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RAVEN SAT ON THE EDGE of the bed—a bed she had shared with Eben just hours ago—and stared at the envelope in her hands. She wasn’t even a little surprised when Meg knocked on the door. “Raven?”

“It’s open.” It was surprising, how calm she sounded. As if her world was still intact. As if she weren’t pregnant, and alone. Her child fatherless.

“Are you all right, child?”

“He gave me back my father’s fortune,” Raven said slowly, carefully. “Money meant for my future. Money that would take care of me. What do you suppose that means?”

Meg frowned. “I know this may look bad, but there must be an explanation. Did he say anything to you last night?”

“Only that he wanted to marry me.” Her voice broke on the final word, and now the tears came, a silent trickle that ran down her cheeks and dropped into her lap. “How could he do this to me? To us?” She placed a protective hand on her belly and wept for the both of them.

Meg frowned. “He knows about the bairn?” Raven nodded.

The older woman shook her head. “Then you must know that he’ll be back. Eben grew up without a father. He won’t abandon his own flesh and blood.”

Raven lifted her eyes to Meg’s face. “Did he say anything to you about us getting married?”

Meg was reluctant to reply. Finally, she relented. “No, but that doesn’t mean a thing. I haven’t seen him since last night.” She sat down on the bed beside Raven, and put an arm around her shoulders. “What will you do?”

“If he does not return?” Raven said, finishing the thought for her. “I don’t know, but at least I have options. He gave me that—I suppose I should be grateful.” And maybe she would be—once she got over being furious with him.

“Everyone’s overreacting,” Meg said. “He hasn’t abandoned you. Tonight or tomorrow, he’ll come striding in— like nothing ever happened.”

Raven hoped Meg was right about Eben. She didn’t like the emptiness of not knowing. She didn’t like feeling alone… and there was the child growing inside her to think of. She would not be able to hide her condition much longer. Very soon, everyone would know. Before then, she would be forced to make a decision. “I hope you’re right, Meg,” Raven said with a sigh. “I’m afraid, I am running out of time.”

Raven stayed in her chamber all that day, and the next, and the next, and Eben did not return. On the afternoon of the fourth day, feeling restless, she came down to the kitchen and insisted on helping Meg prepare the evening meal. She was seated on a low stool, basting a leg of lamb roasting on a spit.

“It’s going to be an early winter, with deep snow, and dreadful cold,” Meg predicted. “It’s a good thing we got the butchering done early this year and wood brought into the shed for the fires. We’re going to need it.” Her brow furrowed, while Raven stared silently into the flames, their thoughts going down similar paths.

Where was Eben? Where had he gone so abruptly? When

—if ever—would he be coming home?

The back door opened, and Ivory entered on a skirl of snow. She was wrapped in an amber velvet cloak lined with red fox fur, which complimented her creamy skin and her fiery red tresses. She paused in the heat of the blaze to warm her gloved fingers and stood, looking down at Raven.

Meg saw her eyes widen and followed her gaze. The fire’s glow silhouetted Raven’s rounding belly perfectly. “Is there something that you need, Mrs. Wharton?” Meg asked pointedly, drawing her attention away from Raven. The girl had been through quite enough, and did not deserve more difficulty heaped upon her.

“Is that lamb? I can’t eat lamb! Even the smell of it makes me ill.”

“If that’s the case, it might be wise to remove yourself from the kitchen. As for the lamb, your father requested it. If you have a bone to pick with anyone about this, you need to do it with him.”

Tyler brushed past Ivory, entering the kitchen as she was leaving it. “Well, there you are,” he said to Raven. “I was beginning to fear you’d stay in your room forever.”

“I haven’t been feeling well,” Raven said. It wasn’t a complete untruth. She was well physically, but she was heartbroken and disappointed.

“Do you feel up to a walk in the snow? It’s warmer this evening, and big fat flakes are falling. It’s quite pretty, and since we don’t get much of this in the Tidewater, I thought I’d enjoy it—and I’d enjoy it a lot more if you would share it with me.”

Raven looked to Meg, and the other woman shrugged. “Maybe a little fresh air is just what you need,” Meg said. “But be sure to dress warm.”

Raven went up the back stairs to find her cloak and boots, leaving Tyler Lee alone with Meg.

“Well, Mr. Jackson, for all intents and purposes, it seems you’ve won,” she said, not unkindly.

“I wasn’t aware it was a contest, Miss Cleary.”

“Weren’t you now? Those half-healed bruises on your face say otherwise.”

Tyler smiled at that. “I suppose you do have a point.”

She studied him with slitted eyes. “What is it you really want?”

“Is it that hard to figure out? I want her to be happy.” “Happy with you?”

His mouth curled, and a dimple flashed at the left corner of his mouth. “Make no mistake, ma’am. I will take her away from here if she’ll let me, and spend the rest of my days making her forget she ever met him. She is the reason I’m

here… the reason I will stay here until my last shred of hope is gone.”

“Well, at least you’re honest. And the baby?”

“I would raise it as my own,” he said without the slightest hesitation. “I am guessing that I cannot count on you as an ally in this—as you put it—contest?”

“No, you may not count on me,” she said, “but she desperately needs cheering up, and I think I can trust you to do that without bringing her to any more grief. More than anything, I trust that girl to make the right decision.”

“Thank you—I think,” Tyler Lee said, and went to find Raven.

She was coming out of her chamber when he found her. She was dressed in a gown of forest green wool with a matching cloak and hood. “You look as beautiful as ever,” Tyler Lee told her. “Only, I think the gown is a little plain. It needs something to liven it up.” He reached into his coat pocket and held out a string of perfectly matched pearls.

“Oh, Tyler Lee. No, I couldn’t.”

“Of course, you can. They’re a gift, Raven. What’s a gift between friends?” He paused, and his smile faded. “We are still friends, aren’t we? Despite what happened the other night?”

Raven nodded. He’d been very kind, and so attentive, and he was very handsome, in a very un-Eben-like way.

“This is a gift borne of friendship. And you must accept it.” She blushed as he turned her, placing the pearls around her neck, his fingers brushing her skin as he fastened the clasp.

She turned back to face him, then, fingering the pearls.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful friend.”

They walked down the front stairs and out into the night. Outside, the wind had ceased its blowing, and a gentle snow was falling, huge flakes that drifted down from a midnight

blue sky to settle with barely a whisper on the fresh carpet of white.

Raven tipped her face up, and drank in the fresh, cold air. “Someone up there is plucking white chickens.”

Tyler Lee laughed. “It is lovely—peaceful. Makes a man believe that there’s some sort of order to things—that maybe there’s a reason for the way things turn out. How can anything go wrong on a night this beautiful?”

Their stroll took them under the towering hemlocks, under the snow that clung heavily to their graceful drooping branches. Raven reached up to tug on one of the lower branches, and a shower of white rained down on both their heads. Laughing, he shook it off, then reached a hand to brush it from her shoulders. Instead, his fingers closed lightly over her shoulders, and he brought her in close for a kiss.

The contact was brief, poignant, and oh-so full of caring. It was over in an instant, and he pulled back. “Sorry. That was unfair.”

“No,” Raven said, touching a gloved hand to her lips. “It’s all right. I suppose I must face the fact that he may not be coming back.”

“Have you given any thought to what you will do?” he asked gently.

Raven shook her head. “I can’t seem to get beyond the look on his face when I told him about the baby. He wants this child as much as I do. How could he leave, without a word?

Deserting us both? It doesn’t make sense!”

“Eben is a difficult man to figure out,” Tyler Lee said with a shrug.

“There have been times when I thought him the worst sort of scoundrel,” Raven said. “But I thought he was finally getting past all of that.”

“Well, he is still male, and I’m afraid we all share the ability to do foolish things from time to time. Cold?” She shivered, and he put an arm around her, hugging her close to his side, and sharing the heat of his body with her. “Let’s go back.”

They walked back to the inn in silence, but as they approached the wide portico, he stopped and brought her round to face him. “Raven, I’m going to be leaving in a few days.”

“Leaving?”

“I’m going home to Virginia for Christmas… and I’d like you to come with me.”

“You are so kind,” Raven said, feeling very real regret. The thought of him not being here at the inn made her sad. Not seeing his handsome face. A man she never doubted was her ally.

He made a noise that might have been a sigh, and his voice was low and soft, self-deprecating. “It’s selfishness, Raven, not kindness. I haven’t had an unselfish thought since I was seven.”

“You are too hard on yourself,” Raven insisted. “Your kindness to me proves that.”

“It’s easy to be kind when you love someone,” he said with a sad little smile. “I would marry you, if you would have me. Take you away from here tonight. We can make a new start?”

“I’d take him up on his offer, if I were you,” Mrs. Wharton said from the deep shadows of the portico. “It isn’t often you come across a man who is willing to take a trollop to wife and raise another man’s bastard child.”

Tyler’s arm tightened around Raven’s shoulders. “That was uncalled for.”

“Someone needs to tell her the truth,” Ivory said. “Your paramour is not coming back, Miss Delacour. In fact, he has a long history of turning his back on his loved ones. I’ve little doubt that he’s halfway to St. Louis by now.”

“You don’t know him,” Raven insisted. “You don’t know anything about him!”

“Oh, but I do,” the other woman replied coldly. “I was in your position four years ago, without the stigma of an

illegitimate child. Thankfully, I got on with my life. If you have any sense at all, you will do the same.”

Raven mounted the steps, stopping right beside her. Her head was up, her lashes lowered to hide the pain in her eyes. “Did you? Get on with your life? If so, then tell me, why are you still here? I believe Meg said your husband returned to the city. If you are so happily wed, then why aren’t you with him?”

Ivory’s answering smile was tinged with acid. She stood there for a moment, until Raven and Tyler were once more inside, then, she turned and swept down the steps and into the snowy darkness.

AT THAT MOMENT, EBEN WAS pushing the mare through the snowdrifts two miles to the south. After his unexpected delay in Pittsburgh, he’d finally finished his business with William Hargraves the evening before, and he’d set out immediately for home, but the road was almost impassable in places, and the river all but iced-over. He’d been forced to stop just before midnight at a tiny wayside tavern.

The mare was exhausted, and so was Eben. To try and force his way through during a blizzard was foolish in the extreme, no matter how badly he wanted to continue on. So, he’d put up the mare in the barn, and dozed on a bench in the corner of the taproom until morning.

By first light, the wind had ceased, and the snow fell in fits and squalls, with nothing heavy enough to keep him away from home another day.

He could hardly wait to see Raven. He hoped that she’d understood the urgent business that took him away so abruptly, but it was crucial that the matter be laid to rest, once and for all. Then, he could begin anew, building his future around his wife and his unborn child. Hargraves had made it an easy decision.

“I am sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. St. Claire,” he’d said. “I was in Cincinnati visiting my sister, and I only returned this morning. It wasn’t until a half-hour ago that Janie told me you were here. I hope you had other business in the

city. If not, I am sorry to say you may have come all this way for nothing.”

“There’s been no reply to the inquiry?” Eben heard himself saying.

“Not a word from Louisiana. Of course, the mail being what it is, with letters sometimes passed hand-to-hand, it is possible that it could arrive any day.”

“I suppose it’s no more than I expected.”

Hargraves sat back, tenting his fingers on the desk before him. “I do wish we’d had better results. Perhaps in the spring?”

“Actually, I won’t be making any further inquiries into the matter,” Eben had said, amazed that the decision, once made, was so freeing. He’d settled his bill with Hargraves, collected his things from Sally’s, and headed for home.

By the time the lights from the inn appeared in the distance, the mare was blowing her impatience and Eben was bone weary. Dismounting in the stable yard, he led Cadence into the barn and unsaddled her, rubbed her down with a bit of woolen blanket, and gave her a goodly measure of oats. Then, with exaggerated care, he lifted the package he’d carried with him all the way from downriver and walked to the back door of the inn.

Meg was seated in the rocker, working on some small bit of needlework, as she sang to herself. As he placed the package on the table, she glanced up, her eyes gone wide. First shock, then relief, and anger. A wide range of expressions flitted over her freckled face in rapid succession. “Where in bloody hell have you been?”

“I had some business downriver,” Eben said. “What the hell’s going on? And why are you angry?”

“Business? Would it kill you to tell someone you were going? And that you’d be back?”

Eben stared at her. “I spoke to Tyler,” he said, “and I left a note for Raven.”

“Note?” she said. “There was no note.”

“There was a note. I left it on the pillow, telling her I’d be out of town for a few days.” He shook his head. “Would you mind telling me what is going on here? Where’s Raven?”

“In there,” she said, jerking a thumb toward the common room, “Being consoled by Mr. Wonderful.”

Eben didn’t wait to hear more. He turned and stalked down the hallway. He entered upon a touching scene. Tyler and Raven sat at a table near the hearth, cards spread out before them. He paused, watching them. Zeb, seated nearby with his Bible and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, watched them as well. He looked up and saw Eben, but said nothing.

Just sat back in his chair and waited for the explosion.

Raven flicked down a card and won the trick. She clapped her hands in delight, laughing, until she glanced up. “Eben!” she cried, shooting out of her chair and launching herself at him. He caught her, lifting her off the floor, swinging her around as she rained kisses down on him.

“Did you miss me, sweet?” he asked, taking her lips in a long and leisurely kiss. A kiss he’d been dreaming about for days.

She pushed back and glared up at him. “I thought you were gone for good. You gave me back my dowry.”

“Leave you?” he questioned. “Never. I left a note on your pillow.”

“I didn’t see a note.”

“Perhaps it fell behind the bed,” he offered. “Never mind that now. I had business in Pittsburgh, and it’s taken care of. Now, come with me. I have something for you.”

“You brought me a present?”

Her innocence was such a delight. Eben found himself wanting to please her, waiting to see her lovely brown eyes light up. He’d wrapped her gift in paper and then in oilcloth, to protect it and keep it from getting wet. He led her to the table, then stood back to watch her open it. She untied the string and

parted the wrappings, her dark eyes misting as she ran reverent fingers over the velvet and fur. “Oh, Eben! It’s the most beautiful wrap I have ever seen!”

Eben lifted it from its homely bed and placed it over her shoulders. The midnight blue velvet matched the highlights in her soft black curls, the silvery fur the perfect foil for her dark and sultry beauty. “It’s made from wolf pelts, brought back from the Shining. My broker in St. Louis wanted them for his daughter, but I couldn’t part with them. I knew they were something special, that when the time came, I would know what to do with them.”

“St. Louis? Then, you’ve had them all this time?”

“I sent word from the Galloway’s, and had it commissioned for you. I’m pleased to say, they followed my instructions to the letter. It was to be a parting gift, something to keep you warm when I couldn’t. Now, well—it is a wedding gift, a tribute to my beautiful bride.” He paused, and his gaze drank in every detail of her, from head to dainty booted foot. At the strand of pearls, he stopped. “This is new.”

Tyler had quietly entered the kitchen, an interested observer to the romantic exchange. Now, he cleared his throat. “It’s a small gift for the lady to wear on her wedding day. Surely, you can’t object to that?’ He came forward and offered Eben his hand. “Congratulations, Eben, on your nuptials, and your good fortune.”

Eben clasped the offered hand, then turned back to Raven. She’d slipped out of the cloak, and stood admiring it, stroking the fur, running her fingers over the velvet’s deep pile. “If it sets well with you, I’ll find the reverend tomorrow, and we can make this official. I don’t wish to delay any longer.”

“It sets very well with me, my love,” she said warmly. She hugged him and pressed a kiss on his waiting lips. “You are cold and wet. If you don’t get out of those things soon, and get warm, you’ll take ill.”

“It is a mite uncomfortable, now that you mention it,” Eben said, his heart speeding up at the thought of their shared

accommodations, the ice thawing in his veins. “Would you like to come with me?”

Smiling, she took his hand, leading him through the common room and up the stairs, the beautiful cloak, Eben’s wedding gift, for the moment forgotten.

Upstairs, Eben stripped off his shirt and boots, stockings, trousers and cotton drawers. Naked, he slid into bed beside Raven, and gathered her close. Her skin felt like it was on fire compared to this chill, and she very quickly warmed him.

Soon, he was pressing into her, loving her well and thoroughly.

Passionate by nature, Raven loved to be loved by him. She loved the abrasive feel of his two-day’s growth of beard against the soft sensitive skin of her throat. She adored his weight pressing her down into the mattress. She craved the feeling of fullness as he pushed deep into her sacred place… the place that she saved for him, and him alone. Perhaps best of all, she liked the aftermath, when they lay with limbs entwined, sharing kisses and vows of eternal love… and she wondered how life could possibly be so perfect?

For a while, she lay there, secure in Eben’s sleep-warm embrace, thinking of his wedding gift to her, and how much she adored it. Slipping out of bed, she groped for it in the darkness, then remembered with a pang that she’d forgotten it downstairs in the kitchen. She wanted to touch it again, to snuggle her nose deep into the fur and to feel the delicious silkiness on her cheek. She wanted most of all to bask in the gift’s significance. Tomorrow, they would be married.

Husband and wife. Forever and always together.

The beautiful fur-lined cloak represented all of that and more, and she could not sleep without it close.

Putting on Eben’s robe, she padded barefoot down the rear stair and into the kitchen. The room was empty and quiet, yet the tang of something odd tinged the air, a noxious smell that Raven couldn’t quite identify. The cloak lay, not on the table where she left it, but draped over the back of Meg’s rocker.

She walked over, and picked it up, and that dreadful smell

intensified. Sick at heart, she spread its beautiful folds and saw the holes burned into the fabric and through the pelts. “No!” Raven cried. “My beautiful wrap! It’s ruined!”

Tyler Lee came in from outside. “Raven? What is it?

What’s wrong?”

“My wrap,” she said, tears filling her eyes, coursing down her cheeks. “Someone has destroyed it.”

Tyler came to where she stood. She could feel the cold emanating from his clothing as he took the wrap and spread it wide. “Jesus,” he said, and his gaze moved from the ruined fabric and fur to the fireplace poker, lying on the flags very near the flames. A nail had been driven into the wood of the heavy oak mantel especially for the poker. In the weeks he’d been in residence, he’d never seen it lying as it was, forgotten

—or hastily dropped. “This must have just happened. I can still smell the singed hair.”

“There you are,” Eben said from the doorway. He didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Raven flew into his arms, clinging to him as she sobbed her heart out. Eben held her, and tried to comfort her, stroking her hair with one hand. “Sweet, what is it? Are you all right?”

“My wrap! Oh, Eben! It’s ruined!”

Eben raised his gaze to Tyler’s, the question looming unspoken between them. “Damned if I know. I went for a walk and came back to find her crying. It looks as if someone plied the poker, burning holes right through the layers.”

“I’ll make it right,” Eben said as Raven wept. “I promise.

Come with me—back to bed. You need your rest.”

Eben guided her back to the security of their bedchamber. She was all that mattered now. Her happiness. Her safety. Her rest. He’d deal with whoever did this later.

Down in the kitchen, Tyler fingered the black edged holes in the velvet and seethed. It took several hours, but he finally managed to find Mrs. Wharton alone. “I understood when you approached me that you wanted to cause my friend upstairs

some discomfort. You didn’t say anything about Raven being a target of your warped brand of vengeance.”

“I don’t know what you are referring to, Mr. Jackson,” Ivory said with a slight smile.

“The fireplace poker. You used it to burn holes in Raven’s wrap—the wrap he gave her just last night as a wedding gift.”

“I did no such thing,” she insisted. “She probably placed it too close to the flames. Logs throw sparks. I’m sure that’s what happened.”

“It was lying on the table when I went out, and I was the last person to leave the room.”

“That hardly proves anything,” she said with a dismissive gesture of one hand. “Though I do find it touching that you are suddenly jumping to the little whore’s defense when not so long ago you were certainly willing to do whatever was necessary to undermine this alliance of theirs.”

“My mistake,” Tyler said. “If I’d known what a vindictive bitch you are, I would never have agreed to this in the first place. This little show of bad behavior had nothing to do with Eben. You wanted to hurt Raven.”

The eyes she turned on him then burned with a fierce, ugly light. “And what if I did? How dare she show up here, with him? She has no right to be here!”

“She’s here, because Eben wants her here,” Tyler said emphatically. “And there is nothing you can do to change that.” And now, he leaned in close, his tone unmistakably hostile. “Make no mistake, madam. I am through with this insanity of yours.” Tyler Lee stalked out of the common room, and he didn’t bother to look back.