by Gayle Wilson
“That obvious?” she repeated. “Obvious enough that even yourwife knows what you’re up to?”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” he protested, “but…”
“Your intent isn’t obvious, I suppose, unless you’ve seen the same performance a number of times. As I have.”
His laughter was quick and self-directed. “If you think it’s a performance—” he began.
“Oh, I don’t doubt you mean what you say. I’m here because I know you do. It’s just that when you have the same discussion at every dinner, a discussion that leads to the same conclusion, it makes me believe it’s by design. Eventually you’ll find enough people interested that you won’t need any more-backers. And I wanted to ask you, before that happens, to let me in.”
“You want to become one of my partners?”
“If you’ll let me.”
Again there was a pause, and finally, smiling, Raven indicated the chair he’d sat in as she’d bandaged his shoulder. “Then sit down, Catherine, and let’s discuss business.”
Always business, she thought with a trace of disappointment. But this was why she’d come.
When she was seated, Raven picked up the tumbler from the bedside table and arranged himself on the edge of the disheveled bed, waiting for her to begin.
“I have a trust. A rather… substantial trust. From my grandmother. It has just come under my control, and I thought I might use that money to invest in what you’re doing.”
“Have you mentioned this plan to your father?”
“I told him what I intend to do, of course. But itis my money, Raven.”
“And how did the duke react?”
She smiled. “Do you remember the day you told him you intended to marry me, no matter what his feelings were?”
“Vividly,” he said.
The scar that had marked his cheekbone had faded, but Catherine knew he would always carry that reminder of her father’s fury.
“I think what you saw that day would be comparable. Except this time he threatened to disinherit me.”
“Do you mean he hasn’t already?” Raven asked.
She could hear his genuine surprise that what she had told him would be the inevitable result of their elopement had not come to pass. She knew then that Raven had never even checked on the status of her inheritance, that he truly was as unconcerned about the potential wealth she would bring to the marriage as he’d maintained he was at the beginning.
“And the duke suggested I had coerced you into investing your money in a very risky endeavor,” Raven continued.
“But you’re investing,” she reminded him.
“Not, I hope, everything I have. Not if I can find enough men of vision. Enough men willing to form the partnership it will take to carry out a design of this magnitude.”
“I’m simply suggesting that I become one of the partners. If the size of my trust is comparable to what you’re asking others to invest,” she said.
“It’s not the amount of your investment that I object to. It’s the idea of letting you risk everything that belongs to you personally in this scheme.”
“What’s so objectionable about that?”
“I can imagine your father told you. Probably in great detail,” Raven suggested with a slight laugh. “If the railway venture fails, every aspect of my holdings will be affected. If that happens, your trust fund looms more important as insurance that you won’t be left destitute if anything were to happen to me. If anything prevents my rebuilding.”
“But you’re not going to fail,” she argued. “And I hardly think my father would allow me to wander the streets of London if you did. Or even if something happened to you. It seems there are too many disasters that would have to occur for me to be in any real danger of destitution.”
“If I lose my investment—” he began.
“Then you’ll start over. You’ll makemore money,” she insisted. “I think you told me it’s all a matter of numbers.”
“And if something happens to me before I can accomplish this financial rebirth you’re so sure I’ll be able to bring off?”
“Do you have enemies I’m not aware of?” she asked, smiling. “You seem determined to make an early end.”
“If I have enemies, I’m also unaware of them.”
“You seem healthy. And not so very old,” she teased.
“Thank you,” he said sardonically, with a slight deepening of the indentations at the corners of his lips. “However, I think you should keep your trust fund, Catherine. If anything happens to me, you may need it. If it becomes mixed with my capital, or if you become one of the partners, everything you own will be taken to repay my debts if the rail venture fails. If anything happens to my businesses or to me personally—”
“I thought you were indestructible,” she said. Raven was giving her the same advice her father had, but without the coldly sarcastic fury that characterized her father’s every reaction to anything that involved her husband. Raven was as bent on protecting her as the duke, despite the fact that she was sure her husband could use the money she was offering.
“Only from the Ambertons of the world,” he answered lightly. “To other dangers, I’m as vulnerable as the rest.”
“You don’t seem very vulnerable to me.” Catherine was aware of the personal note that had crept into her voice. She didn’t seem to be able to conduct a business discussion with Raven. Her emotions always interfered. As they were now.
“Or very aged?” he said, his lips lifting slightly with his amusement. “Thank you, Catherine, for that vote of confidence.”
There was the briefest pause. She knew she should leave. She had made her request and had been given all the logical reasons why he wouldn’t accept what she had offered. And this business meeting should be over. But she didn’t want to go. His eyes were on his brandy and not on her. He didn’t want her here, she supposed. He probably wanted to get back to the fascination of those endless numbers that the open ledger represented.
“And I still seem very young to you?” she asked instead, prolonging the bittersweet indulgence of spending time with him.
Raven glanced up at the seriousness of her question.
“I’ve not been forgiven for that remark, I take it?”
“No,” she agreed, but she smiled at him.
“Perhaps young wasn’t what I should have said. Innocent. Protected. And none of those are meant as criticisms. They are what every eighteen-year-old girl should be.”
“Nineteen,” she corrected.
“You should have told me. I’ve missed a birthday.”
“You were away.”
“And you were imagining…”
“That you were dying.”
“And that you’d be a nineteen-year-old widow.”
“A very wealthy nineteen-year-old widow,” she said, her smile widening. At his soft laughter, she knew this was what she had wanted, what she had come for tonight—his attention. His teasing response. For whatever happened to his eyes when he relaxed enough to laugh. She had been so hungry for him. A hopeless case, she thought, mocking herself. I’m in love with my own husband and am flirting very openly with him.
“And since you’re not a wealthy widow yet, what can I do to make up for my failure to recognize such a milestone?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell you for that. I’m not angling for a birthday present. I only wanted you to know that I’m notquite so young as I was when you married me,” she said.
“I told you that wasn’t a criticism,” he answered.
He was still relaxed, and not unwilling now, she thought, to allow their conversation to continue.
“What did you do with the children?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon? Have we lost our children?”
She laughed at the teasing quality of his question, knowing his quick mind would have easily followed her tangent. “From the mines. Where do they spend the hours when their parents are working?”
“I opened schools. They go to school until their parents come home. I’m also phasing out the role of the women in the operation of my mines, and I can imagine what the Earl of Devon would say to that ridiculous practice.”
“And you pay for the schools. And the teachers.”
He nodded, waiting for her reaction. Her mockery, she supposed. No wonder he hadn’t mentioned this tonight. She, too, could imagine what Devon would say. What almost any of those men who had dined here tonight would say to that confession.
“They’ll think you’re mad,” she warned.
“Hopefully they won’t ever find out.”
“That they’ve invested money in the schemes of a madman?”
“Are you going to tell them?” he questioned, but she knew that he was again teasing her. He’d never have told her unless he believed that she wouldn’t be as appalled as his partners.
“No, but if they find out, you may need my trust fund, after all. And what do you plan to do for an encore to this insanity?”
“I was thinking about requiring safety inspections.”
“A shocking waste of money. You act as if you think miners should survive the experience,” she answered, smiling at him.
“Thatwould be a novel approach in Britain.”
“Certainly too novel for the Earl of Devon, but I don’t suppose he’ll ever become one of your backers.”
“He’s in for seventy thousand pounds. You’d be surprised what the promise of profit will do to a man’s scruples.”
“I probably would at that,” she agreed.
She rose, knowing that although she might want to stay, that didn’t mean he was having the same response to her presence. “Thank you for listening to me. And please know that if you ever need Grandmother’s money, I am more than willing to invest in your ventures.”
“Thank you, Catherine,” he said, standing also.
“Good night,” she said, turning toward the doorway.
“Do you still ride in the mornings?”
“Most mornings,” she answered, turning back to him and savoring the promising direction of that inquiry.
“Do you plan to ride tomorrow?”
“I hadn’t thought. But I suppose so, weather permitting. Would you like to join me?”
“If you’re willing to have company.”
“You’re more than welcome. Do you still have the black?”
“Driving the grooms wild. I really should exercise him.”
“At seven,” she said, naming an hour far earlier than she usually rode. She knew Raven to be an early riser.
“Sleeping in?” he inquired silkily.
“Six, but not a moment before or you may ride alone,” she amended, slipping through the door.
Behind her she heard his laughter. She was still smiling when she reached her room and chose the most flattering of her habits. And still smiling when she turned down the lamp.
The fog swirled around the horses’ hooves, slightly deadening the sound of their passage over the cobblestones. No one else, apparently, had taken advantage of the inviting crispness of the fall morning to ride, and it seemed they would have the park’s meandering bridle paths to themselves. They spoke little, Raven’s attention, despite his unquestioned skill as a horseman, demanded to control the black. He knew the blame for the stallion’s ill manners lay at his door. A lack of opportunity on his part to ride him, and the grooms too afraid of his diabolical tricks and stratagems to exercise him properly.
“So they leave him alone,” he had said to Catherine, “and then when I finally have a chance to ride, he makes clear his resentment of that neglect.”
“Then you should trythis time to give him enough of a gallop to calm his temper for a few days.”
“Do I detect a challenge?” Raven asked, glancing up from the maneuvers the black was using as his own form of challenge.
“No, but like the black, I’m afraid I’m feeling rather restless. I think I’m as much in need of exercise as he. And we seem to have the park to ourselves this morning. It’s the perfect opportunity to work off some excess energy.”
“Are you trying to tell me that the famous Catherine Raven, London’s premier hostess and style setter, sometimes feels the need of excitement other than that provided by balls and parties?” Raven mocked.
“I don’t findyou making trivial conversation with people who’ve never had a thought beyond what they should wear to the next rout or with whom they should share the next liaison.”
“I thought you enjoyed all that.”
“Enjoyed?” she said in exasperation. “Surely you can’t believe that Ienjoy all those empty exchanges.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because that was one of the requirements of our situation. I maintain our position in society…” She stopped, not sure how to word the remainder of that thought.
“While I provide the money that allows you to do so. If you’re unhappy, however, I suggest you refuse the invitations.”
“You need the contacts my mingling in society provides. Contacts with the men who dine at your table, for example. If I don’t venture out to the entertainments they frequent, then they may accept other invitations for their presence at dinner.”
“I honestly thought you enjoyed moving within the ton. You grew up accustomed to that, after all. And I thought it was every Londoner’s desire to be immersed in the kind of activities that you seem now to be dismissing as trivial and boring.”
“And you havealways found them boring,” she retorted. “I notice you’re continually too busy to accompany me.” She couldn’t help chiding him.
Raven took a moment to smooth his hand down the black’s massive neck, trying to decide how to react to Catherine’s complaint. The stallion’s restiveness had not abated, and Raven was exerting very strict control. The horse was already beginning to sweat slightly with the canter he was being held to.
“I thought that’s what you’d prefer,” he said finally, glancing up from his pretended concentration on the stallion.
“What I’d prefer?” Catherine repeated in bewilderment. “Why should you think I would prefer to go out alone, forever forced to explain why my husband is again unable to accompany me? I assure you the excuses I’ve offered are quite threadbare.”
“You should have told me,” Raven said, thinking of the endless nights he’d spent working or reading, trying to block out images of Catherine gliding across some dance floor in the arms of her latest courtier. Fighting his growing hunger simply to be with her, to touch her, to hold her in his own arms. If only he had had a hint that she’d wanted him to accompany her.
He had been trying to give her time to know him, to understand the kind of man he was and, more importantly, to realize that she could trust him. To discover that he always kept his word. And now she was apparently confessing to the same longings that haunted the lonely hours of his own existence.
“When?” she asked, anger creeping into her voice. “I never see you. You spend more time…” She stopped the bitter words. She had no right to censure Raven because he was doing what she’d expected him to do when they had begun their marriage. Except she had never thought she’d feel about him the way she now did. That didn’t mean his feelings about their situation had changed, simply because hers clearly had.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Are you implying, Catherine, that you would like to spend more time withme?”
Leave it to Raven to cut to the heart of the matter. And, indeed, what else could he possibly read into that bitter avowal? She had just complained, far too obviously, that she didn’t see enough of her own husband.
“I’m implying nothing more than I’ve been shut up in drawing rooms and ballrooms too long. I’ll race you, Raven. Like your black, I need a hard run.”
>
She heard him call her name, but she had already touched her heel to the mare, and responding to that permission and perhaps to the sharp, clear air of the fall morning, her horse had left the black behind. Catherine smiled when she heard the pounding of the stallion’s hooves following her, knowing her husband had accepted her dare. A contest she would lose, of course, but she was willing to be bested. It was enough to feel the powerful muscles beneath her and the wind trying to tangle her hair.
The race was tight enough that she wondered if Raven had reined in to give her a chance, but glorying in the freedom of the run, she didn’t care if he had. The exhilaration of the hard-fought contest was too strong to quibble over technicalities.
When she drew Storm up beside the still-anxious black, she was laughing. Raven had beaten her, but not by much, despite the superiority of his mount.
“If you had a better horse, I should be looking to my laurels,” he declared as she approached. There was a touch of red in the golden skin over his high cheekbones, and a few strands of the gleaming ebony hair had escaped their confinement. He raised an ungloved hand to smooth them back into place.
Her throat tightened at the image of that dark hand smoothing over her breasts, as his eyes had done last night. She could almost feel the sensation, the abrasive brush of callused palm and the delight of hard fingertips caressing her exposed flesh. She looked down in confusion. God, she was mad for him, and other than throwing herself into his arms, she didn’t know what she could do about it. A mental image of his disordered bed and gaping shirtfront made her close her eyes hard.
She lived in the same house with him, and every night he retired to that room. A room separated from hers by only a few feet, she realized suddenly. There was no reason not to retrace tonight the same journey she had made last night— with her quite legitimate excuse—for a very different purpose. No reason at all except her pride and her fear. He had invited her into his room last night. Somewhere, despite all the doubts and fears, she knew with sweet certainty that Raven wouldn’t refuse if she offered herself to him.
“What’s wrong?” Raven asked. Catherine had suddenly gone still, her eyes downcast and the laughing exhilaration from the race wiped away.