“I’ll call on her tomorrow afternoon,” Alex announced solemnly. “I know I can trust her to keep the perilous state of my health a secret. It would make my stay here unbearable if the fact I have so little time left were widely known.”
“I’m ready to go home now.”
“I know that you are, but not yet. There are three million people in London. There has to be a woman for you among them. I’d like for you to look awhile longer.”
“As you wish,” Raven agreed, but he knew Eden would be so heartbroken to learn the man she loved might not see another summer that she would never notice him. He had known from the outset their trip to London had been a mistake, but each new day convinced him he had badly underestimated the potential for disaster. Alex looked not only troubled, but pale as well, and he could not help but worry about him. “You should go to bed.”
“In a moment or two,” Alex promised, but once alone he remained seated, trying to understand why the love that had eluded him for so many years had come too late. Until recently he had considered himself a lucky man to have had so much, but after having met Eden, he now knew just how greatly he had been cheated.
Amazingly, that bitter thought brought a slow smile to his lips. Fate might have dealt him a poor hand, but he knew in life, just as in a game of chance, the winner was not always the man with the best cards. On the contrary, it was often the man who relied on his wits rather than luck, and made the most of whatever cards he held.
Alex wanted Eden, and badly. Now that he knew her affection for him also ran deep, why shouldn’t they spend what time he had left together? It was a daring thought, and perhaps a selfish one, but the choice, after all, would be Eden’s. His mind made up, he rose and began to undress. He would call on Eden just as he had promised Raven he would, but rather than bidding her a tearful farewell, he would offer her all the love that filled his heart. Knowing his beautiful rebel was a woman of spirit and courage, he was confident what her answer to his proposal would be.
Lydia Lawton also waited until she reached the privacy of her own room before she confronted Eden with what she considered not only her shocking lack of discretion, but an unforgivable breach of trust as well. Her voice was low and controlled, for she had no wish to start her servants gossiping about her niece.
“When Lord Clairbourne has been so generous with his time and attention, how dare you repay him by sneaking off with his nephew? And how could you have done that to Stephanie? Raven has been seeing her, not you. Did you think a few moments alone with him would be all you’d need to take him away from her? Is this how you wish to repay us for the kindness we’ve shown you? I can’t believe Sarah didn’t raise you to show better judgment, to say nothing of higher morals, than we’ve seen from you tonight. You have betrayed us all, and I demand to know why this very instant.”
When her aunt had finished her scathing rebuke, Eden looked up, the sorrow of her expression still a reflection of her conversation with Raven, rather than a result of Lydia’s string of undeserved insults. “My parents raised me to be a lady, and I am one. Raven was my partner when the music ended. I was too warm and wished to go outside. There was nothing more to it than that. It was entirely innocent.”
“There was far more to it,” Lydia contradicted. “I saw you two standing close, discussing something of obvious importance. Don’t insult my intelligence by claiming you were talking about the weather.”
As she searched her mind for a reasonable reply, Eden toyed nervously with the fan she still held in her lap. Were she to confess the truth, her aunt would be even more outraged than she was already, so she dared not do that. She would not lie about what she and Raven had been discussing either.
“While I’m half English, many of your customs are foreign to me. If I embarrassed you this evening, I’m truly sorry. I’ll apologize to Alex the next time I see him as well.”
“I doubt you’ll ever see him again,” Lydia snapped angrily.
“Not see him, but why?”
Lydia shook her head, amazed Eden did not understand. “No man is pleased to find a woman he admires prefers another man to him. When the other man is his own nephew, well, the shock had to be a most painful one.”
“Stop it!” Eden leapt to her feet, no longer able to stoically tolerate her aunt’s innuendoes when they now included Alex. “I did not lure Raven out into the gardens intending to seduce him! We were merely standing on the terrace enjoying the coolness of the night air. There is absolutely no reason for Alex to feel hurt by anything that happened tonight and I’m positive Raven will tell him so. I won’t listen to another of your malicious lies. I’m going to bed.”
Stephanie had been listening at the door, and when Eden stormed by her, she had to lurch out of the way. She was torn then, not knowing whether to follow her cousin or join her mother. Finally she entered Lydia’s room. “Mother?” she called out hesitantly. “I’m not certain what we saw anymore, but Raven is not the type a woman can manipulate. He’s very much his own man.”
“Every man can be manipulated by a clever woman, every last one!” Lydia insisted as she yanked the bell pull to summon her maid. “Eden is exactly like her mother. Exactly, and if her willfulness has spoiled your chances to marry Raven Blade, I’ll send her home and I won’t mourn if she doesn’t survive the voyage. Now go to bed. You’ve fittings for new gowns tomorrow and I won’t have you going out looking pale and drawn.”
When Stephanie reached her room, she was shocked to find Eden waiting for her, but she didn’t waste a moment before venting the anger her mother had just fostered. “I had believed you to be so enamored of Alex I didn’t think you had even noticed Raven. If you have, forget it, because I won’t let you have him.”
Eden had meant to reassure Stephanie that she had no such intention, but she was not inspired to respond to her cousin’s vicious challenge with such a courtesy. “You don’t own Raven Blade,” she replied proudly, “and you never will.” With a satisfied smile, she left her cousin to smolder in a tormenting mixture of jealousy and dismay.
Chapter Three
July 1863
Bound for the port, Raven left their townhouse before Alex was awake the next morning. Because he knew neither of them would be in any mood to be entertained the rest of the week, if ever, he had left the message he planned to stay on board the Jamaican Wind several nights while he made the final arrangements for the cargo they would be carrying home.
“Home,” he recalled fondly, for indeed Jamaica was home to him. He had never felt welcome in London despite his numerous trips there. The city was not only terribly overcrowded but filthy as well, and now that the underground railway was being constructed, there seemed to be twice as much noise and dirt. All in all, he considered it a horrid place, one he would avoid whenever possible in the future.
He was far more comfortable among the
colorful folk who inhabited the docks, and in the rowdy taverns that catered to sailors’ tastes, than he was being entertained by Alex’s elegant circle of friends. He could laugh out loud in a tavern, swat the barmaids on the fanny, and down ale until he passed out if he wished. He could relax completely and be himself instead of the reserved gentleman London society required him to be.
Alex knew how he felt and had taken him to the clubs where gentlemen gambled until dawn, but while the atmosphere was reasonably relaxed at such places, he had not been even remotely tempted to return on his own. He was not averse to an occasional game of cards, nor to playing for high stakes. He simply preferred the company of friends he respected to that of men who maintained their wealth by extorting high rents from the impoverished tenants who populated their estates. They were parasites in his view: living off the sweat of others while the most strenuous labor they ever did was to shuffle a deck of cards. Surely that was no way for any self-respecting man to live no matter how many titles he could claim.
Raven had been born into a hostile world where even a child had to work from dawn to dusk in order to survive. Alex might have rescued him from that wretched environment, but Raven had never forgotten it. He considered men who pursued no useful work, or philanthropic endeavor either, to be insufferably weak and avoided them whenever possible. The problem was, he had been unable to do so for the last few weeks, and as a result, he was eager to return to his ship, where he felt completely at home and where there would be work for him to do that mattered.
He whistled as he strode up the gangplank, and then broke into a wide grin when the mate came running to meet him. “I’m pleased to see you’ve kept the ship afloat without me,” he called out in greeting.