Prince of Ravenscar (Sherbrooke Brides 11)

“Don’t sound so horrified. It is the best way to gain needful information. I’m sorry Lily is dead, Julian, but I am also very glad she isn’t here to be married to you.” She kissed his cheek. “What a fine forbearing sort of uncle you are.” She turned quickly to scoop up Cletus and Beatrice, leaving the other two to howl at her. She laughed, and said, “I’m taking them out to run. Come, Oliver, Hortense. You two stop complaining, I can’t carry all of you.” And she was through the French doors, and walking in her long-legged stride toward the cliff at the end of the dog run, the spaniels skipping and dancing beside her.

54

I think I should like to take you away from Ravenscar, Roxanne.” “Exactly why do you think that?”

Devlin was leaning back on his elbows, no hat on his head, looking at her intently. “I suppose I’m thinking aloud. My heart’s finally slowed a bit now that I’ve convinced myself you are really all right. You scared me out of a good ten years.”

“Add us together and we’ve twenty less years on this earth.” They sat on a blanket in the shade of an immense willow tree on the banks of the Horvath. Devlin sat up next to Roxanne to lean against the tree. She lifted her hand to touch him, then dropped it back to her side. She smiled, then cocked her head. “I don’t know what I think of your having a tanned face, Devlin.”

“It will fade if I am careful. Should you like to leave here, Roxanne? Sophie told me your maid Tansy told her you had a nightmare last night.”

Roxanne picked up a small pebble and gave it an expert flick into the water. “Blast Tansy.” She watched the pebble skip three times. “She means well, but she cannot keep a single thought to herself. What am I saying? She is only sixteen years old, and she is very protective of me. I fear she might regard me as a sort of mother figure, which depresses my spirits.” She sighed. “I was an idiot to say anything about it to her.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. It was the major topic of conversation at the servants’ table last night, I wager. Now, I can see for myself that your eyes are shadowed, and you are more pale than you usually are. Thus you’re not sleeping well. I think perhaps a change of scenery might do you good. Perhaps you should like to visit my home, Holly Hill. Did I tell you, it was finished the year Henry VII removed himself from this earth? That Tudor king was a great friend of my ancestor; the two of them, it is told, hunted often together, my ancestor singing all the while. It was said his deep baritone voice brought out the deer.”

“A charming tale. Did you make that up, Devlin, to distract me?”

“I? Not a word of it. I can show you three-hundred-year-old papers, recounting the history.

“If not Holly Hill, perhaps you would wish to come with me to my parents’ home near Colchester? You will like Mount Burney, it’s in the Palladian style, all big columns, huge high-ceilinged rooms. It looks more like a real palace than Ravenscar. I would like you to meet my parents, Roxanne.”

“I have met them, Devlin.”

His voice deepened, grew austere. “You would meet them in a different way now.” He drew a deep breath. “The thing is, I’m thinking I quite like having you around. And if you agree to be around, then I want you happy and laughing, not having your eyes shadowed, not enduring nightmares that scare the sin out of you.”

She said, “I like having you around as well.”

He looked at her now, studying her face for a long moment. Then he wound a loose curl around his finger, leaning forward as he did so, until he fancied he could hear her heartbeat. He closed his eyes and breathed her in. “You are magnificent. Marry me, Roxanne.”

She was magnificent? He wanted to marry her? She was something of an heiress, that was true enough, but she was only a baron’s daughter. He was the Earl of Convers, heir to the Duke of Brabante. She was a spinster, long accepted as such and well settled in her nest on the shelf, wherever that was. They were the same age. She didn’t move, scarcely breathed. He was always elusive, always saying something she didn’t expect. But, she realized, since she’d been kidnapped, he’d changed.

She said slowly, “You haven’t let me out of

your sight since you came bursting through that barn door.”

He was chewing again on a water reed, looking at the river, fingering a flat stone. “I fancy I won’t until I cock up my toes.”

“Last night, you even insisted on walking me to my room. You checked the keyhole and the key itself very carefully, then bade me lock the door, then check it to make certain it was locked. Then you turned and eyed the corridor wall for the longest time.”

“You know exactly what I was thinking whilst I was looking at that wall.”

“Well, it was only three nights ago when voices awoke me and I came out to find you, and you kissed me and brought me against you and I felt all of you and you felt all of me.” She paused for a moment, flicked another pebble into the water, this one gaining only two jumps. “I know I probably should not say this, Devlin, but I have come to realize I could so easily have died yesterday. Manners could have killed me, or the person who hired him could have taken me away and killed me. And if I were dead, it would mean that I’d left something important unsaid. And now that seems rather ridiculous to me.

“So I shall say it aloud. When you kissed me, when you held me tight against you, I was aware of things I’ve never really thought of before, I was aware of you as a man, a man who wanted me, a man who could take me against the wall, and I will be honest here, I was certainly willing. To solve that final mystery, to understand what you and I could be together—” She drew a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “I have never felt feelings like those in my life. I wanted more, and you knew it. And you, the man who keeps more mistresses than most men have shirts, was the one to stop, not the prim on-the-shelf virgin spinster.”

He was silent. He leaned forward and again began wrapping and unwrapping the hank of hair between his long fingers.

“I should say pulling away from you makes me sound vastly honorable. Or, more likely, a great fool.”

“Devlin, do you really wish to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“If I become your wife, you can no longer visit your mistresses.”

He wanted to make light of it, tell her she shouldn’t listen to gossip, but he didn’t. He looked at her straight on, leaned forward, not touching her, and kissed her lightly. Then he cupped her face in his palm. “You could have died, you’re right about that. I have realized as well that I am keeping things inside me that should be spoken. I will be honest here. I was not looking for a wife. I believed myself too young, even though my parents have been hinting that it is time I set up my nursery. I liked my life, liked the way one day flowed into the next. I was happy, I was content, the days were full, usually quite pleasant—racing, gaming, loving, dancing—I sound like a worthless sot, don’t I? A man with no substance, a spoiled man who’s always played at life, never burrowed in and tried to do anything worthwhile, not like my uncle, who works very hard.

“Let me tell you, Roxanne, Julian is a power. I think he’s that way because he was the second son, the son who never knew his father, the son who believed he had to prove himself to gain worth. But I’m probably spouting nonsense.”