Page 6 of A Raven's Heart

Of letting go,she almost said.Of opening myself up. Because I did that once and look what happened; you rejected me.

Luckily Raven didn’t seem to require a response. “I expect it’s too much to hope you’re chaperoned,” he said bleakly. Her stubborn silence was answer enough. He sighed. “Some things never change. You, Miss Hampden, are a magnet for disaster. Don’t try to deny it. You may have fooled thetonwith your bookish airs and demure ways, but Iknowyou. You’ve a penchant for trouble.”

“I do not!”

He raised a disbelieving brow. “If there’s ever a plume of smoke on the horizon, I’ll stake my life you’ll be at the bottom of it with a tinderbox, an out-of-control bonfire, and a guilty expression.”

She glared at him. “That is not true!”

“You were such a scruffy little urchin. Always traipsing around the estate and getting into scrapes.” He shook his head, chuckling. “You never could refuse a challenge, either.”

Heloise ground her teeth. She hated the way he constantly reminded her of her childish exploits. Would he never see her as awoman? He treated her with the same affectionate disdain as her brothers did. She half expected him to ruffle her hair. If he tried it now she’d kick him in the shins.

“You try to hide your true nature but you can’t fool me.”

She huffed inelegantly.

He adopted a mock-pitying tone. “It’s sad, really, to see you so repressed.”

She rolled her eyes, both horrified and amused.

He chuckled. “Yes, I see it as my earthly duty to bring you out of hiding.”

She almost choked. “It isnotyour duty. You’re neither my relative nor my husband. You have no responsibility for me whatsoever.”

“For which I thank God on a daily basis,” he muttered fervently. He took two more glasses from a servant. “Here, drink this.”

She accepted it without thinking. A drunken reveler jostled her arm and a cold wash of champagne splashed onto her chest and trickled down between her breasts. “Oh, bugger-and-arse!” she muttered.

“That’s what I love about you, Hellcat. Always so ladylike. Just when I despair that the impulsive hellion I grew up with has vanished, you say something like that and the world rights itself again.”

She growled at him. Actuallygrowled.

“You shouldn’t do that, either,” he admonished gently. “It makes little wrinkles in your nose.” He ran a forefinger over the tip of her nose left uncovered by the cat mask. Heloise’s stomach flipped. She quelled the impulse to snap her head around and bite him.

Why was he the only one who could make her abandon six years of hard-won decorum with nothing more than a few sly comments and childish jibes?

“That’s what I love about you, Ravenwood,” she echoed sweetly. “You’re so unfailinglyungentlemanly. I don’t feel the slightest need to act with propriety when I’m with you.”

His smile turned wolfish, and she realized belatedly how her words could be misconstrued. He didn’t disappoint. “I’m considered an expert at making prim young ladies abandon propriety. I’m glad I have the same effect on you.”

Heloise suddenly recognized the champagne-spilling culprit behind them; Lord Collingham. She instinctively ducked her head and hunched her shoulders. Ravenwood chuckled.

“Avoiding Collingham, are you? Is he still proposing once a season?”

Heloise nodded. “The drunken idiot’s surprisingly persistent. And he’s sostupidhe’s immune to my usual strategy for dissuading suitors.”

“What’s that?”

“I discuss etymology,” she said. “At great length.”

“Insects?”

Heloise clucked her tongue. Raven was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. His air of languid insouciance disguised the fact that he was almost as well-read as herself. “You know it’s not. That’s entomology. I’m talking about words. Their meanings, where they come from.”

“Of course.”

“It usually only takes a few minutes for their eyes to glaze over.”

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