Swept Away (22 page)

“My darling,” Lydia cooed as she gave Eden a brief hug. “I sent a letter to Briarcliff only yesterday beseeching you to come back to us. You’ll not be expected to accept any invitations, of course, but we’ll need to have some suitable mourning attire made for you immediately. Once Alex’s friends learn you’re here, they’ll want to pay sympathy calls. I already had your trunks packed, but surely you don’t want to move them to Alex’s townhouse. I know your mother would want you to remain here with us.”

Raven managed to elude Stephanie’s possessive grasp and moved to Eden’s side. He exchanged a brief greeting with Lydia and then waited until the ladies had all been seated before he took the chair next to Eden’s. Stephanie had taken a place on a small settee and patted the cushion beside hers invitingly, but he pretended not to have noticed. He and Alex had been at the Lawtons’ for tea on several occasions, but he had never been at ease. Now he felt a surprising sense of calm that bordered on elation and he could barely keep from grinning from ear to ear although he knew Lydia would consider it highly inappropriate.

“Thank you so much, Aunt Lydia, but I really can’t come back here to live.” Eden accepted a cup of tea, but quickly set it upon the rosewood table at her side.

Lydia leaned forward as her tone became more insistent. “Listen to me carefully, child. Alex’s untimely death has shocked and saddened everyone. In a few years the, shall we say, unusual circumstances of your marriage will be overshadowed by that tragedy. You might even have the opportunity to remarry one day. Why, in time, the War Between the States will surely end and you can return home. Your whole tragic stay in London can be forgotten then.”

Uncertain where to begin her response when all of her aunt’s remarks were unwelcome, Eden glanced first at Raven. He nodded, giving her all the encouragement she required to speak her mind. “Raven told me you’d been embarrassed by our elopement, and I’m very sorry for that but it couldn’t be helped. Alex knew he didn’t have long to live, and it would have taken months to plan a formal wedding. Time was very precious to us, and we didn’t want to squander a second of it even if our behavior was viewed as highly unconventional. It didn’t matter to us, but I am truly sorry for any embarrassment you might have suffered.”

While Lydia was clearly shocked by that news, she quickly recovered. “Alex knew he was dying?”

“Yes, but it was the time he had to live that mattered most to us.”

Lydia’s eyes brightened, and she again moved slightly forward on her chair as she glanced toward her daughter. “That’s a wonderfully romantic story, Eden. I’ll see that it’s soon common knowledge as it makes your elopement appear noble rather than reckless.”

“It’s not merely a romantic story, Aunt Lydia, it’s the truth.”

Lydia waved that comment aside as though it were unimportant. “Yes, yes, of course it is. The fact that it’s so compelling a truth just makes it all the better. If we manage things properly now, I do believe we shall be able to salvage your reputation.”

“Aunt Lydia, really—”

“You are so innocent at times, Eden. Don’t you know that whenever a couple marries as hurriedly as you and Alex did, the rumors immediately begin to fly that the man was forced to make an honest woman of her?”

Eden felt her cheeks redden with a bright blush, but if her child was even one day premature she feared those rumors would begin circulating anew, and with a tiny babe in her arms, there would be no way to refute them. She would not care what anyone said about her, but the prospect of Alex’s good name being dragged through the mud when he would be unable to defend himself was deeply troubling.

“We were well aware there might be malicious gossip about us, but we refused to allow it to taint the joy of our love. I hope that if anyone were so rude as to mention such scandalous suspicions to you, you did not dignify them with a response.”

“No one dared say it to our faces, Eden, but it was what everyone was thinking, and I mean absolutely everyone,” Stephanie promptly revealed, her mouth set in an unbecoming pout.

“Hush,” Lydia scolded her daughter. “What’s done is done, but now that we know Alex was in poor health, we can use that excuse to squelch any rumors that weren’t quelled by his death. Thank God most people still have the manners not to speak ill of the dead but we can’t give them anything new to talk about. That’s why it’s imperative that you return here to live. You can’t possibly reside in Alex’s townhouse. Raven is far too attractive a man not to start the worst sort of gossip circulating about the two of you if you shared the same house.”

It had been clear to Raven from the moment Lydia had begun to speak that she cared not at all about their grief at Alex’s death. All that concerned her was maintaining her own spotless reputation and that of her spoiled daughter. Lydia was not about to allow Eden the independence her marriage to Alex should have won her. Instead, she obviously planned to take her niece in hand and manipulate her actions as a puppeteer did those of his marionettes. Thoroughly disgusted with her, he had heard more than enough.

“I think not,” Raven informed Lydia with a confident smirk he could not contain. “Eden is now my wife.”

“Your wife!” Stephanie sputtered through a mouthful of tea, then still attempting to catch her breath she rose awkwardly to her feet. “Eden, tell us that isn’t true! Surely you would not have married him when you knew that I, well, you simply can’t have married Raven!”

“Sit down!” Lydia commanded firmly, but it took several such orders to silence her daughter’s hysterical outbursts and even then Stephanie sat whimpering unhappily.

Lydia fixed her niece with a fiercely hostile stare. “When I lost my dear Harold five years ago, I knew I’d never want to remarry. You are a far younger woman, however, but I can’t believe you would remarry with such shocking haste. A year of mourning is considered the absolute minimum, a fact of which I’m sure you are well aware. Although you’ve already demonstrated little regard for our feelings, you must know your parents would never approve. Now what is this nonsense about marriage?”

Seeing no reason to involve her parents in the discussion, Eden wanted only to convey the truth and leave. “It’s not nonsense, Aunt Lydia. Raven and I were married before we left Briarcliff,” she announced with a pride she had not expected to feel.

With an anguished wail, Stephanie again lunged from her chair, and screaming and clawing, she went for Eden. Raven, however, had anticipated the hostility of her reaction and deftly moved to block her way. He grabbed her around the waist and simply swung her aside, then remained standing to prevent any further attempts to do physical harm to his bride. “I may have escorted you to several parties, Stephanie, but I never gave you any indication my feelings for you were as warm as those Alex held for Eden. You had no claim on me, and you have no cause to insult your cousin. I expect you to apologize to her immediately.”

“Stephanie is not the one who ought to apologize!” Lydia declared harshly. “But first, who knows of this wedding?”

“Everyone at Briarcliff, my crew,” Raven replied without taking his eyes off Stephanie, who was struggling to regain the dignity she had lost when she had again humiliated herself by speaking her feelings for him aloud.

Greatly relieved to hear that, Lydia rushed on with her plans. “No one of any consequence knows of it then. That’s a stroke of luck we shan’t waste. Your crew and the staff at Briarcliff will have to be paid immediately for their silence. Should any of them ever mention a wedding, we can simply deny that it took place. Our word will be believed over that of servants, peasants, or merchant seamen.

“You’ll come here to live this very day, Eden, and live the quiet, contemplative life of a devoted widow until this time next year. You’ll return to Jamaica, Raven, and no one need ever learn of this disgrace. My attorney will have the marriage discreetly annulled. It’s the only way. Now when can you be ready to sail, Raven? The sooner you leave London, the better.” Without waiting for him to reply, Lydia turned to her niece. “I’ll send for my dressmaker in the morning, and”

Raven shot Eden a frantic glance for he knew she was not pleased to be his wife, but he had not thought there would be any way for her to get out of their marriage. Now that her aunt had provided one, he held his breath, dreading what her answer would be.

The look of absolute horror that had flashed across Raven’s face mirrored the burst of pain that filled Eden’s heart. She had told him she was too numb to feel another hurt, but she had been wrong. The prospect of losing him was a surprisingly painful one. “We married because it was what Alex wanted,” she explained, as though that were the only reason. “That Raven has sacrificed whatever dreams he had of finding a wife to care for me is a noble gesture, not a disgraceful one. You’ll not separate us, Aunt.”

As Lydia’s face filled with rage at that bit of defiance, Eden continued as though her comments had been calmly accepted. “Now I’d like to summon our driver and footman to carry my trunks out to our carriage. We’ll be returning to Jamaica in a day or two, and I doubt we’ll ever see each other again. While I appreciate all that you did for me while I was here, I can’t allow you to do anything more.”

Raven grabbed Eden’s hand, and they hurried from the room before Lydia could draw the breath to scream the vile names each was certain had already come to the woman’s mind. They could hear Stephanie sobbing that she had been betrayed, but neither was moved by the spoiled young woman’s complaints.

“I still think I should make her apologize to you,” Raven said. He opened the front door without waiting for the butler to do so, and gestured for the men from the carriage.

“It’s not worth the effort,” Eden assured him, but she was grateful when her aunt slammed shut the sliding doors of the drawing room so that they did not have to listen to Stephanie wail about how her American cousin had stolen the only man she had ever loved.

Her trunks were soon loaded on the carriage, and Eden breathed a sigh of relief as they rode away from her aunt’s townhouse for what would definitely be the last time. “I’ve always thought my parents made a terrible mistake in sending me here, and now I’m sure my aunt and cousin agree.”

“You’d never have met Alex had you stayed in Richmond.” Or me, Raven thought, but he knew better than to include his own name.

“No,” Eden assured him. “Somehow I would have met Alex. It was our destiny to be together.” She just wished it could have been for far longer.

Raven greeted that remark with a puzzled frown, and Eden decided not to pursue it. “You thought I might choose to stay with Lydia, didn’t you?” Her voice was filled with wonder, as though such a belief had been preposterous.

Embarrassed that his thoughts had been so transparent, Raven was again disgusted with himself for not having foreseen just how dangerous a visit to Lydia might have been. “I expected her to either be reserved and withdrawn, or loud and abusive, and not want to have anything further to do with us, but it never occurred to me the bitch would try and annul our marriage. I’d not have allowed that regardless of what your decision had been.”

Eden had thought her refusal of her aunt’s plan would have assured him she meant to remain his wife, but apparently he did not require any such consideration. She felt rather foolish that his feelings meant so much to her, when hers meant nothing to him. She realized then how truly angry he was, and she did not want him to lose his temper completely now that they had left her outraged kin behind.

“When you told me you’d be faithful to me, you were thinking of only one aspect of a good marriage. There’s loyalty too.”

“And honesty,” Raven added with an accusing glance.

“And sense enough to recognize it!” Eden shot right back at him. His dark eyes flashed when he reached out for her and for an instant she did not know if he meant to hug her, or choke the life out of her. Then his mouth covered hers, and it was like coming home.

Raven’s kiss was slow and deep, seeking the passionate response Eden needed little such encouragement to give. She then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down with her on the seat. Raven had tossed his hat on the opposite seat when they had entered the carriage. When Eden’s elegant bonnet was knocked askew, she wished she had shown as much foresight.

Sensing her discomfort, Raven rose up slightly and, with a quick yank, untied the satin bow beneath her chin and removed the pretty bonnet before it became crushed. He leaned over to set it with his hat, then again pulled her into his arms. He covered her flushed cheeks with gentle kisses before returning to her mouth with renewed fervor.

Enveloped in his enthusiastic affection, Eden made no protest as he unbuttoned her bodice to her waist. He slipped his hand inside, but caressed her breast sweetly for only a few seconds before pushing her silk chemise aside so he could fondle her bare skin. When he bent his head to tickle her nipples with his tongue, she responded with a throaty giggle that encouraged him to become even more passionate.

A sudden shout from the street brought Eden back to her senses. They had not pulled down the shades, and anyone passing by who chanced to glance their way would certainly see more than they dared allow. Unaware of her concern, Raven was still nibbling playfully at her breasts, but she grabbed two handfuls of his glossy curls and pushed him away.

“Isn’t your townhouse nearby?” she asked in a breathless rush.

Thinking she wanted him to stop, Raven answered in a defiant snarl, “So what if it is?”