Spellbound (20 page)

Pausing, gathering her
thoughts, she hummed lightly under her breath. It was a song she
couldn’t remember learning, had just always known. It gave her
peace; it was her mantra.

She was startled into
silence when two more voices joined in, right behind her, then a
third.

Spinning, she immediately
recognized Linnet as the third voice. That made sense. Raven had
often sang it to the girl as a baby and even up through her middle
years.

The other two were Dunston
and Gervase, humming so softly, she could barely hear
them.

“It was you,” she
whispered, locking eyes with the Marquess of Dunston. “I assumed it
was Fa—Mr. Emerson who had taught me, but it was you.” And it
followed that Gervase would know it too.

“It is apparent to everyone
here that you are my daughter,” the old man said gently.

“So where does that leave
us?”

“It is up to you, my dear.
If you want to accept us, we are more than willing to accept you.
If you choose not to, however, you may return to whatever life
pleases you.”

Magnanimous indeed, she
thought.

“If I choose to be
recognized, what happens to Linnet?”

The girl chose to interpose
her own suggestion. “I will live with Adam and Bri and learn to be
a sleuth.” Her face was lit with pleasurable anticipation. Adam
groaned.

Dunston laughed. “The child
has some ideas of her own, it would seem. But I shall not toss her
on the street if that is your worry.”

“You would make her a
servant.” It was not a question.

Gervase laughed. “My fault,
father. I led her to believe that was what you would do.” Turning
to his sister, he said, “I was merely testing you out, sister. I
never believed you would actually agree to turn the girl you
believed to be your blood into little more than a bonded slave. Had
you been the avaricious little adventuress at first suspected, you
would have leapt at the chance to remove her as a
responsibility.”

Quirking one brow in
imitation of Adam at his most skeptical, Raven said, “Thank you…I
think.”

Returning her penetrating
stare to the marquess, she asked, “What of my past? Will you put it
about that I never was the Ebony Swan? Or will you simply ignore
those who talk and pretend it never happened?”

At that, the marquess
hesitated. “Again, it would be for you to decide.”

“To be honest,” she told
them all, “I’m rather proud of my career as an actress. There are
certain…things…I’ve done in the course of my career of which I’m
not particularly proud, but they are a part of my past. I wonder if
the past can be left in the past. Or will it be trotted out upon
occasion to remind me of how generous you are in accepting me back
into the family fold?”

Her words were aimed like
darts, and like darts, drew blood.

Lord Dunston flushed,
whether in embarrassment or anger was anybody’s guess. “I would not
do so apurpose, I assure you.”

Raven nodded, as if
satisfied. Tristan watched her narrowly. She locked eyes with him
and he knew what she was going to ask next.

“What of my marriage to
Lord Windhaven? Would your recognition make it legal?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes implored Tristan
to understand. He felt his heartbeat slow to a stop, waiting for
her next words.

Raven hated what she was
about to do. She gazed around the room, meeting everyone’s eyes,
one by one.

Lady Windhaven gave her a
smile and wink, encouraging her to accept, she knew.

Lady Preston and her
husband wore twin expressions of disappointed sorrow, as though
they knew she would accept and were already mourning Tristan’s
incipient misery. Their son seemed pensive, but he was not an easy
person to read.

Freya scowled as usual;
Linnet sat biting her lip, a sure sign she was thinking of
something other than the proceedings. Adam was blank-faced, leaving
the decision entirely up to her.

Lady Montgomery glared
awfully, as she had since Raven had joined the household. Lady
Hetty murmured to Horatio in an undertone, telling the animal only
God knew what about them all.

And Tristan, ah, Tristan.
The poor man sat with his face set in lines of displeasure, afraid
of hoping, but knowing deep down what her response would
be.

Turning back to the man she
know knew was her father, and the man she knew was her brother, she
said in a dead voice, “I am very sorry, my lords. I am not your
daughter, nor your sister.”

The duke thought he just
might cry. His eyes filled with tears and it was only by an inhuman
amount of will that he managed to keep them from slipping down his
cheeks.

They had been given a
chance and she had thrown it away for what basically amounted to
her silly pride.

With a frustrated growl, he
stood, intending to take his leave with as little grace as humanly
possible.

At the last second, he
stopped beside his love, staring up at the ceiling. When he spoke,
his voice was raw with emotion, defeated, saddened,
and…lost.

“It always has to be your
way, doesn’t it, Rae?”

When she didn’t respond, he
glanced down at her. “Will you so easily forget what we were, what
we are, to each other?” Moving fractionally closer, he whispered,
“Will you forget this?”

He moved so quickly that
she didn’t know what to expect. With an arm around her waist, he
pulled her flush against him. She was sure he would mark her
somehow but…

It was the tenderest of
kisses he placed on her lips. He drew back almost before she felt
it. Opening eyes that had closed of their own accord, she stared up
into misty green eyes, aching with love.

And her own eyes filled
with tears. “I love you,” she whispered. And determinedly pushed
away from him.

Moving away, she turned her
back on him and walked out the door.

And just like that, she was
gone.

Good God, she’d only
planned to go for a walk to clear her head!

Raven swore a blue streak
at the figure in the driver’s seat of the wagon. Unfortunately, he
heard nothing more than a few angrily garbled words through a tight
gag. And she could not see if he even registered her attempted
insult as she was blindfolded as well.

She was trussed up like a
Christmas goose in the bed, bumping and jouncing along, collecting
only the Lord knew how many bruises, going only God knew where.
What had she ever done to deserve this?

A groan escaped her as the
wagon wheel hit a particularly deep rut and bounced back out. Just
for good measure, Raven was slammed into the side of the
conveyance, jamming her head and shoulder with excruciating
force.

Her world went
black.

“Dammit, I told you not to
hurt her!”

Raven inwardly winced at
the painfully loud voice.

The statement was answered
with what sounded like an uncaring grunt.

“Is she even
alive?”

Raven struggled to make out
something familiar in the tone and accent of the speaker. She gave
up when the voice dropped to no more than a heated
whisper.

A pounding commenced in her
brain that was too painful to ignore. She released a groan much
against her will.

“Ah, she is alive then.
Wonderful.”

Then she heard what sounded
like a gunshot. The sound made her grit her teeth, wishing suddenly
that she were dead. The reverberations ricocheted in her head long
after the aftershocks died away.

Her gag and blindfold were
removed.

“You can open your eyes, my
beautiful bird.”

“I’d rather not,” she
gritted out, her voice made unusually harsh and gravelly from lack
of moisture and use.

“But, you see, I’d like you
to. And what I want, I get.”

The clear threat in the
words belied the gentle, bantering tone of the user. Raven
acknowledged that, for the moment, this madman was in control and
she had best comply.

Besides, considering she
could no longer hear the driver, she was quite sure he was the
receiver of the recently fired bullet.

Taking great care, the
actress slowly forced her eyelids up, blinking and squinting
against the meager light of sunset.

She noted that she was cold
but not freezing. She was wrapped in a heavy wool blanket. Her
shoulder ached abominably and her neck felt like she’d been
sleeping in a chair…for a week at least.

“Ah, there’s my beautiful
bird,” the voice taunted, a caressing note in his words that Raven
couldn’t like.

Turning just enough to see
her companion, she squinted against the fading sun. She couldn’t
make out his features as he stood with his back to the
light.

But there was something in
his voice that struck an odd note within her. It was a voice she’d
heard recently…and yet it was one she hadn’t heard many years, as
well. She just couldn’t place it.

Forcing down the grimace
that threatened to twist her features, she asked, “Would you mind
terribly telling me just what the devil you’re doing?”

“Watching you, my lovely,
what else?”

Raven just looked at him,
her face blank. “Why have you kidnapped me?”

He tsked. “Kidnapped? Such
an ugly word. Spirited you away? Ah, yes, that’s better. Has a nice
romantic ring to it, does it not?”

She could hear the smile in
his tone. She just wished she could picture his face. Where had she
heard that voice and why did Windhaven jump suddenly to
mind?

“But now, my dear beauty,
we must adjourn to our little love nest. It grows chill and I must
watch my health.”

Raven couldn’t stop the
gasp of pain as she was abruptly lifted in strong arms, held
against a broad chest. There was even something familiar in his
scent, a little spicy but a little flowery, almost
feminine.

It was only a few feet to
the door of the cottage she had not noticed until now. It was small
but neat, as if someone had recently been there to tidy up. She
could see signs of wear and age in the peeling paint and faded
rugs. The grounds, such as they were, had the look of neglect but
only recently.

Where were they? They
couldn’t be far from Windhaven, as they’d only traveled that
afternoon and into early evening. In fact, she wouldn’t be
altogether surprised to learn they were still on the duke’s
estate.

Upon entering the
low-ceilinged, dim front room of the small building, her captor
firmly kicked the door shut behind him. He set her on her feet and
went to light a lamp.

There was very little light
coming from the one tiny window but Raven used what she’d been
given to assess her situation.

There was a doorway
straight across and a ladder going up to what appeared to a loft of
some sort. The room in which they currently stood had a sort of
kitchen in one corner, an open hearth with a large black pot
suspended over it. On a small table next to it lay what appeared to
be a cold repast of meats and cheeses, a bottle of wine next to the
tray.

She suspected the other
room was a bedchamber, the loft serving as a second one when the
need arose. She doubted she’d be able to find any help for her
situation in either of those rooms.

Turning her attention back
to the kitchen, she searched with her eyes for a weapon of some
sort, something to either immobilize or overpower her companion.
She saw nothing but a small bread knife near the cheese. With an
inward sigh, she realized it would have to do.

Finally having lit a merry
blaze in the cold hearth as well as a branch of candles, her captor
returned his attention to his unwilling guest. He was still in
darkness, his features obscured.

“And now, lovely Swan, how
shall we pass the time?”

Something in his voice
finally penetrated her perplexity. He sounded like someone she’d
recently met, minus a particular accent. Indeed, he sounded now
suspiciously like…

He took a single step
forward, a satanic grin twisting his handsome features. The light
from the candles fell full on his face, highlighting pale eyes and
pale hair.

As amazing as his
appearance in this country was, Raven had somehow known who he
was.

So, with something of an
anticlimactic shock, she said, “How do you do, my lord? I was under
the—obviously mistaken—impression you were dead.”

“She would not have simply
left without word.”

Adam hoped his tone and
expression conveyed his confidence in this since he was actually
unsure if he was even close to speaking the truth. Raven had become
rather odd since meeting her duke. A woman in love and all that
rot.

The Duke of Windhaven
shrugged. “How can you be so sure? She was adamant about not
accepting Dunston’s offer. What prevented her from simply leaving?”
Surely not me, he added silently.