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  “Because I don’t want my family to suffer because of me. But to have any hope of shielding them, I will have to wed immediately. The servants have already witnessed my return, and they will not keep quiet for long.”

  Denial was Kell’s first impulse, but he couldn’t refute that her points were good ones.

  “You appear to be regretting your offer already,” she said when he was silent.

  Kell shifted uneasily, not knowing which was causing him more discomfort, his injured thigh or the knot that had formed low in his belly. “I am a bachelor, Miss Kendrick. You’ll understand if I’m not eager to hang in the parson’s noose.”

  Her brow furrowed, and she hesitated a moment before asking, “Do you have someone in mind you would prefer to wed?”

  “No, vixen, I don’t,” Kell said dryly. “I hadn’t intended to wed at all. Certainly not anytime in the near future.”

  “I suppose you keep a mistress. Most men of means do.”

  His eyebrows shot up at her plain speaking, but the flush on her cheeks suggested the topic wasn’t a comfortable one for her.

  “Truly,” she added, “I wouldn’t mind if you continue to have your paramours.”

  “Your generosity overwhelms me,” he drawled.

  “Well, you might find our union financially advantageous. I have an adequate income of my own-a fund provided by my…father. And my grandfather promised me a significant dowry when I wed.”

  “I don’t require your wealth,” Kell declared, annoyed at her assumption that he could be bought.

  She moistened her lips, drawing his attention there against his will. “Well, unless you mean to withdraw your offer, I think I must accept it.”

  Still fighting the inevitable, Kell narrowed his own gaze at her. “You really should consider carefully, vixen. I promise you, I would make you a terrible husband.”

  Pinning her with his midnight eyes, he moved toward her.

  Raven took a defensive step backward, finding his intense stare unnerving. She was still amazed by his offer. And he would no doubt make her a dreadful husband. He was a notorious gamester, a stranger who didn’t even like her. Without question, he would be disagreeable and unmanageable as a spouse. And she had deliberately shot him…

  It was a marriage doomed to failure. But she had little choice in the matter. Any husband would be better than no husband at all. She needed him.

  “Are you certain you want to be my wife?” he murmured. When he grasped her elbow in a velvet grip, Raven felt her breath catch.

  “Well?” His silken tone made her shiver, and so did his nearness.

  Her gaze focused on his scarred cheek, which suddenly made him seem menacing, then shifted lower to his striking, sensual mouth, which was even more dangerous. Did he intend to kiss her? Her pulse quickened into a rapid, erratic rhythm.

  But he didn’t kiss her. Instead his arms folded tightly about her in a merciless embrace that wouldn’t permit her to move. The surge of primal heat shocked her body into stillness; the hot darkness of his gaze filled her with the stunning memory of how he’d pleasured her all through the night…

  “Aren’t you afraid of me, Miss Kendrick?”

  Was she afraid of him? He was an intense, dangerous man, with a hot vitality that seemed to charge the very air she breathed. She should fear for her virtue at the very least. Yet inexplicably she didn’t fear him. Perhaps because she had seen him so many times in her fantasies.

  His eyes glittered darkly, reminding her so keenly of her pirate lover.

  “No…I am not afraid of you,” she managed to whisper unsteadily. “Especially not when I think you are deliberately trying to intimidate me.”

  He stared down at her a long moment, his eyes unreadable. “I can’t frighten you away then?”

  “No, sir, you cannot.”

  His mouth compressed in a sardonic line. “My name is not sir.”

  “Mr. Lasseter, then.”

  “My name is Kell. Say it.”

  “Kell, then. I am not afraid of you, Kell.”

  She felt her heart pounding as she waited an interminable moment for his response.

  Cursing under his breath then, he abruptly released her and turned away. For the span of another dozen heartbeats, he stood there, his jaw muscles working as if he were struggling with himself.

  Finally he shot her a hooded glance over his shoulder.

  “Very well, vixen,” he said, his tone rife with resignation. “We will marry as soon as arrangements can be made.”

  Chapter Six

  He never should have touched her, Kell reflected darkly as he watched Raven Kendrick attempt to explain their sudden engagement to her disbelieving relatives. He’d hoped that physical intimidation might influence her to refuse his reluctant proposal of marriage, but regrettably, wrapping his arms around her had only reminded him of their feverish night together: the incredible feel of her aroused body, her passionate hunger for a man, his yet unfulfilled ache…

  Bloody hell, but his ill-considered embrace had been a mistake, affecting his body and his senses on the most primal level. His body still throbbed, while his mind spun, unable to focus on the current conversation.

  Moments ago they’d returned to the salon to announce their intention to marry, and for a brittle instant, both her great-aunt and grandfather had sat stunned. Then Lord Luttrell had practically exploded in protest, leaping to his feet and waving his cane in the air to punctuate his objections while Raven tried to calm him and prevent him suffering a true apoplectic fit.

  His own mind distracted, Kell settled in a chair and watched his prospective bride, wondering exactly why he had felt compelled to save her. He didn’t want a wife of any kind. Certainly not a blue-blooded temptress who drove men like his impressionable brother wild. And he’d had at least one other option besides the parson’s noose. Determined to keep Sean out of prison or worse, he could have spirited his brother out of the country to avoid any retribution by Miss Kendrick or her enraged family.

  There was his sense of honor, of course. Any man with a shred of decency would feel obliged to make amends for the violence she had been shown. And he actually had been the one to compromise her. It was his bed she had spent the entire night in.

  But Kell suspected there were other, more profound reasons he hadn’t fought harder against having to make her his bride.

  Simply put, if he didn’t wed her, she would have no defenses against society’s savagery. He didn’t want the image of her desperate and alone haunting him, the way the stark image of his mother still haunted him.

  His mother had been an Irish physician’s daughter who’d fallen in love with one of her father’s patients-an Englishman injured in a hunting accident while touring Ireland. Fiona had married considerably above her station, into the wealthy English gentry, and was never accepted by the haughty Lasseters, even though her husband and her two sons adored her. Within months of being widowed, Fiona was banished to Ireland by the boys’ uncle William, who took over their guardianship, despite their anguished pleas and bitter protests. A year later she’d died in poverty.

  Kell had blamed his uncle entirely for her death and came to hate William with an unforgiving ferocity. And that was before the bastard had violated his youngest ward’s innocence with his perversions…

  Grimly Kell forced away the memory. He’d been unable to shield either his mother or brother all those years ago, but he didn’t intend to bear that burden of guilt again by standing idle while Raven Kendrick suffered.

  For whatever reason, he felt a fierce, almost savage need to protect her. He wouldn’t abandon her now. Even if wedding her was wholly contrary to his own personal desires.

  Kell gave a silent, humorless laugh. He’d once vowed he would never marry an aristocrat. Indeed, if he’d thought about it, he would have said he wanted to marry only for love; that he wanted a love match like his parents’.

  But at least Raven Kendrick wasn’t the typical wide-eyed schoolmiss without a
n intelligent thought in her head. As husband and wife, they would doubtless frequently clash, but he would rather risk being shot again than be tied to a milksop for life. And while the singular Miss Kendrick might be virginal, last night he’d been given a tantalizing glimpse of another woman entirely. A staggeringly passionate woman with strength and fire and spirit enough to keep him constantly intrigued…

  Too damned intrigued.

  Kell cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to be fascinated by his unwanted bride’s spirit or her captivating beauty. He knew too well the danger she presented. Thankfully they’d agreed only to a marriage of convenience, a dispassionate arrangement that could be entered into without any emotional or physical involvement. After the obligatory consummation, they needn’t ever share conjugal relations. He would have to do his utmost to see their union never became more intimate than that.

  Her grandfather, however, was acting as if he didn’t want the marriage to take place at all, Kell realized as he refocused his attention on the conversation. Oddly enough it was Lady Dalrymple who was championing the union.

  “You cannot be thinking clearly, Jervis,” the dragon said in her usual frigid tones. “Raven has no option but to wed-”

  “My thinking is quite clear, Catherine! You are the one who has gone maggoty. You said he was a damned murderer!”

  “Well, I don’t know that for a fact. The rumors could be mere gossip.”

  “But he is still a gamester.”

  “True. Mr. Lasseter is the scandal of polite society. But Raven is just as notorious at the moment. And disreputable or not, his marrying her will at least provide her with a crumb of respectability. Furthermore”-Lady Dalrymple shot her great niece a glance full of dislike, if not actual malice-“I hazard to say they deserve one another.”

  The undercurrents of tension in the room were palpable, and Lord Luttrell’s next accusation only added to the turbulence.

  “Doubtless he’s nothing but a damned fortune hunter.”

  Kell stiffened at that groundless indictment. He’d rightfully inherited the Lasseter wealth upon his uncle’s death but refused to touch it, turning the income and the use of the entailed estate over to his younger brother, along with the London town house, as recompense for what Sean had suffered. Instead, Kell had made use of his considerable skills as a gamester to amass a small fortune, which had allowed him to open his private gaming club. That success, along with several subsequent judicious investments, had increased his worth tenfold and made him sufficiently rich to earn a certain deference from any but the noble class.

  Before he could respond, though, Lord Luttrell continued in a voice full of contempt. “And you can’t deny he’s a bloody Irishman!”

  Raven broke into the altercation then, her tone grim. “I think you are forgetting that Ian Kendrick was part Irish. If he was good enough to be my father, then Mr. Lasseter is good enough to be my husband.”

  Kell scarcely heard her argument, for he was fighting his own deep resentment and barely controlled rage. The notion that he wasn’t worthy of marrying a British viscount’s granddaughter made him seethe. He could never forget that his mother hadn’t been good enough for the English Quality; that even Irish gentry were considered beneath them.

  That sort of upper class bigotry roused his defiance enough to have the opposite effect from the one Lord Luttrell intended; now Kell felt inclined to marry Miss Kendrick simply to spite her disdainful kin.

  “But his bloodlines,” Lady Dalrymple broke in, “are inconsequential at this point, Jervis. If she doesn’t wed him at once, the scandal will descend upon all our heads.”

  “The scandal be damned.” The elderly nobleman looked directly at his granddaughter, his eyes softening. “I’ll not force you to wed against your wishes. I’ll not repeat the mistake I made with your mother.”

  “It won’t be against my wishes, Grandfather,” Raven replied, a stubborn edge to her voice.

  Kell finally was able to control his anger enough to interrupt. “I don’t deny your charges regarding my profession, Lord Luttrell. But I’m not at all ashamed of my Irish heritage. As for my being a fortune hunter, you are far off the mark. I am quite capable of caring for your granddaughter and keeping her in her accustomed style. In fact I’m prepared to be exceptionally generous. I will provide her with a house and income of her own. And if you are still concerned for her welfare, your solicitors can draw up a marriage contract to tie up whatever fortune she now possesses and keep it out of my reach.”

  Lord Luttrell gave Kell a fierce glance, but Lady Dalrymple conferred an imperious nod of approval on the plan. “There, then. It is all settled.”

  A long silence followed while his lordship’s scowl gradually faded to frustration and then finally resignation. At last, he sighed and surrendered to necessity, just as Kell had. “I suppose there is no other choice.”

  “No, Grandfather, there isn’t,” Raven agreed.

  “Now,” her aunt said briskly, obviously determined to take charge, “we must somehow come up with a credible story to explain Raven’s disappearance yesterday. If she is to suddenly reappear married, then no one will truly believe she was ill as we claimed. And there will still be the disgrace of her publicly jilting the Duke of Halford.” She hesitated, frowning. “But what story could be considered credible?”

  “We would do best to keep as close to the truth as possible,” Kell said. “Too many people saw Miss Kendrick’s abduction for us to deny it, but we can suggest our own interpretation of events.”

  “What do you mean?” Raven asked.

  He met her curious gaze with cool detachment. “We should put about a new story: we met sometime in the past and fell in love, but you rejected my suit because of your family’s objections. On the eve of your wedding, I realized I couldn’t live without you, so I abducted you and convinced you to wed me.”

  “You want to concoct a tale of a love match?” her aunt asked.

  “We would pretend to be in love?” Raven echoed, startled by the unlikely prospect of Kell Lasseter loving her. Judging by his expression, he saw her as a regrettable obligation. “But when would I have had time to meet you and fall in love? Until this past spring I was still living in the Caribbean.”

  “Then we fell in love in the Caribbean when I visited years ago.”

  “It just might suffice,” Lady Dalrymple said thoughtfully. “A former romance could explain why Raven would be foolish enough to jilt a duke. And it could possibly avert further disastrous consequences. Halford might be inclined to call out Raven’s abductor, but if he believes her in love with someone else, he will be less likely to brawl over her. The ton, as well, could be a trifle more forgiving in judging her.”

  “We should probably claim to have been married last evening,” Kell added, “and make it a reality as soon as possible.”

  “Why not elope to Scotland,” Luttrell demanded, “and be married over the anvil?”

  “An elopement wouldn’t help Miss Kendrick’s reputation,” Kell answered. “For one thing, she would be unmarried and in my sole company for too long. And your servants would know differently. Moreover, with my leg wound, I would prefer not to endure countless days of jostling in a carriage.” He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel. “There is still enough time to apply for a special license so that we can be married this evening.”

  “You will need a clergymen to perform the ceremony,” his lordship said tersely.

  “I can arrange for a clergyman. But we cannot be married here. There would be too many witnesses who could later contradict our story. The ceremony will have to take place in a private location.”

  “Where do you suggest?”

  “I have a house in Richmond that is lightly staffed at the moment and should be adequate. The servants are discreet.”

  Raven shot her future husband a curious frown. Quite often gentlemen of leisure had pleasure houses close to London so their mistresses would be nearby. Was Kell Lasseter one of those gent
lemen? Was he even a gentleman?

  The thought was interrupted by her grandfather’s continued questioning. “What of the marriage contract? I want my granddaughter to be well provided for.”

  “Jervis, there is no time to draw up any contracts,” his sister insisted. “That can wait until after they are safely wed.”

  Lasseter returned a cool look. “I don’t intend to cheat your granddaughter out of a settlement, if that is what concerns you.”

  “Of course it can wait,” Raven said. “I trust Mr. Lasseter to keep his word.”

  And strangely enough, she did. She had little doubt he would do as he promised. Her bigger fear in marrying him was that she could completely lose her independence, since a wife had few rights. She wouldn’t be able to manage him the way she could have managed Halford. On the contrary, if any husband could prove to be domineering and difficult to control, it would be Kell Lasseter.

  He was watching her with that enigmatic look again, as if trying to determine her motives. Subjected to his dark-eyed scrutiny, Raven suddenly felt her stomach twist in knots.

  This man would soon be her husband. She was actually about to marry a notorious stranger, heaven help her.

  If her misgivings about marriage were profuse yesterday when she was about to fulfill her long-held dreams with her ideal match, they were utterly rampant now. But she had no choice, she reminded herself, trying to curb her panic. Indeed, she was fortunate that Lasseter had agreed to rescue her.

  “Well, then,” her aunt said, returning to practical matters, “we have a great number of preparations to make. Raven, while Mr. Lasseter sees to the special license, you must write Halford and give him to understand the circumstances and beg his forgiveness.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, grateful for the distraction. “I owe him an apology of some kind. And I should send a word of explanation to Brynn and Lucian…”

  “And I will do the same with my chief acquaintances,” her aunt added, “while Jervis sends a notice to the papers.”