Raven's Vow

Despite her genuine sophistication, Catherine’s mouth dropped open slightly. She made a small strangled sound and then, controlling her shock, began to laugh, in honest amusement that he should believe he could appear out of the shadows—a stranger with all the panache of a red Indian and the physical presence of a prizefighter—and offer her marriage.

Raven made no outward reaction to her amusement. He hadn’t expected her to laugh, despite the fact that she knew nothing about him. Few people ever laughed at John Raven. If nothing else, his sheer size was too intimidating. But, he remembered, Reynoldshad tried to warn him.

The American waited with only a calm patience evident in his features. Eventually her laughter began to sound a little forced, even to her own ears, and she allowed it to die away.

His lips lifted slightly in what she was beginning to recognize as his version of a smile. A mocking smile.

“I’m glad I’ve amused you. I imagine you haven’t found an occasion for such a prolonged bout of laughter in months.”

“Youare amusing,” she taunted, knowing he’d seen through her. Could he possibly realize how he’d affected her at their first meeting? She forced sarcasm into her voice. “I can’t tell you how deliciously ridiculous I find you. And your suit. Quite the most unconventional suitor I’ve ever had, I assure you.”

“At least I’m not boring you,” he suggested softly.

She realized with surprise that he wasn’t. She was not— definitely not—bored and had not been for the last few moments.

“There are worse things than boredom,” she retorted mockingly, unconscious that she was repeating Amberton’s statement, which John Raven, of course, had certainly overheard.

“I doubt it,” he responded, exactly as she had. “At least we agree on something.”

“I would imagine that’s the only thing we are ever likely to agree on,” she said, opening her fan and moving it gracefully.

His eyes watched the play of her hands a moment and then lifted to study her features. He’d never seen a woman as beautiful. Despite her coloring, there was no scattering of freckles across the small, elegant nose. The long lashes that surrounded the russet eyes were much darker than the auburn hair. Almost certainly artificially darkened, he realized in amusement.

Catherine was glad of the covering darkness that hid the slight flush she could feel suffusing her skin at his prolonged examination. Her acknowledged beauty, which had been her heritage from her mother, had attracted the usual masculine attention, but he was tracing each individual element of her face as if he were trying to memorize them.

“And I believe there are other, more important considerations about which we are in agreement,” he said finally, the piercing crystal gaze moving back to meet her eyes.

“Such as?” she asked indifferently.

“Such as the idea that a woman need not be at the beck and call of her husband. That she should enjoy a great deal of personal freedom. With a few necessary limitations, of course.”

You have nothing to offer the girl that she doesn’t already have, Reynolds had told him, but Catherine Montfort herself had given him a key, an inducement that might tempt her to consider his proposal. She had said that she wanted freedom, and perhaps, if he promised her that…

“Of course.” She smiled tauntingly. “But there are those limitations—those verynecessary limitations.”

“I’m offering you almost unlimited wealth. Enough money to become the most fashionably dressed woman in London. You’ll have your own household, furnished and staffed exactly as you desire. An unlimited account for entertainment. And the more lavishly you entertain, the better it will suit me. Jewels, horses, carriages, travelwhatever appeals to you will be yours to command.”

She smiled again, almost in sympathy at his naiveté. “And if I told you that I already enjoy all of those enticements? What do you have to offer that I don’t already possess?”

He studied her upturned face a moment. “Freedom,” he said again, and laughing, she simply shook her head. “Freedom from being courted by men you abhor,” he continued, as if she’d made no response. “Freedom from society’s restrictions. Freedom from your father’s demands for a grandson.”

“Ah,” she said, mocking again, “but to achieve that particular freedom…” She let the indelicate suggestion fade.

“I don’t need a mistress,” Raven responded softly. “What I need is a hostess.” She wanted his assurance that he didn’t intend to make physical demands on her, and although her rejection of that aspect of his proposal had not occurred to him before, he knew that he would do whatever was necessary to ensure that Catherine Montfort would be his. Even if it meant restraining for a time his very natural inclinations to do exactly what Lord Amberton had been attempting moments ago.

A platonic marriage was definitely not what John Raven had in mind, but he was a very patient man. He had been carefully trained in that stoic patience since childhood. He could wait for what he wanted, for the kind of relationship he intended to have with this woman.

At his rejection of her taunt, Catherine was surprised to feel a tinge of regret.Good God, she thought, examining that emotion.Why the deuce should it matter to me if he has a dozen mistresses? A hundred mistresses.

“Then how should I answer my father’s demand for a grandchild?” she asked. “Or will your mistress handle that, too?”

“Our marriage would answer for a time. And eventually—”

“Eventually?” she interrupted, smiling at the trap he had created for his own argument.

“He’ll decide you’re barren or unwilling to share my bed—whichever version you prefer to put about. I assure you I couldn’t care less.”

She hid her shock at his matter-of-fact assessment of her father’s probable reaction. “You won’t require an heir for this unlimited wealth you intend to put at my disposal?”

“Eventually,” he said again, as calmly as before, the blue eyes meeting hers. “But you may take as long as you wish before satisfying that desire.” The word hung between them, its sexual connotations implicit in the context of their discussion. “You will surely begin to feel maternal stirrings before I require you to carry on my family line,” he continued. “After all, I believe you’re only eighteen. Or was Amberton wrong about that, too?”

“And how old are you?” she wondered aloud.

“I’m thirty-four,” he said.

Almost twice her age. Older by several years than most of the eligible suitors who had approached her father. Except, of course, for the highly unsuitable—like the Earl of Ridgecourt, on the lookout for his fourth wife, someone to preside over his shockingly full nursery, the production of its inhabitants having brought a swift and untimely end to his first three wives.

“Why do you need a hostess?” she asked. She didn’t understand why she felt such freedom to delve into the intricacies of the patently ludicrous proposal he’d made. Maybe it was his willingness to discuss any aspect of his plan with her, despite its nature. He didn’t seem to be shocked by her questions. On the contrary, he had treated them as legitimate attempts to solicit information necessary to make her choice.

“I’ve already made investments in British industry—”

“What kind of investments?” she interrupted.

“Coal,” he said, thinking with pleasure of the mines that were already producing a far greater tonnage than he had thought possible when he’d bought them.

There was a spark of something in the crystalline depths of his eyes, and she could hear the same quality of possessiveness in his deep voice that one sometimes heard in the voices of women discussing their jewels or, more rarely, their children.

“I buy coalfields,” he continued.

“Why?”

“So I can build railroads from them.”

When Catherine shook her head slightly in confusion, he smiled that small, controlled smile. “Coal is going to fuel what’s beginning to happen here, and the man who controls the coal…” His explanation faded away and he simply watched her face.

“You’ve made investments in coalfields and railroads?” she questioned carefully. Again she felt a sense of unreality that she was standing in the darkness with a stranger discussing coal.

“And foundries. To make iron. However, most of the men who will be instrumental in deciding on the direction British industry will take in the next few crucial years belong to the circle you frequent. I need to talk to them, to influence them in ways that will increase the value of my investments. But I have no access to those men. I need a wife who does.”

“What men?” she asked, interested despite herself. There was some strange compulsion in listening to his deep voice.

“Men like your father. Men of power and influence. The men who control the House of Lords. Who control the land and property of this country.”

“Men like that don’t discuss business over the dinner table,” she told him seriously, falling in with his fantasy.

“And after dinner? Over their port and cigars? With the ladies safely out of the way?” Raven questioned. It was what Reynolds had told him.

“Perhaps,” she was forced to admit.