“Absolutely. I’m certain no other young lady of her acquaintance would have managed to be abducted on her wedding day.”
His sensual mouth curved in a half smile that strangely was devoid of sarcasm. “You are indeed rather unique in my experience, Miss Kendrick,” he remarked, making it sound more a compliment than a slight.
He opened the carriage door and carefully descended, then turned to help Raven down. When he shut the door and made to accompany her, she shot him a quizzical look.
“I intend to see you safely inside,” Lasseter said, and Raven didn’t argue. She was absurdly glad to have him beside her.
They had started up the flight of steps together when she saw him grimace. Realizing his wound must be paining him, she offered her arm for support. Lasseter gave her a long, measuring glance, but after a moment’s hesitation accepted her assistance, draping his arm around her shoulders and allowing her to bear some of his weight.
“You really should have a cane,” she murmured, striving to ignore the intimacy of the contact. “My grandfather keeps several here at my aunt’s house. I will find one for you.”
Thankfully he released her when they reached the landing. Her stomach churning, Raven pushed open the front door and entered with Lasseter behind her.
For a brief moment she considered taking the coward’s way out and simply sneaking up to her rooms. But the two footmen standing at attention in the entrance hall had already spied her. And just then her aunt’s butler appeared.
“Miss Raven!” Pleasure and relief wreathed his lined face. “You have returned! Were you harmed?” The aging butler caught himself. “Forgive me, miss. We have been frantic with worry, awaiting word of you.”
“Thank you, Broady.” Raven managed a smile. “I wasn’t seriously harmed. Will you please inform my aunt that I am home?”
“Certainly, miss, and his lordship as well. Your grandfather has taken to his bed, he was so distraught over your disappearance.”
Raven felt a renewed surge of guilt. She had been so concerned with her own dire circumstances, she hadn’t wanted to think about how her grandfather’s health would be affected by her abduction. The shock of her ruination might very well kill him.
Just then her aunt called out from the rear parlor. “Raven, is that you?” The silver-haired dame came into the hall. “In God’s name, are you all right?”
“I’m well enough, Aunt.”
“What happened? We feared the worst.”
“Perhaps we should speak in private,” Raven suggested, preferring not to air the shameful details in front of the servants.
It was no doubt a measure of how overset Lady Dalrymple was that she ignored the suggestion. “All we could think of was that someone held a grudge against Jervis…or perhaps Halford. Who were those brutes who abducted you?”
Raven gave Lasseter a quick glance. His mouth was set grimly, and she sensed the tension in the muscular lines of his body. He expected her to denounce his brother, she knew, and yet she found herself hesitating.
What point would be served by naming Sean Lasseter as her abductor? Did she truly want to see him in prison? And what of the consequences to Kell? He could very well be implicated in his brother’s machinations.
She owed him more than that, Raven realized. He had saved her from his brother’s violence, after all. And he had behaved honorably last night, after a fashion. He’d succored her in her dire need without taking advantage of her terrible vulnerability. How many other men would have acted with the same nobility? And then she had shot him for his efforts…
Raven took a steadying breath, committing herself. “I’m not certain who they were, Aunt. They wore masks and never showed themselves before they struck me unconscious.”
Beside her, she sensed Lasseter’s sharp glance. She could feel his gaze boring into her as she went on with her fabricated tale. “Thankfully, this gentleman rescued me. This is Mr. Kell Lasseter, Aunt. Mr. Lasseter, my great-aunt Catherine, Lady Dalrymple.”
He gave a brief bow, while the elderly lady stiffened.
“Lasseter? Of the Derbyshire Lasseters?”
“The same, my lady,” he responded.
“You are Adam Lasseter’s eldest son.” When he didn’t deny it, a mingled look of horror and distaste claimed her haughty features. “I am acquainted with your unsavory reputation, sir! You are a notorious gamester, your mother was an Irish nobody, and it is common knowledge that you murdered your uncle!”
Shocked by the last charge, Raven couldn’t help but stare at Lasseter.
The smile he gave was dangerous. “I wonder which you consider my greatest crime, Lady Dalrymple? The fact that I’m a gamester, of Irish blood, or rumored to be a murderer?”
She shuddered, while her hands rose to her cheeks in dismay. “Dear God. I had hoped…We are ruined!” She suddenly glowered at her great-niece. “How could you, Raven? How could you bring this murderer into our midst?”
“Murderer?”
Raven gave a start to hear her grandfather’s gruff voice. He had descended the stairs halfway, garbed in his dressing gown, and his face was flushed with outrage.
Holding on to the banister with one shaking hand, Lord Luttrell pointed his cane at Lasseter. “Seize that man!”
For a moment, no one moved. Then the footmen suddenly understood the command and hastened to obey, leaping forward to apprehend Lasseter.
When they tried to grab his arms, however, he fended them off with lightning-quick reflexes-lashing out with his fists and delivering several hard blows to the face and stomach of each footman, felling them both with ease.
Raven gasped to see the two strapping servants lying on the parquet floor, groaning and wheezing for breath. Even injured, Lasseter had been more than a physical match for them-although now he was gritting his teeth, obviously in pain from the bullet wound in his thigh.
“Damnation, I said seize him!” her grandfather roared.
When the elderly butler moved forward, Raven hastily stepped into his path, holding her arms out wide, shielding Lasseter and determined to protect the aging butler as well. “Broady, stop!”
She cast a frantic glance above her. “Grandfather, you don’t know what you are doing.”
“I do! I intend to have that scoundrel arrested and thrown in prison!”
“You are gravely mistaken. He is not a scoundrel!”
“If he abducted my granddaughter-”
“But he didn’t! Indeed, he rescued me from the brutes who thought to hold me hostage.” She hesitated only an instant before embellishing her tale further. “Moreover, he was wounded defending me. Truly, I owe him a debt of gratitude.”
“Finally you admit it,” she heard Lasseter mutter in a wry undervoice.
Raven gave him a sharp glance over her shoulder, daring him to challenge her lies. She thought she saw a mocking gleam of humor in his dark, penetrating gaze, along with something that appeared almost like admiration as he stood there flexing his bruised knuckles.
Her great-aunt, however, had a look of stark shock on her face to see two of her servants splayed on the floor of her magnificent entrance hall.
“Broady,” Raven murmured, “will you please assist them?”
With a brief glance at her ladyship, the butler answered, “Of course, Miss Raven,” and hurried to comply.
When he had helped the footmen to their feet and escorted them toward the rear of the house, Lady Dalrymple shook herself from her stupor and resumed her tone of haughty outrage. “What in heaven’s name are you thinking, Raven Kendrick?” She glared at Lasseter. “I will not have this…savage in my house.”
His own gaze remained cool, and so did his tone. “It pains me to disoblige you, my lady, but I have no intention of leaving until this situation with your niece is resolved.”
Raven intervened hastily. “Mr. Lasseter should be allowed to sit down, for I’m certain his wound is paining him. And Grandfather, you must sit as well. You should never have left your bed.”