by Lenora Bell
Peabody stared at India, then at Raven, obviously trying to figure out just what was happening here.
Raven was occupied with doing the same.
How did the Byzantine maze of Indy’s mind work? This was clearly some sort of gauntlet she’d thrown down.
A challenge.
He could call her bluff and put her to the lie in front of her brother and the newspaperman, or go along with the improbable story . . .
“Your Grace,” said Peabody to Raven, “Is this . . . that is to say, did you, er, agree to a wedding?”
Now everyone was waiting for him to speak. Here’s where he said something like, there’s no chance in Hades I’ll ever marry and this is just one of our public stunts and we were kissing because . . .
They’d been kissing.
In a flash, he understood why Indy was doing this. Partly to punish him, but also partly because if the story leaked out she would be shamed.
Men never had to face the consequences of indiscretions. It was always the women who bore the brunt of society’s censure. She was already regarded with mistrust by London society but she would be utterly shunned if word of this impropriety spread.
She’d be a pariah and he’d still be everyone’s favorite rogue.
This was her way of taking control of the situation. Writing her own story.
Damn it all.
He never wanted to be the cause of her shame. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this, but what else could he do? She’d bested him yet again.
Raven lifted Indy’s hand and kissed her knuckles, mirroring her earlier gesture. “Indeed, it is true. We shall be married as soon as conveniently possible.”
“The sooner the better,” said Indy. She smiled a glorious smile. A sunlit smile.
A wicked smile.
“I am she born to tame a wild rogue to one as conformable as other household husbands,” she pronounced.
At this bastardization of the Bard’s words, Mr. Peabody gasped.
She was determined to give them a show, was she? He’d play along. May as well punish her a little as well.
“We’re planning a grand wedding.” Raven stared at his faux intended with a besotted expression. “The grandest. Lady India’s days of sensible frocks are over. She’s professed a desire to be wed in a gown composed entirely of frills. Frill upon froth upon frill.” He brought his hands to her neck. “Layers and layers of frills that start at her neck and cascade down to her daintily clad toes. The color will be . . . bright canary yellow. She’ll look edible. Like a big, beautiful frilly pineapple.”
Indy glared at him.
“Sounds as though we won’t see much of the lady herself,” said her brother skeptically. He wasn’t buying their act, though Peabody was lapping up every word.
“Oh yes, my pineapple gown,” said India with a truly impressive sigh of joy. “Of course, you may outshine me yet, my darling duke.”
She smiled at the nonplussed Mr. Peabody. “Ravenwood showed me a portrait of his great-great-grandfather and expressed a desire to have a wedding costume that mimicked the splendid sartorial enthusiasms of his ancestor. He wants to wear a doublet of pink silk, with silver velvet insets, and he will wear shoes tied with satin bows, with silver spurs at the heels.”
Raven cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that I said pink silk, dear heart.”
“I’m quite certain that you did. I wouldn’t forget something like that.” Her laughter tinkled in a high voice she’d probably never used before in her life. “And there will be the . . . swans. Twenty swan couples, swimming in a pool with little golden crowns upon their heads. Swans mate for life, don’t you know? And there will also be the . . . what was it you asked for, lamb chop?
Lamb chop? Swans?
The woman had lost her mind.
“Oh, I recall,” she said. “You wanted there to be twelve ladies dancing. I demurred and said what would society think, you can’t bring dancing ladies into a house of God, but you insisted so I said you could have the dancing ladies if I was allowed to have my . . .” she paused for a moment, “my champagne fountain,” she concluded triumphantly.
Banksford coughed loudly. “Champagne fountain?”
“As tall as a street lamp, and filled with French champagne. The dancing ladies will emerge from it, all the bubbles will make them quite giddy, and then the guests can dip their glasses into the champagne and have a drink. Are you memorizing all of these details, Mr. Peabody?” Indy asked, whirling on the poor man.
“Ah . . .” Mr. Peabody nodded. “Swans . . . dancing ladies . . . champagne.”
“And the zebra,” prompted Indy.
“The . . . zebra?” asked the hapless Mr. Peabody.
“The one Ravenwood will ride to the church.”
“Is this a menagerie or a wedding?” asked Banksford.
This was spiraling out of control. Raven had best put a stop to it.
“My own darling tropical fruit,” he said in a syrupy voice to match hers. “Are you quite certain that you want all of these details in the paper? I thought we were saving some as a surprise.”
She patted his arm. “Isn’t that just like a nervous groom, worrying about things being printed before they’re finalized—don’t worry, ducky, everything will come off beautifully. It will be the most talked about wedding of the century. You have my full permission to regale your readership with all of the scintillating details, Mr. Peabody.”
“Much obliged, my lady. I will, I most certainly will,” Peabody said, nodding until his chin disappeared into the folds of his collar.
“We’re off to Paris tomorrow to have our matrimonial costumes designed,” said Indy.
Oh here we go. She’d find a way to go to Paris come hell or high water. Now she’d go as his fiancée.
“Come along, my scheming pineapple,” Raven clamped an arm around her waist. “Peabody wants to view your brother’s steam-engine model.”
Banksford gave Raven a brief nod, his eyes telling Raven to take Indy away before they dug their hole any deeper.
Raven and Indy descended the stair in silence, received their outer garments from a footman, and exited the house.
“Have you gone mad?” Raven asked her when they were a safe distance away.
“No madder than you, grabbing me like that. What was that?”
“That was a kiss.”
“No, that wasn’t a kiss.” She spun toward him. “That was a declaration of war, and you know it. You were trying to shock me. Manipulate me. Don’t try to deny it.”
She walked faster, putting distance between them. Raven caught himself admiring both the lightning speed of her deductions and the way her bum bounced beneath her skirts as she marched along.
“Indy, slow down for a moment. Where are you going? Didn’t you arrive in your carriage?”
“I walked. I like a constitutional in the mornings, it clears my head.”
“My head certainly needs clearing. Or maybe I require an entirely new head because I think we just announced our intention to marry.”
“Oh don’t worry about a thing, my irredeemable rogue. After our trip to Paris you’ll do something unforgivable and I’ll call off the wedding again. Problem solved.”
Her words were light but he heard the underlying accusation. He’d done something unforgivable. She was still angry and hurt, as well she should be.
It had been wrong to kiss her today. This was her way of seeking revenge.
“So you don’t intend to go through with it?” he asked, just to be clear.
She stopped walking and gave him a horrified look. “You don’t think for one second that I’d marry you over a mere kiss? That’s patently ridiculous. I would never marry you. Not in a million years.”
“So you’ve told me.”
A mere kiss? That had been the best kiss of his life.
There’d been nothing mere about it. And what’s more, seeing her so upset about the possibility of marrying him triggered all manner of em
otions that he wasn’t equipped to identify at the moment.
The thought of marrying him wasn’t the most painful thing in the world.
He’d like to think it ranked slightly higher than having one’s fingernails ripped off by pincers, a torture method favored by the inventive Monsieur Le Triton.
“I know why you did this, Indy.”
“Do please explain everything to me,” she said with a sarcastic smile.
“You want to hurt me. I understand that. But it was also a very clever way of turning the tables and shaping Peabody’s narrative. Instead of printing a prurient account of our embrace, he’ll announce our wedding plans and focus on all the outrageous details you fed him.”
“Precisely. I believe it’s called an evasion tactic.”
Not for the first time he had the thought that Indy could probably teach his fellow agents a thing or two.
“Then we travel to Paris together. Unless you’ve decided to stay in London?” At her incredulous glance he said, “I didn’t think so.”
How was he going to explain this to Sir Malcolm? Not only had he failed to convince Indy not to go to Paris . . . they would be traveling together.
For the space of a few steps he panicked, until he realized that this might actually be for the best. Short of having her kidnapped, there’d been no way he could have kept her away from Paris. This way, he’d be able to keep an eye on her, to make sure she stayed safe.
During the day they could go on innocuous excursions such as interviewing Beauchamp at the Louvre, or paying a visit to Boris Petrov, the Russian ambassador to France.
But by night, Raven would do the real work. He’d discover where Le Triton was keeping the stone and conclude the mission swiftly and with cold-blooded precision.
The only problem would be finding a way inside Le Triton’s fortress.
No one had ever been able to penetrate his lair before. It was too heavily guarded. Details of the interior were scarce. The precise location of Le Triton’s vast antiquities collection was a closely guarded secret.
A young couple walked past them on the footpath, gazing into each other’s eyes, the man laughing heartily at something his clever wife had said.
“This happened because we were fighting,” Raven said. “Fighting passionately. Sometimes an argument becomes a conflagration.”
“‘Where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury,’ is that it?”
More Shakespeare. “It was entirely my fault. I’m the one to blame.”
An emotion he couldn’t interpret chased across her face. “I think I had something to do with it.”
“We must never kiss again, Indy.”
His thoughts sang a rebellious counterpoint to his words.
Don’t make any promises. What if the wheel falls off the coach on the way to Dover and you’re stranded for a coaching inn?
What if she climbs into your bed in the middle of the night? Do you honestly think you’d be able to withstand such an onslaught?
He’d damn well find the fortitude to withstand it.
Even if she crawled into your bed naked? Even if she . . .
Never. Again.
“You have my word of honor as a gentlewoman.” Indy placed her hand over her heart. “No more kisses. You’ll be quite safe with me as your escort.”
Excellent. Keep everything light and funny. No real emotions or revealing of secrets.
Everything had to return to the way it had been before the kiss.
They were embarking on a perilous mission. His duty was to see the stone home to England, and to keep Indy safe in the process.
Indy’s thoughts ricocheted between self-castigation and a bizarre sense that what had happened had been somehow inevitable, as though all of their past arguments and confrontations had been escalating to this moment of reckoning.
Ravenwood walked beside her, shortening his long strides to match her gait, a concerned expression tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I’ve already made arrangements for a private coach to Dover.” He was all business now. Stern set to his lips and confident walk. “From there we will go by steamship to Calais.”
“I’ve journeyed to Paris before. I’m an experienced traveler. What I want to know is this: What skills do you bring to this mission other than the fact that you happen to have been born male?”
“Are you serious?” He raked his hand through his hair, leaving a few brown strands sticking straight up, which somehow only served to make him more devastatingly attractive.
“Deadly serious,” she said.
“Well, for one thing, I’m a duke.”
“That’s not a skill.”
“It’s an entrée into Parisian society, both the high and the low.”
“Is that all? You’re a duke?”
“You know my skills. I’m a famous hunter and collector of antiquities.”
“Infamous.”
“Precisely. I’m infamous for my single-minded pursuit of pleasure and treasure.”
“Not really the skills I’m looking for in a business partner. Will you be any use in a surprise ambush?”
He made a fist that looked as though it could smash through a brick wall. “Does this answer your question?”
“What if your opponent has a blade?”
“This is all the weapon I’ve ever needed. These . . .” He flexed the enormous muscles in his arms. “And this.” Copper-brown eyes beneath thick dark brows lit with a wicked promise. His smoldering gaze nearly incinerated the gown from her body.
Indy drew a shaky breath. “Be serious. Bedchamber eyes aren’t going to defend you from a cutpurse in a dark alleyway. You do entirely too much lolling about in houses of ill repute. Your arms may be . . . solid muscle . . . but it’s practice that builds the reflexes necessary to defend against surprise attacks.”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to save me then, Lady Danger. We’re a team now. At least for the next fortnight.”
“We’re not a team.” She shook her head vehemently. “We’re a provisional partnership. A distrustful duo. Temporarily engaged and soon to be separated again.”
“I’ll swagger around and carry a big knife. No one will challenge me,” said Ravenwood.
“If you carry a knife and don’t know how to use it, you could be the one facing its blade,” she said. “I’ve trained with fencing and knife-fighting instructors to become combat-ready should the day come again when I must defend myself against another attack.”
“I prefer pistols, myself. Much more straightforward. Point and shoot.”
“Too cumbersome. Too much time to load. What you want in close combat is a knife.”
“Then teach me how to fight with a blade,” he suggested.
“What, here? In the middle of the street?”
“No.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a narrow side street between two buildings. “Here.”
His gargantuan shadow loomed against the brick wall, dwarfing hers. She shivered, pushing away the memory of another dark alleyway.
Another large shadow.
He might have the advantage of size but she was quicker.
She’d always been quicker, even when they were children racing through the woods, dreaming of buried treasure and making plans to travel the world in search of adventure.
Plans that he had abandoned. Dreams that he had extinguished.
Indy gripped the hilt of her knife.
“Very well,” she said. “You sense I’m a threat. You raise your knife.”
He lifted an imaginary blade.
She lunged, letting instinct take control.
He parried, a split second too late. Her fist slashed across his forearm and then slid home against his flat abdomen.
“If this were a knife you’d be dead.” She slid a finger along the taut flesh beneath his rib cage. “Never parry with your unprotected hand. Always stay behind your blade.”
She lifted his giant hand, wra
pping his fingers around a pretend dagger, positioning his wrist. “Maintain a firm grip on the hilt. Keep the knife edge up and out, pointed toward the threat.”
His eyes glinted in the dim light. “You’re making a habit of touching me, aren’t you, Indy?” he said in a husky whisper.
She dropped his hand as if it were a pile of hot coals and stepped away from him. “In your dreams, Ravenwood. And I told you not to call me Indy.”
In her dreams.
Sweat-soaked, sheet-twisting dreams. Forbidden dreams.
Dreams she’d been having since he’d been a reckless boy with a disarming grin, daring her to jump her pony over the highest fence. She’d nearly broken her neck more than once.
He’d broken her heart.
He was her enemy. Her rival.
And she did want to touch him. Desperately. Every single time she saw him.
She’d always thought that the reality would pale in comparison to her vivid dreams. After their kiss, she wasn’t so sure.
Her dreams might be the paler, tamer version.
A tremor rippled between her shoulder blades.
“Shall we call that truce now?” he asked. “I can be pleasant.”
She didn’t want him to be pleasant. She relied on him to be infuriatingly arrogant.
Pleasant was dangerous.
Change three letters and pleasant was pleasure.
“We don’t have to be pleasant to each other,” she said. “At least when we’re in private. All we need do is find the stone and return to our separate lives.” She sheathed her dagger and headed back to the crowded street.
He followed.
She would find the strength to ignore him. That’s what she’d do. She’d completely ignore six feet of overly confident, sinfully handsome former best friend during the two-day journey to Paris.
“I always stay with Sir Charles Sterling, the British ambassador, when I’m in Paris,” Ravenwood informed her. “And you?”
“I always stay with Lady Catherine Hammond. She made Paris her permanent residence seven years ago and hasn’t ceased trying to convince me to do the same. I visit her for several months every year when I’m able.”