“May I hold him? Please say that I can,” she asked with such sweet excitement lighting up her pretty face. “And you must call me, Gabriella, and I will call you . . .?”
Chloe let Lady Gabriella take Sebastian. She seemed so happy about it and it gave her such obvious pleasure that Chloe did not have the heart to deny her. “Lady Sang,” Chloe mumbled, watching Lady Gabriella sit while holding Sebastian up on his chubby little legs in her lap. She had an expectant look on her face as she looked up at her. “Rosebud,” Chloe finally said. “It is a nickname, but . . .”
“Rosebud,” Lady Gabriella exclaimed. “How beautiful. And do you think, Sebastian, that your mama is very beautiful.” Lady Gabriella held Sebastian’s hands as he tiptoed on her lap and gurgled. “Oh yes, you sweet baby, look how handsome you are.”
Chloe sat again, but nearly jumped to her feet once more when she heard a voice to her left rasp. “What the hell is this?”
“Oh, Harrison,” Gabriella exclaimed, turning in her chair to look at him. “How could you keep this beautiful baby a secret from me? And when Drummond told me about, Lady Rosebud, I simply had to visit. Besides, Drummond and I are having a party this evening to celebrate my own pregnancy, and when Drummond told me that you, his closest friend in the entire world might not be there! I just had to come and make certain. All of the Archangels will be there, Harrison, and I just know, Lady Rosebud, will not deny me if I invite her face to face. Which I am.”
“Lady Rosebud,” Harrison muttered, then he turned more fully to Gabriella. “Congratulations, Gabriella,” he said warmly as he stepped forward to take Gabriella’s hand which he bowed over and kissed. Then he said, “You are much too shrewd for that husband of yours, Madame.”
Gabriella laughed gaily. “And you will come to my party and bring, Lady Rosebud, with you?”
“Of course, Gabriella, I could never deny you,” Harrison responded.
Chloe was awed by all the information she was learning, yet more so by watching Raven play the accomplished gentlemen. She now knew Raven’s first name and she wondered who the Archangels were, except, however nice this all was she just could not leave Sebastian.
“I, um,” she began to say as they both turned to her. “I could not leave Sebastian,” she managed to say.
“Oh dear,” Gabriella said. “You do not have a nanny?”
“No, my lady,” Chloe replied.
“Well then certainly I must send you Matilda and everything will be finely tended to,” Gabriella said happily.
Chloe looked at Raven and he nodded his head. She would not defy him in front of Lady Gabriella so she kept her reservations until later, and she murmured, “It would be an honor, your grace.”
“Oh my, your grace, she says,” Gabriella muttered. “I will never get used to that you know. It makes me sound too old, I am certain of it. Lady Gabriella will do, Lady Rosebud, if you must. But I certainly will campaign for just Gabriella. You will see. We are all such good friends, and now that I have met you, Rosebud, I am certain you will be one with all of us.” Gabriella turned to Harrison. “Do you not agree, Harrison?”
“I never argue with a duchess, Madame,” he muttered.
Several hours later after Lady Gabriella left, having stayed and played with Sebastian for over an hour, Chloe sought Raven in his study. He had been brooding, she could see that by the way he reclined in his chair before the fire with a glass of whiskey dangling from his scarred fingertips. She nearly backed out of the room but her mission was too important. “Raven, I cannot leave Sebastian. It is too dangerous,” she began without a preamble.
Raven barely turned his head at her voice beside him, yet his dark eyes glanced at her. “Because of the fable?” he rasped with a muttering sound.
Chloe wanted to stamp her foot. Raven was acting as if he were the petulant child, not hearing what he had wished to hear from her, so that now he was going to pout about it. Pout and drink heavily it appeared. “Of course because of the fable,” she answered in exasperation.
“I have taken care of it,” he said with a weak rise of his wrist and the whiskey glass.
“That is all you have to say,” she uttered, marching around to face him, but then she looked at him fully. “Oh, Raven,” she exclaimed softly, going down on her knees in front of him, clasping the sides of his legs as she gazed up at him.
“Do you know how beautiful you are to me?” he rasped tightly as though the words were pried from his mouth. His gaze was haunted with pain and dark vulnerability, and she had never seen him look this way before. It worried her and nearly frightened her as she offered him what comfort she could by laying her head on his thighs and rubbing his upper legs slowly.
“And you are so fine looking to me that you turn my head despite myself,” she murmured.
Raven’s hand firmed in her hair, and then went back to its gentle stroking motion. “I do not want you to worry this evening,” he murmured. “I have taken extra security precautions to ensure Sebastian’s safety. And we will only be gone several hours before you must feed him again.”
“Thank you, Raven,” Chloe sighed, willing to accept that Raven would keep them safe.
Chapter Eleven
Harrison knew that he’d had too much to drink that night in his effort to keep his demons at bay and hopefully offer a false, yet somewhat happy facade to his closest friends.
“You once said to me,” Drummond said as he appeared by Harrison’s side in the small ballroom of Drummond’s London home. “That love looked very painful upon my face and you prayed that it would not be so when you fell to it.”
“You accuse me of love?” Harrison rasped as he watched Rosebud dancing elegantly with Radford, the Duke of Sutherlin. Radford with his rakish eye patch and youthful aristocratic good looks.
“Dare I?” Drummond asked, looking pointedly at the glass of whiskey in Harrison’s hand. “Our ex-spying compatriots of the Archangels have all embraced your lady warmly,” he finished on a murmur.
“My lady,” Harrison muttered. It appeared to him that his ex-spying companions had embraced Rosebud a bit too warmly. Saxonhurst, the Marquess of Hartley with his sad brown eyes warming whenever he was near to Rosebud. And then there was Brynmore, the Laird Duneagan, that rogue, along with Radford, who were making Rosebud laugh in a delicious tingling sound that he had never heard from her before. That left only Wyndham, the Baron of Hawkenge to round out the ex-spying regal of the Archangels.
“Where is Wyndham?” Harrison asked, striving for composure beneath the alien emotion of jealousy that he was experiencing as every blood vessel in his body pumped hotly that Rosebud was his . . . his . . . his!
“He has been delayed, yet should be with us soon,” Drummond replied. “He would not miss Gabriella’s formal announcement of our splendid news.”
“You have of course,” Harrison rasped, “My congratulations at this wonderful event.”
“Yes of course,” Drummond murmured, unexpectedly reaching for the drink in Harrison’s hand as he continued to say, “And now, Harrison, go and tell that to my wife as you dance with her. And my friend, infuse some happiness into the venomous facade of yours for my wife’s sake.”
“Scoundrel,” Harrison replied, offering Drummond a rare smile
Chloe glanced at Raven as the Duke of Sutherlin turned her very closely in the steps of a waltz. Raven was dancing with Lady Gabriella and he was actually smiling down at the pretty duchess. It made Raven look nearly boyish for a fleeting moment. An impossible occurrence on his handsome hard-angled face. It startled her so much that she stumbled in the middle of a step allowing the duke to pull her even closer still. It was a ridiculous possibility to her, yet it appeared that the duke was flirting with her. Flirting seduction! Yet they all had, each of the Archangels that she had met had flirted with her in their own way. Nearly as if it were planned somehow.
She now understood that the Archangels were a group of ex-spies for England, and that Raven had been one of them. It seemed that was where he must have gotten injured and where he surely knew Lia from. None of the three Archangels gathered at the party besides Raven and Lord Kittridge seemed to know her as Lia. It appeared none of them had known Lia in appearance, just by reputation, and it seemed that only Lord Kittridge had ever seen Lia in person. Chloe wondered what Lia had done for these ex-spies . . . or more precisely what Lia had done to them. She had heard rumors at one time that Lia was Napoleon’s mistress. Could that be a part of all of this?
She did not have the nerve to ask. But she knew that she needed to escape the duke before . . . Well the gentlemen were all very nice but their flattery and appreciating glances were making her extremely nervous. She was certainly not used to the attention and nevertheless, there was only one man that she longed to be with . . .
“A walk in the garden, Lady Rosebud?” the Duke of Sutherlin murmured closely into her ear. “It is rather chilly out, yet I am certain that I could keep you warm.”
“Really, sir!” Chloe exclaimed, surprising even herself. But this really had gone too far. “And you call yourself, Lord Ravenscar’s, friend! I will tell you that he is the only gentleman that I desire to walk anywhere with,” she huffed just before she turned and marched away.
“Well, Rad, what was that all about?” Saxonhurst asked, strolling up to Radford.
“Are you losing your sweet charms, man?” Brynmore quipped, stopping his approach beside Saxonhurst.
Radford grimaced. “Well, gentlemen, it appears we have gotten entirely the wrong person to declare themselves.”
“What does that mean, ye one-eyed devil?” Brynmore asked. “I still say we are playing with fire to be prodding Harrison this way.”
“It means,” Radford sneered. “That our beautiful Lady Rosebud has declared herself quite vocally to Harrison’s side while our brooding stubborn pigheaded Harrison remains mute in voice and in action to our ploy. And you are right, Brynmore, I certainly hope Drummond knows what he is doing by ordering us to play this flirting game. Harrison certainly is no normal would be suitor!”
“He is likely to strangle our balls in the blackest of night,” Saxonhurst said. “And where is Wyndham? If my balls are at stake here, then he needs to take his chance also.”
“He will be here,” Radford replied. “It appears that he knows her, did you know? I believe that is somehow Drummond’s coup de grace.”
Chapter Twelve
Chloe sought a moment to herself in a long hallway just off the small ballroom that was filled with paintings and sculptures. It was a beautiful party and she had not been to such a gathering since she was a child attending at her diplomatic stepfather’s side. However, she knew that she needed to leave soon because her breasts were aching with milk and her head was nearly aching too. She could not believe that she had lost her temper that way. And to a duke! He had deserved it, but still he was Raven’s friend. They all were Raven’s friends, and she truly did not belong here, or with them.
Did they all know that Raven held her captive? Yet no longer against her will, and that was the most confusing part because she craved his command of her. But love came in all shapes and disguises . . .
Love?
Chloe stopped to stare at a beautiful statue of Venus. Did she love Raven?
“My god it
is
you, Lia. Drummond, told me yet I could scarcely believe it!”
Chloe turned abruptly toward the masculine voice and found herself beneath the gaze of a tall blond-haired man who must be the Baron of Hawkenge, late to arrive. He was reaching for her hands.
“You lovely, wanton minx. I have never forgotten our too brief time together.” He lifted her gloved hands upward to his virile lips and turned the palms inward to kiss each.
Time together,
Chloe wondered in surprise. “You in my bed, my little love, is something I will never forget,” he murmured warmly against her palms.
Ohno! Chloe tried to pull away but Baron Hawkenge was a man, all strongly built man and he swung her into his arms. “Nn– ,” she garbled as his lips came down over her lips. She tried to pull away and did rap on his muscular chest with her fists.
But in the end Baron Hawkenge pulled away from her suddenly, staring down at her with intense and inquiring confusion in his deep blue eyes. “My god, your not . . . !”
Smack!
A fist came out of nowhere, right over Chloe’s shoulder, and clipped Baron Hawkenge sharply under the chin with one powerful jab. The baron went down like a piece of timber felled. And Chloe stumbled backward in confusion and surprise just as Raven stepped forward to watch the baron fall onto polished maple-wood flooring, unconscious. How had Raven done that? The Baron Hawkenge was a large man! And-and why had he done it?
“
Come
with me,” Raven rasped furiously. “Now!”
Raven grabbed her wrists and began to pull her down the hallway away from the ballroom. “Raven, you do not understand!” she cried, uselessly.
“Do not understand that he fucked you! That he twisted the bed linens before, naked with you,” Raven charged, as he continued to pull her out of a side door to the mansion into the chilly night air. “I understand that you were readying to fuck him again!”
“No!” Chloe cried as Raven pulled her toward his carriage where he tugged the door open savagely. “He thought I was Lia, Raven!”
“Damn you!” Raven swore fiercely. “Get into the carriage willingly or I will tie and gag you as before!”
Chloe gulped hard and scrambled ill-gracefully over the long skirts of her gown up into the carriage to sit stiffly in the furthest corner. Raven called directions to the driver and entered, slamming the carriage door closed behind him. Chloe thought desperately to try again. “Raven, please listen-!”