Chasing Raven by Jayne Fresina

in fear of how he might retaliate and when. He wants me to throw myself upon his mercy."
    "I don't believe he will act to have you banned. It was merely a warning, I'm sure."
    "What makes you think he wouldn't have me ousted from every club in London? You don't know him. He's vindictive and callous, a man full of rage stifled inside those flannel waistcoats he wears."
    "I told him it was my idea, not yours," Raven assured him. "Besides, I've no doubt he has many other more important things to worry about."
    He glared, his face pale and sour. "Why did you dance with him?"
    Explaining how that happened was quite impossible, and she was sick of the subject.
    Seeing her hesitate, he lost his temper and snapped, "He is just as responsible for my brother's death as if he aimed that pistol himself. Hale has blood on his hands. My brother's blood."
    She looked up, startled. "But you said your brother died of a fever."
    Now he flushed and his gaze roamed the tree branches above. "My family do not like to talk of what happened, and I can tell you no more. I only said it to warn you. Promise me that there is nothing between the two of you. The man is a villain. Do not let him fool you, Raven."
    "There certainly is nothing between Hale and I, not that it is anybody's business." Then she softened her tone. "Goodbye, Matty. I wish you nothing but the best."
    Before he could say anything more, she walked away to rejoin her mother by the park railings.
    "Well, that's that," Lady Charlotte exclaimed crisply. "If you ask me the Winstanleys are making a mistake, tethering their cart to that boy. I hear he's just as much of an unlucky gambler as his brother ever was."
    "Perhaps Miss Winstanley will help straighten his path. If she has the patience. I fear any wife of Matty's will find herself serving the role of nanny, nursemaid and schoolmistress too, no doubt."
    "Well, I'm glad to hear you did not imagine yourself in love."
    "Good gracious no, mama. You taught me how to remain detached. Everybody knows I have a heart of ice."
    "Then do not look so mournful. You're much prettier when you smile. A smile always lifts a woman's features. And yours can be so dark when you don't try. That foreign blood of your father's—"
    "I do not feel much in the mood for smiling, mama. Surely," she bit her lip, looking away down the street, "a genuine smile is better than a false one. Or so I've been told."
    "I've never met a man who can detect the difference. Except your father, perhaps. But then he always had the gypsy ability of knowing what went on in my mind." Lady Charlotte slowed her pace to look in the window of a milliner's and soon after forgot her daughter's face, more interested in her own and how it might be better framed to advantage by a new summer bonnet.
    They had not been there many minutes when a distinguished gentleman with gleaming silver hair jolted to a stop on the pavement before them. He greeted her mother in astonishment.
    "Lady Charlotte! Can it be you, after so long?" He spoke in a thick French accent and swept a very elegant bow. "You are more beautiful than ever, I fear. And I am now such an old man. 'Ow can this be? You 'ave stopped time for yourself, I think."
    Her mother's smile slid slowly into place, while her calculating gaze skimmed the fellow's finely made and fashionable garments. "Monsieur Reynaux! Goodness, how many years has it been?"
    "Too many, my lady. But now I am back, as you see. I 'ope I am not so disgusting a sight to you now that I am aged."
    "Monsieur, you are not at all altered!" her mother reassured him at once. Then she tugged Raven closer to her side. "But many things have changed since we last met. This is my daughter."
    He drew back and studied Raven with interest, a finger to his chin. "A daughter? Mon dieu! Surely you are not old enough to 'ave such a tall and well-grown daughter, my lady! You must be sisters!"
    Listening to his oily simpering and her mother's high, girlish laughter, Raven barely