Sterling had eyes and ears all over the city and nothing ever got past him, so Raven expected this. But that didn’t mean he was willing to talk about it. As far as he was concerned, the less he mentioned about that night, the better. “Perhaps I have a twin in London.”
Sterling’s mouth twitched as he scanned the columns of the ledgers with a deceptively absent air. “I also heard another tale about Duncan Pickerington visiting your flat—as he calls it. Yet his account was so completely absurd that I dismissed it.”
Raven cursed under his breath, his back teeth grinding together.
“I also believe,” Sterling continued conversationally, turning the page, “there was mention of a girl involved.”
Raven stiffened, shoulders ramrod straight. “Pickerington never should have mentioned any of it, especially nothing about her.”
“Why is that?”
Knots of tension rose like hackles down his spine, and Raven didn’t quite understand the sudden anger he felt toward Pickerington. But it was there, nonetheless. “Isn’t it your rule that well-bred women aren’t discussed beneath this roof? At least that’s how it was when you were courting your matchmaker.”
In response, a pair of mismatched irises—one, a solid indigo and the other golden at the corner—lifted from the ledger. A dark brow arched in a clear warning to tread lightly in matters that concerned his wife. “We both know Pickerington, and I’m sure he meant no slight. From what I understand, the girl is his own cousin.”
“Then he should do a fare sight better at protecting his own family, not let them fall into danger. A man keeps what’s his safe and sound.” Raven growled before he thought better of it and saw the keen flash of interest in that gilded eye.
“Made an impression, did she?”
“Nothing of the sort,” he answered tightly, wanting an end to this conversation.
But that didn’t stop his skin from tingling from the unwanted and ever-recurring memory of her taut, fragrant body pressed against him. Bloody hell! He wished he could just forget already.
Fisting his hands, he swallowed and inwardly rued the day he’d ever met the little jam-eating bluestocking.
Sterling closed the book and offered a nod as if that was the end of it.
Raven turned on his heel to leave. But just as he got to the door, Sterling had one more question for him.
“So tell me,” he said with a trace of amusement, “were you actually turned . . . pink?”
Raven was going to kill Pickerington for having such a big mouth.
Looking over his shoulder, and mustering as much pride as he could, he stared pointedly at the budvase on the windowsill. “As pink as that posy you’re taking to Mrs. Sterling.”
* * *
Jane couldn’t let another day pass without sharing her findings with Raven. She just hoped it would be enough to convince the hard-won skeptic. However, if the wax seal hadn’t persuaded him to believe, then she likely had a battle ahead of her.
Peering through the slit between the carriage window drapes, her gaze skimmed over the ramshackle terrace in Covent Garden. She’d expected Raven home by now. According to her watch fob, it was a quarter past three o’clock in the morning.
The news she had for him needed to be delivered in person.
Unfortunately, finding the time had been challenging in between lessons for the children, daily disasters, and social obligations that Ellie refused to let her cancel.
In fact, Ellie was with her now, asleep on the blue velvet bench beside her. Ellie’s aunts, of course, believed they were both still at the Willinghams’ ball with Jane’s parents. And her parents believed that their daughter was spending the evening at Upper Wimpole Street with Ellie and her aunts.
It was the perfect stratagem. Or, at least, it would be if Raven ever showed up.
Jane was ashamed to admit that she’d caught herself wondering—and not for the first time this week—if he’d found a new brothel and was holding and kissing cyprians the way he’d held and kissed her. But of course he was. It was logical to conclude that a man she’d met in a brothel would continue to seek his pleasure in such establishments.
But her stomach refused to agree with her mind. Every time she thought of it, that organ churned with peculiar ferocity. The frequency of this occurrence in the past seven days had compelled her to carry a placket of mint leaves. Their soothing digestive properties had become necessary after the artist on her mental portico started painting a series of scandalous portraits involving Raven and scores of beautiful women.
Reaching for her reticule, she began fishing through it. But the flickering glow from the lamppost dimmed as a form emerged beside the carriage.
She did not jolt in startlement. Even before she turned her head, she knew who it was. Only Raven made her skin contract in an all-over body tingle of gooseflesh. Only he caused her heart to stumble awkwardly out of rhythm as if it just tripped over an artery and collided with the wall of her rib cage.
The queer sensation irritated her all the more as she thought about the lateness of the hour. She wondered if he would reek of women’s perfume. Grumpily, she reached out to unlatch the carriage door, but he instantly took control of it.
Swinging the door open on a growl, he issued a gray-eyed glower. “Isn’t it a bit late for you, Jane? I believe your driver has fallen asleep and this is hardly the place to leave yourself unprotected.”
She sent him a glare of her own. “You only have yourself to blame. I wouldn’t have needed to linger if you’d bothered to come home at an appropriate hour. Where have you been, or dare I even ask?”
“You harp like a fishwife,” Raven muttered under his breath, his voice sharp as an ice pick. “It may surprise you, but there are people who have to earn a wage if they want to eat. They don’t have the luxury of flitting about out of a need to escape boredom, passing time between dinner parties and foolish, reckless escapades.”
At the rumbles of their gathering argument, Ellie stirred with a small mewl of protest, but did not awaken. She merely rolled closer into the corner and pressed her cheek more securely to the bunched-up shawl she was using as a makeshift pillow.
Jane sniffed the perfumeless air surrounding him, marginally mollified. “I was under the impression you did not want me to contact you unless I found something definitive.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his dark coat pulled taut over the tightly loomed muscles. “I didn’t care if you found anything at all. Like I told you, nothing’s going to change for me. I just find it amusing that your determination to upend a man’s life runs on a schedule.”
“A schedu—” She stopped on a growl. This was not how their encounter was supposed to commence. She wanted to convince him to believe in the possibility, not completely disregard it. “I’ll not allow you to goad me. This is too important.”
He shrugged, then nodded indifferently toward Ellie. “This one of your book-writing friends?”
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I would introduce you to Elodie Parrish; however, once she decides to fall asleep, the end of the world could not rouse her. Even so, I knew I had to stay until I saw you.”
“Miss me, did you?”
She ignored his mocking tone and turned her attention to her reticule again. Reaching inside, she curled her hand around a scroll, then held it out for him. “I took the letter, applied a restoration technique with the juice of a lemon and uncovered the name written at the bottom. I’ve translated much of the contents as well.”