“Why have you come?” Kell asked, abruptly changing the subject. “You shouldn’t be here. It won’t do your reputation any good to be seen in a gaming hell.”
He didn’t invite her to be seated, but Raven did so anyway, taking the end of the bench opposite him. “My reputation could hardly be more tarnished at the moment. And I cannot distance myself from your club completely, now that I am your wife. Besides, my visit is for a good cause. I had to speak to you, yet I’ve seen very little of you since we wed.”
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t involve yourself in my life, nor I in yours.”
“We also agreed we should keep up appearances for the time being. Ours was supposed to be a love match, remember?”
He bent his head to his task, removing a speck of dirt from the deadly blade. “We both know what a spurious tale that is.”
“The rest of the world doesn’t realize that. And I require your presence to maintain the charade. My friends Lord and Lady Wycliff are planning a ball in our honor, to celebrate our nuptials.”
Kell didn’t even hesitate. “I will have to decline the honor.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t care to move in your elite social circles.”
“You keep away by choice, Lord Wolverton says.”
Kell looked up; obviously she had surprised him. “You know Wolverton? The greatest rake in all England?”
“He is a family friend,” Raven admitted without embarrassment. “Dare claims this is his favorite hell.”
“I am honored,” Kell said wryly, although without his usual sardonic sting.
“I asked him about you. He says you would have been welcomed by the ton had you chosen to exert yourself.”
Kell lowered his long, black lashes-those thick lashes any female would envy-while his hard, beautiful mouth curled. But he didn’t speak. Instead he examined the blade for imperfections.
“Dare says you are an expert swordsman,” Raven said into the silence. “Is that how you came by your scar?”
He shot her a dark glance. “You have a great deal of curiosity for a mere wife of convenience.”
“I suppose so,” she replied, unfazed by his scowl. “Aunt Catherine considers it a prime failing of mine.”
Absently he reached up and touched his scar, running his finger along the jagged ridge. “My disfigurement was courtesy of my uncle’s signet ring, if you must know.”
The uncle he had supposedly murdered? Raven wondered. The question must have shown in her eyes, for Kell nodded.
“I could cheerfully have killed him. He sent my mother to an early grave, after taking her sons from her. There was no love lost between us.”
“And he struck you? In the face?” Her outrage was evident in her tone.
“Among other places. It’s no secret that we fought regularly.”
Raven studied him, wondering at his truthfulness. Had he told her that story merely to put off her questions? Or to gain her sympathy? Perhaps he used his scar to his own advantage, to hide the secrets he kept locked insid
e. Secrets that admittedly she was dying to know. She searched Kell’s face. His eyes were like polished obsidian, darkly reflective and damnably unrevealing.
How many other secrets was he hiding behind those fathomless eyes?
“Is that why you despise society so?” she said finally. “Because of your mother?”
Something hot and dangerous flared in those dark depths. It was a long moment before he answered. “Primarily. As an Irishwoman she was never good enough for my father’s kin-or most of the English Quality, for that matter. I want nothing to do with their ilk.”
“Then we have something in common,” Raven murmured with all seriousness. “I have no more admiration for many of the ton’s members than you do. On the whole they are cruel, soulless, unbelievably shallow. Certainly I have no desire to suffer their contempt and condescension. If I had my way, I would tell them all to go to the devil.”
His eyebrow shot up. “The toast of London professing to disdain the haute monde? Why don’t I believe you?”