Chasing Raven (4 page)

"How dare you!"

"You are a practiced and accomplished flirt, madam. Congratulations. It is a disguise you wear with as much flourish as you donned those breeches today."

She breathed hard, fury bubbling up and overflowing the restrictions of her corset.

"Give him up, Miss Deverell. This is my fair warning to you. Throw him over, and then I'll take mercy on Matthew Bourne. That's if you care about him at all. I'm told you have an icy little heart that can never be touched."

Too irate to spend another moment in his arrogant company, she turned quickly to walk away. But then she stopped and looked back. She would not let him get the last word, no indeed.

"Tell me, your lordship, what bothered you most today? That you lost, or that you lost to a woman?"

His jaw clenched, and a puzzled look came into his eyes.

Head high, she walked away, the crowd parting for her as if she had the plague.

Raven's grand exit was marred, however, by her own inquisitive nature, when she simply must look back over her shoulder again, to see if he was still standing where she left him. And whether he watched her.

He was.

And he did.

Chapter
Six

She quickened her steps and abruptly came upon her mother in the vestibule. Lady Charlotte clasped her daughter's arm.

"Come quickly. We are leaving at once."

"Why? What is it, mama?"

"He deserved a crushed bone in his foot," her mother muttered, tugging on Raven's puffed sleeve until they were at the front door of the Winstanleys' house, where a footman was instantly dispatched to find their carriage. "I only wish I could have run over more of him with that phaeton."

Glancing back toward the ballroom, Raven spied her mother's former lover, hobbling along with a heavily bandaged foot and a walking cane. In a state of inebriation, he shouted curses at Lady Charlotte, apparently planning to use that cane for another purpose once he caught up with her. At that moment, however, he could not get through the crowd of guests and was reduced to futile yelling, while thumping his cane at the wall plaster and the pillars.

Her mother held her head high, noble and haughty. "Let him land upon his nose and flatten it to match his foot."

Raven readjusted the Spanish lace shawl that had fallen from her mother's shoulders. "Should we not say our goodbyes to the Winstanleys?"

"There is no time. I must leave immediately, for I am taken ill and suddenly very weak. I barely have the strength to stand," said the flushed, robust woman with great vigor. "I'm sure the Winstanleys will understand." Then, abruptly cooling her temper, she fixed a hard gaze on her daughter. "Was that Hale I saw you dancing with? The Earl of Southerton?"

"I don't know, mama," she replied sullenly. "He didn't introduce himself. Not properly."

"Well, gracious! That is a very odd thing indeed. What can it mean, that he should choose to dance with you?" Lady Charlotte's eyes sparkled with cunning thoughts. "But this may be very good for us."

"I can't imagine why."

"Don't be tiresome. You're not a stupid girl, Raven, and you've never naively misunderstood a man's motives. Unless deliberately. A man like that is extremely eligible. Wealthy, titled, powerful and a widower. You could not—"

"A widower?" Suddenly all thumbs, she lost her grip on the end of that lace shawl and it fell from her grasp, drooping down her mother's back like a broken wing.

Lady Charlotte did not expand upon her description of Hale, for the footman who had been sent to order their carriage brought around, now returned, his task unfulfilled.

"Your ladyship, I'm afraid the carriage is gone."

"Gone?" she exclaimed. "What can be the meaning of this?"

"He means it was returned from whence it came." Another man stood in the doorway behind the footman, his round, red face shining greasily in the candlelight as he coughed and then smirked broadly. Stiffly flinging out one arm, he passed her mother a folded note, made a half-hearted pretense at tipping his hat and then disappeared again, pulling up his coat collar against the rain.

Raven snatched the note from her mother's hand.

"
One landau carriage and two roan mares on loan to Lady Charlotte Rothsey (Deverell). Account due in full on the twenty-first day of May in the year eighteen forty-seven. Immediate repossession
..." She was unable to read the rest for her mother took the paper back again and ripped it into several pieces before scattering them dramatically at her feet.

"This is outrageous! That I should be treated thus. If my father were still alive they would not dare."

Mortified, Raven desperately tried to quiet her mother, but it was a fruitless exercise. When Lady Charlotte felt hard-done-by— which was often— she did not like to leave anybody unaware of it.

"And out of spite they do this, while I am here, at the Winstanleys' ball. Oh, they could not wait to deal with the matter tomorrow. No, indeed, they must humiliate me in this public way."

"Mama, you are humiliating yourself," she whispered, once again rearranging the lace shawl around her mother's shoulders.

"How am I supposed to get back to the hotel suite? A Hansom cab? Me? A lady, in a Hansom cab? Or perhaps he expects me to take an omnibus!"

She had forgotten, it seemed, that she was not the only one inconvenienced. "We can always walk, mama. And fortunately we both have our health and two good legs."

"Walk? It's five miles at least, and the streets aren't fit for two women to walk alone."

"Mama, it's possibly a mile at most to Mivart's from here. And with our reputation for putting men in their place, I think we'll be quite safe together in the savage environs of Mayfair."

"I absolutely cannot—"

"If you will allow me, madam. I will gladly escort you and your daughter home in my carriage."

Both women turned swiftly to find the Earl of Southerton directly behind them.

"I was just leaving myself," he added steadily. "And it is raining. Walking is quite out of the question."

* * * *

He watched Raven Deverell across his carriage and cautiously considered, once again, the dangerous extravagance of everything about her— from the rich darkness of her hair, to the blossoming shape of her lips, the thickness of her eyelashes, the fullness of her figure. Too much of everything, he mused. What was it that man at the ball had called her? A handful. No, she was more than a handful. She was an over-spilling, cartload of trouble, teetering along without a sober driver and about to lose its balance.

He had given her fair warning about that young cad, Bourne, and that should be it. There was no need for him to follow her out of the ballroom and continue the conversation.

Yet here they were.

Usually his thoughts came in a sensible, reasoned flow, but tonight the cogwheels of his mind were frustratingly stuck upon the image of this woman in riding breeches.

"This is most kind, your lordship," said her mother, leaning forward as the amber tongue of a passing street lamp licked her face. "I'm sure it was a misunderstanding with the gentlemen from whom I borrowed the landau." Her gaze slid sideways to her daughter, who stared out of the carriage window as if the rain was the most enthralling sight she'd ever seen. "We must thank you for saving us so gallantly and going out of your way."

He bowed his head. "It is no trouble, madam."

Her smile widened, and she raised a white-gloved hand to her hair, patting the neat arrangement of auburn waves. "We must repay the favor."

Lady Charlotte was still a handsome woman. In the season of her 'coming out' she had been the most sought after debutante in Town. And then, when she could have had anyone, she eloped with the notorious True Deverell, turning society inside out. The marriage did not last long, and the couple lived separately for years before the costly and scandalous divorce was finally acquired. How must that have affected her daughter?

With a reputation in ruins, the divorcee might have slunk away into oblivion, but her former husband apparently kept her nest feathered and she still had a handful of acquaintances willing to help her. It seemed she also had little sense of shame and a powerful instinct for survival.

Her daughter was equally self-assured and unapologetic, he noted coolly.

In the darkness of the carriage interior, Miss Raven Deverell filled his senses, a pulsing, vibrant creature, a mischief maker who had broken a rule to interfere in his serious sport. Well, since she had laughed at the idea of an apology, he would show her how it felt to have one's day spoiled.

"Your daughter and I met earlier today, madam. At Bourne Lodge in Richmond."

Now the young woman tore her attention from the window and glowered at him. In the darkness of the carriage interior, her face was in shadow, but he saw the gleam of anger in her eyes. Eyes that he knew now were the richest shade of green one might find in the depths of a primeval forest.

"Oh?" said her mother. "I did not know this. Raven?"

"You knew I was with Matty Bourne today, mama," she replied, her gaze lowered as she smoothed her hands over her lap and studied her silk gloves.

"But I thought you were spending the day at a picnic in Hyde Park with a small group of friends. That's what you told me. You said your brother would be there."

"We changed our mind. The picnic was called off, because it looked like rain. So Matty took me to his father's house to show me a new horse. I knew we'd be back in time for the Winstanleys' ball, and I really didn't think it would signify where we spent the day."

There was a thick pause and then Hale muttered, "I must say, madam, I was rather surprised to see your daughter unchaperoned at Bourne Lodge." He was thinking again of a certain pair of riding breeches. Who had got her in and out of them?

That was more bothersome now, he realized, than the trick played against him.

Her mother chided the girl. "Really you should have told me, Raven. What must Bourne's father think of you running about, unchaperoned, with his son? Going to his house alone with him." But Hale saw at once that she only made this protest for his benefit. She looked across the carriage for his reaction rather than her daughter's.

He wondered if Lady Charlotte knew where her daughter was most of the time, let alone what she was getting up to. On the other hand, she could be complicit in her daughter's games. Hale had met many an ambitious mother and witnessed a variety of tricks used in hopes of an entrapment.

Hale cleared his throat and looked out at the rain. "I believe Lord Bourne is soon to be engaged, is he not?"

"I wouldn't care if he was," Miss Deverell replied. "He and I are merely
friends
." The next words burst out of her on an angry breath. "I do have some friends, surprising as it may seem to you, sir."

He frowned.
What the devil was that supposed to mean
? "I just wanted to be sure you knew. To save you any...distress. Should you have any expectations—"

"I never do. It is the safest way to protect against disappointment."

After a slight pause, he said, "They have yet to make an official announcement, but it is a settled matter, I understand. By this winter he will be married to Miss Louisa Winstanley."

"What business can it be of yours?"

"Raven! Moderate your voice, young lady!" her mother cried. "I'm sure I did not know that Lord Bourne is soon to be engaged! Now I do, you shall see no more of him." The lady squared her shoulders and exhaled an angry huff. "We've been wasting our time in that quarter, evidently."

"Matty Bourne is merely a very good friend, and I shall see him if I choose."

"Indeed you shall not! There are other men more worthy."

Fuming silence descended over the carriage interior, the two women making their chilly stance on opposite ends of the seat.

Hale, meanwhile, silently congratulated himself. Mere friends, indeed! Whatever had been between them, at least he had put a stop to that now.

He did it for her own good. Not that she would understand or be thankful.

Too soon they arrived at the door of Mivart's Hotel, and he stepped out to help both ladies alight from his carriage. A lamp outside the building cast a wide pool of shimmering, molten gold across the pavement and as Raven passed under it, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, those lively eyes defiant.

"Perhaps you would take tea with us here, your lordship?" her mother inquired as he opened his umbrella for shelter. "Sometime next week." The wide smile once again stretched across Lady Charlotte's face. It was a rather chilling expression, actually, now he saw it clearer. Her eyes were very dark and cold, not like her daughter's warmly inquisitive, teasing regard. Even when Raven's eyes were angry he would rather have their heat making him sweat, than suffer the frosty bite of her mother's hard gaze.

"Regretfully, madam, I am not staying in town."

"I thought, since you were at the ball tonight, you might stay for the rest of the Season."

"No, madam. I had some business to tend at the Winstanleys', but I go into the country again tomorrow. Back to my estate." Back to the familiar, he thought with relief, and away from quarrelsome young women with pert tongues and firm bottoms.

"What a pity," Lady Charlotte exclaimed. "But when you are next in town then."

Making no commitment, he looked beyond her to where Raven stood by the street lamp, that dark hair a gleaming, lush mane over one shoulder, her chin proudly raised. She chose to get wet in the rain, instead of stand under the protection of his umbrella. The dampness did nothing to dispel her terrible allure. Some men, he was quite sure, would be utterly undone by the sight. Weaker men than he, of course.

"Miss Deverell, you dropped this." One arm slowly outstretched, he offered her the small beaded reticule that had fallen from her wrist while she fidgeted irritably in his carriage.

Her lips parted, shining damp in the lamplight. "Oh." Finally she took it from his hand. "Thank you."

Hale almost smiled, but restrained himself from giving her any encouragement. Wouldn't want her to think he had any interest of that nature. She was a wicked brat looking for trouble, but at least he had served her a warning not to meddle in dangerous wagers ever again.

Hopefully, he had served her a warning. At least, he thought that was what he'd been doing with her.