Page 5 of Rules for Heiresses
Luck was finally back on her side. She let out a soft whoop. Thankfully, everyone in attendance wanted to congratulate the new duke, which gave her plenty of opportunity to slip away. She’d lost her hat and she was certain half her face paint was now a sweaty mess. Oh, well, it was about time for the fantastic Mr. Hunt to abscond to another island anyway. She’d danced with the devil, nearly gotten caught, and the near discovery of her identity had tested her every nerve.
Lengthening her strides toward the exit without breaking into a sprint that would draw attention, Ravenna could taste the sweet, fresh tropical air on her tongue, just beyond the wide paneled doors of the hotel. It was a far cry from the smog and foul scents of London, and one she’d grown to love.
“Not so fast, you slippery little scamp,” a gravelly voice seethed into her ear, a huge hand encircling her upper arm in an unbreakable grip. Ravenna gasped, though it wasn’t pain that forced the air from her lungs.
Horrifyingly, the rush of hot breath against her skin and the sultry tenor of his words sent heat flooding through her body and her knees went rubbery.
What on earth was wrong with her? He was going to strangle her, and she was falling to pieces. Her breath was short, her stomach was weak, and her heart was racing like a horse on the last leg of a race. This wasn’t a swoon, was it? She’d never swooned a day in her life!
A powerful frame steered her into a receiving room off the foyer and manhandled her into a chair. The salon wasn’t empty, but Ravenna had much worse to worry about, like the incensed male looming over her whose face could be carved from granite. His mouth, which she’d thought so full and supple before, was a flat, furious line. His stormy eyes had gone full tempest now.
She couldn’t believe thatthisman was Cordy. It was unfathomable! For one, he was huge. Cordy had been scrawny with nary a muscle in sight. Built like a Roman gladiator, this man looked nothing like the rangy boy he’d been. His complexion was a much richer hue now, after being exposed to the hot sun of the islands, and his face…his face was even more dangerously beautiful up close. Ravenna had the sudden, inexplicable urge to run her hands over him.
A muscle flexed in that lean, stubble-dusted cheek, his intense gaze not veering once from her. “I’ll ask you once, brat, who are you?” The ruthless snap of his voice raked across her mind, reminding her that his good looks weren’t the problem. The fact that he was going to toss her into jail was. She had to get out of this mess somehow! “Speak or I’ll make you regret disobeying me.”
This wasnotgood.
“I was a friend…of Lord Richard in Kettering,” she blurted out, fear of discovery making her quiver.
Was that too close to the truth? Richard was her second oldest brother who died years ago in a fire along with her father and eldest brother.Blast! Richard had been a bit of a loner, preferring his books to actual people. Mr. Chase—no, the Duke of Ashvale—would see right through her falsehood and ferret out her identity in an instant.
“Richard Huntley?” he said. His dark gaze scoured her, fingers still clamped over her arms, though not cruelly. Ravenna forced herself not to fidget or break eye contact. She needed him to believe her.
“I saw you once at Embry Hall,” she rushed out, panic overtaking her explanation. “His sister called you ‘Cordy’ and he said you were the duke’s grandson.”
Her body quivered when his eyes narrowed. Why on earth had she brought up a sister? Ravenna almost swore aloud and clamped her mouth shut, well aware of the obvious relation between her fake male name and her real one. It wasn’t much of a stretch to connect Raven and Ravenna. Deuce it, how could she have been so stupid? The real question was: Wouldhenotice? The Cordy she’d known might have been lacking in muscle as a boy, but he’d never lacked for acuity. She doubted that would have changed as an adult.
“Sir,” a harried-looking man with his hair askew, who Ravenna gratefully recognized as the factotum, burst through the door and interrupted them. “It’s madness in there. Bingham is waiting.”
Rawley, following on his heels, entered the room with a nod. “I’m afraid you can’t hide much longer, Cousin. The gossip is like a bushfire…already rampant and impossible to contain.” His gaze came to rest on Ravenna. She peered back, not hiding her surprise that the two men were related. “What will we do with this one?”
The man who clearly did not want to be duke ran a palm over his face and nodded to his factotum. “Fawkes, escort Bingham to the library adjoining the office first. I’ll be along shortly.” He then turned brutally cold eyes on her. “It doesn’t matter who you are or how you know me. Cheaters are a disgrace, and the piper must be paid. I have to make an example of you, young buck, and I reckon you’d much rather a harmless night in the stalls than the loss of a finger.”
“Take it,” Ravenna blurted out, though her body trembled almost violently. A paltry finger was much less of a price to pay than being unmasked as a lady of quality or being thrown into a filthy jail.
“You jest,” he said with a long-suffering look.
“I do not. Take. My. Finger.”
“No.”
“Then let me go. You cannot accuse me of thievery without proof.” In response, Ashvale skimmed up her forearms as if attempting to feel beneath her sleeves for evidence. “I didn’t cheat,Your Grace.”
She spat the title with a mouthful of mockery, enjoying the tightening of his face and the ashen cast to his sun-kissed skin. A part of her wondered why he was so against being duke. It was his birthright, and one of privilege and power. No gentleman of sound mind would refuse a coronet, and yet, he seemed to loathe the very idea.
“I don’t require proof. I’m judge, jury, and executioner here.” He released her arm and handed her over to his man who had returned. “Rawley.”
“No, wait, please,” she said in alarm, her fingers catching on his coat. “You can’t. I can’t go there. Anything else. I’ll do whatever you want me to here in the club, scrub pots and clean carpets, but not the jail.”
“It won’t kill you, boy,” Rawley muttered. “It’s a damn sight better than losing a body part.”
Ravenna ground her jaw. If he only knew that she was in danger of losing much more than that should her secret be discovered by a bunch of criminals who wouldn’t care that she was nobility. Or female. She suppressed a shudder. “I’m begging you. Please.”
When the duke made to leave, Ravenna panicked, yanking her arm from Rawley and heaving herself between him and the door. Hushed gasps from their avid onlookers reached her ears, but she had no choice. She would not survive a single hour in the local jail. Her reputation might turn to tatters, but she wasn’t about to give up the last of her dignity.
“Grow a pair of ballocks, Hunt,” the newly minted duke growled.
Her voice lowered. “I can’t.” She peered up at him, though she kept her chin tilted down. There was still a chance she could salvage everything by not giving awayexactlywho she was, at least in public. “I’m female.”
