A Raven’s Heart (Secrets and Spies #2)

Chapter 1.

England, June 1816.

“I’m a spy, not a bloody nursemaid!”
William de l’Isle, Viscount Ravenwood, glared across the desk at his mentor, Lord Castlereagh.
The older man shook his head, supremely unmoved by his outburst. “Miss Hampden needs immediate protection. Someone’s targeting my code breakers and whoever killed Edward could also have discovered her identity. I can’t afford to lose her, too.”
Raven narrowed his eyes. “Use another agent.”
Castlereagh gave him one of those level, penetrating looks he so excelled at. “Who? Neither of her brothers are here; Nic’s in Paris, and Richard’s following a lead on that French forger he’s been after for months. Who else is left?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ve lost too many good men. First Tony got himself killed in France, then Kit disappeared. There’s been no news of him for months.”
Raven frowned. He refused to consider the distasteful probability that his friend was dead. Kit was like him, a master of survival. He could be deep undercover. But with every week that went by with no word it became harder and harder to stay positive.
“And now another good man, Edward Lamb, had been murdered,” Castlereagh sighed. “I don’t want Miss Hampden to be next.”
The older man was a master of applying just the right amount of pressure and guilt. He hadn’t made it to head of the Foreign Office without knowing how to manipulate people.
“You think I should entrust her to a less competent operative?” Castlereagh mused softly. “You’re not burdened by false modesty, Ravenwood. You know you’re the best I have. I was hoping you’d use your exceptional talent for survival to keep Miss Hampden alive, too.”
Raven sighed, well aware he was being backed into a corner. If it had been anyone else he wouldn’t have hesitated. But Heloise Hampden was the fly in his ointment. The spoke in his wheel.
A total bloody menace.
Hellcat Hampden had been the subject of his guilty daydreams for years. What had started out as adolescent musings had matured into fevered erotic fantasies that showed absolutely no sign of abating. He’d told himself the attraction was because she was forbidden, tried to lose himself in other, far more available women. Nothing had worked. And while he’d rarely paid much attention to the monotonous sermons preached by the clergy, he was fairly sure there was something in the bible that said “thou shalt not covet thy best friend’s little sister.” Or words to that effect.
He was the last person she should be entrusted to. He’d sworn to stay away from her. Had avoided her quite successfully—give or take a few blessedly brief skirmishes—for the past six years. Hell, he’d traveled to the far corners of war torn Europe to try to forget her.
And now here he was, drawn back to her by some malevolent twist of fate.
As if his life wasn’t cursed enough already.
Over the past few years they’d settled into an uneasy, albeit barbed, truce; it was a sad reflection on his twisted nature that he preferred sparring with her to holding a reasonable conversation with anyone else.
His blood thrummed at the prospect of seeing her again and he smiled in self-directed mockery. Few things increased his heartbeat anymore. In combat he was a master of his emotions, sleek and deadly and efficient. Fighting barely elevated his pulse. He could kill a man without breaking a sweat. But put him ten paces away from that slip of a girl and a furious drummer took up residence in his chest, battering away against his ribs.
He shook his head. Being near her was a torture he both craved and abhorred, but he had a duty to keep her safe. A duty to her family, to Castlereagh, to the whole damn country. Much as he’d like someone else to deal with her, he didn’t trust anyone else. She was his to torment.
Castlereagh, the old devil, smiled, as if he already sensed Raven’s grudging acceptance. “That’s settled, then. She’s safe at home right now. You can go over and get her in the morning.”
He rose and strode to the door of the study, then flashed an amused glance at Raven’s immaculate evening attire and the mask resting on the desk. “I apologize for interrupting your evening, Ravenwood. I’ll leave you to your entertainments.”
She was in.
Heloise smiled in triumph as she trailed a group of masked revelers toward Lord Ravenwood’s infamous ballroom.
She’d never been invited to one of these masquerades. Raven and her brothers had always excluded her from anything remotely interesting as a child, and the situation hadn’t improved now she was twenty-two and perfectly capable of looking after herself. Tonight, however, she had a perfectly valid reason for sneaking in; the crumpled translation she’d stuffed down the front of her bodice. Raven would forgive her when he heard what she’d discovered.
The extravagant debauchery of his annual gathering was the stuff of legend. Even the most sophisticated members of the ton discussed it in scandalized whispers, behind twitching fans. She was finally going to discover whether its reputation was justified.
Heloise reached the entrance to the ballroom, glanced up, and stopped dead. Her lips formed a soundless O of astonishment. The gilt-edged invitation she’d “borrowed” from Richard’s study had promised “An Evening of Heaven and Hell.” The rumors had not been exaggerated.
She blinked. The guests had embraced the suggestion of depraved licentiousness with enthusiasm. Scantily-clad gods and goddesses mingled with angels and devils in a dizzying sea of color. Grotesque masks, all curved beaks and twisting horns, swirled above acres of exposed flesh. A hundred perfumes entwined with the smell of warm bodies, hair powder, and wine, while the string quartet in the corner was almost inaudible over the boisterous hum of conversation.
Heloise glanced down at her own comparatively simple costume. She’d pilfered an authentic second-dynasty Egyptian beadwork collar from her father’s collection of Ancient jewelry and improved a black silk half-mask with whiskers and a pair of papier mâché ears. There: Bastet, the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess. Not that anyone here would have any idea who she was supposed to be.
Her stomach gave an excited flip. She didn’t need to find Raven immediately. A few extra minutes wouldn’t make any difference. There was such a delicious freedom in being masked and anonymous. No one was who they appeared. That gilded lady over there could be a duchess or courtesan, actress or spy. That silver-masked satyr could be a diplomat or a prince.
Heloise shivered, despite the stifling heat. The possibilities of the evening shimmered in the air like a summer haze, magical and dangerous. She could be anyone she wanted. Not someone’s unmarriageable little sister. Not the bookish code breaker. She could be flighty and irresponsible, the secret, daring girl she’d been before her face was scarred. The beautiful one, for once, instead of the clever one. Anticipation tingled through her body as if she were poised at the top of a steep, smooth slope. Just one small nudge would send her hurtling down, toward adventure.
She grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing servant and took a few fortifying sips as her skin prickled with the unpleasant conviction that she was being watched. That was foolish. Neither of her brothers was here to curtail her enjoyment and the only other person who could potentially unmask her—tonight’s host, their neighbor and most irritating man on the planet, William Ravenwood—wouldn’t be expecting to see her. She was going to have the devil of a time finding him in this crowd.
As if the very thought had summoned him, all the fine hairs on her arms lifted in warning and Heloise glanced around with a sense of impending doom. The crowd parted obligingly, and there he was. The god of the Underworld, staring at her.
Oh, hell and damnation.
He stood motionless, a pillar of darkness amid the colored gaiety, his tall frame somehow managing to radiate a barely leashed tension, as if he was poised to attack. Heloise repressed the instinct to cross herself.
His mask was black like hers, only far more elaborate. The long muzzle of a jackal, ears pricked and alert, eyes rimmed with thick lines of gold, covered the top half of his face. Only his jaw was visible; hard and male, with unfashionably tanned skin shadowed by the hint of a beard. Dark hair curled out from beneath the mask to brush his snowy cravat and pitch-black evening jacket.
The tiny part of her brain not frozen into immobility—and inexplicably concerned with historical accuracy—whispered that to be totally authentic, Anubis should be bare-chested. Her mouth went dry as she imagined the broad shoulders and well-defined chest concealed beneath all that black silk.
The role of Anubis fitted him to perfection. The jackal guardian of the Underworld, a creature of the night, perfectly at home in darkness and shadows. She shivered as he turned and looked directly at her. He tilted his head to one side, the mannerism exactly like that of a dog—a hint of interest, a silent question.
Her first instinct was to run, but her feet seemed glued to the floor. She took another gulp of champagne and when she looked up again he’d disappeared, swallowed up by the swirling mass of dancers. Her heart hammered unpleasantly against her rib cage. Surely he hadn’t recognized her from all the way across the room?
You recognized him.
She shook herself. It didn’t matter. She’d run from William Ravenwood far too often. Tonight she would stand her ground.
Speak of the devil.
Raven narrowed his eyes at the slim, white-clad figure slinking around his ballroom, and cursed. She was supposed to be tucked up safe in bed. What the hell was she doing here? The debauched, cynical world he inhabited was no place for someone like her.
His heart pounded in anticipation as he weaved through the excited throng, keeping to the shadows out of habit. There. Black mask near the door. It was definitely her. He’d know her from half the world away, in a crowd of a hundred thousand. It was a simple enough matter to spot her in a room of two hundred. She alone made his blood sing in his veins, made his body vibrate with awareness, as if he were a tuning fork that responded only to her pitch.
Bloody woman.
She was dressed as a cat. He almost laughed at the irony. And here he was, a dog. How utterly appropriate. Bastet and Anubis. Both Egyptian gods of the Underworld. Both black as midnight. As different as night from day. Opposite, and yet at the same time oddly connected. It had been like this between them since they were children. It was a bloody curse.
At this distance the tilted cutout eyes of her mask hid her face but he already knew the astonishing color of her eyes; lavender-gray, the exact hue of a thunderstorm-ready sky.
He circled the room and approached her from the back. She turned, an elegant sweep of shoulder and throat, and he clenched his fists against the insanely erotic urge to press his mouth to her nape and bite her. He shook his head. Such a perverse attraction. She was light. He was darkness. Not for him. Never for him.
She’d tried to tame her dark blond hair into some kind of elaborate twist, but stray tendrils curled down the graceful line of her neck, refusing to conform. He leaned one shoulder against a marble pillar. To all outward appearances the creature in front of him was a respectable member of the ton; cool and poised and infinitely alluring. It was a lie. The rebellious nature she tried so hard to suppress was like those little wisps of hair — always trying to escape.
It amazed him that no one else could see it, even her own brothers. They thought she’d outgrown her childish yearnings for adventure and equality, but he knew better. No doubt that was why she’d come here tonight; she simply could not resist an adventure.
The devil in him relished the idea of coaxing all that repressed mayhem into breaking free. Heloise Hampden needed to let her hair down, both literally and figuratively. Except God only knew what would happen if she did.
She placed her empty glass on the tray offered by a passing servant. She was so small he could tuck the top of her head under his chin and pull her into his side. His hip would fit neatly into the curve of her waist. Her breasts would press perfectly into his chest. His mouth would fit precisely—
Raven banged his head against the pillar. Insane. Which was ironic, really. He’d managed to remain compos mentis despite spending eight weeks of his life locked up in a cell expecting to be executed. He’d witnessed some of the worst sights a decade of warfare could inflict upon a man and stayed sane. Yet Hellcat Hampden made him crazy. And, idiot that he was, he enjoyed it.
He stepped up behind her and caught a hint of her midnight-and-roses scent. It tightened his gut and turned his knees to water, but he composed his features into their usual expression of cynical boredom. The day she discovered the effect she had on him was the day he’d cut his own wrists. Not. For. Him.
“All alone, mademoiselle?” he murmured dryly. “Who are you waiting for?”