by Lenora Bell
Bollocks! Maybe whisky hadn’t been such a brilliant plan.
It was time for the unsavory jokes. They couldn’t talk about their conflict, their past, or anything else that would be detrimental to her heart.
She poured another glass of whisky for him and a much smaller one for herself. “Have you heard the one about the sign on the bawdy-house door?”
“Come again?”
“While that would be a good sign,” she admitted, “but this one said, ‘We’re not home. Take the well-beaten path.’”
He snorted. “Do you even know what that means?”
“Certainly I do. And there’s more where that jest came from. I’ve a whole arsenal of bawdy jokes at the ready.”
“Indy.” He set his empty cup on the seat beside him. “This really isn’t a competition, you know. You don’t have to best me at everything. You can drop the bravura act.”
“I’m merely being a congenial traveling companion. And maybe it’s not an act. You don’t know me anymore. This could be what I’m like with my intimates.”
“What intimates? As far as I know your only friends are your brother and his wife. You’re married to your archaeological work. Your idea of excitement is a fourteen-hour excavation in a dusty old burial site. You spend more time with skeletons than living society.”
Don’t lose your temper. You’re made of ice, remember?
“At least my passion is for the betterment of womankind, not simply my own immediate gratification. And I’ve sacrificed much for my work—my reputation, for one thing. Mamas shield their daughters from me as if my independent spirit might rub off on their precious offspring like polish from a boot.”
“I’m certain mothers shield their daughters more stringently from me than from you.”
“But that’s because you’re fulfilling everyone’s expectations, not flouting them. You’re supposed to be an arrogant rogue whose collection of lovers is only eclipsed by his private collection of antiquities.” Her shoulder bumped against the window. She was as far away from him as possible now. “It’s so very unoriginal, Ravenwood.”
And it still made her so furious.
Despite all her resolutions to remain emotionless, the all-too-familiar anger swelled up as if she’d hit her mind with a hammer by accident. He’d chosen such a useless life over the one they’d planned together.
She’d carried this pit of anger in her belly for so long, like she’d swallowed the pit of a peach. It felt like it could choke her. But she would never ever ask him why he’d changed. Why he’d stopped answering her letters.
You can’t walk backward into the future. What’s done is done.
She opened her novel, even though it was too dark now to see more than shadows outside the windows.
The words on the page were too blurry to read.
It was always like this when she was with him. One moment she wanted to jump into his lap, and the next she wanted to lash out and find a way to hurt him, as he’d hurt her.
The whisky seemed to make it worse, if anything.
Those feelings should be dead and buried. They shouldn’t be haunting her still.
Indy’s straight-slashing dark eyebrows drew closer. He’d angered her, as he always did. She was tucked into one side of the commodious coach, no longer playing the out-rogue-the-rogue game. The severely cut blue wool coat she wore had epaulets, like a military captain.
She didn’t need feminine adornments to be the most beautiful woman in any room. Her eyes were jewels enough. Her sable hair the only silk she required.
This was familiar ground. They were back to arguing. All was well with the world.
And yet . . . he wanted to make her smile, not frown.
He wanted to defend himself, defend his choices.
Tell her that he lived in service to a higher purpose, that he took pride in his work, and was one of the best at what he did. Or he had been the best until that day in Athens.
Until . . . but he wouldn’t think of that now. He’d been having nightmares about it every night. Dreams where he didn’t make it off the street and he watched himself bleed to death from somewhere outside of his body.
His specialty was controlling conflicts. He either resolved them, or he prevented them from happening.
The threads of a complicated conflict, the egos involved, the profit and fortunes to be made, the lives that would be lost—he gathered all of the intelligence and wove it into plausible scenarios and then he found the thread to pick to unravel the war before it began.
The Rosetta Stone theft could start a war, there was no doubt about it.
Indy was part of the plan to recover the stone, nothing more.
“We can’t all be noble crusaders for a cause. Some of us like our world of familiar creature comforts,” he remarked.
“I will always choose the road less traveled,” she replied. “I’m trying to achieve something worthwhile with my life. I need the stone more than you do and that’s why I’m here. I’m also here because I don’t trust you not to sell it to the highest bidder,” she said cuttingly.
That caught Raven off guard. “You think I’d betray my country?”
“I think you’re on the side of Ravenwood above all else. It’s your interests that drive every decision you make. Which mistress to take, which treasure to hunt, which velvet waistcoat to wear . . . it’s all self-serving.”
“I may be selfish, but I’m not a traitor.”
The word hung in the air between them. Traitor. His own father had been accused of High Treason. Part of the reason Raven had become a secret agent was so that he could exonerate his father. The charges had never been proven, but they hadn’t been fully dropped, either.
“Very well, you wouldn’t sell the stone,” she conceded. “But you do have items in your collection that belong in museums.”
“You’ve never kept any treasure for yourself?”
“Never. I’m on the side of history. The stone should be in a museum, nowhere else. I don’t much care which museum, as long as I have access to it. Although ladies never do have the access they deserve to educational resources.”
“I didn’t make the rules, Indy.”
“But you profit by them. In your world the line between the sexes is sharply divided. Men are given most of the pie, and women are left to make do with a slender slice.”
“You’re an exception. You have to admit that many females simply aren’t cut out for strenuous pursuits.”
She set her book down on the seat with a thump. “Said every man who ever tried to justify denying a female an education or an opportunity.”
Lewd, crude, and rude. The Ravenwood she knew and loathed, he reminded himself.
“What if all the women started chasing after antiquities?” he asked with a calculated smirk. “There’d be no one left to share my bed.”
“That doesn’t even deserve a response,” she said scathingly.
“Are you going to tell me why you require the stone so badly? I gather you’re translating a hieroglyphic.”
“My aim isn’t your concern. We share a goal for a few weeks and then I go my way and you go yours. You descend back into the murky hell you call a life and I go about the business of making history.”
“Making history. Must be a prestigious prize you’re after.”
“I only have one life to live. I want it to mean something. I want to make the world a better place for young girls. A world where they’re encouraged to follow their interests and talents. Where they’re given the education to achieve their goals. Where their achievements are measured by the same criteria as their male counterparts. Someday that world will exist. I know it will. And when it does, I want to have done my part. I want the women of the future to look back and know that I helped open one small door for them by illuminating the lives of unconventional females throughout history.”
He wanted to shout huzzah! and raise his cup to her.
As a young boy, he’d believed that all girl
s could jump as high, run as fast, outsmart, out-maneuver, and generally best any boy they met.
He’d grown up knowing that girls were the equals, if not the superiors, of boys.
Then he’d gone off to the secret spy training school, were girls were excluded, and they’d tried to make him believe that he was superior because of the thing dangling between his legs, but he hadn’t bought what they were selling.
Indy had ruined him for that notion since birth.
He wanted to say these things aloud.
What he said was: “You’ve always had your head in the clouds, Indy.”
“And you weren’t always such a horse’s arse, Ravenwood.”
She opened her book and pretended to read but he could tell she was fuming.
He didn’t want her to hate him but he must maintain a safe distance. A gulf of animosity and mistrust. Otherwise he might be tempted to tell her how amazing he thought she was. Or how much he believed in what she was trying to do.
He had to be content with doing whatever he could behind the scenes to make sure she achieved her goals. Several times he’d intervened on her behalf during her archaeological expeditions, remaining anonymous, of course.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“My Lady Spy, by Mrs. Edgecombe.” She held up the cover for him to see. “Spy novels are quite popular now since the Napoleonic wars. I thought this might prove useful for our expedition. Have you read any spy novels?”
I live them. This was a treacherous topic. “Can’t say I have. I think I’ll try and sleep now. You should as well.” He turned away from her, balling his greatcoat into a pillow, and stretched out on the bench.
Spy novels were off-limits.
So was speaking his true feelings. Not that he had feelings. Brick wall. Blunt instrument.
He truly had assumed she’d bring a chaperone. He should have known Indy never did anything the conventional way.
This journey would be over soon. Recover the stone. See that no harm came to Indy.
Try to ignore how beautiful she looked in the gathering dark, how her lips turned the color of wine.
How he wanted so badly to taste her again.
Chapter 10
Indy shivered as he touched the base of her neck, his fingers following the bone-knots of her spine down her back.
She wore only a thin shift and it was pooled around her waist, her breasts bared for him in the cold air.
He was seated behind her.
Was he naked as well? She turned her head to see.
His white shirt hung open and he wore a kilt. A kilt? A tartan woven from reds and blues.
And his hair was . . . she snuck another glance. His hair was long. Grown past his shoulders, long and thick and tangled. My, it had grown so fast.
She shivered with desire.
“Are you wearing anything underneath that kilt?” she asked.
“Not a stitch, lass,” he whispered in her ear in a thick Scottish brogue. He lifted the hem of his kilt and she quickly averted her gaze.
“You’re not Scottish, Ravenwood,” she scolded.
“Call me Raven,” he whispered hoarsely.
She gulped. Small intimacies, familiar names. She’d known that his intimate friends called him Raven. Not Daniel, not Ravenwood. A new name. A new intimacy.
“Remove your shirt, Raven,” she whispered boldly.
Solid arms folded around her, his head in the crook of her neck, his breath rustling across her cheek like wind through the last remaining leaves of an oak tree in winter.
“You’ve always wanted to touch me, Indy, and I want to touch you,” he whispered.
“Where?” Please let it be where she hoped . . .
“Here.” His hand skimmed across to her belly and lower, cupping her mound through her thin shift. Exactly where she’d hoped.
The shift melted away and he flicked his fingers over her sex in the way she liked the best. He was so good at this part. He was good at all the parts.
She found her bliss quickly, arching backward into his arms, surrounded by his strength and consumed by passion.
She reached behind her, tracing the shape of his staff through the wool of the kilt. She slipped underneath the kilt, finding the hot silk of him, sliding her hand around him. He moaned into her ear, thrusting into her palm.
His hand moved to cover her throat, shifting her head to one side so that he could kiss her while remaining behind her.
Throat exposed and vulnerable in his large hands.
His kiss rough and uncontrolled.
She loved the way his fingers closed around her delicate throat. She knew he would never hurt her. That he only wanted to give her the most exquisite pleasure.
Again, and again . . . and again.
His lips tasted exactly like Peatmoor Old Scotch whisky. When he broke the kiss she giggled. “Mellow. Soft. Delightful,” she quoted from an advertisement for the whisky.
“Mellow time is over,” he said forcefully.
His hands closed around her hips, lifting her to her knees. His body fell across her back, his weight so heavy, his hardness nudging between her legs.
She fell forward onto her wrists, bum raised in the air.
His arm curled around her waist and his fingers spread the lips of her sex.
“I’m going to take you from behind,” he growled.
He bent her forward onto the carriage seat . . . only the carriage had disappeared. They were on an enormous bed with midnight-blue velvet curtains around them.
He pinned both her wrists with one large hand while he positioned himself behind her.
He moaned, louder this time. It didn’t sound like a moan of pleasure. Had she hurt him somehow?
“Raven . . . ?”
A low growling, like a cornered animal.
Indy lurched awake. She brushed damp hair away from her eyes.
Raven was moaning in his sleep. In the darkness he was only a huge shape curled on the carriage seat, one arm flung over his head.
He moaned again, louder this time. He must be having a nightmare.
She jostled across the coach and sat down near his head. His skin was clammy, his forehead hot. He was sweating.
Maybe he had a fever.
He formed no words, only that low moaning in the back of his throat.
His body was so tense. She kneaded his shoulder, the one she could reach. Taut, solid muscle.
“Shhh,” she whispered. She soothed a hand across his brow.
Suddenly his body shifted, sliding up the seat toward her. He settled his large head in her lap with a contented sigh. His arm settled around her hip.
He stilled, and his breathing quieted.
She didn’t dare move.
She brushed her fingers through his thick hair, stroking his brow. What had he been dreaming of to make him so agitated?
His father had died when he was so young. She knew everything about him before that moment, and she knew the letters he had sent her from school, and then, after the letters stopped coming, she knew next to nothing substantial.
What had changed him? What had transformed him from the mischievous, yet honest and kindhearted boy she’d known into this immoral scoundrel?
In the darkness of the carriage his shadowed face was less sculpted—more vulnerable, so like the young boy she’d known.
What demons made him cry out in his sleep? She’d always pictured him sleeping soundly, limbs sprawled wide, with a beautiful woman in his bed to cater to his every whim.
He must have unknotted his cravat and yanked open his shirt in his sleep. One button was missing, causing his white linen shirt to gape open at the neck.
You’re making a habit of touching me, Indy . . .
She couldn’t help herself. She slipped her hand inside his shirt to touch his breastbone, expecting to meet smooth flesh, dusted by hair. What she found was a ridged scar, very close to his heart.
With a feather-light touch she explored more. He had
other scars, raised lines as if from the slash of a knife. Round knots of scar tissue in two places that could be bullet wounds.
How had he received such scars? It didn’t add up with what she knew about his life.
He’d been knifed. Shot. Was the stolen-antiquities business so dangerous? She’d never heard of him fighting any duels or being involved in any altercations.
The hard knot of recent scar tissue near his heart made her feel protective. The thought that this huge, strong man beneath her fingertips had stopped a bullet with his muscle and bone. He’d survived an attack, several attacks, and he’d hidden it from the world . . . from her.
This man she thought she detested . . . and definitely desired.
She thought she knew him.
Maybe she didn’t know him at all.
He’d hurt her feelings and betrayed her, but she’d never once considered that perhaps he’d been hurt as well. Perhaps he had motives she may not have considered. There could be more to his story, more to him than met the eye.
He lifted his head suddenly. She tried to remove her hand from his chest but strong fingers trapped her hand in a firm grip, just like in her dream.
A rush of heat flooded her belly.
He was awake. And she’d been caught with her hand down his shirt.
Raven’s head was cradled in Indy’s lap. She had her hand down his shirt.
She’d touched his scar.
She knows everything.
Don’t be foolish. All she knows is that you have a few scars. Laugh it off.
He released her wrist and sat up. “I knew the whisky would make you want to seduce me. I didn’t know it would be while I slept.”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “You called out in your sleep. You were having a nightmare. Are you feeling well?”
He’d been dreaming about Athens again.
“Quite well.” He buttoned his shirt. “Did you rip open my shirt?” he asked incredulously, realizing that the top button was missing.