She turned and her breath caught at the sight of Raven entering the light-filled chamber. He wore a fine suit, the charcoal-colored broadcloth tailored perfectly to his form, and his jaw was freshly shaven above a starched white cravat.
Stopping before her, he bowed, then presented her with a bouquet of bright pink flowers.
“For you, Miss Pickerington.” His gray eyes gleamed with mirth as he glanced to the table. “It seems we are of like mind as usual.”
She smiled and took the flowers, her hands trembling slightly. She didn’t know why she was nervous all of a sudden. Perhaps it was because no one had ever brought her flowers before.
“They’re lovely.” She drew in their sweet aroma, gathering them close. Then, without warning, he picked her up by the waist and twirled her around in circles. Her head fell back on a giddy laugh as she clung to his shoulders. “You’re crushing the flowers.”
“A lesson to you to put them down sooner. You should have known I’d need to have you in my arms straightaway,” he said, nipping lightly along her exposed throat. “And you are positively delectable in pink. Then again, you’re quite tasty out of it, as I recall.”
Her body clenched with tender yearning at the reminder. “Hush now. You mustn’t say things like that because Henry is joining us for tea. No doubt Charles, Phillipa, and the twins would already be here, but they are still writing their final examination essays.”
“Then you leave me no choice but to put you over my shoulder and carry you back to my cave so that I can have my way with you.”
As if to prove it, he held her tighter. His grin brimmed with wicked intent as he began to prowl toward the door.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“With you, I think I would dare to do just about anything,” he said with a mysterious glint in his eyes. Yet, with patent reluctance that made her heart flutter even more, he lowered her to the stone tiles.
They both heard her brother’s disconsolate shuffle in the hall. But, ever the scoundrel, Raven stole a quick kiss the instant before Henry appeared. Therefore, her cheeks were in high color when he ambled in.
He looked between them before rolling his eyes. “I don’t have to be here for tea, you know. I can go somewhere else and be alone in the silence.”
Recovering herself, she dashed over to her desk to put her disheveled bouquet in one of the jars she’d stashed earlier.
She clucked her tongue. “If melancholia were contagious, I should shoo you from the room post haste. But even Doctor Lockwood said that you should move around a bit during the day. He believes that bed rest is important to aid recovery, but so is good circulation. Thirty minutes out of bed and in the sunlight will do you a world of good, I’m sure.”
“She’s a hard taskmaster, this one,” Raven said, commiserating with Henry. “But perhaps this will help to ease some of the ailment you suffer.”
Reaching into his coat, he withdrew a folded packet of papers. He held them out to her brother, who reached reflexively with the arm encased in a sling and winced before remembering to use his other hand.
Henry issued a taut sigh as he took hold of them. “And what’s this, then?”
“Open it and discover the answer for yourself,” Jane huffed.
Her brother slumped down in a chair and spread the pages wide. He stared at them for a moment, then smiled and laughed out loud. “Compositions for the left hand. You’re a right solid fellow.”
Raven shrugged and came around the table to hold Jane’s chair. “I just happened by a little shop this morning and thought these would keep you occupied during your recovery.”
As she sat down, she smiled up at him, her heart twirling again. Her arteries were surely loomed in a tight swirl like ribbons on a maypole by now.
He gestured to the center of the table with a nod. “And what’s this?”
“It’s a fortune-telling cake,” she said as he took the place beside her. “There are small trinkets tucked inside, so be careful that you don’t bite down too hard.”
“Just don’t get a button in your slice—that’s not a proper fortune,” Henry said.
“I dunno.” Raven glanced to Jane. “I wouldn’t mind a button, as long as it had brown thread. What other fortunes are in there?”
Henry listed them with absent finger-taps on the table as if he were already practicing the music. “There’s always a sovereign. Mother used to get a little cherub in hers, but by the time Theodora was born and the nursery expanded to two rooms, everyone agreed that we should lose that one. And cook always puts a ring in Jane’s cake, but she’s never gotten it in her slice. Then last year, one of us—and I’m not naming names—put a spinster’s thimble inside. Unfortunately, she didn’t get that slice either. But her friend did.”
“And it wasn’t very kind of you,” Jane chided and turned the cake, repositioning it to better her chances. “Thankfully, Ellie is rather fond of thimbles and didn’t take umbrage.”
Raven laid his hand over hers and slipped the cake knife free. “So then which slice do you normally get?”
“Nothing,” Henry chortled. “Her slice is always empty.”
“Ah,” Raven said thoughtfully. “The slice of possibility, where your future is what you make of it.”
Jane smiled and lifted her brows smugly at her brother. “Precisely. It doesn’t matter what the slice holds. In reality, we all forge our own paths.”
However, as she watched Raven cut into the cake, she still hoped to finally get that ring.
Chapter 31
After Raven and Henry left the conservatory, Jane went up to the garret in search of the matching slippers for the gown she planned to wear at Aversleigh’s ball.
She’d found them quickly but spotted a few stains that needed tending. Thinking about the solution she would use, she wasn’t paying much attention to where she walked and accidentally tripped over a small black-lacquered casket.
She landed, sprawled out on the floor. But she simply laughed at herself, far too content to be bothered by the bracing sting in her palms and smarting knees on the hardwood planks. She did, however, cast a glare to the culprit.
And felt a jolt of surprise.
It was a box from among her uncle’s things. She must have forgotten to have it brought downstairs on that first day Raven had come. Of course, it likely didn’t contain anything of import. But ever curious, she opened the lid.
It was full of letters. Examining them in the bright shaft of light through the dormer window, she saw that they were written in French and addressed to Jean Louis, as in John Louis Pickerington, her uncle.
She frowned in perplexity. More letters written in French to her uncle? It seemed too coincidental not to be related to the letter from Raven’s mother.
However, this was not Arabelle Northcott’s handwriting.
In fact, the script was small, with letters crowded together in utilitarian fashion. This writer, she surmised, was not given to wasting good paper. And the signature on the bottom was not Raven’s mother’s either. It was signed only with a single name—Helene.
The paper was a fine quality, similar if not identical to that of the letter from Raven’s mother to Uncle Pickerington.