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Raven halted his advance in midstride, but his pose was relaxed rather than threatening. “The room we can change, but if that’s not the only problem, just what is it you want?”
Eden took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want to be by myself.”
“On our wedding night?” Raven was barely able to ask before breaking into deep chuckles.
Eden considered his laughter as out of place as he had thought hers was on the cliff. “I can understand why we had to marry, but this isn’t the way newlyweds ought to feel.”
“How do you know how I feel?” Raven asked in a far softer tone.
“I know you think I killed Alex,” Eden responded. “So I can’t imagine you feeling anything but loathing.”
Raven could not deny the first part of her accusation, but he most certainly did not loathe her. That was a contradiction that he could not justify even in his mind, let alone aloud to her. He had thought her a lovely opportunist and he had wanted to make her pay for her selfishness. Clearly he had gotten his point across, but he could not take any pride in the accomplishment. The anguish in her eyes was too real. He had never deliberately hurt another person as he had Eden, but there was no way he could take back what he had said. Even if he offered an apology, she would never forget that bitter attack nor the fact he had made her face a truth she would never have seen for herself.
“If you would be more comfortable in your own room, I won’t keep you,” he finally offered graciously, sorry he had not thought of the consequences before he had f
orced her to accept his view of Alex’s death.
When Eden closed the door behind her, Raven held his breath, waiting for her to turn the key. When she did not, he broke into a sly smile. He went downstairs for a bottle of Briarcliff’s superb blackberry brandy and two delicate crystal snifters. He then returned to his room and waited until he was certain Eden had had ample time to prepare for bed. He then rapped lightly on her door, but entered her room before she had time to respond. She was seated at the dressing table, wearing the nightgown he had removed from her slender figure twice, and brushing her hair.
“I thought a brandy would help you sleep.”
Eden watched him approach in the mirror. He’d shed his jacket and waistcoat, and unbuttoned his shirt clear to the waist. She knew the brandy was merely an excuse to speak with her again, but she lacked the emotional strength to send him away. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’ve never cared for brandy.”
Undaunted, Raven placed the two snifters on the dressing table. “I’ll give you only a drop then.” He poured her no more than a splash, but was far more generous with himself. After recorking the bottle, he took a long sip then set his brandy aside.
“Will you let me brush your hair?” When she appeared to be reluctant to relinquish her silver-handled brush, he took it from her hand. “Did Alex like to do this?” He drew the brush through a long tawny curl, then wound the end around his hand. “Well, did he?”
“Yes.”
“Just close your eyes and pretend I’m Alex then.”
That was a suggestion Eden had never expected to hear from him. That she had already played such a dangerous game on more than one occasion was a secret she intended to take to her grave. His hands caressed her back gently as he continued to brush one curl at a time and she could not suppress a shiver. She was not cold, merely all too aware of him.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she replied in a breathless rush.
“Oh but I do,” Raven argued. “You may find it difficult to believe, but I want our marriage to succeed. I know you don’t love me, but that hasn’t kept us from achieving a degree of closeness many couples never share. I know you’ll not forget Alex anytime soon, if ever, but if it would make being with me easier to bear, I won’t mind if you pretend that’s who I am. I’d be flattered actually.”
Eden studied his expression in the mirror, and was amazed to find he looked sincere. He appeared to be giving his full concentration to his task, but she knew that was merely what he wanted her to believe. He was awaiting her reply with an anxiety he hoped she would not notice, but she did.
“No, I won’t ever do that, Raven. If I were to pretend I was with Alex, it would cheat us both. We may have been drawn together by circumstance rather than love, but we ought to be honest with each other.”
“And if I am too honest?” Raven asked, certain he already had been.
Eden could think of no way to reply to that question without reopening the gaping wound of Alex’s death. She took a sip of her brandy to fill the awkward silence her failure to respond created but the deep purple liquid failed to ease her troubled mind, or her badly aching conscience.
Raven kept working until her hair shone with soft, golden highlights. It was torture to touch her, and to keep his emotions under control when he wanted so badly to glory in the feelings she aroused within him. He may have condemned her behavior in the past, but he wanted their future to be the best he could possibly make it. Finally he lay the brush on the dressing table, and bent down on one knee beside her so his eyes would be level with hers and she could no longer avoid looking directly at him.
“I know you must have beautiful memories of another wedding night, but this is the only one I’ll ever have. Please don’t ask me to sleep alone.”
His earnest gaze was somehow loving that night rather than intimidating, but again Eden found it difficult to reply. She did not feel like a bride, but like a very recent widow. In fact, she had felt like a spectator at their wedding. Their vows had had a hollow ring, as though strangers were speaking them. She knew Raven was now her husband, but she had never felt less like a wife. He was not demanding that she share his bed, as was his right, however. He was asking politely and that was more consideration than she had expected to receive from a man who was as hot-tempered as he.
She reached out to caress his cheek, and he drew her palm to his lips. That familiar gesture reminded her that they were already lovers. When she had shared the most intimate part of herself with him, how could she turn him away? “I did not think you would want me,” she whispered as she set her snifter aside to free both her hands.
Raven was unused to justifying either his actions or his emotions to others, and he could not begin now. “No matter how bitter our arguments become, I will always want you,” he responded instead.
“You deserve a wife who truly loves you, Raven. Someone like Stephanie who thinks you’re the most dashing man she’s ever met.”
Raven stood and took Eden’s hands to draw her to her feet. He toyed briefly with revealing she had been the only woman in London who had appealed to him, but quickly discarded the idea. He did not want to sound like some pathetic schoolboy suffering from unrequited love.
