Nicole Jordan (2 page)

Surprised but grateful for her aunt’s gift, Raven tempered her response. “Yes, thank you. I would like very much to wear them.”

Without speaking, Aunt Catherine turned to take her leave, but then turned back, arching one elegant eyebrow. “I confess you have pleasantly surprised me, Raven. I never imagined you would make such an advantageous marriage.”

“Why not?” Raven couldn’t help asking. “Because you didn’t believe I should aim so high, given the illegitimacy of my origins?”

“Few people know the secret of your origins, thank heavens. No, frankly, I didn’t believe you would have the good sense to accept Halford for your husband. You had so many suitors…. I feared you might choose someone unacceptable just to spite us.”

She had indeed had numerous suitors, Raven reflected. In fact, one suitor in particular had hounded her relentlessly even after her betrothal to Halford was announced, nearly embroiling her in scandal. Thankfully her aunt knew nothing of that near disaster.

“I would never have behaved so rashly, Aunt—despite your estimation of me.”

“Perhaps not,” her aunt replied. “Still, I doubted your betrothal to Halford would last all these months, what with the vast disparity between you.” Catherine’s mouth twisted in the flicker of a smile. “Even I consider his grace a stuffed shirt. In disposition at least, he doesn’t appear at all to be the right match for you.”

“He isn’t all that bad,” Raven said in his defense. “Halford is reserved and very proper, certainly, but beneath the trappings of his rank, he is actually a very kind man.”

“Well, I am glad you don’t harbor foolish notions like marrying for love. Love does not ensure happiness, as your mother discovered to her everlasting grief.”

Raven felt herself stiffen. “Yes, quite the contrary. Love can bring great misery. I learned that lesson quite well, Aunt Catherine.”

“You obviously have more sense than your mother had.”

Raven lowered her gaze to hide her anger, deploring this conversation. She had no wish to discuss her mother or to dredge up painful memories.

The elderly lady pursed her lips together. “At least now you will have the future Elizabeth wished for you. A place in society that her folly denied her.”

Stung beyond bearing, Raven lifted her chin and looked piercingly at her aunt. “A place she wasdenied when her family cast her out, you mean,” she retorted, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone.

Catherine frowned. “We had no choice but to compel Elizabeth to marry. She was facing total ruin. Her behavior was scandalous in the extreme—becoming obsessed with a married man and letting him get her with child.”

Raven bristled to hear her mother’s sins catalogued so scornfully. “Grandfather did not have to disown her and send her across an ocean!”

“Perhaps not.” Catherine’s expression grew even frostier. “But Jervis made the correct decision. No one could expect him to tolerate the shame of his daughter bearing a child out of wedlock.”

“So he forced her to wed a man she disliked and then banished her from sight?”

“I assure you, Elizabeth understood that marriage was her only salvation. Wedding Kendrick rescued her from disgrace and saved you from being born a bastard!”

Raven winced at the familiar guilt that curled inside her. She well understood the sacrifice her mother had made for her. And that she had caused her mother’s downfall by her very existence. But the necessity of the marriage didn’t excuse her grandfather or her aunt for being so heartless and unforgiving.

“If my mother had not been forced to live among strangers,” Raven said tightly, “if she had been surrounded by family and friends and her familiar life, perhaps she might have been able to overcome her hopeless passion. As it was, she pined her life away, yearning for a love she could never have.”

“She had no one to blame but herself for her weakness. And she swiftly came to regret her grievous error in judgment.”

“Forgive me if I sound disrespectful, Aunt,” Raven replied with sarcasm, “but how could you possibly know?”

“Because she told me so in her letters. Elizabeth wrote to me upon occasion over the years.”

Raven found herself staring. “I never realized Mama wrote to you.”

“She did indeed.” Catherine’s gray eyes remained cold. “Her later letters clearly showed she had come to her senses. She bitterly regretted her fall from grace and losing the rank and privilege to which she was raised. She missed the life she could have had and thought you deserved…. Which is why she was so determined you should have a different fate.”

That much was certainly true, Raven reflected somberly. Her mother had been nearly obsessive about rectifying her mistake. Elizabeth had spent countless hours—every afternoon over tea, in fact—trying to instill the graces of a lady in her daughter so that Raven might eventually take her rightful position in English society. On her very deathbed, she had made Raven swear to marry into the nobility….

“Do you still have any of Mama’s letters?” Raven asked, desirous of changing the subject.

“No. I didn’t keep them. But I’m certain she would be relieved to know you had landed a duke for your husband.”

“She would be relieved,” Raven corrected, “to know I needn’t worry about being labeled a bastard. She knew how cruel the ton could be, and she wanted me to be protected by rank and wealth, should my past ever be discovered. A duchess won’t be as vulnerable to such slights as a mere Miss Kendrick.”

“Well, I for one amrelieved you have done nothing to shame your family, as she did.”

Raven curled her hands into fists, striving for control. “If you were so concerned that I would shame you, Aunt, I wonder that you gave me a home and sponsored my Season.”

“Because I was determined to keep up appearances, of course. And because your grandfather would hear of nothing else.” Catherine gave an elegant sniff. “In my opinion, Jervis has behaved rather foolishly, fawning over you as if you were his prodigal daughter. But when Elizabeth died, he formed the absurd notion that he had been too harsh—”

“Because hehad been too harsh,” Raven interrupted. Her grandfather, Jervis Frome, Viscount Luttrell, had experienced a change of heart upon learning of his daughter’s death, regretting never having reconciled. When his health began to fail, he’d invited Raven to England, desirous of meeting his only grandchild and of making amends for his past intransigence and his estrangement from Elizabeth all these years.

Apparently Aunt Catherine had said her piece, though, for she turned away, every inch the imperious dame. “Enough dallying. You had best make haste. It won’t do to keep the illustrious duke waiting at the altar.”

“No,” Raven forced herself to say coolly. “As one of the chief arbiters of society, Aunt, you should know.”

When she was alone, Raven glanced down blindly at the pearls, still feeling the sting of her aunt’s scorn. Being scorned was a familiar experience to her.

Elizabeth had infuriated her haughty family, imperiling their social standing by developing a passionate love for a married American shipping magnate and conceiving a child out of wedlock. Disaster had been averted only by marrying her off to an impoverished neighbor’s younger son—one who held her in complete contempt, and her bastard daughter as well.

Raven cringed inwardly as she remembered the man who was presumed by the world to be her father, Ian Kendrick. For twenty years now, she had been Miss Kendrick in public, but privately he had never accepted her as his child. Never let her forget that she was in truth a bastard.

He had deliberately made her feel tarnished, unworthy…somehow to blame for both her mother’s weakness and his own misery. The terms of his marriage contract were clear: a small plantation and monthly income in exchange for remaining in the Caribbean with Elizabeth. Yet until the moment of his death in a riding accident eight years ago, Ian Kendrick had railed at his fate—being exiled to a backwater isle with barely the means to support his preferred standard of living—while his wife languished away, torn by unhappiness over her long-lost love. As for their daughter…

Raven steeled her shoulders, willing herself to calm. She’d carried the secret shame of her conception since she was old enough to comprehend the word “bastard.” And though her fear of discovery might be irrational, it was the chief reason she had favored Halford above all the other candidates who’d courted her so assiduously. And why she had carefully avoided the unsuitable ones. If she married high enough, if she aligned herself with a nobleman of power and consequence, then she would be shielded from her dubious past.

Admittedly she was guilty of deception for concealing her origins from her intended husband. But Halford would be getting exactly the sort of bride he required, Raven thought defiantly. She was virginal, possessed an acceptably winsome appearance, was of good blood and family connections, and had adequate countenance to fill the role of duchess. And she would willingly give Halford the heirs he wanted.

She would be getting precisely what she wanted as well: acceptance at last by the polite world that had never considered her good enough. And a husband who wassafe . She would never make her mother’s mistake. Better a cold, loveless contract than a blazing passion that could rip her heart to shreds.

She was in no danger of falling in love with her duke, although she had hopes for eventually developing both affection and a satisfying friendship with him. Sometimes she even managed to delve beneath Halford’s stiff, straitlaced reserve and make him smile.

But theirs would be a marriage of convenience, nothing more. They would live together in civilized harmony, both understanding exactly what was required of them.

In any case, her imaginary lover would keep her satisfied. And if she had to resort to fantasy in order to feel passion, to experience desire and warmth and fulfillment…well then, she would need such an escape if she hoped to endure a lifetime of her illustrious husband’s rigid British formality.

Truly, though, her fantasizing wouldn’t present any real harm to her husband or to her vows. She would be entirely faithful to Halford…except in her mind.

Raven took a deep breath, renewing her resolve as she turned to ring for her maid. She had made her own bed, as the saying went. Her betrothed would soon be awaiting her at the church—St. George’s, Hanover Square—along with several hundred of their friends and acquaintances, the very cream of the ton. And she intended to look her best for her special day.

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Two hours later she descended the stairway to the entrance hall where, with the aid of a cane, her grandfather stood alongside his sister Catherine. The elderly viscount stayed here on the rare occasions when he came to town, rather than open his own cavernous mansion.

Lord Luttrell was tall and silver-haired like his sister, though not as handsome. He’d been ill for a long while, suffering from a weak heart.

Tears brimmed in his eyes, Raven saw when she reached him.

“So you approve, do you, Grandfather?” she asked, offering him a smile. She couldn’t totally forgive him for repudiating her mother so many years ago, but they had come to terms of sorts during the nearly eight months since her arrival in England.

He took her hand in his own shaky one. “Very much, child. You are exceedingly beautiful.”

Raven did think her appearance pleasing. Her empire gown was of pale lemon lustring, with an ivory net overskirt shot with gold threads. And she wore her mother’s pearls, while her raven hair was gathered high into an elegant coiffure.

Beside the viscount, her dragon of a great-aunt agreed even while sniffing in disapproval. “She is indeed beautiful, Jervis, but you will turn her head with such flattery. And Raven is not a child in the least. She turned twenty months ago.”

As usual, her grandfather ignored his sister’s waspish tone and patted Raven’s hand. “I have never been so proud of you. You will make a grand duchess.”

Raven bit back an instinctive reply. In her grandfather’s opinion—along with the much of the world’s—a woman’s worth was only measured by her husband’s position in society. Yet to his credit, Grandfather only wanted her to be well settled in life.

Despite the strain that had marked their early relationship, Lord Luttrell had welcomed her with a touching eagerness, making her feel like a cherished member of his family. And Raven had found herself immensely glad for the connection. He and Lady Dalrymple were the only blood relations she had left, other than an American half brother whom she could never publicly claim. She’d never even known her real father, the wealthy American shipping magnate who had died some years past.

And she knew the viscount truly mourned his late daughter and regretted his intractability.

“I am sorry your mother is not here to see you,” her grandfather said now in a trembling voice.

Raven felt her own throat constrict. She, too, wished her mother could be here to witness her triumphant union.

“Jervis, if you are finished wallowing in sentimentality,” Aunt Catherine interjected sharply, “we have a ceremony to attend.”

“Yes, of course,” Luttrell grunted with a quelling look at his sister.

After accepting her cloak from the Dalrymple butler, Raven allowed her grandfather to lead her slowly down the entrance steps of her aunt’s residence to where the viscount’s grand, crested carriage stood ready to transport them to the church.

To Raven’s delight, her long-term groom, Michael O’Malley, waited beside the carriage to see her off.

“ ’Tis a grand sight you are, Miss Raven,” the Irishman said in his lilting accent, beaming when she reached him. “And a proud day to be sure.”

With a brilliant smile of her own, Raven stepped aside to embrace the hulking, gray-haired fellow. “Thank you, O’Malley,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.

She kissed his grizzled cheek, ignoring her aunt’s sudden stiffening and her grandfather’s obvious frown of disapproval. For most of her childhood, O’Malley had been more father than servant to her. And he had accompanied her to England from the West Indies when she’d come to face her haughty, unknown relatives. She was immeasurably grateful to him for standing her friend.