Rules for Heiresses by Amalie Howard

Eleven

Ravenna sat in the ducal carriage, currently stationed outside Huntley House, her hands in her lap. She’d needed to leave, escape Courtland’s overwhelming presence for a bit, and clear her head. Heavens, the man was going to drive her mad! His constant hot-cold behavior, his sudden chest-beating possessiveness, and his deep-seated enmity with Stinson were mindboggling.

While his mercurial moods were starting to become routine, the second had shocked her, though she knew it had something to do with the last. Growing up with three brothers, she was no stranger to sibling rivalry. But what she’d seen between Courtland and Stinson had seemed to go far beyond mere competition. It was almost as if they truly hated each other. One would think that Stinson would be happy to see his long-lost brother well and alive, but he hadn’t been. Men were strange creatures at times.

Ravenna wrung her hands and stared up at her family’s London home. While she wanted to escape her husband, she wasn’t looking forward to facing her mother’s temper either. If only Sarani was in town, but she and Rhystan had yet to leave their love nest in Hastings on the southern coast of England. And besides, Ravenna wasn’t sure her sister-in-law would travel so soon with her new infant daughter.

A smile broke over her lips. She could do with some sweet baby comfort, and it’d been an age since she’d seen her sister by marriage. She wondered how long the journey was to Hastings. It would be at least half a day by coach if she were to leave right now. Would Courtland even know she was gone? That she’d left town? Would he even care?

A tentative rap on the coach door made her jump. Her coachman would not have let anyone approach unless they were known to her. “Yes?”

“Lady Ravenna? It’s Fuller. Do you require assistance?”

The familiar voice made her heart squeeze. Fuller, their butler, had long covered for many of her escapades over the years. What would he have to say about her latest scrape? With a sigh, she opened the carriage door. “Hullo, Fuller.”

The butler smiled and offered his arm. “It’s good to see your face, my lady!”

Ravenna gave a wry smile before alighting with his help. “It’s ‘Your Grace’ now, I fear.” When his eyes widened, she nodded with a sigh. “Duchess of Ashvale, in the flesh.”

“Ashvale,” he repeated. “Did you marry Lady Borne’s son, the new duke?”

She shook her head. “Stinson isn’t duke. His brother is.”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Ravenna, er, Your Grace, but I thought the elder brother was deceased.”

“You, me, and the rest of the ton. Turns out he’s alive and well, much to everyone’s everlasting surprise.” She paused at the top of the stairs, as Fuller turned to look at her, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. Fuller wasn’t one to display any kind of emotion, being the efficient butler he was, even when faced with the vagaries of her past exploits. “I never thought the day would come I’d see you a married lady. God save the man who caught you.”

“Fuller!” Her eyes went wide with indignation as she swatted him. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“For once, I’m delighted that someone else is on your side.” He pointed at the spate of silver at his temples. “These gray hairs are all your doing, young lady.”

She huffed a disbelieving laugh, the frustration sitting like a boulder on her chest melting away. Fuller had always been able to make her feel good about herself, even when he disapproved of her actions. She should have come home sooner. “I shall have you sacked for your cheek, you dreadful man.”

He grinned and opened the door. “You cannot. The duchess cherishes me too much.”

“My mother cherishes no one.”

The levity disappeared from Fuller’s face as he adopted his stern butler persona once more. Over the past few years, he’d become more of a father figure than a butler, and Ravenna felt flattered that the stoic, very proper fellow had chosen to share his true self with her. If only her standoffish husband would do the same.

On impulse, she hugged him, not caring which servants might see. She already had a reputation for being untoward and unpredictable. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Fuller nodded, fondness flaring in his eyes.

Smoothing her patterned burgundy and ivory dress, Ravenna took a deep breath and walked down the familiar hallway. She deserved what was coming and more. She rounded the corridor and entered the salon, where her mother was sitting like a reigning queen on the settee, her face imperious, with a tea tray situated to her right.

“Her Grace, the Duchess of Ashvale,” Fuller announced in the most affected voice she’d ever heard.

“Good Lord, man,” Ravenna muttered under her breath. “Since when do you sound like a thespian?”

“You deserve it for disappearing as you did without nary a word, don’t think you’re forgiven,” he said through the side of his mouth.

Ravenna stopped herself from pulling a face at the last minute, knowing her mother could see her. At first glance the dowager looked the same—haughty, untouchable, cold—but upon closer inspection, Ravenna could see the fine lines of strain at the corners of her mouth, the pallor of her already pale skin, and the gauntness of her cheeks.

Guilt slammed through her. She’d left a letter saying she was visiting with Clara and not to worry, but that was hardly an excuse. If any ugly gossip about her exploits had reached London, there was no telling what state her mother would be in.

“Mama,” she greeted softly.

The dowager’s icy gaze swept her, noting the fashionable new gown she wore, before examining her face and then pausing on the mop of curls that she’d attempted to smooth down with a hot iron and pomade. Her mouth curled down. “You’ve cut your hair.”

Not like Ravenna could reply with: I was pretending to be a man on a ship full of men. I cut my hair so as not to be ravaged.

“Possibly not one of my better decisions,” she said instead with a wary nod.

The duchess sniffed and lifted her tea to sip it. “It suits you.”

Ravenna blinked. Who was this woman and where was her mother? “Er, thank you?”

“Sit, wretched child of mine, and pour yourself a cup of tea,” the duchess said with an irritated frown. “And stop staring at me as if I’ve grown warts on my nose or some such. Surely I’m not so awful as to criticize a perfectly charming coiffure.”

“Of course not, Mama,” Ravenna said, obligingly taking a seat on the sofa across from the tea tray. “But you’re rather calm in the face of…” Her voice trailed off.

“In the face of your disappearance and your barefaced fabrications?” The dowager tutted. “Poor Clara, she was in such a state after my arrival. That poor girl being with child and all. To think any daughter of mine would be such an awful, insensitive friend.”

There were so many things to parse in that speech, starting with the fact that her mother was the queen of ice herself and ending with the fact that she went looking for Ravenna in Scotland. “You traveled to Edinburgh? And wait, Clara’s with child?”

“Of course I went to Edinburgh,” her mother said. “My fool daughter was missing!”

“I was hardly missing, Mama.”

“And then, when I arrived to be told that you weren’t in residence and that you never had been from the start, I feared the worst had befallen us.” Ravenna waited. The worst to the Duchess of Embry could mean any number of things. “I feared that you had been abducted by highwaymen or had eloped with that dreadful scoundrel.”

Which dreadful scoundrel? There were quite a number of them. But Ravenna could only think of one who would deserve such a designation—the very man she’d run from.

“The Marquess of Dalwood?”

The duchess shot her a peeved look.

The hand holding the teacup shook slightly, a pair of steely eyes rising to hers, and Ravenna braced herself for what was to come with the tiniest inhale of breath. “But nothing, not even a runaway heiress, could eclipse the vile gossip that reached my ears a few days ago…that my only daughter, the ruined Lady Ravenna, had been on the verge of being dragged to the stocks in the West Indies, dressed in men’s rags, no less.”

Ravenna’s heart quailed in her chest. “The clothes were a lark, Mama, and I wasn’t in danger of being dragged anywhere.”

“And the ruination?”

“All a terrible misunderstanding.” She was stretching the truth to threads, she knew.

There was no misunderstanding when she’d crashed lip-first into an unmarried man in front of witnesses. But their plan had been to play it off that they’d been secretly engaged all along, and a stolen kiss between an affianced couple was just that. The reasoning sounded feeble to Ravenna’s ears even now. Her mother would see right through it, given her daughter’s long-standing refusal to marry and her recalcitrant views on the subject. Besides, the dowager had the memory of an elephant. Duke or not, she’d remember the boy next door.

“Was it thus?” her mother asked. “Lady Holding did not seem to think so.”

Ravenna scowled. The one woman who had sworn to uphold her promise had wasted no time in seeking out the Dowager Duchess of Embry to spread gossip. “Lady Holding is a poisonous busybody.”

“Lady Holding is an old friend, looking out for your best interests.”

“And yours, too, I wager.”

The dowager sipped her tea, regarding Ravenna over the rim with an unruffled expression. Her mother hadn’t changed. She’d just been baiting her lure, making it seem like she was composed before erupting. This was merely the calm before the storm. “So tell me, this hasty marriage of yours that I only learned of as an afterthought from you, was that a lark as well?”

“No, that’s real enough.” Ravenna attempted to square her drooping shoulders, though for some reason the craven things refused under her mother’s stare. She hoped her voice would not crack. “I am a grown woman, Mama, and now a duchess. You should be happy. It is what you’ve always wanted for me.”

Her mother’s mouth tightened, and Ravenna realized it was the entirely wrong thing to say, insinuating that her mother only cared about social position…which was true, but there was no need to declare it so baldly. “How did you get to Antigua, pray tell?”

Ravenna’s bravado melted like ice on fire. She knew. Oh yes, she knew. How she’d found out was anyone’s guess. Rhystan wouldn’t have told her, and Courtland had sacrificed his freedom to save her reputation. Words failed her. “I…”

“She was a passenger on my ocean liner.”

The voice of rescue came from the hallway where the immaculately put-together Duke of Ashvale stood, followed by an impassive Fuller who seemed to be hiding his mirth. He hadn’t announced the duke on purpose, the old rotter. But Ravenna couldn’t focus on that. She could only focus on the tall and elegant man who suddenly dominated the space, who made every single nerve in her body hum to instant attention. The man who had just lied to the Dowager Duchess of Embry to protect her. The pressure inside her chest increased.

Goodness, why couldn’t she control her reaction around him?

He’d been an ass earlier…and yet, here he was, coming to her rescue like a knight in the rustiest armor imaginable.

Fuller cleared his throat. “The Duke of Ashvale, Your Graces.”

The dowager scowled at the butler. “I can see that, you daft man. Rather unnecessary to announce him at this point, don’t you think?”

Ravenna’s heart leaped, but for an entirely different reason this time. Only a few years ago, her own mother had been dead set against Rhystan’s fiancée. Of course, she’d changed her tune since then and since the arrival of her precious granddaughter, but that didn’t mean her new soft disposition would apply to her daughter’s choice in husband.

Her mother waved an imperious hand. “Come forward then, Ashvale, unless you intend to dawdle in the doorway like a statue for the rest of the afternoon.”

* * *

Lips twitching at the dowager duchess’s dry tone, Courtland found himself standing taller. Lady Embry had been a frightening terror of a woman when he’d been a boy, though he was far from that now, but muscle memory was a strange thing. As diminutive as she was, she quite terrified him. If he hadn’t witnessed grown gentlemen quail in front of her, he would have been mystified by his own reaction.

“Your Grace,” he said with a bow, his gaze touching on the bemused expression of his wife, who seemed grateful to see him but remained somewhat guarded at his arrival.

“You’ve grown up, Ashvale.” The dowager’s stare grew thoughtful. “Your late grandfather was close friends with my parents. I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I did not know him that well.”

“Sit, please.” She nodded to a waiting footman, and a tumbler of brandy was brought to him. Courtland was surprised that she was aware of his preference of drink, but he accepted it with a smile before sitting beside his wife and lifting her knuckles to his lips in greeting.

“You left without me,” he murmured.

“You were otherwise occupied, remember?” A shuttered copper stare met his, her voice cool, not giving away the barest flash of injury in her eyes. “Moreover, I did not think you would want to come.”

“Then you were mistaken.”

He did not release her hand but kept it gripped loosely in his. Courtland felt the dowager’s eagle-eyed stare on them, but he did not let it bother him. Lady Embry would undoubtedly be their harshest critic…and their greatest champion in the days to come.

Regardless of how she felt about him as her daughter’s husband, she was fiercely protective of her children. He was counting on that if things got worse with Stinson, which he fully expected them to. His brother’s sense of entitlement had only grown, and Courtland’s presence in London threatened everything he’d become.

“I suppose we should toast to your nuptials,” the dowager said in a somewhat brittle voice. “I was sad to miss them, but you know, my health is not suited to such a capricious climate.”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” he said.

“I shall have to take your word for it. Do you plan to remain in London?”

The question was blunt. “For the foreseeable future.”

“And the unforeseeable future?”

Courtland fought the urge to grin at her tenacity. “I don’t make decisions based on what I cannot predict, Your Grace.”

Lady Embry eyed him over her teacup and then nodded. He could feel Ravenna’s tension beside him. She was practically vibrating with strain. Surely she wasn’t that terrified of her own mother? He spared her a quick glance, noting the bright spots of color on her cheeks. She’d changed from her earlier riding habit into a maroon-and-white dress embroidered with tiny gold flowers that made her complexion seem luminous.

Courtland thought back to their first encounter as adults, staring across at her over that table at the Starlight, and the stark differences in both her appearance and her conduct. She’d carried off the part of a carefree young fop with charming ease. How confident she’d been! The fake mustache had done wonders to conceal her sex, along with the dapper men’s clothing, but the sharp intellect and fiery spirit that had shone in her eyes had not changed.

However, that wild version of Ravenna was nothing like the one who sat here now, as demure as any refined, well-bred English lady. He longed to rake his hands through her painstakingly styled hair, muss those perfect skirts, hear her throaty, wicked laughter. She was so picture perfect that it hurt to see his vibrant sprite reduced to this shadow. This illusion. He was wrong earlier. Being in England did not do her any favors either.

“Is something amiss, Your Grace?” the dowager asked, peering at him. “You had quite a severe frown upon your brow just then. Is the brandy not to your liking?”

“The brandy is excellent,” he said. “I was simply remarking on my wife’s distress.”

“Distress?” Lady Embry asked.

He met her direct stare, feeling Ravenna’s attention flick to him. “With respect, do you have concerns about this marriage, Your Grace? If so, you are welcome to address them to both of us.” He sent his suddenly twitchy bride a reassuring look. “Though the circumstances of our meeting were quite unexpected with Ravenna’s surprising arrival in Antigua, the fact that we have known each other from childhood made us realize how much we had in common.”

The dowager’s glare was astute. “So your marriage had nothing to do with my daughter traipsing around in men’s clothing and courting ruination?”

“A mere lark, as she mentioned, one that was unfortunately ill-fated. Hence, our swift exchange of vows. Trust me, Your Grace, your daughter’s reputation did not suffer a fatal blow. In fact, our wedding was quite well attended and lauded by many peers and dignitaries.”

“Antigua is not town, dear boy.”

Courtland smiled. “No, you’re right, of course.”

“We must rectify that with a proper ball at once.” The dowager’s shrewd stare sharpened. She cleared her throat. “Your stepbrother will not make this easy on you. Nor will the marchioness.”

“I am aware, Your Grace.” He leaned forward. “Which is why we need your help.”