Chapter Thirteen

O n entering Lady Huntingdon's ball, Raven was obliged to stop and exchange pleasantries with a number of guests, including his friend Ned Farrington. It was the first moment since his arrival in London that he'd stood still. Even in his dreams he'd been running and then crawling, scrambling down a narrow, dark passage. He hadn't had that dream in years, and he could only suppose that it returned because he'd climbed that Roman wall. At the time the incident brought back memories of Wenlocke and the others, but since Raven's return to the city, he'd remembered the earlier time on his own before the gang had taken him in.

Or maybe it was London itself that had brought on the dream. He'd grown used to the quiet of the country and the freshness of its air. London didn't sleep. By day, the whole vast city labored. By night, the rich partied under brilliant lights, while others plied unsavory trades in the dark, and the weary slept uneasily.

Lady Huntingdon's ballroom was warm and brilliant with light. The babble of talk and music was loud. The competing scents of perfume and persons made a mix that even the pots of white blooms around the perimeter of the room could not disguise with their powerful fragrance. Judging from the crowd, Lady Huntingdon could call her ball a crush. He and Ned stepped away from the reception line to stand just above the ballroom.

"Did you find a place in the country to suit you?" Ned asked.

"Verwood, do you know it?" Raven let his gaze scan the room. It was easily eighty feet in length. A dance was in progress, and the center of the room looked like a swirling sea of pale silks and black evening wear with feathers bobbing on the surface. He could not see Amabel.

"Verwood's not the duke's seat, is it? I thought he had a place in Kent."

"He does. The hall is a small property he deeded to his mother, the dowager, when he succeeded to the title."

"Right." Ned nodded. "I know the name. There's some old scandal attached to it."

"Anything I should know?"

"I doubt it. Just a bit of old tittle tattle. Where is the lovely Amabel?"

"I'm looking." Amabel would be dancing, not languishing about waiting for him. If he did not spot her at once, it was not that he'd forgotten her, only that one bobbing, feathered female head looked very much like another.

"I leave you to it, then." Ned clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm off for the card room."

The set ended, and as the floor cleared, Raven spotted Amabel. She wore the white silk of a debutante, her gown low across her shoulders and fitted to her waist. Peach silk ribbons threaded through the lace of her bodice gave a glow to her complexion. Her golden curls were caught up in more peach ribbons on either side of her face. Silk dancing slippers peeped from beneath her ankle-length skirts. She came straight to him, and he released a breath he'd been holding. He had been right after all to return to London. She was everything he wanted, fair and lively, with dancing blue eyes in a heart-shaped face, and a quick, lightness of motion that brought her to his side in a flash.

Across the room, the companions she'd left behind simply gaped after her.

"Where have you been?" she tapped his arm with her fan. "I thought you were coming to the Drummond party."

"I meant to be there," he said. "There was a fire…" It had been another test of the new Cole engines. This time the fire had spread from a cloth warehouse to a street of crowded lodgings.

"A fire? Oh well, I suppose that will do for an excuse." She linked her arm in his, and they began to walk. "It has been so dull here without you." Her mouth contracted into a little moue.

"I doubt that you've been dull. Not you. You never could be dull."

"But aren't you afraid to be away from me?"

"Should I be?" He shook off a fleeting recollection of gray eyes under dark brows in another face.

"I have had offers, you know." She peeped up at him.

"Have you?" He looked down into her perfect face with its smooth cheeks and smoky lashes under the elaborate coiffure, which she could never manage on her own.

She tapped his arm with her fan again. "You knew I would. How could I not? It is only what is expected in a girl's first Season. It's a feather in a girl's cap to bag a viscount or an earl. But no one like you."

"Are you telling me there's a queue?"

"Only Alcock and Somerton. I thought you were never coming back. And now we've only a fortnight left in London, and then when will I see you again?"

"I could take a house near you for the summer." He wanted to keep Verwood a surprise.

"Would you? Even if London were to burn to the ground?"

"Let it burn." It was a reckless declaration. He was quite busy with new orders for their engines and discussions with Braidwood about how to better organize London's resources against fire. He and Grandfather Cole were having their perpetual argument about employing boys and girls in the ironworks. Grandfather said they were cheap, their small fingers were essential for some of the more intricate parts of the machines, and their families needed the earnings. Raven argued that they could earn more for their families if they got an education first. He did not remind Grandfather Cole that he, Raven, had crawled under spinning mules for bits of cotton until a boy not much bigger than himself had helped him run away.

Again, Amabel's little moue appeared, an attractive pursing of her full lower lip that made a man want to kiss away her troubles. "But there are no suitable houses near us."

"What none?" He supposed she didn't think of Verwood because the family had hardly advertised the place.

"I'll ask Mother. She'll know."

"Where is your mother? I should pay my respects."

"She's in the card room, so we can dance all we like."

"Living dangerously, are you?"

"There's so little time, and we must make the most of it. Lady Huntingdon's orchestra is not very good, but I suppose that with the right partner I won't care."

Raven hadn't noticed any flaw in the music, but he hadn't a trained ear. Amabel was adept at the harp, a difficult instrument. "By all means, let us dance then."

Couples began to take to the floor for a waltz, and Raven led Amabel to a place in the circle of dancers. One of her gloved hands settled in his, and the other touched lightly on his shoulder. He put a hand to her waist, secure in its fortress of whalebone and buckram, and the lilting waltz began. It was like moving in a dream, floating, effortlessly, borne up by the music.

He grinned down at her. Her forehead creased in a tiny frown.

"What am I to call you?" she asked. " Sir Adrian sounds stiff and formal, and Mr. Cole sounds so… plain."

"Would a title please you?"

Her eyes brightened. "I don't depend on your having a title, of course. It is only that your wife will be plain…"

"…Lady Cole. You don't want to be Lady Cole."

"It's a small thing. It hardly matters to me, you know. I will always be an earl's daughter, but it would be nice for children, if there are children someday. You could get a title, you know, a real title. It would have to be a new patent, like the ones from three years ago, but you have such achievements, you deserve one."

"You know I make things go my way. If Lady Amabel wants me to have a title, I'll find a way. My friend Wenlocke might help."

"Wenlocke?"

He nodded.

"You didn't tell me you knew Wenlocke. I thought Ned Farrington was your only titled friend."

"I've known Wenlocke since we were boys."

She smiled at him again with her breathtaking smile. "But what am I to call you then?"

He cocked his head, pretending to consider the problem, and whirled her deeper into the dance. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to call him Raven . But Amabel belonged to his new life, not the old.

" Cole is too plain. What about Colin, Cornelius, Augustus, or Fitzwilliam?"