Chasing Raven Read Online Free PDF

course," came the swift amendment.
    He looked across at the dancing filly again. Her shoulders— gently sloping above short, puffed sleeves— curved into slender but strong, beautifully shaped arms in long white gloves. Her skin was not fashionably pale. There was a warmer, darker shade, revealing a bloodline that wandered from the usual, carefully cultivated path of English pedigree. Her hair was a rich, thick tumble of black curl, arranged in casual haste. Or perhaps not arranged at all, but left to fall however it wished. Hence the "tail", which seemed to have a will of its own.
    Hale felt his hands twitching with a strange restiveness and so he found them hasty occupation, checking the knot in his cravat and then smoothing fingertips over his hair, which was still slightly damp at the ends.
    Her eyes were doe-like, the color dark but uncertain from that distance. Soot black lashes were half-lowered, like cunning, miniature fans in some ladylike attempt to hide the direction of her gaze.
    But she'd seen him. Hale knew it. He felt that moment of recognition. He tasted it.
    There was nothing ladylike about the way she'd used those eyelashes earlier when his gaze caught hers between a muddied silk handkerchief and the brim of a tweed cap.
    Nor was there anything gentlemanly about the way he watched her now.
    His pulse quickened to a most unsettling, unusual pace.
    Her lips were full and lush, a tender pink, reminding him of blushing peony petals at their peak. His favorite flower.
    "They say she's been running about with Matthew Bourne. His parents are at the end of their tether, because the boy refuses to give her up. There was talk of sending him away with a tutor for a tour abroad, but after what happened to his brother in Paris...well...his parents won't let him so far out of their sight."
    Hale stared grimly across the ballroom, watching her.
    "She's been engaged before, but nothing came of it," his informant continued. "There have been various affairs, so I hear, but nobody ever won her icy little heart."
    "Oh and that American steamship chap, Cornelius Vanderbilt, claimed she bit him."
    " Bit him?"
    "Of course, Americans tend to exaggerate."
    Listening to all this, Hale was partially horrified, a little amused, and reluctantly intrigued.
    "I'm sure her father would provide a good dowry just to get her well married." Yet another man had joined the conversation. "Deverell can certainly afford it. But who wants to align themselves with that family of reprobates? Besides, keeping a woman like that as a wife...? She's a handful. Untamable in all likelihood. Not the way to a quiet life, by any means. A mistress, however..." he chuckled, "that would be a more agreeable prospect, eh? One can hardly blame young Bourne."
    Matthew Bourne . Hale winced at the name. He didn't think he'd ever felt such strong adversity to a person in his life as he did to that boy. And it multiplied by the moment.
    Naturally Bourne had no thought of marrying her— his parents would never sanction the match— but he would take advantage of so much wild, unguarded beauty. As would every man in that room, given half a chance. They were like moths to the proverbial flame.
    She was clearly a vivacious, too-sociable creature of questionable repute and doubtful virtue.
    He was surprised his aunts had never mentioned her during one of his dutiful visits to their parlor for tea and cake. Usually they had plenty of social news to impart, especially when it involved broken engagements and scandalous liaisons. But then he only listened to a quarter of their conversation. Perhaps less.
    Now he realized what he might have been missing.
    Raven. A perfect name for a dark satin filly, spirited and watchful, scampering around the paddock with no intention of being caught and saddled. Flicking her tail in the sunshine and showing off.
    "I appreciate the warning, gentlemen," he said finally. "But I only asked her name. I didn't suggest I was looking to have her as a