Ecstasy (Notorious 4)

At the first intermission, when she saw Halford leave his box, she persuaded Brynn to stroll the halls with her. As she hoped, they encountered the duke shortly, but he was surrounded by friends.

Keeping a discreet distance, Raven waited until he left his party. Then taking a deep breath, she stepped forward into his path.

Halting abruptly, Halford raised his quizzing glass, looking at her as if she were a particularly odious species of bug.

She endured his scathing perusal without visibly flinching. “Good evening, Charles.”

“Madam.” He made no effort to bow. “I confess you astonish me, brazenly accosting me in public like this.”

“I presumed this would be my only chance to speak to you,” Raven replied. “No doubt you would have refused to see me had I applied to you in private.”

Raising a mocking eyebrow, Halford looked around them. “I wonder that your husband didn’t accompany you here.”

His very tone was a taunt, but Raven tried to remain calm, not wishing to antagonize him. “My husband is occupied at the moment. He has a club to run, as perhaps you know.”

“Ah, yes.” The duke’s lips curled with contempt. “I recall now that he is a gamester. I should have perceived your presence, since the stench followed you here.”

Raven bit her tongue. “Charles, I only hoped to have a word with you.”

“You may spare your breath, madam. Nothing you have to say could possibly interest me.”

He turned abruptly and left her standing there.

Her determination only rose, however.

Near the end of the play, Raven pleaded a headache and told her friends she intended to take a hackney home. Lucian escorted her below and found her one, but several blocks away, she instructed the jarvey to double back.

He dropped her at the end of the long queue of carriages waiting for the theater patrons. Fortunately most of the coachmen and footmen were hovering together, laughing and dicing and simply trying to stay warm in the frigid night air.

Raven kept to the shadows until she spied Halford’s town coach with the ducal crest emblazoned on the door, then slipped inside, hoping she hadn’t been seen. She was risking fresh scandal with her brazen plan, no doubt; ladies did not closet themselves in closed carriages in order to confront irate noblemen. But she felt she had no choice.

She curled herself in the far corner, in the rear-facing seat, and pulled a carriage rug over her head, praying she wouldn’t be detected until they were under way. Then she lay shivering in the darkness.

It was quite some time before the line of carriages began to roll forward, and longer still before she heard Halford enter his own vehicle. She waited until they were well in motion before pushing off the rug and sitting up. She could barely make out his form across from her.

“C

harles?” she murmured quietly.

With a violent start, he snatched up his cane to defend himself.

“Charles, it is I, Raven,” she said hurriedly.

He reached up to rap on the roof, but she leaned forward to grasp his arm, staying him. “Please, I beg you, just hear me out a moment.”

“Are your powers of comprehension defective? I told you, I have no interest in anything you have to say. Now, pray be gone. I want you out of this carriage-”

“Charles, I lied to you,” she said quickly before he could throw her out. “My marriage to Lasseter was not a love match in the least. Merely an act of desperation.”

Her confession made Halford hesitate. “What are you talking about?”

Raven took a deep breath. She could see no other way to gain his sympathy than to tell him the complete truth and throw herself on his mercy. “It was not Kell Lasseter who abducted me. It was his brother, Sean.”

“His brother?”

“Yes. Sean was intent on revenge because I once spurned his suit. But Kell had nothing whatever to do with my abduction and only became involved afterward.”

Halford settled back in his seat, his attention captured for the moment. “I suppose you should explain after all.”