by Gayle Wilson
He didn’t let himself consider what he intended to do if the danger was as real as his prescience warned. He had fought Montfort’s man in the garden without using his hands. Whatever the duke had planned this time Raven was more than willing to face. He was tired, however, of dealing with his father-in-law’s henchmen. Despite what it would do to Catherine, he knew the day of their personal confrontation could not be put off much longer.
Slipping his arms into the sleeves, he allowed the tunic to fall over his head, fitting his body as smoothly as it had when the old woman had given it to him. It covered the massive shoulders without a wrinkle, the finely tanned skin tightening over his flat belly and then ending in a fringed edge that touched against the muscles of his powerful thighs. The breeches took him more time, but finally they were secured on the slim hips, fitting loosely over his legs. The laces made the moccasins impossible, he knew, and so he left them in the bottom of the chest.
He stepped back to the bed, almost hidden in the shadows. Only moonlight illuminated the chamber now. Using the tip of the finger that protruded farthest from the bandage, he touched the curve of Catherine’s hip. She didn’t stir, and not knowing what threat he might face downstairs, Raven didn’t wake her. He stood a moment in the darkness, looking down on her, barely able to see her in the dimness of the bedroom, remembering. And then he disappeared into the blackness of the hallway.
He glided like fog, ghostlike, across the grounds of the London town house, blending into the darkened contours of broken light and patterned shade. Hidden by the shifting moonlight and the drifting shadows cast by floating clouds. Noiseless and patient, Raven examined the mansion’s environs, using eyes that had been trained from childhood to make use of whatever light the night allowed. And he found nothing. No threat to the woman who slept above.
Some instinct guided him to the expanse of glass that backed the main salon. His senses still screaming alarm, he reentered the house through one of those tall Palladian windows. He knew his entry had been noiseless, but the man seated in one of the chairs Catherine had chosen to compliment the soaring dimensions of the room seemed remarkably unsurprised by his presence. There was no betraying start of the graceful hand.
His Grace, the Duke of Montfort, allowed his glass to complete the journey it had begun to his thin lips. He sipped, and then savored the excellence of his son-in-law’s brandy.
“Come in,” he invited softly.
“Since itis my home,” Raven agreed, stepping down from the low sill onto the gleaming oak of the floor.
“Would you care for a warming draught against the night’s chill?” Montfort asked, lifting his own glass in invitation. The crystal caught a moonbeam and flickered briefly in the dimness.
“Thank you, no,” he replied, his tone as polite as the duke’s.
With his long, graceful stride Raven moved halfway across the salon, to where he could see the old man clearly. He was dressed in full evening dress, its elegance and cut in keeping with the current mode. The size of the diamond in his cravat and the scattered fobs, however, proclaimed that the duke belonged to a generation whose tastes had formed before Brummel’s strictures had forbidden such evidence of wealth.
“You wanted to see me,” Raven suggested, waiting. The next move was Montfort’s, and apparently he had come here to make it.
“Not particularly,” the old man answered, smiling.
“Then why are you here?”
“Unfinished business?” Montfort mocked, one brow arching.
“No hirelings?” Raven asked, his tone as sardonic.
“I didn’t think I’d need them. Not to eliminate vermin.”
Raven’s lips involuntarily tightened at the insult, but he controlled any other reaction. It was no shock that Montfort hated him, the old man had been open about that from the beginning. The only surprising thing was that the duke himself was here tonight. But, Raven acknowledged with some satisfaction, his hirelings had proved less than dependable, so apparently the old bastard had decided to take things into his own elegant hands.
At that thought, Raven’s eyes found the frail white fingers and found them once again gently caressing the object they held. Not, this time, the gold lorgnette. A pistol appeared fleetingly under the restless movement of the duke’s exquisitely jeweled hands. Raven’s gaze lifted to meet the dark, unfathomable gleam of Montfort’s eyes.
“Because I’m not good enough for your daughter?” he asked.
“No one ever was. All they wanted was the money, like the bastard who tricked her before. Making her think he loved her, and that I’d accept the match. Fortune hunters. Bloodsuckers.”
“So you tried to kill him. When you caught them.”
“Catherine told you the story?” The duke sounded surprised.
“No,” Raven admitted. “It was my lord Amberton who shared that particular… gossip.” He remembered the viscount’s suggested ending to the escapade, an ending that he knew now, without any shadow of doubt, had been a lie.
“What did he tell you about my daughter?” Montfort asked. His tone had changed subtly, the mockery erased.
“Whatever he… suggested, I promise you he paid for.”
“Is that why you broke his arm?”
“Yes,” Raven said, his lips lifting in remembrance of how satisfying that encounter had been, despite its cost.
“Not because he stabbed you, then.”
The blue eyes refocused on the duke’s face. “How did you know that?” Raven asked.
“I’ve made it my business to know all about you, Mr. Raven. I thought I had a vested interest in acquiring that knowledge.”
“Because of Catherine.”
“Yes.”
“And then you decided to get rid of me.”
The old man didn’t speak for a moment, the movement of his hands on the pistol again drawing Raven’s attention.
“To free Catherine and allow her to marry someone more suitable,” Raven continued.
“That was my original intent,” Montfort agreed.
“Rather ineptly handled. I’m surprised at you, your grace. That’s not your reputation.”
“It’s so difficult to get good help these days,” the old man murmured, smiling slightly.
“And if Catherine doesn’t want another husband?” Raven asked, moving closer to the chair where his father-inlaw sat.
“I’ve always believed I know more about what Catherine requires for happiness than she. She’s innocent of the evil that walks the world, still inclined to romance rather than reality.”
“Making her a widow is your idea of an introduction to reality?” Raven asked mockingly, as he took another step closer to the chair. “Have you asked your daughter what she wants?”
“I believe I know.”
“Amberton,” Raven suggested.
“Amberton made himself very agreeable, always a willing and acceptable escort for Catherine. A friend and companion to me.”
“But there’s one problem. She’s not in love with Amberton.”
“In our society being ‘in love’ is not generally considered a requirement for a successful marriage.”
“A marriage of convenience,” Raven suggested, smiling. Just as he had promised Catherine. When all along his intentions had been quite different.
“As was yours. At least, in the beginning,” the duke said.
Raven was beginning to register the surprising fact that the Duke of Montfort possessed that information about his daughter’s marriage, and then he watched as the pistol in the frail white hand began to track upward toward his body. He was not close enough to rush Montfort before he could fire, not close enough to dislodge the weapon with a kick. He could see the muzzle, a dark eye, move unerringly toward his heart.
“Now, Mr. Raven,” the duke ordered.
Reacting to that command, a threat that was also a warning, Raven dived sideways, throwing his body in a controlled roll across the salon, even as the echoing report shattered the qui
et.
The movement that brought Raven to a crouching stance, hidden in the most deeply shadowed corner of the room, was simply a continuation of that which had taken him out of the path of the duke’s bullet. Adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream, his big body poised for whatever threat the duke would offer now, Raven waited, the blue gaze fastened on the small, satisfied smile that touched the thin lips of Catherine’s father. The light caught the enormous ruby the duke wore on his right hand as he laid the smoking gun on the small table beside his chair.
“It’s very gratifying to find that one hasn’t lost all one’s skills to age,” Monfort said musingly, his hand now caressing the smooth translucence of the glass that held his brandy. The ball that had shattered the filial of the chair in which the old man sat had come within an inch of his head. There were small splinters of dark wood caught in the shining white hair.
Taking a deep breath, Raven’s gaze followed the duke’s across the wide expanse of the room to the same window through which he had entered earlier. The sprawled body of the Viscount Amberton rested half inside and half out. The fingers of his outstretched arm were locked around the dueling pistol that lay on the edge of the oriental rug. Even in the shadowed dimness, the gleam of blond hair was unmistakable in the moonlight which spilled from the sweep of glass behind the body. It touched also the still-open, rapidly glazing eyes of the English aristocrat.
“Amberton,” Raven whispered.
“Of course,” the duke confirmed. “He had far more reason to want you dead than I. I’m surprised you failed to realize that.”
“Because I broke his arm?” Raven questioned, his eyes coming back to Montfort’s reactive smile.
“Because you took from him everything he had worked so hard to acquire. Catherine. Her trust fund. And eventually, of course he believed, the control of my wealth at my death. When you married Catherine, all of that disappeared from his reach. He had spent years insuring that those things would be his. I always did think he was a trifle toadying. However, one becomes too accustomed to that. Until I met you, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to encounter someone unintimidated by my money and position. It was rather refreshing,” the duke admitted.
“Refreshing,” Raven repeated, finally remembering to breathe. Amberton and not the old man. And he realized the echo he had heard when the duke fired had not been an echo at all. It had been the viscount’s shot, aimed at his own unprotected back.
“Damned coward,” Montfort said, his gaze again on the dead aristocrat he had once chosen as his son-in-law. “I knew when Catherine told me he’d stabbed an unarmed man that he would never do. And then when Reynolds explained the financial situation—”
“The rail project?” Raven asked, trying to follow.
“Amberton’s situation,” the duke said impatiently. “He was dead broke. Had been living on his mortgages for years. And then when we signed the marriage agreements, he’d taken out an additional, rather substantial loan from the moneylenders, secured solely by my signature on those documents. Only—”
“The marriage never occurred because Catherine eloped.”
“And Amberton was left with no prospects and too many wasted years. Apparently, the situation embittered him enough that he became…unbalanced, which led to his repeated attempts to kill you. He thought that if he got rid of you, things would return to the way they had been before. The way theyshould be. He would become my son-in-law.”
“And Catherine’s husband,” Raven said, thinking of that bastard’s hands and mouth again profaning his wife’s body. He blocked the image from his mind with the greatest effort of will, wondering what would have happened had he not escaped from the shaft.
He suddenly remembered the man who had greeted him in his own garden on his return. Montfort’s henchman.
“Then why did I find your hireling on my grounds?” he asked.
“I told you if you couldn’t protect my daughter, I would.”
“He was here to guard Catherine?”
“Of course. I employ a large number of people, and I use them however I see fit. To guard this house. To spy on Amberton. That’s how. I knew what he intended tonight. I pay quite well for information. Amberton would have liked to hire another assassin, but unfortunately he was out of funds. His creditors were closing in, the threat of Newgate very real, and there was nothing he could do. Except, perhaps, take revenge on the man who was responsible.”
“I thought you were the one hiring assassins,” Raven said.
“Why should I want you dead, Mr. Raven? I believe that Catherine…” The duke hesitated, always hating to admit an error. “I think Catherine has grown to like you,” he finished finally, but he had the grace to blush at Raven’s laugh.
“I believe you might be right, your grace.”
“And your marriage is no longer a business arrangement.”
“Catherine said you wanted to arrange a divorce.”
“That was before she told me what she felt. My first consideration has always been Catherine’s happiness.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Raven promised. “I always—”
“Keep your contracts,” the old man finished for him. “So I’ve been told. And since I believe Catherine is waiting upstairs…” He smiled.
“What about Amberton?” Raven asked, his eyes moving back to the man who had tried on at least three occasions to kill him. As he had come here tonight to do. Raven could feel no regret for Amberton’s death, but there would be the necessary cleaning up, explanations to the authorities as to why the viscount’s body had been found in his home and who had fired the fatal shot.
“A wedding present?” the old man suggested. “I owe you one, I believe. I think I have enough influence to handle the explanations. And if not, I certainly have enough money.”
Hard blue eyes met the fathomless dark ones. Their gazes held, and slowly the blue ones softened and the stern line of Raven’s lips relaxed enough to move into a controlled smile.
“Thank you,” he said, and watched the graceful incline of the erect white head. “And now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Of course. Pressing business, I suppose…which will be less pressing shortly, I imagine.” The duke’s lips twitched quickly and then were still. He lifted his lorgnette to survey the figure of the man who stood, relaxed, and unintimidated as always, before him. Montfort’s gaze drifted over the supple skins that had been used to fashion the long tunic Raven wore over the matching leggings.
“Remind me, Raven,” he said,“not to ask your tailor’s name, a gentleman whose acquaintance I prefer not to make.”
Raven laughed suddenly, the straight white teeth a surprise in the bronze face. “Do you know, your grace,” be said, still smiling, “I believe you’re mistaken. I think you would enjoy meeting my… tailor. You and she are, I think, two of a kind.”
The duke’s head tilted slightly, questioning the comment. But Raven had already turned, his long strides carrying him swiftly away from the old man’s presence. He crossed the salon, and when he had left the room where his father-in-law continued to sip his brandy, he began to move with greater speed.
By the time he reached the grand, curving staircase, he bounded upward, taking the stairs two at a time, his mind no longer occupied by images of the stiffening body or even by the old brigand he’d found sitting at ease in his salon, but on the woman that he’d left sleeping above when he’d dressed and set out on his mission tonight. Only on Catherine.
She was lying as he had left her, in the center of the vast bed. The width of mattress that stretched on either side of her slightly curled figure emphasized her smallness.
His throat closed with emotion as he stood looking down on her. He had wanted her from the first time he had seen her in the noisy London street. And he wanted her still. He could feel desire for her welcoming embrace move painfully through his groin. He would never tire of touching her. Of holding her, possessing her and being possessed by her.
And eventually there would be far more: the intimacy of the mind, shared stories, laughing remembrances of growing up. Separated in experience by the vast differences between the worlds into which each had been born, they would begin to bridge the gulf between them by talking, by sharing memories. Lying in this bed, night after night, they would begin again to find the ease of companionship of those long-ago private dinners, which he had been surprised to discover Catherine seemed to relish as much as he. Those quiet meals had provided the hope he had lived on during those empty months. And now here, again, they could talk—long conversations interrupted by lovemaking, unhurried and relaxed. Or shatteringly urgent.
My wife, he thought, with the same amazement that had sometimes possessed him as he looked across the dinner table lined with high-ranking guests and watched her insure the success of the evening for everyone present without seeming to exert herself in the slightest. He remembered the innocence she had revealed about her own body and about the mysteries of his, mysteries that she was rapidly unraveling. Child and woman. Assured and then so charmingly uncertain. Sweetly and seriously questioning. She hadn’t minded his delighted laughter last night when a query caught him off guard. She had laughed with him, pounding a small, ineffectual fist against his chest. Until, laughing, he’d pulled her to him, carrying her down into the softness of the mattress to hold her captive beneath his body.
Raven struggled awkwardly out of the tunic. Its fall to the floor was followed eventually by the trousers, until finally he stood nude once again, looking down on the small sleeper. He placed one bandaged hand gently over the smoothness of her upper leg, against the pale perfection of her body.
At his touch she moved, turning so that she could look up at him sleepily. She put her warm, soft hand over his forearm, avoiding the bandage. Remembering and caring.