“Oh!” she said, snapping her attention to Sir Beverley. “I’m afraid all your matchmaking plans are for naught. You see, in order to wed a prince I need—”
“This?” Sir Beverley produced from his pocket a thick man’s ring of gold and ruby.
Ravenna stepped back. “She gave that to you?”
“To give to you.” Sir Beverley cupped her hand in his and pressed the ring into her palm. It was heavy and warm as it always had been, even on that day Arabella took it to a fortune-teller and heard the prophecy—that one of them would wed a prince and upon that day discover the mystery of their past. This ring was the key to it all.
But Ravenna didn’t care about the mystery of their past. An infant when her mother abandoned them, she had never cared. Finding the prince had been Arabella’s dream. But now Arabella was wife to a duke. Ravenna had no doubt as to why Arabella had not bestowed the dubious honor of prince catching upon their elder sister, Eleanor. They never spoke of it, but they both knew the true reason Eleanor had not yet married, and it was not her devotion to Papa.
“Do cease fretting, my dear,” Petti said comfortably. “A lady in your sister’s delicate condition must be humored.”
“I am not fretting.” Ravenna dropped the ring into her pocket. It made a hard bump against her thigh. “I gather that all these girls—ladies of enormous beauty, wealth, and status, and every one of them years younger than me—they are all to be my competition for the prince’s favor?”
“It does seem a shame any of them bothered making the journey here.” Petti winked.
“Lady Iona McCall is one-and-twenty,” Sir Beverley said. “Only two years your junior.”
“You are both batty as belfries. And my sister too.” She turned to the window and stared down at the beautiful, wealthy people below. “I do not wish to marry a prince, of course.” Or anybody. “Who is that very handsome man taking Lady Iona’s arm?”
“Lord Case, heir to Marquess Airedale,” Sir Beverley said. “I’ve no idea why he is here. He hasn’t a sister, only a brother no one has seen in years.”
“Perhaps Lord Case is looking for a bride too and has heard this is the place to come for one,” she said. “No wonder his brother plays least-in-sight, with a sibling of such wise forethought.”
“You are still an impertinent girl.” Sir Beverley said with a crinkle of his eyes, then returned his attention to the drive below. “Very handsome, you say?”
“Fancy yourself a noblesse, my dear?” Petti said.
“About as much as I fancy myself a princess.” She went toward the door. “Now that all the potential brides are here, when does this party begin in earnest? And do you think there is yet time for me to have the carriage readied for an escape before the snow?”
THAT NIGHT IN a bed made with the softest linens and brocaded silk the likes of which she had only ever touched in Arabella’s new ducal home, Ravenna lay on her back, aching inside. In two months she had not yet become accustomed to the empty place by her side. No hard spine pressed against her hip, forcing her to the edge of the mattress. No harrumphing half yawns woke her from dreams. No warm breath stirred her to wake in the morning and set off across the park while the sun rose over the hills. Beast would love the softness of this bed. The ropes were so well tied it didn’t squeak when mounted.
She squeezed her eyes shut and wanted warmth and a body beside hers to hold.
The stables beckoned. Buttoning herself into an old gown that wouldn’t shame Petti too much if anybody else saw her now, she made her way from her bedchamber.
On the exterior, Chevriot imposed, an elegant mass of gray-brown limestone surrounded by an uncompromising wall, with heavy towers and unadorned roofs. But inside the chateau, luxury reigned. Thick rugs running the length of the corridors swallowed the patter of Ravenna’s footsteps. Her lamplight danced over a footman sitting on a chair at the head of the grand staircase, who nodded as she passed.
Slipping into the servants’ stair through a door hidden in the wall, she descended to the kitchen and followed a thread of frozen air to the door to the kitchen yard. The night smelled of snow, clean and sharp. Throughout the afternoon she had watched the clouds gather in gray-white folds upon the nearest peak. It would come by morning, then she would be good and well trapped.
She let herself out of the yard through the gate and followed the cemetery wall along the edge of the forecourt to the carriage house, then to the stable.
Within the stable, all was cold and still. A single lantern lit the central corridor and her feet padded silently along the clean-swept floor. Blooded beasts slumbered in stalls to either side, like in Sir Beverley’s stables, like at home, Shelton Grange, where she and Beast had played and worked. Where he would remain forever. Where she did not belong now because her beautiful, courageous sister had married a duke.
A tear dashed upon her cheek like a tiny scalding slap. Another followed. A third caught on the corner of her mouth. A lone brown cat stared at her from a shadow, condemnation in its glowing eyes. Ravenna shoved the back of her hand across her jaw.
A noise arose from a stall ahead—soft, squeaky, sharp then long, desperate then miserable and weary. The cat slunk away. Ravenna smiled. Nothing else in the world sounded like puppies.
She followed the sound to a room not meant for horses but equipment. Upon the near wall hung a pitchfork, an axe, and a shovel, with a bucket and brushes arranged neatly on a bench. Straw layered the floor thickly, with the pups in the corner. Someone had made a temporary home for them.
She went to her knees. Four little black and white bodies tangled together in the deep shadows, two sleeping, one nodding, the last crawling over its siblings and whimpering. The bitch was nowhere to be seen—perhaps out foraging for food, or perhaps they were weaned already and she was gone. They were old enough, nine or ten weeks probably.
From under a thatch of straw to the side, a black nose poked out. Its tiny nostrils sniffed the chill air.
Setting down her lamp on the bench, Ravenna crouched by the concealed pup, brushed aside the straw, and peered at the runt—for the runt it clearly was, separated from its siblings and smaller by far. Just like Beast.
She scooped it up and her fingers threaded through its chilled fur. Without his mother and not strong enough to contend with his siblings, he would not last long in this cold. Yet in desperate straits he had dug himself a hole in the straw. Resourceful little fellow. She cuddled him to her breast. With boneless gracelessness he tumbled over her chest, his new claws like miniature razors, snatching at the edge of her cloak with a hungry mouth. She laughed and burrowed her nose against its brow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I cannot help you. I didn’t think to bring a biscuit.”
Holding the runt against her neck, she warmed it until her toes and the tip of her nose grew numb. She placed the puppy beside its sleeping siblings and tucked the straw around it, and its cries of complaint rose pitifully.
A heavy footfall sounded on the other side of the door. A man’s tread. Then another. He paused out of sight beyond the opening she’d left.
Silence.
She’d thought the stables empty. Now a man stood on the other side of the door without speaking. If he had come to see the pups, he would enter. If he had followed her inside with ill intent, he might be silent. It would not be the first time a man had assumed she was fair game for a tumble in the hay. But this time her protector did not stand by her side, growling and baring his sharp teeth. This time she was alone.