Chapter Twenty-Five

F rom the south entry, Raven surveyed Verwood, for perhaps the hundredth time since he first stood on its steps, vowing to make it his. He might not own the place, but he belonged to it now. A week earlier he sent Cassie ahead from London in his traveling carriage with the three messenger boys who had been plaguing his grandfather. In her absence from London, he had found a ring for her, one for her taste and her character, with its steady radiance rather than Amabel's glittering surface.

Nearly a year had passed since fire destroyed the Houses of Parliament. His memories of that night remained vivid. The burning of the old wooden tally sticks in a furnace meant for the lower temperature of burning coal had melted the copper flues running under the House of Lords. Cracks in the brickwork from frequent repairs had allowed the fire to send smoke and heat into the closed chamber full of ancient tapestries until the whole room had spectacularly burst into flame. A strong wind blowing from the west had whipped the fire to monstrous heights.

From all over London, fire companies responded, two of them with new Cole engines, marvelous machines of iron and brass, sprung wheels, oaken tanks, and leather hoses with copper rivets, capable of sending gallons of water per minute as long as hearty, twelve-man crews pumped the horizontal bars that drew water from London's plugs, and sent it cascading onto the burning fuel. He had been at the heart of the fire, standing knee-deep in water, supervising the changing of the crews and directing the hoses. The heaving of those pumps, the roar of the fire, the crackling of red-hot timbers never stopped until eleven when the wind shifted, and the hall was saved. Beating that fire, maybe that was the thing that made him feel unstoppable.

Even as the ashes smoldered, invitations had come for him from hostesses eager to claim a firefighter as a guest. At first the ladies in their silks were a blur of names and faces until his old friend Ned Farrington introduced him to Amabel. She eclipsed the others, and he pursued her the way he pursued any object he had in mind to win. Only when he accomplished his dream did he realize it was the wrong dream for him. Now he was awake, clear-headed, and in pursuit not of a dream, but of a woman, a wonder made of the ordinary elements out of which all women were made. Miraculously, she was his. He strode down the drive toward the dower house and Cassie.

When the bend in lane opened on the grass in front of the house, he stopped short. His three young messengers rolled and tumbled over each other on the lawn, fists flying, arms flailing, tearing at each other's clothes and hair, kicking and shouting. Honoria stood over them, wringing her hands, and calling on them. "Stop, boys. Stop this minute. You shall have no tea."

Raven simply waded into the fray and lifted Ben and Joe by their torn and sweaty jackets. Tim lay in a heap in the grass, panting and pointing an accusing finger at the others.

"They started it," he said.

"That's a lie," said Joe, squirming and dangling in Raven's hold.

"oo's callin' me a liar?" Tim sprang to his feet, ready to charge.

"Enough," Raven said. "You lot are coming with me, but first, you must apologize to Miss Thornhill for not listening to her when she has charge of you."

"Wot's 'pologize'?" asked Joe.

Raven set the two boys in his hold down on the grass. He gestured to Tim to join the lineup and faced the small troublemakers. "Apologizing is begging pardon when you've offended someone. It's tricky because it only works if you are sorry for the harm you did. And it helps if you name the harm you did." As he spoke, he shed his coat, waistcoat, and tie. The boys watched him with wide eyes. He kept his face as grave as he could and handed his discarded clothing to Honoria.

"We didn't mean no 'arm to Miss T," Ben said.

"She's a good 'un," added Joe.

Raven nodded and stepped aside. "Your apology, now."

The boys studied the grass, drawing imperceptibly closer together. Then Joe looked up. "We're sorry, Miss T, that we spoiled the scene. We liked the fightin' part."

"And we forgot our lines," added Ben.

"Sorry we didn't listen," said Tim.

Honoria smiled at them and thanked them for their apology. They turned warily to Raven.

"With me, now," he snapped. "Leave your coats here."

The boys exchanged worried glances but did as they were told.

"I'll bring the miscreants back shortly, Honoria," he said. "Could you find Cassie for me?"

"They'll be fine, won't they?" Honoria twisted the ends of her shawl as if she feared for their lives, so Raven's stern face must be having an effect. Raven leaned close and whispered to her, "They will be wet, very wet." He saw the comprehension dawn in her eyes.

"March, lads," he said.

He herded them to the edge of the lake. "Shoes off," he ordered.

"Are ye goin' to drown us?" Joe looked resigned to his fate.

"Like they does to dogs?" Tim's chin quivered.

Raven recognized in the small shaking voice, his own small voice as an unwanted boy, lost in London, to be used for the most disagreeable work and then discarded, until Wenlocke had invited him into a gang of hearty survivors. He laughed at himself. He was turning into a Wenlocke himself these days.

"You can swim, right?" Raven looked at each in turn.

Three heads nodded.

"Good," he said, moving to the edge of the lake. "It's wise to cool off after a fight. Who's first?"

Ben shoved Joe forward. Raven swooped, lifting the boy high in the air, and tossing him into the lake. He landed with a great splash and came up sputtering and laughing and swimming. Then the other two came forward. In minutes they were flinging water at each other, and Raven, thinking of Cassie, missed the moment when they decided he would be their target.

With a sudden flurry of action, they sent great scoops of water his way, and left him soaked from his chin to his knees, his shirt clinging.

"Out now," he roared. It was a mock roar, but it did the trick. He led them back to the dower house. They chatted and laughed, describing moves in their water battle, their friendship restored.

Cassie stood at the door with Honoria beside her. Cassie smiled at him with the sort of smile that said she saw through him, and he wanted her so intensely, that it stopped him in his tracks.

"Oh dear," Honoria said, "Let's go round to the kitchen, boys."

"Are there cakes, Miss T?" asked Joe.

"Once you dry off." Honoria herded her small charges away.

Raven's throat was dry, his body barely held in check in its desire for her. "Meet me," he said in a voice roughened by his body's need, "at the fountain in an hour?"

He could live an hour without her, couldn't he?

"Yes," she said.

*

Raven found Cassie sitting on the stone parapet that surrounded the sunken fountain, dipping a sprig of lavender in the water. The golden light of an early autumn afternoon streamed down on her, and her inner light shone out, sweet and unwavering. Again, he had that experience of seeing her, really seeing her. He stopped to catch his breath. Her dark hair was wound in a low knot at her nape, her lashes lay across her smooth cheek with its faint flush of warmth, and her nose, that slightly upturned, slightly damaged nose spoke of her sense and her fearlessness. Insects caught in the light shimmered in the air, and the edge of her white collar and the brim of her bonnet shown bright with a hint of the passion in her that he had just begun to discover. She did not hear his approach over the sound of the fountain.

As he came nearer, she looked up and smiled a welcome. He came and stood before her. She patted the stone beside her. He sat.

"I've been thinking," she said, her expression turning grave. "That I should tell you the true story of my dreadful Season."

He took the lavender sprig and tossed it in the water, and took her hand in his. "And you think this because?"

She gave him an earnest gray gaze. "Because you should know that I deserved the things people said about me."

He doubted that. "Do you think my knowing your history will alter my feelings for you?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't doubt your love. You are constant, but…" She patted the stone rim of the fountain, and he sat beside her. She folded her hands in her lap, drew in a breath, and began in her usual forthright way. "I was infatuated. I'm sure everyone else could see it, but I could not. I let my world narrow to him. I never really saw him for who he was. I just floated on a little cloud of his attentions for weeks, ignoring everyone else. Honoria tried her best to wake me up to my folly, but I wouldn't listen. Even when we returned to Verwood, I could think only of myself, of my hurt, and so I rode Hermes too far, too often."

For a moment she seemed lost in the past, then she turned to him, her eyes clear again, shining. "You see, I think love, genuine love, is meant to connect us to others."

"Done?" He stood, and dropped down to his knees in front of her in the grass. Taking hold of her injured foot, he gently unloosed the boot, and slid it from her foot.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to pull the captured foot from his grip.

"I am making love to you, in the only way I can until you are truly mine."

She stopped tugging.

He held her damaged foot in his hands. "My turn," he said. "I, too, was infatuated, with a perfect picture, an artificial creation. I had no true interest in knowing Amabel. I wanted to be accepted by her world, and she seemed to invite me in. Then I came to Verwood, and you were before me every day, but I didn't, couldn't see you at first. What you are is yourself, strong and gentle. You are you perfected, and if this, this poor foot helped you become the woman I love, then I must love it, too."

"Oh."

He laughed. He rested her white-stockinged foot against his thigh. The touch of her foot there sent a bolt of desire straight to his groin. He steadied himself and slowly drew her pale blue muslin skirts up over her knees. He felt her hands settle on his head, her fingers slipping into his hair. Again, he paused to collect himself.

"Prepare to be shocked," he said.

"Shock me," she whispered.

He slid his palms up her thigh to the garter that held her stocking in place against the softest, silkiest of skin. She stiffened and then relaxed. He was crazy, but he meant to show her how perfect she was for him. His pulse hammering, he untied the garter and brushed it aside. Slowly he rolled the stocking down her leg, letting his thumbs trail along the smooth muscled flesh. She began to tremble, but she didn't stop him until he reached her ankle. Her grip tightened on his head.

He looked up and met her gaze. "I love you, Cassie," he said.

She nodded, and he peeled away the stocking to examine the foot, the trim ankle, the perfect toes, and in the middle a bony hump, gnarled and twisted like a tree stump. He did not look away. That lump was a sign of the hurt and shame of her past. He knew she had looked at it every day since her accident. Slowly, he dipped his head and planted his kiss there. His kiss could not melt away the misshapen bone, but he hoped it would melt away the old sense of unworthiness that haunted her.

When he looked up, he saw her eyes shining with tears.

He leaned back and got to his feet, pulling her up into his arms, pressing her head to his chest. She sobbed quietly, clinging to him. A breeze blew drops from the fountain over them as it had the day of their tea when she'd let her hat be carried away. She lifted her face to his and let him kiss her as deeply as he wished.

Only the ring in his pocket stopped him, but at last, he drew her back to their stony seat. "I have something to ask you," he said.

"Do you? May I put my shoe back on?"

He nodded, watching as she deftly restored her stocking, shoe, and skirts to order. "You know this proposal business is harder than I imagined."

"Perhaps it only works when one is truly in love."

He took her hand and knelt again. "I love you, Cassie, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

"Yes, Raven.

*

Cassie kept the secret of her betrothal as a special bouquet of happiness that was hers alone to enjoy for about two hours. Over tea that evening, lost in thoughts of Raven, she was called to attention by Grandmama. She looked up, and knew at once that she'd given the thing away.

Grandmama and Honoria demanded to see the ring, and Grandmama immediately began to order and arrange wedding clothes, guest lists, wedding breakfast menus, and wedding trip plans. Cassie only laughed and said that she and Raven could manage, thank you.

"Well," said Grandmama, "Don't forget that I had a hand in all this when I said he had to have your approval for his improvements."

Cassie crossed the room and gave her grandmother a quick kiss, the most affection her stiff nature ever allowed. "And we are most grateful, Grandmama."

"I suppose the big house will be full of all and sundry for the wedding," she said.

"At least Grandfather Cole will be here…" Cassie began.

Honoria looked up from her tea. "Oh, I didn't think he liked the country much."

"I think he misses the boys." Cassie did not reveal that Raven had told her that Grandfather Cole had asked lots of questions about Honoria.

Grandmama rose. "You've done well, girl, better than you ever would have in London. I suppose I may tell your Sir Adrian now that you will one day inherit the hall."

"Not too soon, Grandmama, I hope," said Cassie.

*

Cassie and Raven emerged from the last patch of woods on the Wormley side of road. They had been to see Mr. Montford about their wedding plans. Mr. Montford would call the banns for three weeks, and they would be married on the third, the first Sunday of October in St. Andrews Church among their family and friends. Wenlocke was to give Cassie away.

In the blue September sky overhead, clouds massed for a storm, so they hurried a bit. But coming to the road, a pair of unmistakable voices raised in argument stopped them on their side of the hedge. Raven caught Cassie's hand, and she threw him a glance over her shoulder.

"Don't be tiresome, Bel. You must get down." Cassie recognized Tyne's voice.

"Why? It's not my fault we're in the ditch."

"Your silly little ponies have landed us here."

"Don't you blame my ponies, Tyne. I should never have let you drive."

"Get down, Bel."

"I won't."

"Fine, be stubborn. It's going to rain."

Cassie turned to Raven. They had to cross the road, so a meeting was unavoidable. She knew he would never choose to see Amabel again, but Amabel and Tyne were no threat to the happiness Cassie and Raven had. "We should help," she whispered to him. He nodded a tight-lipped agreement and helped her up the embankment through an opening in the hedge and onto the road.

There, a cream-colored phaeton, with its top folded back, and pulled by two stocky golden ponies with yellow manes, stood, its body on a tilt, its left rear wheel in the ditch.

"Can we offer any assistance?" Raven asked.

Amabel and Tyne whipped around to face them. Both faces flashed shock, annoyance, contempt, and chagrin.

"No," Tyne said.

"Yes," Amabel said. "We'll be soaked, and my hat will be ruined. Make him help you, Tyne."

"I think, you misunderstand your circumstances, Lady Amabel. Sir Adrian has offered to help. Lord Tyne may accept if he chooses." Cassie went to the ponies' heads. They looked heated and distressed. The weight of the stuck carriage must be pulling at them. She rubbed the soft muzzles and reassured them that they would soon be home.

Raven crossed to Amabel and lifted a hand. "Dismount. Your ponies will have a better chance of pulling the carriage out of the ditch."

"Oh, very well," she said, and offered her hand. Raven helped her to descend. "Now," he said to Tyne, "What's your thinking?"

"My thinking is that this is a bloody mess," Tyne said, throwing up his hands.

Cassie suspected that Tyne, a man of a light willowy build had never lifted anything heavier than a tennis racket or a cricket bat. He didn't want to admit he needed Raven's help, and she could see his distaste for the actual work of lifting the wheel out of the ditch.

"If my hat is ruined, Tyne, I blame you," Amabel said. The clouds were closing fast now, the bright sunlight dimming. That seemed to stir Tyne to action. He marched round the rear of the carriage and peered into the ditch.

"It's simple mechanics, Tyne," said Raven. "You and I put our backs to the carriage and push, while the ponies pull."

Tyne glared at him. Raven pulled his coat off and handed it to Cassie. She stood at the ponies' heads, ready to give them the signal to walk.

Amabel watched the two men, her head tilted under a lovely lilac-ribboned bonnet. Cassie tried to find some sympathy in her heart for the girl. Amabel had thrown away a good man's love for the company of a man of mere rank and position in the world. Cassie figured that if Amabel had not already realized it, this moment would teach her that she'd made a bad bargain. Maybe the two of them would find some happiness, but it would be a paltry sort of happiness compared to the one Cassie and Raven shared.

Cassie wanted to laugh aloud. Everything that had threatened that happiness was just this, a petulant, cross girl who wanted her own way in the world.

With the two men in position, though clearly, Raven would bear more of the weight than Tyne ever could, Cassie signaled the ponies to pull. At first, they strained and the phaeton rose and hung on the lip of the roadway. Then with a final pull, the wheel rolled back onto the road. Cassie praised the ponies.

Raven turned to Cassie at once and shrugged back into his coat. Amabel stood sending him covert glances. Tyne strolled up to her, putting on his own coat. "That's over then."

She gave him a cold glance. "Help me up, Tyne. I'm driving."

Cassie exchanged a glance with Raven, managing a straight face. They left the fuming couple on the road to sort out who was more to blame.

Raven pulled Cassie through the hedge on the opposite side of the road on Verwood property and stopped abruptly, turned her to face him, holding her by the shoulders, a clear intent in those dark eyes of his.

"You were going to show me a raven's nest you found," he said.

"We'll be soaked," she protested.

"I like you soaked," he said.

He kissed her then, a kiss full of hair-ribbon curling heat and promise. She stood dazed by it for a moment, before she recovered enough presence of mind to say, "The nest it is."