They both had left in absentminded fashion, conversing with each other and forgetting to bid their daughter good-night or their guest farewell. And, doubtless, they never imagined their plain daughter would need a chaperone.
After all, who would ever be tempted by her?
“Ravenscroft to Raversleigh, and then to Rosburton might make sense, I s’pose,” Raven said, walking at a leisurely pace beside her. “The one I can’t understand is Thackeray.”
“Well, at the time, I believe Father was speaking of quitting Holly House before Christmastide to stay in his hunting box. Then Mother interjected that she always loved that house because it rests on a hill overlooking quaint thatched cottages.” She slid him a wry glance. “Naturally, you became Lord Thackeray.”
“Ah,” he mused. Then a tight exhale left him as they walked on. “There were several times when I tried to—”
“I know. You never had a chance but the sentiment was felt, all the same,” she said, smiling fondly up at him as her tender-skinned fingertips stroked the cuff of his fine woolen sleeve. “It isn’t purposeful, what they do. It is simply . . . the way my parents are.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“It’s the same in many society families. The nannies and the governesses raise the children and those children, in turn, become veritable strangers to their parents and little more than figures in a family portrait. Asking them to change would be like expecting a fern to grow oranges.”
He laid his hand over hers, stroking the fine skin that covered tissue and metacarpals. A warmth spread through her nerve endings and along her limbs, seeming to converge in the center of every heartbeat.
“I understand why you carry your reticule now,” he said quietly. “And your need to have every item on hand to take care of yourself, and others, in any given situation.”
Looking at her, his expression altered to something so intimate, so knowing, that it felt as if he were seeing her in the bath.
A wash of embarrassment made her want to cross her arms over herself.
Because if he could know her this well, then he could also see her inadequacies and deficiencies—the ones that had always made her forgettable and invisible.
Slipping her arm free, she stepped under one of the arches lining the hall to adjust a crooked picture frame. “Well, I was an inquisitive child. I peppered my parents with so many questions that my uncle took pity on them and taught me to read early on. A new world opened for me when I learned that books could give me the answers.” She realized she was babbling and waved a hand in a nervous gesture to the dimly lit doorway at the end of the hall. “And it all started there, in the library.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him move a few steps in that direction. Felt his intense curiosity. Then he looked back over his shoulder. “Show me.”
The gleam of genuine interest in his gaze eclipsed her embarrassment. Not even Ellie or Winn or Prue ever wanted to see the library. She’d dragged them there, of course, on several occasions, but they’d never asked to go.
She couldn’t resist the impulse to take his hand, and she smiled as his fingers automatically enfolded hers.
Only a single sconce was left burning on the wall by the door. The embers in the fireplace had all but extinguished, leaving a faint apricot glow to the room that didn’t reach the vaulted ceiling or the trompe l’oeil upper gallery.
Nearby, Raven was already drawing volumes from the shelves and skimming through the pages. But it was his look of awed amazement, like a man viewing the phosphorescent glow of algae beneath the water’s surface, that made her smile. She always felt that way, too.
Coming up beside him, she peered over his shoulder at the book he was studying with interest. The subject was botany. The page, plums.
A rush of warmth pulsed from her heart to the surface of her skin and she leaned back against the shelves to gaze up at him, cementing this feeling of joy in her memory.
He closed the book, returning it before giving her his full attention. Propping his shoulder against one of the horizontal ledges, he brushed his fingers along the exposed length of her arm, exciting nerve endings from elbow to wrist.
“It was nearly impossible to act the gentleman tonight. There were so many times I wanted to reach across the table and take your hand,” he said, lightly threading his fingers with hers. “So many things I wanted to say to your parents.”
It would have been easy to relax into his touch, but his statement sounded too much like pity for her ears. So she straightened, slipping her hand from his as she walked to the center of the room to organize the cluttered map table.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said, affecting an air of nonchalance. “Besides, I accepted their indifference long ago.”
But Raven didn’t let her get too far. He stopped in front of her and crooked a finger beneath her chin to capture her gaze. “If this dinner hadn’t been part of a lesson and I hadn’t vowed to be on my best behavior for your sake, then I would’ve slammed my fist down on the table, unleashed the growl that was chained in my chest all evening, and appeared every bit the brute.”
Jane instantly knew she’d been mistaken. It wasn’t pity she saw in his face but something else. Something forceful and earnest and tender.
“I wanted to rail at them, Jane.” Drawing her closer, he bent his forehead to hers as his rough-padded fingertips drifted to her nape, working in massaging circles that eased her unnecessary worries. “I wanted to tell them that they were idiots for not seeing that they have an exceptional daughter. The cleverest, prettiest bluestocking I’ve ever known.”
Stunned, her mouth went dry, lips falling slack. He slid the length of his nose against hers and she closed her eyes to savor his affectionate nuzzling, the port wine taste of his warm breath on her tongue.
Her heart didn’t flutter beneath her breast. No, instead it lay down like a purring cat, rolling over and exposing its underbelly. “That doesn’t sound at all like you. There wasn’t a single scandalous comment in your entire declaration.”
There was a rakish grin in his low voice when he said, “I also would have told them that you have lips sweeter than damson jam, and that I sleep with your scent on my bedlinens every night. But I don’t think they would have understood.”
His lips grazed her cheek. Her temple. Her brow. And all the while, the artist standing on the portico of her brain was sketching Raven in bed, naked, and thinking of her.
“I must have poured out too much lavender water that night.”
He murmured a low, knowing growl as the tip of his nose whispered across her eyelashes, his fingertips teasing the wispy tendrils at her nape. “Perhaps there’s a primitive side to your nature and you wanted to leave your scent behind, hmm? You’d be scandalized by the dreams I’ve had ever since.”
Her palms glided up the sleeves of his coat to curve around his thick shoulders and neck as she rose up on her toes. The spiced scent of bay rum clung to his clothes, blending incomparably well with his own fragrance. She inhaled deeply, fighting the urge to bury her nose in his shirtfront.
“Tell me what scoundrels dream about,” she said, her inner scribe at the ready. “Scandalize me.”