He was still offering her beauty advice when they moved out of Ravenna’s hearing. He must have done the same for her any number of times, though not about her toilette, which he knew she didn’t care about. But in the past months he had drawn her from a brown study with stories about the pugs or invented complaints about the birds. An alarmed report of a stray colt had become a long, strolling search across a frost-covered field during which he had regaled her with outrageous stories from his scandalous days on the town. Returning home she found the colt in its own stall.
Petti was a treasure, and she could not imagine life without him.
But if she moved to America, he would be lost to her. Sir Beverley would write her long letters; he did so when he and Petti were only in London or visiting with friends elsewhere in England. But Petti was a creature of the moment, a light soul with a wise, kind, and pleasure-loving heart. He would not write, at least not at length, and she would miss him beyond telling. She could not bear to lose another piece of her heart so soon. But when again would she receive such an opportunity for employment like this? It was unheard of, though perhaps not in America. She’d heard that in America the rules of society were much less strict. Perhaps in America women served as stewards and groundsmen just like in England they could be shopkeepers.
She left the armory as the prince’s butler crossed the hall. Lord Whitebarrow could wait. Grace was in safe hands now, and while Ravenna wished it could be otherwise, she must share her news with Lord Vitor before she did anything else.
Would he sleep all day? Would he recall anything of the night’s events?
Arabella had once told her that men were wolves. Lord Whitebarrow, Martin Anders, the rapacious guard . . . they proved her sister’s words true. But if men were wolves, that did not necessarily make women hare. She had encouraged his kiss and begged for him to take her in the stable. Delicate ladies like Grace might be prey, but she was not. She would not be left broken and bleeding in the snow.
She waylaid Monsieur Brazil.
He bowed.
“Has—
“Oui, mademoiselle.” Again he anticipated her question. “Lord Viton departed an hour ago with Père Denis.”
She stared. “Departed?” With the priest? “He couldn’t have.” What sort of man was close to death by poisoning yet six hours later rode up a snowy mountainside?
A man with extraordinary reserves of strength and discipline, it seemed.
“Claude saddled his horse, mademoiselle, and I watched him depart through the gates myself. Would you like your cloak?”
“Yes,” she said, perplexed.
The forecourt had melted to sloshing snow and puddles, but the going beyond the gates proved treacherous with packed ice. Ravenna trudged and slipped until she reached the trees and moved into the mottled shadows where the snow had not penetrated as deeply.
Grabbing onto the bared trunk of a young beech to propel herself up an incline, she saw him leaning back against a spruce that soared to the sky. The sky shone silvery-gold through branches bared of leaves or prickly with conifer spikes. Two reddish-black birds perched on leafless branches, speaking to each other in the silence of the morning. White and dark, there was solitude and a kind of stark peace in the scene. Farther up the path, a tall gray Andalusian stood tied to a tree branch, its head turned toward her, ears pricked high.
Lord Vitor also watched her approach. “You should not be here.”
So this was how it would be: unvarnished rejection.
Ravenna squared her shoulders. “As I came here to tell you news, I will not remain more than a minute. I don’t want to see you any more than you want to see me.”
He pushed away from the tree. “Ravenna—”
“No.” She thrust up a hand. “Don’t say anything, I beg of you. I hope only that you remember very little of it.” She added, “Preferably nothing at all.”
“Sebastiao told me what you did. I am grateful.”
She nodded, unable to ask what she wished. “I discovered a guard—one of those that watch the castle gate—with Lady Grace in the armor room not an hour ago. When I came upon them she was protesting, but afterward she vowed to me that she had invited his attentions. I don’t believe her. He did no real harm to her, I think, but she was distressed and her gown was torn. If she did invite him, it was not because she wished it.”
He stepped closer to her. “Did you tell any other of this? The prince?”
“Not yet. Mr. Pettigrew took her in hand and I looked for you, to be told that you had already left the castle. You are remarkably quick to recover.”
“I don’t believe the poison was meant to kill, only to incapacitate.”
He hadn’t been in the least bit incapacitated in the stable. Rather, the opposite. Her body remembered it now with delicious little thrills. She pressed down upon the sensations.
“Did anyone see you leave the castle?” he said.
“The guards at the gate, of course, and my progress up the road to the path may have been noticed by villagers if their attention was pointed in that direction. Likewise someone at a north-facing window in the castle. Do you suspect that the same person who put the drug in the wine is watching me today?”
“I have no reason to suspect otherwise.”
His brother’s name hung between them unspoken.
“What if the drug had been intended for someone else?” she said.
“Do you believe it was?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t see any reason why someone would wish me incapacitated. Except the most obvious reason.” She looked away and to the ground. “He is enamored of Miss Dijon. He challenged Martin Anders for the sake of her honor. He was turning pages for her at the piano only half an hour before I encountered him in the stable.” She looked up at him. “Do you truly believe your brother would have left her to come seduce me?”
His face seemed severe in the pale light. “I do not wish to. But I would not have you harmed. I will consider all possible threats to you and take whatever action necessary to protect you.”
Her heart turned over.
“Do you—” Her throat caught.
He touched her chin and another half step brought him to her. Slowly, his gaze traveled her features. “Do I?”
“Do you remember what happened between us in the stable?” she forced out. “What the drug caused you to do?”
His palm curved around her jaw and his thumb stroked across her cheek. “I remember. And I can assure you that I would have done the same if I had not been drugged.”
“The same—as in, recoiling in horror when you discovered I was a virgin?”
The crease ticked in his cheek. He bent his head and whispered across her lips, “Guess again.”
Chapter 16
The New Promise
He touched his lips to hers so gently that for a moment she ceased to breathe.
Then he kissed her. She tasted no wine or other spirit, only warmth and his desire. He held her face between his hands and made of their mouths a tender, passionate coupling, with every caress a deeper meeting of lips and tongues until her knees grew weak and she reached for him. He drew her against him. Then Ravenna discovered what it was to be touched on her shoulders and back, to be held with broad, strong hands as though she were delicate crystal that at any moment might shatter. Thrilling. Intoxicating. Humbling. It was as though he wished to show her that he believed her to be a lady.