Her body quivered when his eyes narrowed. Why on earth had she brought up a sister? Ravenna almost swore aloud and clamped her mouth shut, well aware of the obvious relation between her fake male name and her real one. It wasn’t much of a stretch to connect Raven and Ravenna. Deuce it, how could she have been so stupid? The real question was: Would he notice? The Cordy she’d known might have been lacking in muscle as a boy, but he’d never lacked for acuity. She doubted that would have changed as an adult.
“Sir,” a harried-looking man with his hair askew, who Ravenna gratefully recognized as the factotum, burst through the door and interrupted them. “It’s madness in there. Bingham is waiting.”
Rawley, following on his heels, entered the room with a nod. “I’m afraid you can’t hide much longer, Cousin. The gossip is like a bushfire…already rampant and impossible to contain.” His gaze came to rest on Ravenna. She peered back, not hiding her surprise that the two men were related. “What will we do with this one?”
The man who clearly did not want to be duke ran a palm over his face and nodded to his factotum. “Fawkes, escort Bingham to the library adjoining the office first. I’ll be along shortly.” He then turned brutally cold eyes on her. “It doesn’t matter who you are or how you know me. Cheaters are a disgrace, and the piper must be paid. I have to make an example of you, young buck, and I reckon you’d much rather a harmless night in the stalls than the loss of a finger.”
“Take it,” Ravenna blurted out, though her body trembled almost violently. A paltry finger was much less of a price to pay than being unmasked as a lady of quality or being thrown into a filthy jail.
“You jest,” he said with a long-suffering look.
“I do not. Take. My. Finger.”
“No.”
“Then let me go. You cannot accuse me of thievery without proof.” In response, Ashvale skimmed up her forearms as if attempting to feel beneath her sleeves for evidence. “I didn’t cheat, Your Grace.”
She spat the title with a mouthful of mockery, enjoying the tightening of his face and the ashen cast to his sun-kissed skin. A part of her wondered why he was so against being duke. It was his birthright, and one of privilege and power. No gentleman of sound mind would refuse a coronet, and yet, he seemed to loathe the very idea.
“I don’t require proof. I’m judge, jury, and executioner here.” He released her arm and handed her over to his man who had returned. “Rawley.”
“No, wait, please,” she said in alarm, her fingers catching on his coat. “You can’t. I can’t go there. Anything else. I’ll do whatever you want me to here in the club, scrub pots and clean carpets, but not the jail.”
“It won’t kill you, boy,” Rawley muttered. “It’s a damn sight better than losing a body part.”
Ravenna ground her jaw. If he only knew that she was in danger of losing much more than that should her secret be discovered by a bunch of criminals who wouldn’t care that she was nobility. Or female. She suppressed a shudder. “I’m begging you. Please.”
When the duke made to leave, Ravenna panicked, yanking her arm from Rawley and heaving herself between him and the door. Hushed gasps from their avid onlookers reached her ears, but she had no choice. She would not survive a single hour in the local jail. Her reputation might turn to tatters, but she wasn’t about to give up the last of her dignity.
“Grow a pair of ballocks, Hunt,” the newly minted duke growled.
Her voice lowered. “I can’t.” She peered up at him, though she kept her chin tilted down. There was still a chance she could salvage everything by not giving away exactly who she was, at least in public. “I’m female.”
The whispered confession seemed to stump him for a second, but then his face hardened. “Being female doesn’t win you leniency.”
Gracious, he truly was without a heart, but enough was enough.
Ravenna drew up her shoulders, channeled her mother’s hauteur that had been drilled into her since birth, and met his burning gaze. “You are making a grave mistake, Your Grace,” she told him with clipped diction that left no doubt that she was female and of unquestionable high birth. “Either release me at once, or you will not like the consequences, I assure you.”
A menacing growl ripped from his throat. “Don’t threaten me.”
She’d never met such an autocratic man in all her life. One would imagine he was made of fire and brimstone with a clockwork heart beating in his chest. A chill settled over her—this was it, the point of no return. She should have known her freedom or anonymity wasn’t going to last. She had one last hope.
“Then in that case, I doubt the Duke of Embry would appreciate you sending his precious sister to jail, regardless of any error in judgment on your part.”
“Embry’s sister?” he echoed, dark eyes glinting.
He studied her, his face giving away nothing as the chatter in the salon around them grew, the whispers of her identity a delicious on-dit. Scandal tended to have its own decibel level, after all. Ravenna breathed out. “What a delightful surprise to see you alive and well, Cordy.”
* * *
The little hoyden from the neighboring estate in Kettering had grown up into a spitfire. Wearing men’s clothing and cheating at cards in his hotel. What were the odds?
Lady Ravenna Huntley.
Courtland didn’t doubt she was who she claimed to be. When he’d thought her a young gent, something about her face and swagger had struck a vague chord of recognition in him, and when she’d brought up Richard Huntley, it had clicked. He’d assumed her to be a distant relation or some such. But now, as he took in her heart-shaped face, blazing eyes, and that stubborn jaw, he saw distinct signs of the girl he once knew.
Though she wasn’t a girl anymore—she was grown.
In spite of her clever disguise, that much was obvious. His lip curled in irritation. What the devil had she been thinking?
As if she could sense his thoughts, her chin lifted and she met his gaze with defiance.
“Does Embry know you’re here?” he demanded.
“What do you think?” Her tongue was as cutting as he remembered.
“I think he should put you over his knee.”
She rolled her eyes. “My brother is not a barbarian.”
“Then perhaps the task should fall to me.”
A furious copper gaze slammed into his. “Touch me and you will be the one missing a finger, I promise you. I’ve learned a few things since we were children.”
His brow dipped. He didn’t doubt that, considering she was here, and not tucked away in a ducal residence somewhere in England, being waited on hand and foot like the gently reared lady she was. What the hell was she doing here? And come to think of it, did she have a lick of sense left in that idiot head of hers? She had just announced her identity in a public drawing room while scandalously dressed in men’s clothing. And yes, it was a far step away from London, but oceans didn’t stop gossip.