Raven's Bride (10 page)

Charlotte, meanwhile, had wedged herself in her corner and fallen asleep, after proclaiming it was horribly early in the morning for traveling and she was dreadfully tired and intended to sleep the whole way to Norwich, so she could spend Tom’s guineas with gusto when they finally arrived.

Anna curled herself into an ever smaller space. Charlotte snored softly. Lord Ravensbourne, slouched in his seat, his hat tipped over his eyes and a smile of unconcern playing about his mouth, continued his game of cat and mouse. The air in the carriage became increasingly hot.

A pain shot through Anna’s lower leg muscle, a protest against being cramped in such a position for so long. She would bear Lord Ravensbourne’s space-hogging techniques not a moment longer, she decided, and she uncurled herself and stretched her legs out to relieve the tension, pushing against his encroachments on her space with as much strength as she could muster.

“You are a man of no honor, and your word cannot be trusted,” she hissed quietly at him, not wanting to wake Charlotte with her complaints.

“You wound me to the heart,” he declared softly, with an air of mock concern.

“You promised you would not touch me without my permission. You gave me your solemn word.” She glared down at their legs. “I should never have believed you.”

Lord Ravensbourne held his hands out in front of her. “I am not touching you.”

“You know very well what I mean. And that is not the first time you have broken your word to me.”

He lifted his hat off his face. “When did I break my word? When have I ever touched you without your leave?”

“When you lifted me on to Beauty, you
nearly
broke your word. I could see it in your eyes. You wanted to k…kiss me. You nearly
did
kiss me. I knew then you were not a man to be trusted.”

The laughter disappeared from his eyes. “I am sorry for frightening you. It was ill-mannered and unkind.” His voice was deep with sincerity.

Anna felt a finger of guilt skitter over her spine. She had not been thoroughly honest with her cousin. Telling a lie, even a lie by omission rather than by commission, was a lash that scourged the open wounds of the Savior. “I wanted you to kiss me,” she confessed in a whisper. “I have never been kissed before and was curious to know what it was like. I would have given you leave, if you had asked.”

His mouth dropped open with shock. “You would?”

She nodded, businesslike again now her confession was done. “But that is a different matter. You never asked permission, so I never gave it to you. I am sure I shall find another man to satisfy my curiosity about kissing, if I am ever in the mind again to experiment with new sensations. Right now, however, I want some space to put my feet. I have a cramp in my calf from sitting so squashed up.”

“Here, put your leg on my knee,” he offered. “Seeing as I have caused your discomfort with my selfish ways, the least I can do is provide a remedy as well.”

She hesitated for a moment, but the discomfort in her calf was still sharp. He would not dare to be improper with his own sister sleeping opposite him. She lifted her leg and placed it on his knee, pointing her toes back up towards her and stretching the muscle to relieve the pain.

“If I may have your permission to touch your leg,” he said, his grave tones belied by the mischievous twinkle in his eye, “I could help you.”

The cramp persisted, growing stronger instead of weaker. She writhed with discomfort and gave her permission with a brief nod.

Then his warm hands were on her leg, burning his touch through the woolen fabric of her dress. They rubbed and squeezed her leg, until all that was left of the pain was a distant memory.

His hands on her leg made her feel weak with longing. What would she do if he were to run his hands higher, over her knee and up her thigh, to the secret part of her that ached for him when he touched her like that? Would she have the courage to tell him no?

Her thoughts were licentious, she reminded herself, and prompted by the enemy of the Lord. She was enough of a guilty wretch already, without adding lechery to her list of deadly sins. She would not think those thoughts any more.

She pulled her leg away from his ministrations and put it on the floor of the coach again, where he had made room for her. “Thank you. The pain has gone now.”

He reached out with one hand and captured her chin. Tilting her head back to force her to look him in the eyes, he asked softly, “May I kiss you now?”

Anna shot a look at Charlotte, sleeping in the corner of the carriage. What would she think were she to wake up to the sight of her brother and her cousin locked in an embrace? “No. You may not.”

He sighed and dropped his hand from her chin. “Then may I kiss your hand?”

With a small smile, Anna held out her hand to him. He took it and held it in his own for a moment, and then turned it over, and planted a long, warm kiss on the inside of her wrist.

She jumped at the unexpected intimacy and pulled her hand away. “Lord Ravensbourne!” she hissed, taking care not to wake Charlotte with her cry. “You should not have done that.”

His eyes looked innocently into hers. “What is the matter, little cousin? You gave me permission to kiss your hand, did you not?”

She glared at him. She had given him an inch, and he had taken an ell. “Before I give you leave to touch me again, I will weigh my words with care. I see you are an immoral, wicked man, and not to be trusted.”

It was late afternoon before they had finished their purchases, and dusk was falling by the time they returned to the manor house.

Anna kissed her cousin Charlotte and thanked Lord Ravensbourne effusively as the carriage drove up to her door again. Their trip had been a great success. Anna’s happiness had been clouded only once, when she felt her neck prickle as though someone was staring at her. She had turned her head and caught a glimpse of a red-haired man who could have looked like the squire.

Surrounded as she was by footmen and escorted by her cousin, she knew she was safe from anyone, but even so, she felt a shudder of dread pass through her.

The long period of safety and security she had passed in the house of her cousin had lulled her conscience asleep. The sight of a man who looked like the squire had instantly awakened it again, and fiery needles of tormented guilt were pricking her soul anew.

She had not seen the red-haired man again, but her reasoning had convinced her it could not possibly have been Squire Grantley. She had never known him to travel so far afield before. The chances of him happening on her in the bustling seaside town were too remote to seriously entertain. She was just nervous about being among so many people in the hustle and bustle of the busy town and was seeing danger where none existed.

Besides, he could be dead. She might have killed him. A sick feeling rose in her stomach and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. She had been so frightened and had hit him so hard…

She forced herself to bury that horrible memory in the back of her mind. Still, she had been left with a prickly sense of foreboding, and she had wearied of shopping soon after. The giddy sense of pleasure had been taken off her day and replaced with a lasting uneasiness that all was not right with the world. However hard she tried not to spoil the outing for Charlotte and to enjoy the rest of the day, she could not quite shake off her disquiet.

Lord Ravensbourne saw her to her door, deposited her purchases in the chamber where her mother was sitting, and greeted his aunt with a low bow and a kiss on each cheek before returning to the carriage.

Anna stood in the middle of the room, a small parcel in her hand, and boxes and parcels spread around her feet.

“Anna, how ever did you return with such stuff?” her mother exclaimed, as soon as the sound of Lord Ravensbourne’s feet on the stairs had died away. “With only one gold coin to spend?”

Anna held out the parcel she was carrying. “I spent it on this. For you.”

Mrs. Woodleigh unwrapped the parcel and unfolded a black stole made of fine wool. “It is beautiful, Anna,” she said, as she ran her hands through the soft folds with a look of delight on her face. “And just exactly what I have been wanting on cold mornings.” Her face clouded and she put the scarf down on her lap. “But how did you afford…”

Anna gave an embarrassed smile. “My cousins bought all the rest. I told Charlotte that I did not need a thing, but Lord Ravensbourne insisted it was his duty as my eldest male relative to ensure I was properly dressed. It is not so very much after all. A good black dress with petticoats to wear under it for going into company, a pair of slippers, and some ribbons for my hair.”

Her mother’s face was worried. “Your cousins are very good to you.”

Anna unwrapped the parcel and held out her new dress for her mother to admire. The material glimmered in the candlelight like waves on the night-black sea. “Silk,” she breathed, as she spread it out over her arm. “Isn’t it beautiful? I would not buy a color, as we are still in mourning for Papa, so Lord Ravensbourne insisted on buying me silk, instead of the wool I had picked out. The wool was more practical, but the silk was so beautiful I could not say him nay. Is he not good to me?”

Mrs. Woodleigh didn’t reply. Her face looked troubled as she ran her hand over the flawless fabric.

Her very silence was an eloquent reproach. Anna dropped to her knees before her mother. “Have I vexed you by taking the clothes? Indeed, I did not think you would be upset, or I would never have accepted them.”

Her mother stroked her hair for some moments without speaking. “You didn’t vex me, my love,” she said. “But I do not like to see a gentleman buying you clothes.”

“He is my cousin,” Anna offered, aware of how feeble her excuse sounded, even to her own ears.

“But no blood relation. And he has been so generous to us—letting us live in the dower house, teaching you to ride, buying you clothes…”

“And a beautiful gray mare,” Anna added, feeling a sense of guilt creep over her.

“I see bad motives everywhere,” her mother continued, “but I would not like to see my little lamb come to harm. Lord Ravensbourne had not tried to take advantage of your youth and innocence?”

“He has promised never to touch me without my permission,” Anna declared boldly. Then she remembered how close he had been to kissing her, and how much she had wanted him to. She could still feel the touch of his hand on her leg and how it had made her feel all hot and shivery in the pit of her stomach. She felt her face color.

“I do not like that he felt he needed to make that promise. Such promises are made only to be broken. Maybe,” her mother suggested, as she searched Anna’s face closely, “you should not spend so much time with Lord Ravensbourne. He is a fine gentleman and a friend of the king’s, and you are penniless and dependant on him for your protection. And he is only a man…”

Anna felt her flush deepen, and her mother’s words struck home. Her mother was right to warn her. She should not have accepted her cousin’s gifts. She would avoid his company when she could.

She did not fear Lord Ravensbourne would try to harm her, but if he asked leave to kiss her again when Charlotte was not by, she was afeared she would say yes. And that would mean forsaking her father’s teachings and her mother’s admonitions for the beguiling words of a man whom she could not bring herself to trust.

Her cousin was handsome and kind. He would have the pick of all the local girls, and all the women at court, too, she would hazard a guess, when he chose to marry.

She did not flatter herself that he would choose her. He liked her and indulged her as if she were his own sister, but he was not in love with her. No doubt he would trifle with her, if she gave him the opportunity—he was one of the king’s men, after all, and not one of the Company of saints as her father had been. She meant no more to him than the stable cat—useful for catching the mice who stole the horses’ grain, but not essential to his health or happiness.

Whereas, if she were to be true to the deepest inclinations of her heart, she would confess that Lord Ravensbourne was coming to mean all the world to her. If she did not wean her heart from him, she was in a fair way of having her heart set to be broken.

Melcott held his stick with a firm grasp and stepped carefully into the darkness of the narrow alley. He motioned to the man waiting there for him, a large brown cape concealing his body and his feathered and beribboned hat pulled down low over his forehead to hide his shock of red hair. “In the milliner’s just opposite,” he said curtly.

The man disappeared around the corner. Melcott gazed after him as if he could strike him dead by looking.

In half a moment he was back again, and Melcott schooled his face into some semblance of friendship. To do the Lord’s work, it was occasionally necessary to deceive the wicked. Such deceit was no sin, but a step on the path to righteousness. “Is she the one you are searching for?”

The red-haired man nodded, his face alive with wickedness and lechery. “Aye, she’s the one alright. And a merry dance she had led me, too. I will make her pay for it, good and proper, when I catch up with her again.”

“It will not be as easy as you may think, Squire,” he sneered. “She has a protector now.”