Ecstasy (Notorious 4)

“I assure you,” Kell vowed quite honestly, “I will care for Raven to the best of my ability.” He paused before adding, “I would be better prepared, though, if I understood more of her history.”

“You wish to know about Raven’s mother?”

“I gather you were estranged from her.”

“Yes.” The viscount’s rheumy eyes welled up with tears. “I treated my daughter so wretchedly. I wish to God I had acted differently…” Tears slipped down his wrinkled cheeks as he spoke of his lifelong regrets. “I repudiated my only child because of my stubborn pride, and I never saw her again. What a damned fool I was.” Wearily he shut his eyes. “When you come to be my age, you realize the importance of family. I have only myself to blame for my loneliness.”

They stayed for more than half an hour, with Luttrell lamenting his past mistakes and disclosing what little he knew of his granddaughter’s upbringing. When he finally composed himself, they joined Raven in the drawing room.

Her gaze immediately sought out Kell’s, but he kept his expression purposely enigmatic. Her countenance, however, clearly showed her relief that the two men hadn’t done mortal battle.

Lord Luttrell made straight for his chair and gave a sigh as he sank into it. “Play a carol for us, my dear, while I warm my old bones by the fire. I vow these damned winters are getting more brutal each year. Do you sing, Mr. Lasseter?”

“I haven’t in years,” Kell replied, going to stand near Raven at the pianoforte. “Not since my mother was alive.”

“Well, I am a bit rusty myself, but Raven has a voice like an angel and should keep us in tune. If you are willing to risk making a cake of yourself, so am I.”

Thus it was that Kell, to his amazement, found himself turning the pages for Raven and singing Christmas carols he hadn’t sung since his youth.

The evening was a strange one for Kell, disturbing in many ways, for it reminded him of everything he’d once had and lost. He hadn’t known such familial warmth since his father died.

He found himself relishing the easy laughter between grandfather and granddaughter. Luttrell obviously cared for Raven a great deal and profoundly regretted having lost the opportunity to witness her childhood and to see her grow to womanhood.

The viscount’s earlier sad utterances about loneliness echoed in Kell’s mind as he stood at the pianoforte beside Raven, feeling a strange melancholy. The warmth and intimacy of the evening only emphasized his own isolation, while the discussion of family had roused unwanted reflections about his own painful past and made him acutely aware of all that was missing in his life.

For so many years he’d had Sean and no one else… But now he had a wife. Raven. Unaccountably she filled him with unnamed longings, stirred desires in him that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for an eternity, desires that went beyond the physical. When he was with her, his shattering sense of loneliness faded, and he could almost envision a future that held something other than barren emptiness.

Kell gazed down at her as she completed the final verse of a carol, and the yearning intensified. He’d been so mistaken about her. He’d once considered her a conniving, title-hunting schemer and tarred her with the same brush as he did the elite society he despised. Instead Raven had proven him completely wrong, continually surprising and delighting him. Deliberately or not, she’d challenged and provoked and aroused him-both hi

s body and his heart.

A flicker of tenderness rippled through him, and he found himself wishing their circumstances could be different, that they could have something more than a cold marriage of convenience.

Mentally Kell scoffed at the absurd notion. Raven didn’t want a real marriage. Certainly she didn’t want love. She didn’t even want passion from him. She would rather escape into her fantasies with her imaginary lover.

A renewed arrow of jealousy suddenly stung him, and Kell felt his mouth tighten in a sardonic line. Sweet hell, he was mad to be jealous of a damned fantasy. And yet he still wanted fiercely to tear Raven away from her fictitious lover, to drive him from her mind and take his place…

She glanced up at him just then, her eyes an incredible blue beneath a poignant sweep of ebony lashes. He had little defense against those eyes-or against Raven herself. It scared him that his resistance toward her was crumbling…

They both fell silent, staring at each other. A log crackling in the grate broke the spell, but it took Kell a moment to realize that the drawing room had grown quiet.

Glancing over at the viscount, he saw that Lord Luttrell had dozed off in his chair. Evidently they’d been the only ones singing for some time.

The slight flush that colored Raven’s cheeks suggested she realized their circumstances as well.

“I wonder if we should call someone to put him to bed?” she whispered.

Kell shook his head. “Let him sleep. He’ll likely waken on his own, and if not, his servants undoubtedly know his habits and will care for him.”

Raven hesitated, glancing at the mantel clock, which showed the hour of ten. “It’s late. Perhaps I should retire.”

It was not an invitation to join her, Kell knew. She intended to keep as much physical distance between them as possible-her way of maintaining her emotional defenses, he realized.

Wisely Kell clamped down on his instinctive urge to protest. He would be far better off not touching her. He would have a hard enough time maintaining his own defenses without the temptation of Raven’s lovemaking to further arouse his heart’s longings.

He returned a wry smile. “This is early compared to the hours I usually keep. On a busy night at the club, it’s rare that I get to bed before three or four in the morning. I think I will stay up for a while, perhaps find a book to occupy me.”

“Grandfather’s library is well stocked,” Raven observed.