Raven's Vow

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.

“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

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.”

Although, through visible effort, Catherine had managed to control her lips, her eyes were still laughing. They were deep amber in the morning light, darkened with flecks of the same rich auburn that gleamed in her hair, which was almost hidden under the modish hat that matched the dark green habit she wore. The garment, although cut very fashionably, was relatively free of decoration, designed for riding, Raven was pleased to note, rather than parading.

His eyes answered the amusement in hers, and for a moment a decided jolt of power from their crystal depths curled upward inside her body, fluttering against her heart. Catherine swallowed suddenly, dropping her gaze to her gloved hands that were perfectly relaxed over the reins. There was a moment of silence, and then she once more directed her mare onto the bridle path she’d been following before she’d paused to admire the stallion. Long before she had recognized the rider.

Taking that for permission to join her, Raven guided the black alongside, and they rode without speaking for a while.

“He’s magnificent,” she said finally. Surely horses were a safe topic and apparently one they both appreciated.

“He’s a brute with an iron mouth and a heart as black as his hide,” Raven answered without a. trace of annoyance, “but we’re beginning to understand one another.”

“Then you haven’t had him long?” There was no evidence of anything but perfect understanding between horse and rider. If the black was a brute, he was keeping his temperament hidden.

“Since this morning,” Raven said calmly.

“This morning?”

“Tattersall’s, I believe, is the name of the establishment where I found him.”

“But…” She paused, glancing at that dark face to see if he were teasing her.

Raven turned at her hesitation and met her eyes, his brows raised slightly, questioning her surprise.

“It must be…it’s barely daybreak,” she finally managed to say.

“I needed a horse,” Raven said, as if that explained it all.

“They aren’t open this early,” she persisted.

“They are today,” he assured her. Then, closing the subject of the power of his money, a subject he had never intended to open, but which had just been demonstrated, Raven asked, “Would you like a run? I haven’t had a chance to see if he lives up to the promise of his looks or if he’s all flash and no substance.”

“Here?” she asked, looking at the narrow, tree-lined path.

“Is there arule against it?” he questioned, almost mocking.

“Probably,” she answered tartly, but even as she said it she touched the mare with her crop.

Catherine had caught him by surprise and was therefore able to maintain her lead for a short distance, but, of course, they both had known that the black had a decided advantage, by size if by nothing else. She was forced to admit that his rider also had an edge. Although she was widely acknowledged as one of the finest equestrians in the ton, John Raven seemed to be one with his horse, blending with the reaching effort of the black and almost adding energy to the stallion’s powerful motion.

Recognizing defeat and feeling nothing but admiration for the pair who had beaten her, she slowed Storm until eventually they were moving again side by side, at a pace that almost demanded conversation.

“Is this where you always ride?” Raven asked, thinking with sympathy how constricted the area was for a horsewoman of her skills. He wished they could race over the vast lowlands along the great river called Mississippi, space and time unlimited.

Catherine wondered if the American was planning on joining her each morning. She had been forced in the past to give some sharp setdowns to suitors who believed she would welcome company on her early morning excursions. She did occasionally allow very old and trusted acquaintances like Reggie to join her, because she could be sure that they would fall in with any suggestion she made as to the speed or duration of the ride. But, except for her groom, following behind, this was a private time.

“It’s the only place in London for a gallop.”

“A gallop,” Raven repeated derisively. “If that’s what you call a gallop.”

“No, it isn’t, of course. But there’s really nowhere else. Thisis a town, you understand—streets, houses, people.”

“We have towns in America,” he answered, and she knew he was laughing at her again. His face didn’t reflect his amusement, of course, but he was laughing just the same.

“And in which one do you live?” she asked sweetly. She tried to dredge up the names of some of those distant cities. New York and Washington. Boston. And Baltimore, of course.

“I haven’t been home in several years,” Raven answered.

“I thought you’d only recently come to England.”

“There are other parts of the world besides England.”

“And in which parts were you?” she asked almost sharply. She didn’t know how he could make her feel so provincial. He was the one who should be aware that he was lacking polish, and instead, when they were together, she ended up feeling very much out of control of the situation. That had never before happened to her where men were concerned.

“China and then India. For the last five years,” he said.

Images of the East as she imagined it to be floated through her consciousness. The old lures of silks and spices. Jewels and precious metals. Ivory and drugs.

“Is that where—” She broke off, realizing the rudeness of her question.

“Where I acquired my money?” he finished easily. “I told you that you might ask me anything. There’s no reason to guard your tongue with me. Most of it came from the East, but I have interests in America also.”

“What kind of interests?”

“Shipping, which led naturally to my contacts in the Orient. I became fascinated by the cultures. And there, too, fortunes were to be made.”

“Too?” she repeated.

“As there will be here.”

“In coal and railroads?” she said, remembering.

“And in iron and steel. For the machines.”

“What machines?”

“All of them,” he said, his lips flickering upward. “Machines for everything,” he offered, wondering if she could really be interested.

“I don’t understand.”

“The world is changing. What has been man-made is about to become the province of machines. To build machines, there must be iron. And to make iron…” He paused, glancing at her face.

“There must be coal,” she repeated, as if it were a lesson she’d learned. As indeed, she had. “And the railroads?” she asked. “Why are you building railroads from your coalfields?”

“Because to make iron you must bring the coal and the ore together. The iron ore. So I buy the coalfields, employ the power of machinery to improve the mining techniques, and eventually I’ll carry the coal to the foundries by rail,” he explained patiently.

“But won’t that take a long time? To build railroads from the mines?”

“Yes, but the process can be speeded up by the cooperation of the men who matter in this country. Or it can be slowed down by their refusal to cooperate.”

“And that’s why-”

“I need a wife. The kind of wife I described to you.”

He waited for her response, but it seemed that she’d finally run out of questions. The only sounds that surrounded them were the brush of the wind through the leaves of the trees above and the soft impact of the horses’ hooves over the loam of the bridle path. She had no more questions, and so he asked the one that remained unanswered between them.

“Have you decided about my proposal?”

“Mr. Raven, I’m sorry, but you must realize that I can’t marry you. My father would never agree, and even if he did, we should not suit. Please, I beg you, don’t mention it again.”

“I think…” he began, and then stopped. He certainly couldn’t tell her that he believed they’d suit extremely well. That he believed he had been deliberately led to her by the efforts of an old woman who was very far away. He’d been led to Catherine Montfort exactlybecause she was the woman who would best suit John Raven’s needs. All his needs.

She looked up quickly at his hesitation. He had always seemed so sure of what he wanted.

“It doesn’t matter if we suit,” he continued, but she was aware that was not what he had begun to tell her. “If you’ll remember, ours isn’t to be that kind of marriage. I promise that I will leave you strictly alone, free to make your own decisions and to follow your own desires, with the one exception we discussed. Other than that, you need consider me no more than a business partner who happens to live in the same house.”

“Amariage de convenance.” Smiling, she identified for him the term for the kind of arrangement he had described. One that was certainly not unheard of in the ton.

“In the truest sense of the word. At your convenience. I shall not interfere in your life.”

“And you expect the same noninterference in yours?”

“Of course,” he responded smoothly. “Nothing more than a business deal. No personal involvement whatsoever.”At least for the time being. At least until I’ve convinced you that you want to belong to me, he promised silently. “Other than that involvement necessary to give the ton the opinion that we are united in our social contacts.”