Ecstasy

Chapter Nine

The scandal was the talk of the town and showed no signs of abating.

True to her word, however, Brynn did everything in her power to martial her significant resources on Raven’s behalf, proving the point that in times of crisis, one learned who one’s true friends were.

Raven resumed her early morning rides and accompanied Brynn everywhere during daylight hours, paying calls and indulging in shopping expeditions and attending lectures and museum exhibits, merely to be seen in public. But she refrained from attempting anything more ambitious just yet, prepared to bide her time till the moment was right.

It was wiser, for example, to avoid Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five, when the cream of society congregated to see and be seen. And she delayed braving any glittering evening functions, where the savage horde waited to devour her like a swarm of locusts. She had violated society’s unforgiving rules with a vengeance, and her battle plan had to be carefully executed if she had any hope of winning.

Still optimistic, Brynn was planning a ball to celebrate Raven’s nuptials. Lady Wycliff was determined to bully the haute ton by sheer force of will into overlooking Raven’s fall from grace. Yet all but the most courageous or reckless souls shunned her; they simply weren’t prepared to make an enemy of the illustrious Duke of Halford for the sake of a mere Mrs. Lasseter.

Not surprisingly, Raven found loneliness her chief enemy over the course of the next few days. Her maid, Nan, joined the servant staff at her new home, as did O’Malley. And she had visits by her grandfather and her great-aunt, although Lady Dalrymple came primarily to scold.

But there was little sign of Kell. He returned home very late each night and left for his club each morning while Raven was riding. And although they shared a dressing room, they had separate bedchambers.

Such arrangements were not unusual, of course. Some husbands and wives of the beau monde barely exchanged civilities day to day. And Raven desired nothing more than to pick up the pieces of her life without a notorious husband to send her tenuous future spinning into further disarray.

But there was one obvious drawback in this case. They were supposed to be in love. And if her new husband appeared to be avoiding her, their story would be exposed for the sham it was.

Apparently Kell had not forgotten about her entirely, however. Upon his authorization, his solicitors met with those of her grandfather and drew up a contract that would allow Raven to retain her independence and tie up her modest fortune for any children she might have.

Not that there would be any children…

Raven never discussed that particular subject with her grandfather, but from the comments he let slip, Lord Luttrell was more troubled about her potential offspring than the scandal itself.

“I want my line carried on, my dear,” the earl fretted, “even if I likely won’t live long enough to see it. And I dislike thinking that my great-grandchildren will have the blood of a murderer running through their veins.”

Raven could do little to reassure him.

Her wicked friend Lord Wolverton was the only person who could satisfy any measure of her curiosity about her husband. Raven accompanied the marquess on a drive in his curricle one afternoon so it could be seen that he hadn’t deserted her. Her riding with him in an open carriage fell within the acceptable rules of behavior, as long as they remained constantly in public view.

Dare was every inch a nobleman: tall, lithe, and fair-haired, but a rogue through and through, with a magnetic, sinful smile that could scorch the coldest of female hearts. Yet his usual laughing demeanor was noticeably absent when he explained to Raven what little he knew of Kell Lasseter.

“I encounter him upon occasion. His club is considered the prime hell in London-high stakes but with a sterling reputation for honest play. And I fence with Lasseter regularly at Angelo’s salle. He’s a superb swordsman; I’ve rarely seen anyone better. But I cannot claim to know him well.”

Dare urged his spanking pair of bays past a snarl in traffic before continuing. “He’s a rebel by all reports. Doesn’t appear to give a damn what anyone says about him. He seems deliberately to shun polite company, although I don’t doubt he would have been accepted if he had put any effort into it. His breeding is good enough on his father’s side at least. But he never lets anyone forget his Irish blood.”

“His mother was Irish, I understand.”

“Yes. And he almost seems to take pride in rubbing our English noses in the fact. Insolent devil.” Dare smiled. “I thought Lasseter rash and foolhardy when he opened his club some four years ago. Had the gall to call it the Golden Fleece. But now I realize it was a cunning strategy. That name was like a flag to a bull-a challenge for the wild bucks who fancied themselves gamesters. They fell all over themselves at the hazard table, trying to best the bank. I wouldn’t be surprised if it made Lasseter a fortune. In any event, the Fleece now has the most select membership of any club in London.”

Dare guided the horses onto a quieter street and set them into a trot. “As for the rumors about him murdering his uncle? I suppose they could be true. Lasseter strikes me as dangerous enough. And I’ve heard a wild tale or two about his profligacy. Frankly, I don’t like to think of you being his wife, puss.”

Raven almost smiled at the irony-a rakehell like Wolverton, the Prince of Pleasure, concerned about profligacy.

“Nick won’t be happy to hear of it, either.” Dare grimaced. “He’ll have my head for allowing you to be abducted and forced to marry against your will.”

Nicholas Sabine was the American shipping magnate and privateer Raven had never been able to acknowledge as her half brother. He’d been her legal guardian for a time, before being charged with piracy by the British navy and sentenced to hang. Upon making his escape, he had come to England in disguise, in pursuit of the wife he’d married in desperation. But with war still raging between their two countries, he couldn’t remain. Nick had taken his beautiful English wife, Aurora, home to Virginia, enjoining his friends Dare and Lucian to take care of Raven.

Both men took their responsibility with deadly seriousness. Yet there was no way they could have anticipated or prevented what had happened to her.

“If I had known what that cur intended…” Dare’s handsome features hardened, and Raven knew he was speaking of Sean Lasseter. “Impressment was far too good for him.”

Raven shuddered at the reminder. She’d only just told Dare about the incident at Vauxhall Gardens last summer when Sean had accosted her. Until then, she herself had considered the younger Lasseter a mere nuisance for dogging her footsteps with his unwanted courtship. And in all fairness, he had paid a great price for his actions that night.

“He suffered a good deal during his impressment, Dare. Perhaps that is punishment enough.”

“Not nearly enough.” Turning his head, Dare focused a surprisingly stern gaze on her. “You aren’t possibly excusing what that bastard did?”

“No, not at all. But I see little point in crying over it or in seeking revenge. I am wed to his brother now and will have to carry on with my life.”

“I mean to have a word with your husband, to make certain he understands the consequences of mistreating you.”

“No, Dare, please, there is no need. I don’t believe he would mistreat me. And I would prefer to deal with this myself.”

He hesitated. “Very well, love. But at the first sign of trouble-”

“You will be the first I call to my rescue, I promise.”

He leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “See that you do,” he warned. “It will be difficult enough to explain to Nick how I failed him. If I allowed any further harm to come to you, he would have not only my head but other delicate parts of my anatomy that I would prefer to keep intact.”

She dreamed of Kell that night. Not intentionally, the way she did her pirate, but just as powerfully. His sensual passion invaded her body, her mind, her very senses, a dark lover who left her gasping… Raven woke, struggling for breath, fighting against the feeling of being overwhelmed.

She would have liked to forget her new husband’s very existence, and yet there were appearances to consider. At the very least she would have to produce Kell for the ball being planned in their honor. But she had no opportunity to ask for his escort until five days after their unexpected union, when she returned home from her morning ride.

Upon being informed that Kell was still in his rooms, she went up to her bedchamber, intending to enter his by way of their adjoining dressing room. She walked in on him just as he was emerging from his bath.

Kell froze at her unexpected entrance while Raven instantly came to halt, staring at the spellbinding sight of his naked male body. Her fantasy lover in the flesh.

His splendid anatomy was the stuff of her most erotic dreams. The powerful play of sleek muscles in his arms and shoulders. The crystals of water glistening in the dark hair of his chest, dripping in rivulets down his hard, flat abdomen to his groin…

Her breath caught as her attention was drawn to that masculine flesh that could give such wild pleasure. His virile maleness made her pulse race and her throat go dry. Worse, it made her recall their wedding night and the ecstasy they had shared.

For an instant she saw the same vivid memory flare in Kell’s dark eyes. But then he casually picked up a towel and draped it around his narrow hips and lean flanks.

“Did you ever consider knocking?”

Her cheeks flushed scarlet. “I beg your pardon…” she stammered. “I didn’t realize…I thought…”

He had not yet shaved, and a bluish black shadow darkened his jaw, accenting the groove in his cheek when his mouth curled at the corner. “Did you want something of me, madam wife?”

“It can wait,” Raven croaked.

Backing out, she shut the dressing room door quickly, but the sight of Kell’s magnificent nudity remained imprinted on her mind. It was only hours later that she realized she’d forgotten in the awkwardness of the moment what she had intended to ask him.

When two more days passed and she still had not managed to have a private word with her husband, Raven realized she would have to go to him.

Girding her loins for battle, as the saying went, she set out for the gaming club on St. James Street. She wore a veil and hid behind the anonymity of a closed carriage, and she took O’Malley with her for protection. But still she felt strangely tense as she mounted the front steps to the house and raised the door knocker.

Some ladies considered it a fashionable diversion to attend a gaming hell, but she had never done so, unwilling to risk her reputation when she was so close to achieving her goal of marrying into the nobility.

Now she had far less to lose. So why did she feel as if she were engaged in a forbidden sin, her heart beating as if she had run a great distance? She didn’t like to think it was in anticipation of seeing her husband again. More likely, her erratic pulse was caused by her remembrance of the passionate night she’d recently spent here in Kell’s bed.

A brute of a doorman opened the door. His hulking frame resembled O’Malley’s, but this man might once have been a pugilist, for his nose was set crookedly and he was missing a front tooth.

She wasn’t required to deal with him, however, for a stately majordomo appeared directly.

“May I help you, madam?” the august servant queried.

“I am Mrs. Lasseter. I should like to speak to my husband.”

A flash of surprise and disapproval crossed his face before he schooled his features to impassivity. “I will ask if Mr. Lasseter is receiving.”

Refusing to be rebuffed, Raven stepped inside. “I prefer not to be kept waiting on the doorstep.”

“Very well, madam. If you will come with me.”

She followed him, not upstairs as she expected, but to the nether reaches of the large gaming house. Along the way, she passed several elegant chambers, similar to those of the more famous gentlemen’s clubs like White’s and Boodle’s she had heard described: a library boasting gleaming mahogany shelves lined with leather-bound tomes; a large dining room with several tables set with gleaming crystal and china; three smaller rooms arranged, possibly, for private games of cards; and finally what must be the public gaming room, where vast fortunes were won and lost.

Raven would have liked to explore the gaming room, but her curiosity would have to wait. She had to quell her surprise, however, when she found herself in the kitchens, of all places.

Despite the chill of the winter day, the room was warm from the great hearth fire and ovens. Kell was seated at a worktable, dressed in breeches and a flowing white cambric shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to expose muscular forearms, while his collar was opened at the neck to reveal the soft whorls of black hair that sprinkled his chest.

Raven came up short at the unmistakably pleasant shock that rippled along her spine. She kept forgetting how strikingly handsome he was, despite the harshness of his features and the scar that marred his high cheekbone.

Then he looked up and his dark eyes met hers. The ripple turned to a sizzle, with all the impact of a bolt of lightning. Raven had difficulty catching her breath, very much like when she had interrupted him at his bath.

“Mrs. Lasseter, sir,” the majordomo said.

“Thank you, Timmons. That will be all.”

The servant’s exit left them alone, for the kitchen staff was nowhere to be seen, Raven realized.

It was then she noticed the deadly blade in Kell’s hand, which he was polishing with a cloth. Any number of weapons, both rapiers and pistols, lay spread across the table-

“What are you doing?” she was startled into asking. Her heart leapt to her throat as she thought of the most likely possibility.

“I prefer to care for my own weapons,” Kell replied, his face inscrutable.

“You aren’t preparing for a duel? Halford hasn’t challenged you?”

His eyebrow rose at the obvious panic in her voice. “Not as yet. Did you expect him to?”

Raven’s hand went to her breast in relief. “I wasn’t certain. When I spoke to him last week, he threatened to call you out at first…”

“Did he now?”

“Yes.” She swallowed, remembering. “Halford was so furious. He blamed you for my abduction, even though I swore I went along willingly.” She felt another stab of guilt for what she had led Kell into. “I truly am sorry.”

Yet he didn’t seem to want her apologies. “How touching that you are so concerned for my welfare,” he murmured, his tone holding a hint of mockery.

She made a face. “To be truthful, I was more concerned for Halford. You do have the more dangerous reputation, after all.”

Kell’s features grew cool, and Raven immediately regretted her impetuous tongue. “I didn’t mean to jest about it. I admit, Halford frightens me. He says he means to ruin you.”

“He can try.” The words were spoken casually, but there was an edge of steel in his voice that boded ill for his opponents.

“Why have you come?” Kell asked, abruptly changing the subject. “You shouldn’t be here. It won’t do your reputation any good to be seen in a gaming hell.”

He didn’t invite her to be seated, but Raven did so anyway, taking the end of the bench opposite him. “My reputation could hardly be more tarnished at the moment. And I cannot distance myself from your club completely, now that I am your wife. Besides, my visit is for a good cause. I had to speak to you, yet I’ve seen very little of you since we wed.”

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t involve yourself in my life, nor I in yours.”

“We also agreed we should keep up appearances for the time being. Ours was supposed to be a love match, remember?”

He bent his head to his task, removing a speck of dirt from the deadly blade. “We both know what a spurious tale that is.”

“The rest of the world doesn’t realize that. And I require your presence to maintain the charade. My friends Lord and Lady Wycliff are planning a ball in our honor, to celebrate our nuptials.”

Kell didn’t even hesitate. “I will have to decline the honor.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t care to move in your elite social circles.”

“You keep away by choice, Lord Wolverton says.”

Kell looked up; obviously she had surprised him. “You know Wolverton? The greatest rake in all England?”

“He is a family friend,” Raven admitted without embarrassment. “Dare claims this is his favorite hell.”

“I am honored,” Kell said wryly, although without his usual sardonic sting.

“I asked him about you. He says you would have been welcomed by the ton had you chosen to exert yourself.”

Kell lowered his long, black lashes-those thick lashes any female would envy-while his hard, beautiful mouth curled. But he didn’t speak. Instead he examined the blade for imperfections.

“Dare says you are an expert swordsman,” Raven said into the silence. “Is that how you came by your scar?”

He shot her a dark glance. “You have a great deal of curiosity for a mere wife of convenience.”

“I suppose so,” she replied, unfazed by his scowl. “Aunt Catherine considers it a prime failing of mine.”

Absently he reached up and touched his scar, running his finger along the jagged ridge. “My disfigurement was courtesy of my uncle’s signet ring, if you must know.”

The uncle he had supposedly murdered? Raven wondered. The question must have shown in her eyes, for Kell nodded.

“I could cheerfully have killed him. He sent my mother to an early grave, after taking her sons from her. There was no love lost between us.”

“And he struck you? In the face?” Her outrage was evident in her tone.

“Among other places. It’s no secret that we fought regularly.”

Raven studied him, wondering at his truthfulness. Had he told her that story merely to put off her questions? Or to gain her sympathy? Perhaps he used his scar to his own advantage, to hide the secrets he kept locked inside. Secrets that admittedly she was dying to know. She searched Kell’s face. His eyes were like polished obsidian, darkly reflective and damnably unrevealing.

How many other secrets was he hiding behind those fathomless eyes?

“Is that why you despise society so?” she said finally. “Because of your mother?”

Something hot and dangerous flared in those dark depths. It was a long moment before he answered. “Primarily. As an Irishwoman she was never good enough for my father’s kin-or most of the English Quality, for that matter. I want nothing to do with their ilk.”

“Then we have something in common,” Raven murmured with all seriousness. “I have no more admiration for many of the ton’s members than you do. On the whole they are cruel, soulless, unbelievably shallow. Certainly I have no desire to suffer their contempt and condescension. If I had my way, I would tell them all to go to the devil.”

His eyebrow shot up. “The toast of London professing to disdain the haute monde? Why don’t I believe you?”

“It’s true,” Raven insisted. “One doesn’t have to admire a set in order to aspire to their ranks.”

“Then why were you so eager to marry one of their scions?”

She hesitated, wondering how much to reveal. “In large part because I promised my mother. In her youth, she…had a falling out with her father and was banished to the West Indies for life. But she always regretted losing her position in society and denying me the chance for that sort of life. It was her dream for me that I marry a title and become accepted by the ton. Indeed, it was almost an obsession with her. She made me vow on her deathbed-”

Raven felt her throat close on the familiar pain. “My promise was all that let her die in peace,” she added, her voice uneven with emotion.

Kell’s face took on that familiar, enigmatic look. “I understand vows like yours,” he murmured. “I vowed to my own mother that I would care for Sean.”

Raven suddenly flushed, realizing she’d exposed far too much of herself for comfort.

“Please”-she returned to the subject at hand-“won’t you consider making an allowance just this once? I must face the wolves sometime if I’m to have any hope for redemption. And Brynn-Lady Wycliff-thinks a ball is the best means. But I can’t possibly succeed unless you stand beside me.”

“Stand? That alone is a good enough reason to eschew your ball. My leg is injured-far too painful for me to stand on it, let alone dance.”

“Do you even know how to dance? It is a gentleman’s skill, after all.”

She had meant to be provoking, and from the flash of irritation in his eyes, she judged she had succeeded.

A long moment passed while he contemplated her.

Raven held her breath, waiting for an explosion of wrath, but it never came. Instead a glint of reluctant amusement entered his eyes, the warmth softening the intensity. “You are treading a fine line with your temerity, vixen. Aren’t you the least afraid your ‘dangerous’ husband might throttle you?”

Raven smiled. “Just this once, and I will never again ask for your presence. After the scandal dies down, we can give up any pretense of being in love.”

Kell grimaced. “Very well, I’ll attend your damned ball. But after that, you are on your own. Now take yourself out of here and try to salvage what little is left of your reputation. And leave me the hell in peace.”

When she was gone, however, Kell sat there without returning to his task of cleaning weapons. He had no desire to attend Raven’s blasted ball, but he still felt an unwilling sympathy for her. He did indeed understand the kind of promise she had made to her mother. He’d sworn a promise of his own to his mother.

Absently Kell reached up and touched his cheek, tracing the scar Raven had inquired about. He could could still feel his rage when he’d discovered his uncle’s crimes against his young brother, still feel the slashing sting of being wounded that day.

“You vile bastard! I’ll kill you if you dare touch him again.”

He’d attacked his uncle blindly, raining physical blows and receiving punishing ones in return. He eventually won the violent fistfight, but William’s signet ring had struck him viciously in the face, splitting his cheek wide open.

That night he had fled with Sean, stealthily making their way to Dublin, hoping to disappear. Those were desperate days on the streets, and they barely survived. With no time to seek medical attention, Kell’s cheek had healed raggedly, leaving the skin forever marred. Yet his scar was nothing compared to the scars William had left on his brother. Sean’s shame was a raw wound, festering in the dark depths of his soul.

And six months later William had tracked them down-

Forcing his thoughts away from that grim memory, Kell picked the foil he had been cleaning. Their uncle William had been an expert swordsman and should have won any contest with rapiers. Instead he’d wound up dead, slain by his own blade.

A fitting turn of events, Kell thought, setting his jaw. Even if he hadn’t been the one responsible.