Bollocks. He was thinking about her again. He really had to stop doing that.
With a shake of his head, he offered a politely grumbled, “I hope your journey was without incident.”
Seated at his desk with the account ledgers splayed in front of him, Reed Sterling looked at him with a bemused grin. “It was, thank you. And, now that you’ve dispensed with your uncharacteristic niceties, why don’t you just tell me what you came in here to say.”
“Very well, then,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’ve recently uncovered a few details about my origins. And it seems that there’s a possibility that I might have been born to”—he paused to draw in a deep breath and prepare for the inevitable mockery—“aristocrats.”
Reed didn’t laugh or even snicker. He merely nodded and looked shrewdly across the desk. “I’d heard a rumor. Apparently, you’re all the talk at my wife’s matrimonial agency. There were so many young debutantes asking about you that she had to start a file.”
Raven cursed and cringed. It was even worse than he imagined. “Please burn it, I beg of you. I’ve no intention of entering society. And, to be honest, none of this is indisputable.”
Briefly, he ran through the paltry list of things that may or may not prove his identity. No matter how it had felt to see the portrait, he knew that this could still just be a series of coincidences.
After all, there were still some rather important questions that needed answers. If Edgar and Arabelle Northcott were his parents, then why hadn’t he died in the fire, too? And, for that matter, who had abandoned him on the foundling home’s doorstep?
“It seems enough for the Earl of Warrister to believe it. So, why don’t you?”
“It should be obvious,” Raven quantified, straightening his shoulders. “Surely you haven’t forgotten that you were the one who found me beaten, shot and left for dead three years ago. My life has been one scrape after another. It took forever to finally become the man I am. That isn’t something I’m willing to give up just to pretend to be someone else.”
Before coming here, his life had been controlled by other people—the beadle, Mr. Mayhew; Devil Devons; then Devons’s widow. But that all changed three years ago. He’d been free to make his own decisions. He’d found a place where he fit, where, until recently, he’d felt valued.
Did he truly want to give all that up just to enter into another life where he was controlled by obligation and the same high society who already despised him?
“You can’t close the lid on Pandora’s box,” Sterling said, matter-of-fact. “And you can’t keep your life the way you had it before. No man can. Refusing to acknowledge change is like shadowboxing. There’s nothing to be gained from it.”
Raven knew that. But everything was changing too fast and he couldn’t gain a foothold.
For the past week, he’d been beleaguered by incessant knocking at his door, and each day there were heaps of calling cards stuffed in through the crack above the threshold. How did people live like this with no peace and no privacy?
“You seem to keep a foot in both worlds easily enough,” he said with a jerk of his chin and accusation in his tone.
Sterling chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Perhaps you’ve mistaken contentment for ease. I will completely admit to the former. I’ve never been happier since I married Ainsley, but her world isn’t always easy to navigate—the dinners, the parties, the calling hours.”
“The calling hours,” Raven muttered with a disparaging shake of his head. It seemed that every hour he tried to sleep was a calling hour.
“Aye. And there are different rules for peers, too. Especially the women. One false move and ruination not only befalls her but her entire family.” He paused as if carefully sifting through his next words. “From our previous conversation, I hazard to guess that Miss Pickerington is still assisting you?”
Raven stiffened, having a sense of where this was leading. “I’ve no intention of ruining her.”
“Does that mean you have . . . other intentions in mind?” If Sterling’s brow hadn’t flicked with amusement, they might have had words. “An encounter or two with a debutante and suddenly you’re thinking of matrimony? Please, I beg of you, don’t. Ainsley would see this as an excuse to paste bulletins for her agency all over my building again, believing that everyone here needed to find a match.”
The tension Raven felt abruptly lessened, remembering when Sterling was at war with his neighbor, before she became his wife. “Rest assured, Sterling’s facade is safe. I’ll never marry in the first place, and least of all a hoity-toity debutante.”
Yet, as he said the words, a voice in the back of his mind told him that Jane had never acted like a snobbish, high-society deb.
She was different from the rest. She never turned up her nose at him. She didn’t put on airs. In fact, there wasn’t anything fake or deceptive about her. She was driven by logic and a need to understand the world around her. And there was something altogether appealing about the way she murmured to herself and how her eyes glinted when she had one of her epiphanies.
“Then again, who knows?” Sterling said with a mysterious air, pulling him out of his thoughts. “You may change your mind in the future if that grin means anything. I’ll say this, however: the rewards of marrying the right woman far surpass the trials along the way.”
Only then did Raven realize that the corner of his mouth was curled upward. Because he was thinking about Jane. Bloody hell!
Abruptly, he frowned. When would this obsession end?
Sterling unfolded from his chair and walked around his desk to clasp Raven on the shoulder with something like brotherly affection. “Why don’t you take a few days away from here and get things settled.”
Raven surprised himself by agreeing with a nod. Perhaps all he needed was a couple of days to himself. That should set matters to rights.
“Just know this,” Sterling added. “No matter what you choose to do, now or in the future, you have my unwavering support. Always.”
A sudden wealth of appreciation tightened Raven’s chest. He cleared his throat to hide it. “I’m glad of that. I might need your infamous right hook if Duncan Pickerington asks me one more time if he should call me ‘my lord.’”
* * *
“Well, what does the Earl of Warrister call him when he visits?” Ellie asked as they sat on the jonquil settee in the upper gallery of the Earl of Dovermere’s ballroom.
Jane looked down to smooth her skirts—a regrettable shade of yellow that perfectly blended into her surroundings. She must look like a disembodied head. Which likely explained the odd looks she’d received from gentlemen. Though, at first, she’d imagined she was about to be asked to dance. How foolish of her.
Then again, she wasn’t in the mood to dance.
It had been six entire days since she’d seen Raven. In that time, she could have sworn that the earth’s rotation had slowed and the days grew longer. She’d even checked the mechanics of all the clocks in the house to be sure they were functioning properly. Regrettably, they were.
“I’m not certain. I’ve only met with the earl that one day, and I haven’t seen Raven to inquire with him. Not since the middle of last week.”