chamber, where the young girl was lying on the bed. “She begged for help and then fainted at my feet as I was coming in from the stables,” he explained. “I don’t know what to do with her.”

Charlotte ran to the young girl’s side. “Oh, the poor thing,” she said, as she knelt by the side of the bed. “She looks as though she is half-starved. And her face.” She smoothed a lock of hair away from the girl’s face, and Lord Ravensbourne saw a small cut that still had a trickle of dried blood crusted on it. The area around the cut was bruised and discolored. “Send the footman up with a tub of hot water, and ask the housekeeper to heat up a bowl of broth. She needs a bath and some food.”

“I’ve sent the footman and the grooms off to find the girl’s mother, who’s lying sick somewhere in a hayrick between here and the village,” Lord Ravensbourne said.

“Well, then ask one of the maids to carry it up,” Charlotte said easily. “And make sure the water is good and hot. We don’t want her catching a chill.”

Ravensbourne shrugged. He would not ask a maid to carry the heavy tub up the stairs when he had a pair of perfectly good arms himself. He rolled up his sleeves and set to work.

By the time he had wrestled the large, copper tub up the stairs, and brought in enough buckets of steaming hot water to fill it to the brim, the young girl had wakened again and was sitting up against the pillows, sipping broth, while Charlotte hovered anxiously nearby.

When he drew back the screen to announce the bath was ready, the girl turned her face towards him, her eyes shining with gratitude. “Your sister has told me that you have sent a carriage for my mother. I must thank you. She has a chill on her chest and is not well at all. I should have gone with your men to show them the way.”

The girl was older than she had first appeared. When she had collapsed at his feet, Ravensbourne would have put her age at no more than twelve. Now, her violet eyes turned on him in gratitude, he would revise his estimate up to sixteen, maybe even seventeen. And very beautiful. Even the ugly bruise disfiguring part of her face and the tattered black dress she was wearing could not hide the fact that she was quite exquisite.

In fact, she was more than beautiful. She was irresistible. Ravensbourne felt an instant reaction to her in his loins. He shifted uncomfortably, willing his body not to betray his thoughts. By the Lord above, he was no longer a lad to let himself be ruled by what hung between his legs.

“You could not have gone with them,” he said, more gruffly than he had intended. “You were quite insensible. They will find your mother on their own.”

The beautiful violet eyes of the stranger filled with tears at the harshness of his tone.

“Oh, Tom,” Charlotte said, as she took the empty bowl from the young girl and set it aside. “Do not be a ninny. It was not Anna’s fault that she swooned.”

Ravensbourne shrugged. Indeed, he had not wished to be harsh. He had merely been unsettled by his reaction to the stranger. By way of apology, he held out his arms. “Your name is Anna, is it? Come, I will lift you into the bath before it gets cold.”

The girl shrank back on to the bed and shook her head. Two bright circles of color reddened her cheeks. “N...no, no,” she stammered. “I am quite able to manage myself.” To prove her point, she swung her legs over the side of the bed farthest away from him and stood .

The bravado of the effect was spoiled when her legs had not the strength to support her, and she had to grab the bedpost in a hurry to save herself from falling.

Ravensbourne strode around the bed and caught her just as she was about to collapse at his feet for the second time that day. Not heeding her protests, he caught her up in his arms as a mother would carry an infant and placed her behind the screen on a stool next to the tub.

“Take off your dress,” he ordered her, as she made no effort to move. “You need a bath.”

“I cannot undress with you here,” Anna said. Tom heard a quiver in her voice, as if she were trying not to cry. “You must leave.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Charlotte said, as she came up behind Anna and started to undo the long row of buttons down the girl’s back. “You will need help to get into the bath—you cannot even stand up by yourself without falling over. I cannot lift you in by myself, and none of the maids are any stronger than I am. The housekeeper is old now, and she has the rheumatiks in her joints besides. The cook is needed in the kitchen. The footman is away fetching your mother, and he has taken the grooms with him. So there is no one left but Tom. He will have to lift you in.”

Anna clasped her dress to her chest and shook her head. “I do not need a bath,” she said stubbornly.

Ravensbourne laughed. “My dear child,” he said, “I have dogs cleaner than you are. You need to be dumped into the tub and scrubbed from head to foot before you are fit for decent company.”

Anna’s face flamed, but she held tight to her dress. “I will not have a bath,” she said. “You cannot make me.”

Ravensbourne took pity on her. The girl was evidently terrified of undressing before him, and trying desperately not to show it. “I will shut my eyes,” he said. “On my word as a gentleman, I will not look at you. I will lift you into the bath and retire at once. Your modesty will be safe with me.”

Anna looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You promise?”

Ravensbourne nodded. “I promise.”

She turned to Charlotte. “Will he keep his word?”

Angry words rose in his throat at her doubt, but before he could utter them, Charlotte nodded. “Of course he will, silly. Tom never breaks a promise.”

“Then shut your eyes now.”

Ravensbourne shut his eyes and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He could hear the soft rustle of fabric as Charlotte helped Anna to step out of her clothes. He tried not to imagine what she looked like without them. He would honor his promise in spirit as well as in deed.

“I am ready now,” Anna whispered at last.

Ravensbourne stepped forward, his eyes shut, and banged his shins on the edge of the tub. He swore under his breath. Charlotte laughed aloud, and he thought he heard Anna give a stifled giggle. He held out his arms. “Come here,” he demanded, “so I can lift you into this damned bath and be done with it.”

He felt rather than heard Anna move into his arms. “I’m here,” she whispered.

With care he took hold of her, wrapping one gentle hand around her shoulder and arm, the back of his knuckles brushing against her soft, full breasts. He could feel a jolt of pleasure traveling up his arm from the contact. He didn’t move his hand away. He was not strong-willed enough to resist the pleasure that this small contact with her gave him. His other hand skimmed the smooth, cool flesh of her rounded buttocks and thighs, before settling on her knees.

He picked her up, holding her tight against him for a moment. She flinched away from his touch, and he could feel her heart beating like that of a frightened bird. She was but a child. He must remember that. Gently he lowered her into the tub. “There you are,” he muttered, as he felt the warm water lap against his forearms. Then he turned his back on her, opened his eyes, and strode past the screen into the chamber.

He could hear sounds of soft splashing from behind the screen. He sat down on the bed and closed his eyes again. Hearing the young girl washing herself in the bath was playing havoc with his imagination.

She was obviously in need of help. Hungry, destitute, and with a sick mother to care for. With a face like hers, bruised and battered though it was, it would not be long before someone or other offered her their protection—at a price. Might it not just as well be him as another man?

Lord Ravensbourne felt his face grow hot at the very thought. He mentally kicked himself for his base thoughts. His charity was not dependent on such ignoble conditions. It was his duty as a landowner and as a God-fearing man to extend a helping hand to those in need. He was no usurer, to demand that his charity be repaid with interest.