A Raven's Heart

by K. C. Bateman

  Raven was strong but sinewy, lethal, and elegant. He looked like a gypsy himself, with his dark hair slightly overlong, curling over the collar of his shirt. The hollows of his cheeks appeared more prominent with the darkened stubble on his cheeks, and the tan he’d developed over the past few days made his green eyes even more striking.

  She felt a traitorous flutter in her stomach as she recalled the hot slide of his skin against hers, the response he’d drawn from her so skillfully. She wanted to feel it again, that sweet ache and hectic race toward pleasure. Wanted his arms around her, his panting breath against her neck, the sudden desperation and arching bliss. She fanned herself with her hand.

  He was a beast.

  Her brother Nic had once told her that guerilla fighters like these were called “chacales.” Jackals. Of course.

  Raven whistled as they rode, something tuneless, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He was content here, she realized suddenly, with nothing but the clothes he stood up in and his own wits, as relaxed as if he were in a formal London ballroom.

  Heloise sighed. She’d spent years trying to shed light on obscure codes and illuminate dark corners. Raven had spent the same time learning the art of concealment.

  Undulating foothills gave way to fertile valleys and steep-sided trails as they rode, the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees appearing on the horizon. The bleating of animals and the tinkle of bells heralded their approach to the gypsy encampment. Two men carrying a pole with the carcass of a goat tied onto it hailed Alejandro from the trail.

  The gypsy led the way to a wooded clearing, where an odd assortment of brightly colored canvas tents and caravans had been drawn up around a central fire. Children chased one another about the trees and several men and women sat on the steps of their caravans.

  Heloise peered around in fascination. The caravans were all garishly decorated, their spoked wheels picked out in yellow or cornflower blue, while every inch of their exteriors had been painted with an assortment of flowers, birds, and other fanciful embellishments.

  Several women ran over and greeted their men. One woman practically dragged Antonio from his horse by tugging on his waistcoat and planted a huge kiss on his mouth. Federico’s lady exclaimed over a tear in his breeches. Raven was greeted with joyous shouts and exclamations—handshakes and friendly punches from the men and extremely familiar kisses and hugs from the women.

  And then they noticed the newcomer and Heloise blushed as she became the center of attention. The gypsy women crowded round, apparently fascinated by her pale skin and freckles and the fact that she was wearing boys’ clothes. One girl touched her hair reverently and said something. They all nodded and laughed.

  Heloise turned to Raven for translation. “What did she say?”

  “She called you ‘Luz.’ It means light.”

  “Oh.”

  “The gypsies refer to themselves as cales. ‘Calo’ means black.” He touched his own dark hair. “You and I are both payllos, which is a word they use to describe anyone not of the gypsy race.”

  He spoke with one of the women in rapid Spanish and then nodded. “Go with Maria. They’ll show you to a caravan to sleep in.”

  “That’s very kind.” Heloise smiled warmly at the woman, trying to make herself understood despite the language barrier. “Thank you very much.”

  The women led her to a caravan set among the trees, a little way from the fire. The exterior was a gaudy apple green with yellow trim. Almost every inch of the surface was decorated with painted roses and flowers, castles, curling scrolls, pierced fretwork, and arched frills. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. Heloise mounted the steps set between the lowered shanks and peered inside.

  The arched ceiling had been painted to depict the night sky, a deep midnight blue flecked with golden stars. A raised bed took up the entire far end, piled high with jewel-toned cushions. A padded bench sat below a window on the right wall, and a tiny iron wood-burning stove and more cupboards lined the left one. Various utensils, frying pans, mugs, and bunches of dried flowers hung from hooks on the walls and the ceiling beams.

  One of the women brought Heloise’s satchel and filled a bowl with water. The ladies showed no inclination of leaving her alone, so Heloise washed her hands and face. With her blue dress still unmended, she withdrew her only other option, the sadly creased—but clean—white evening dress, the one she’d last worn to Raven’s ball.

  A little embarrassed at having an audience, she stripped off her shirt and breeches to reveal her silk drawers and matching lace-edged shift, which drew a ripple of appreciative gasps. Heloise realized they were as intrigued by the foreignness of her clothing as she was by theirs. Language was irrelevant—the exclamations of women admiring one another’s outfits crossed barriers of race and fortune.

  With reverent fingers the girls touched the straps of thin ribbon tied in bows on each shoulder and the embroidered hem of her chemise, exclaiming over the quality of the lace, the fineness of the silk. They admired her figure, too, using shaping actions with their hands to remark on the narrowness of her waist and the pertness of her breasts. From that they proceeded to tease her about her freckles. Their own skin was olive brown and smooth, their straight, long hair the black-blue sheen of a raven’s wing.

  Heloise blushed furiously, but cherished the sense of feminine solidarity. Having grown up with three brothers, it was rather nice to have some purely female interaction.

  She reached for the white dress but it was snatched from her with much shaking of heads and miming of potential disasters, which she eventually understood to mean that she shouldn’t wear such a fine thing outside by the fire, where it might get ruined. One of the younger women went out and reappeared with a bundle of clothes. Heloise’s protests were brushed aside, so she gave in with good grace and allowed them to dress her in the long skirt, ruched peasant top, and loose embroidered corset—worn, oddly, over, not under, the shirt.

  Twilight had fallen by the time they emerged from the caravan and Heloise glanced around, looking for Raven. She found him deep in conversation with Alejandro on the other side of the camp, so she allowed the women to drag her to the fire and accepted a bowl of soup with a smile of thanks.

  —

  Raven knew the exact moment Heloise came out of the caravan.

  He took one look at her, dressed in her gypsy clothes, and scowled. They weren’t much of an improvement on the breeches. Her breasts spilled from the top of the blouse, peachy and pale, pushed up by some fiendishly effective external corset. His body, naturally, hardened to the point of discomfort. The damn woman could wear a flour sack and he’d still want her.

  She’d left her hair loose, too. The firelight caught the long strands, highlighting copper streaks and flashes of burnished gold around her head, like sparks. The glow licked over her, caressing all the parts he wanted to touch, while leaving other bits mysteriously shadowed in a sublime juxtaposition of darkness and light.

  He wanted to be the one turning her cheeks pink.

  The sun had brought out even more of her freckles; he imagined tracing them with his tongue, dragging her into some dark corner and putting his hands on her skin.

  One of the men picked up a guitar and began to strum. Another joined in, a cheering song about bandits and robbers picking off members of a party on their travels. Raven sighed. Nice tales of murder. Heloise looked delighted, probably because she had no idea about the gruesome subject matter. The next song was no better, about a woman crossed in love and dying for passion. Raven rolled his eyes at the melodrama.

  Maria demanded a dance and the musicians began a rhythmic hand clap. Alejandro began a crooning chant to accompany the strum of the guitar, while Maria clicked her fingers and twirled in the firelight, swishing her skirts and twisting her body in a sinuous flamenco. The fringed shawl around her hips flared out as she spun, arms raised, heels stamping in the dust, black hair way past her hips.

  The music throbbed through his chest, swee
t and heartrending one minute, proud and defiant the next. How different this was to the stately quadrille, even the scandalous waltz. Flamenco was dramatic and aggressive, graceful and playful. And unashamedly sensual.

  Raven had seen it before, of course, but he glanced across the fire to watch Heloise’s reaction. She sat forward on her seat, lips parted in rapt attention. Some of the women tried to pull her to her feet to dance, but she refused, laughing, and joined in by clapping her hands instead.

  They’d chosen the perfect name for her. Luz. Light. She beckoned him like the warmth of the fire. He sighed. If she was the sun, then he was the moon, something with no light of its own. Just a cold gray lump of rock that needed the sun to glow.

  A profound yearning tightened his chest as he watched her across the clearing. So much more than physical space separated them. He was trapped in a cage of his own making, drawn to her like an alcoholic drawn to a tumbler of whisky, like a gambler to the snap and whirr of the cards. Helplessly, angrily, against his will.

  Her innocence made him want to weep. He’d seen the very worst of life and she saw the best in everything. He wouldn’t touch her again. No matter how much he wanted to. One drop of poison was all it took to contaminate a pure glass of water. Once it was in, there was no getting it out. He would corrupt her, taint her. Inch by inch.

  She rose and came toward him, still clapping in time to the dance, and flopped down next to him, laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. The heir to a dukedom, sitting here quite at home with a bunch of lawless gypsies.”

  He scowled.

  She tilted her head toward the group by the fire. “Do they know about your exalted position back home, Lord Ravenwood?”

  “No. They only know me as Raven. Smuggler, gunrunner, spy. But they wouldn’t care if they did know. The Rom aren’t impressed by wealth. They have a saying: Why have two horses when you only have one arse?”

  She chuckled. “I suppose that makes a lot of sense. But better not bring up such heresy at a ton party. You’ll incite a riot.”

  She yawned and he frowned. “You’re exhausted. Time for bed. You know which caravan’s yours?”

  She nodded. “That pretty green one. Where are you going to sleep?”

  “Out here.”

  “What? On the ground? That’s stupid. You can sleep in the caravan with me.”

  He thoroughly enjoyed her instant blush as she realized her innocent offer of shelter could be twisted into an invitation to sin.

  “I mean that you can sleep on the floor, if you want. There’s plenty of room.”

  He put her out of her misery. “It’s a tempting offer, but I think I’ll pass. After you’ve been incarcerated, it’s a pleasure to sleep free under the stars. Go to bed.”

  Chapter 30

  Georges Lavalle took another look through his telescope and gave a cracked laugh of disbelief.

  Fils de putain!

  He didn’t believe in coincidences; everything was preordained, and here, at last, was proof that God was smiling on his efforts once again.

  His idol, Napoleon, had been raised to the rank of emperor over those inbred Bourbons by divine right. His overthrow and subsequent imprisonment on Elba had been a minor setback, but the Lord had helped him escape and march on Paris again.

  The defeat in Belgium last year had been unfortunate, certainly—a combination of a freak rainstorm and the devil-aided luck of the Prussians arriving just when the English were on the cusp of annihilation. The emperor had been imprisoned again, this time on St. Helena, but Georges had no doubt that he would escape that prison, too. And when he did he would reward his faithful followers appropriately.

  Had he not paid the Austrian spy Schulmeister enough to buy his own chateau for his help in capturing the Duc D’Enghien? He would offer a similar reward to Georges Lavalle for killing these English spies.

  Savary had not been pleased when Georges had returned to Paris with news that he’d failed to kill the Englishwoman, but he’d entrusted him with another mission almost immediately. He was to travel just over the border to Spain and make sure that those perfidious British didn’t renege on their promise to exchange his colleague Marc “the Baker” Breton with one of their own.

  Since there was only one route up to the agreed rendezvous point, Lavalle had set up his observation post here, in a high-sided ravine, where there was plenty of cover from rocks, several avenues of escape, and a nice elevated position.

  He’d thought to kill the British bastards before they even made it to the exchange site and free his friend, but this band of travelers was larger than he’d anticipated. There was no sign of Marc, either, although he was no doubt secured in one of those covered gypsy wagons.

  But now he’d been handed the sweetest of opportunities. The agent sent to deal with the Spaniard Alvarez was none other than that British bastard Ravenwood! And, even more amusing, Georges’s initial target—that scarred code-breaking bitch—was with him. Truly, the fates were smiling on him today.

  Georges mopped his brow and stifled another giggle of delight. The only difficulty, of course, was which to eliminate first?

  It would have to be Ravenwood. He was the more dangerous of the two. With him dead, the woman would be easy to pick off, even with an armed gypsy guard.

  Georges rolled onto his stomach, steadied his rifle, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. He had divine support. He couldn’t miss.

  —

  Crack.

  A small clod of earth exploded on the bank of grass to Heloise’s left. She looked up, confused, and saw a puff of smoke floating above a nearby stony ridge. Her horse reared but before she could control it Raven practically pulled her off the plunging mount and pushed her roughly down behind the bank of earth that bordered the trail.

  He already had his own pistol raised. She covered her ears as he fired toward the smoke, then craned her neck to tried to see what he’d been aiming at, but he reached over and shoved her cheek back down into the dusty grass.

  “Do you want to get shot?” he growled.

  There was a ping as another bullet ricocheted off a nearby rock; it spat a hail of sharp chips.

  “Sniper. Stay down. And don’t move until I come back.”

  He didn’t even sound shaken, just his usual cool, slightly irritated self. Did nothing rattle him? He started to move away from her.

  “Where are you going?” she hissed.

  “After him. Why? You worried about me, Hellcat?” He shot her a daredevil grin, totally self-assured. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

  “You can’t promise not to get killed, you idiot.”

  He had a dimple, just on the one side when he smiled. With his tanned skin, that hint of stubble, and his utterly boyish charm, he was almost irresistible. There was a vitality about him, a sort of gleeful madness in the face of danger; he looked lithe and virile and extremely capable.

  He crawled forward. She followed him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “With you,” she said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  She pushed his restraining hand away.

  He gave a skeptical lift of his brows. “What are you going to do? Argue the man to death?”

  She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished.

  “Good with a knife, are you? Handy with a garrote? No? I didn’t think so.”

  “I might be useful.”

  “Only as a target. Now stay here.”

  “Do you even have a plan?”

  He grinned. “I never make plans. Plans are for people with no imagination. Like lists.” The look he gave her was both arrogant and amused. “Now stay.”

  With a signal to Alejandro and Carlos to follow his lead, he took off into the rocks, certain his high-handed command would be obeyed. Heloise clenched her jaw. Stay! As if she was some sort of barely trained house pet. Insufferable man!

  She was still seething half an hour later when he returned.
He strode in with Alejandro and Carlos, all dusty swagger.

  “Did you catch him?”

  “No. But I hit the bastard. We found a spatter of blood up there where he was hiding. I just don’t know how badly he’s hurt.”

  “Who do you think it was? A robber?”

  Raven shrugged.

  “Think he’ll try again?”

  “If he’s not dead, he might, but it’s unlikely.”

  She frowned and crossed her arms. “I wish you wouldn’t just go running off like that.”

  “Did you miss me, angel?”

  “Hardly. My concern’s purely self-interest. If you go and die falling down a ravine or get yourself shot, who’s going to protect me?”

  He snorted. “Credit me with a little coordination, please. Besides, I thought you didn’t need protection?”

  “I’m not so foolish as to deny myself the services of a perfectly competent bodyguard if one happens to be around.”

  He clapped a palm to his chest and staggered as if he’d received a fatal blow. “Did you just call me perfectly competent? Good God.”

  She ignored his foolery. “It’s clear in this area you have skills that surpass my own.”

  The corner of his mouth curved up in a wicked smile. “Oh, I think you’ll find my skills surpass yours in several areas.” The look in his eye had her flushing to the roots of her hair. “This is the second time I’ve saved you from a bullet, you know.”

  She raised her chin. “And?”

  “Most people I rescue are grateful.”

  “I’m grateful.”

  One dark eyebrow rose in disbelief.

  “I am, damn you!”

  Raven mirrored her defensive stance, folding his arms over his chest. “Prove it.”