Raven's Vow

“But first…”

“First they must agree tocome to dinner.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

She studied the lean, harshly defined planes of his face.

“I can’t marry you,” she said finally. She paused, thinking about all he’d offered. “Even if…” She carefully began again, wondering why she was making an explanation. It was almost as if he had constrained her to consider his proposal seriously. “Even if I wanted to.”

“Freedom,” he invited softly.

“With limitations,” she reminded him. And then, remembering, “I never heard the limitations.” Almost against her will she responded to the small movement of his lips. Seeing his smile, her own was given with a warmth usually reserved for old friends.

“No lovers,” he said. Raven wasn’t exactly sure of the conventions of her society, but he’d seen little since he’d been in London to reassure him about the morality of the ton. And he knew that he wouldn’t allow another man to touch her. No matter what he’d promised about freedom.

“What?” Catherine gasped in shock, her smile vanishing.

“No lovers,” he repeated, trying to think of an excuse she’d believe, something other than the truth—that he couldn’t endure the thought of any other man touching her. “I won’t leave what I’ve worked so hard to acquire to some other man’s—”

“How dare you?” she interrupted before he could finish.

“Other than that, I can’t really think of any additional limitations,” he continued smoothly. “You would be free to come and go as you will, to spend as much of my money as you possibly can, provided you bring to my house the men I need to meet to successfully carry out my investments.”

“You’re free to have a mistress, but I’m not allowed to have lovers. Is that the arrangement you’re suggesting?”

“Unless you have some other plan for satisfying my physical needs,” Raven said, wondering how he would manage to control those needs if, by some miracle, she did agree to marry him.

“And what about my needs?” she countered angrily. This was exactly the sort of thing she hated about the restraints imposed by society. It was perfectly acceptable for him to have a mistress, but she was to be bound by his “limitation.”

“I hadn’t intended to make that a requirement.”

“What?” Catherine asked. She must have missed something.

“I would, of course, be delighted to satisfy your needs,” Raven agreed, fighting to control his amusement. “However, I-”

“How dare you!” Catherine repeated scathingly. “I assure you that I don’t want you to…” She couldn’t believe where he’d led her, or what she had been about to say.

“I never assumed you did,” he agreed, deliberately clearing any trace of humor from his voice. “What I’m offering is a simple business proposition. You have to marry. You’ll be forced to do so, and you are very aware of that. You want freedom to doexactly as you please. I’m offering you that freedom, with one restriction. A very reasonable restriction. And in exchange, you provide me an introduction into this society I should never be allowed to enter without your help.”

“Do you think you can discuss these arrangements—”

“You’re very well aware of the considerations we’ve discussed tonight. The understanding of them is implicit in most marriages. You and I have simply put all the cards on the table, open and aboveboard. That’s also a freedom you’ll enjoy if you agree to marry me. I promise you I’m unshockable. You may say to me whatever you wish. You may ask whatever questions occur to you. About anything. I will endeavor to answer them honestly.”

“However appealing that may be—” she began.

“Then you do find something in my proposal appealing?” he questioned softly, wondering if he dared hope.

“Freedom.” She repeated the tantalizing word. “But…”

“But?” he urged at her hesitation.

“My father would never entertain the idea of you as a son-in-law. He would never consent.”

His lips twitched again with that slight upward movement. “How much?” he asked.

“How much?” she repeated blankly.

“To convince your father that I’m a suitable suitor. Marriage settlements, I believe is the proper term.”

“Are you proposing tobuy me?” she asked incredulously. “Surely you don’t believe that the Duke of Montfort would simply sell his daughter to a coal merchant? You really are incredibly ill informed.” There was, she knew, some truth in his ideas about how such things were done. She wondered suddenly just how much itwould take for her father to agree to what this man proposed.

“You don’t have that much money,” she said bitingly.

“You might be surprised,” Raven suggested calmly. There was no challenge in the quiet avowal.

“My father is a very proud man. Of his name and heritage.”

“I understand pride,” he answered, his eyes still watching her reaction. “I, too, am proud of my heritage.” He remembered the quiet strength of the loving family he’d left behind in the haze-shrouded mountains of Tennessee when he’d begun his long quest. “I assure you it wouldn’t sully the purity of the Montfort stock. In horse breeding they make such matches to inject new blood, to add vigor to bloodlines that are outworn.”

“Are you suggesting—”

“I’m suggesting that what has existed as the standard for judging a man’s quality is about to change in England, as it has already changed in the New World and in France. I believe you are intelligent enough to grasp that concept, even if your father will not. A man’s titles and the nobility of his lineage will soon matter less than his intelligence, his hard work and his ability to create, to forge new ideas and turn them into practical applications for the benefit of all. Your father’s day is drawing to a close. As is his society’s. The world is about to change, and it will never again be the same.”

She blinked to clear the spell woven by the conviction in John Raven’s voice. Whatever the validity of those views, he certainly believed them. There was no doubt he sincerely thought her world was about to disappear. But she, having known no other, was unprepared to accept that assessment.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. There was nothing else she could offer a man who had revealed to her a dream she could not accept. For in doing so, she would admit that this society, into which she fit as well as her slender fingers fit into the gloves that had been cut to their exact measurements, was doomed. In admitting the reality ofhis vision, she would be forced to deny all the securityshe had ever known.

She brushed by him, leaving John Raven, an alien. in the world she understood so well, in the darkness of the balcony, choosing instead to return to the brilliant light of a dozen chandeliers and the elegant music and the endless restrictions.

Chapter Two (#ulink_470914df-34dd-5efd-8145-99c4b3dde4c2)

The enormous black was entirely suitable. On anything less magnificent, its rider might have appeared ridiculous, but the blackwas magnificent and, therefore, exactly right for John Raven’s size. Catherine supposed she should not have been surprised, on the morning after the ball, to find the American approaching her out of the mist that had not yet been burned away by the sun. The vapor swirled around the gleaming forelegs of the black as the man cantered to where she had reined in her mare.

Raven slowed the stallion, controlling the powerful animal with sure horseman’s hands. “May I join you?” he asked.

“I’m waiting for someone,” she answered truthfully, her voice deliberately cool.

“A gentleman given to puce waistcoats and horses too long in the tooth and too short in the shank?” he asked.

Recognizing all too readily, from his very accurate description, her intended companion for this morning’s exercise, Catherine laughed. She watched the corresponding upward tilt in the corners of that forbidding mouth. “Yes,” she said, still smiling despite her earlier intent to keep her distance.

“He’s not coming. Unavoidably detained, I should say.”

“What have you done to Reginald?” she asked, fascinated.

“Reginald?” Raven repeated, allowing disbelief to creep into his deep voice. “Gerald and Reginald,” he added, shaking his head. “My God,” he said under his breath, and then clearing the derision from his voice and the mischief from the blue eyes, he shook his head again.

“I assure you I had nothing to do with it.” Not exactly the truth, he admitted to himself, but all’s fair in love and war. “He seemed to be having trouble with his animal, but I promise you, he won’t be joining you this morning.”