Page 40 of The Raven and the Rose
She blushed and could have screamed because he had the power to do this to her. “No! I will not come to your chamber to play games!”
“Then I challenge you to a match on neutral ground. Are you afraid?” he taunted.
“Afraid?” she scoffed. “Ravenspur, I am not afraid of losing at chess, and I am not afraid of you!”
His teeth gleamed in the firelight as he flashed his wolf’s grin. “Then I shall look forward to a high-stakes game,” he said before he turned and left the room.
Alice and Kate entered the moment he left. “Are you all right?” asked Kate like a mother hen to one of her chicks.
“Perfectly,” said Roseanna, stretching her arms high above her head in a very feline gesture. She was weak with relief that he had allowed her one more night. She fully realized that Ravenspur was in command whenever they were alone together and that it was his decision to take her or leave her whenever he felt like it.
Now she put on a brave face before her women. “Mr. Burke has done a marvelous job. I can’t believe the transformation!”
Kate Kendall snorted, “No better than I could have done if you’d left me to it.”
“Dear Kate, you had much too fatiguing a day to haul beds around. Oh, Alice, don’t bother unpacking those coffers tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough to hang up all my dresses. Your chamber is as well furbished as mine, I hope?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alice. “We have a pile of towels and lavender soap, and even the candles are scented.”
“And so they should be, with all Ravenspur’s wealth. We haven’t married into a tinpot family, you know,” said Kate.
Roseanna was thoughtful. She could detect a note of pride in Kate’s voice whenever she saidRavenspur.As she prepared for bed, she mused on Ravenspur’s tolerance. He let most of her barbs pass; then when she provoked him too far, he always kissed her. Of course he’d had a lifetime of experience with women—both ones he’d been married to and ones he hadn’t.
Her thoughts drifted to his second wife. How curious that he would not speak of her! She wondered idly where she could glean some information. She was willing to bet Mr. Burke had been Ravenspur’s household chamberlain for more than eight years. She fell asleep determined to learn all she could on the morrow and in the days to come.
* * *
Dressed in a pretty wool riding dress, Roseanna ran lightly along the corridor to Rebecca’s chamber. “It’s a glorious morning, Rebecca. I’m going for a ride to familiarize myself with the countryside. Would you care to join me?”
Rebecca, roused from sleep, sat up in bed and blinked. “What are you doing up in the middle of the night?”
Roseanna drew back the heavy curtains to let in the autumn sunshine. “It isn’t the middle of the night. It’s past eight in the morning. See, your husband’s already up and about.”
Rebecca made a face. “Tris doesn’t bother to come to my bed most nights.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Rebecca,” she said shyly. “I thought you were in love.”
“I am—that’s the trouble. But he doesn’t care a fig for me.”
“But he must have loved you, or why would he have chosen you for his wife?” pointed out Roseanna.
Rebecca looked woebegone. She whispered, “I was foolish enough to let him seduce me. He got me with child. Ravenspur was the one who insisted he marry me.”
“You have a child?” asked Roseanna in amazement.
“A little girl. She’s back at Ravenspur with her nurse.”
“Don’t you miss her?” asked Roseanna, trying to understand the girl’s apathy.
She shrugged. “I’m usually not feeling well enough to look after the child. Her nurse does a much better job than I ever could.”
“Oh, Rebecca, all your ideas are exactly the opposite of mine! I want to take hold of you and shake you! You say you are in love with Tristan, yet you’re not willing to make any effort to secure his interest. You purge yourself of food so you won’t become fat, but you don’t realize that it makes you listless, apathetic—almost an invalid!”
“It’s easy for you to talk,” said Rebecca, showing a little spirit at last. “You’re beautiful, slim, full of vitality, and your husband is besotted with you.”
Roseanna ignored the last of her words and replied to the first. “You think I’m slim, yet my breasts are twice as full as yours.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I’m fat and lumpy.”
