Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5)(66)

Phoebe responded with a demure glance, giving no hint of her true thoughts.

If you won’t promise me forever, West Ravenel . . . I’ll take what I can have of you.





Chapter 23




Raw-nerved and unsettled, West went with Phoebe on a tour of the manor after breakfast. The majesty of the house, with its portico and classic white columns, and banks of windows on all sides, couldn’t have provided a greater contrast to the Jacobean clutter of Eversby Priory. It was as elegant as a Grecian temple, occupying a ridge overlooking landscaped parkland and gardens. Far too often a house seemed to have placed carelessly upon a site as if by a giant hand, but Clare Manor inhabited the scenery as if it had grown there.

The interior was open and lofty, with high vaulted ceilings of cool white plasterwork and sweeping staircases. A vast collection of fine-grained marble statuary gave the house a museumlike air, but many of the rooms had been softened with thick fringed rugs, cozy groupings of upholstered furniture, and palms in glazed earthenware pots.

West said little as they went from room to room. He was feeling everything too deeply and struggling to hide it beneath the fa?ade of a normal, reasonable person. It seemed as if his heart had just resumed beating after months of dormancy, forcing blood back into his veins until he ached in every limb.

It was clear to him now that he would never find a substitute for Phoebe. No one else would ever come close. It would always be her. The realization was beyond disaster . . . it was doom.

West was no less troubled by the fondness he felt for her children, both of them bright-eyed and heartbreakingly innocent as they sat with him at the breakfast table. He’d felt like a fraud, taking part in that wholesome scene, when not long ago he’d been a scoundrel other men wouldn’t want anywhere near their families.

He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Ethan Ransom in London the night before, when they’d met for dinner at a west-side tavern. An easy friendship had struck up between them during Ransom’s recuperation at Eversby Priory. On the surface, their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different—West had been born into a blue-blooded family, and Ransom was an Irish prison guard’s son. But they were similar in many ways, both of them deeply cynical and secretly sentimental, well aware of the darker sides of their own natures.

Now that Ransom had decided to discard his solitary ways to marry Dr. Garrett Gibson, West was both puzzled and envious of the other man’s certainty.

“Won’t you mind bedding only one woman for the rest of your life?” he’d asked Ransom as they’d talked over mugs of half-and-half, a drink of equal parts ale and porter.

“Not for a blessed minute,” Ransom had replied in his Irish brogue. “She’s the delight of my soul. Also, I know better than to betray a woman with her own collection of scalpels.”

West had grinned at that, but sobered as another thought occurred to him. “Will she want children?”

“She will.”

“Will you?”

“The thought freezes my inwards,” Ransom admitted bluntly, and shrugged. “But Garrett saved my life. She can do whatever she likes with me now. If she decides to put a ring through my nose, I’ll stand there docile as a lamb while she does it.”

“First of all, you city toff, no one puts a nose ring on a lamb. Second . . .” West had paused and drained half his drink before he continued gruffly, “Your father used to beat you—buckle, strap and fist—just as mine did to me.”

“Aye,” Ransom said. “Rightsidin’ me, he called it. But what has that to do with it?”

“You’ll likely do the same to your own children.”

Ransom’s eyes had narrowed, but his voice remained even. “I will not.”

“Who will stop you? Your wife?”

“I’ll stop me damn self,” Ransom had said, his brogue thickening. He frowned as he saw West’s expression. “You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t believe it will be easy.”

“Easy enough, if I want them to love me.”

“They will anyway,” West had said grimly. “It’s something all violent men know: no matter what evil they commit, their children will still love them.”

Ransom had stared at him speculatively while draining his own mug. “Ofttimes after my father gave me a blacked eye or a split lip, Mam would say, ‘’Tis not his fault. ’Tis too strong a man he is, hard for himself to manage.’ But I’ve come to realize Mam had it all wrong: the problem was never that Da was too strong—he wasn’t strong enough. Only a weak man lowers himself to brutishness.” He had paused to signal a tavern maid to pour them another round. “You may have a hasty temper, Ravenel, but you’re not a brute. Neither am I. That’s how I know my children will be safe from my raising. Now, as for your red-haired widow . . . what are you going to do about her?”

West had scowled. “I don’t bloody know.”

“You might as well marry her. There’s no escaping women.”

“I’m hardly going to throw myself on the sacrificial altar just because you did,” West had retorted. “Our friendship doesn’t mean that much to me.”

Ransom had grinned and leaned back in his chair as the tavern maid approached the table with a foaming jug. “Take my advice, you daft block o’ wood. Be happy while you’re living—you’ll be a long time dead.”