Lady Falls (Black Rose Trilogy) by Renee Bernard Page B

loved.
    “You are the happiest person I have ever met,” Kitty said.  “It is a marvel to all who know you.”
    “Why a marvel?”
    “Because you make it look so effortless.  Because you are the only one I know who celebrates everything from your favorite jam appearing at the breakfast table to the miraculous existence of rain puddles.”  Kitty laughed.
    “You make me sound like a simpleton.”
    “Then I am sorry.  I meant it as a compliment, not an insult.  You are too clever and well you know it!”
    Raven sighed.  “It’s just…”
    “Out with it.  What is all this about happiness?  Has someone said something unkind?”
    “No.  I was merely wondering what price I would pay to be truly happy.  If it were…offered.”
    “What would you give to be happy, Miss Wells?”
    “Everything.”  Raven tasted the word and accepted the weight of its meaning.  “I would give anything and everything I had, Kitty.”
    “Oh, my!” Kitty finished smoothing out her covers.  “That’s quite a price to pay.”
    “Is it?”
    Kitty crossed her arms.  “No one can offer you such a thing.  You have it already and if they’re peddling happiness, you keep a tight hold on your purse.  My ma always said it’s a tear-streaked face that thinks to get heaven for a penny.”
    “For the record, your mother should write these things down.”
    “Can’t write more than a simple mark for her name,” Kitty began to retreat from the room.  “But I’ll pass along the compliment to her.  Now you take a nap like a proper little lady!  The earl won’t be pleased to see you yawning at dinner.”
    Kitty closed the door behind her and Raven closed her eyes to consider the day.
    She’d asked him for a kiss.  Because she’d felt so uncertain of herself after seeing the pain in Lady Morley’s eyes.  Marriage had always been a grand and noble goal and the highest achievement she could hope for, but never had that path appeared to hold physical danger or heartless cruelty.  Now she’d looked again and uncovered stories of the horrifying pitfalls of a tragic matches and miserable women in the clutches of an institution that did not provide much mercy if a husband proved a brute.
    So, she’d set on the notion that it might be better to seize a little slice of control, to experience tenderness to banish her fears.  If he had bruised her, her experiment would have solidified her worst suspicions about the opposite sex and eliminated all desire for a match.  But his kisses had provided so much more than the simple reassurance that not all men were created equally.
    Here was a happiness she had never reached for.
    But there was a price for such things.
    She knew now that there would be no half measures. The risk was real.  Women who asked for kisses could be accused of all manner of wanton lapses in their judgment.  Mr. Warrick may even now have decided that she was hardly an angelic candidate for London’s lofty circles.  He may have boasted to the other men of his encounter or— God, if he’s told the earl I am finished!
    Her head swam with terror.
    I could plead some kind of ignorance and swear it was all a silly game. 
    I could. 
    But I won’t.
    Raven opened her eyes to study the ornate patterns pressed into the metal ceiling tiles above her bed.  Fear was not a familiar sensation and she dismissed it quickly.  “Mr. Warrick has never betrayed any sign of not being a gentleman.  Only a ninny jumps from a building that isn’t on fire.”
    It was Phillip who had ended their embrace and set boundaries.  If he’d done otherwise, the debate in her head would flow differently but of all the lessons of the day, she decided that Phillip Warrick’s honor was without reproach.
    The conventions were clear.  If a girl “set her cap” for a man, she must tread carefully.  If her pursuit was a clumsy and obvious thing and she failed to win the man’s heart, she would become an object of derision and pity.