Chapter Seven
Raven stood in the drawing room of the Chelsea townhouse, surrounded by furniture draped in Holland covers and the musty scent of a home left too long unoccupied.
Dust motes danced in the afternoon sunlight streaming through windows that hadn’t been properly cleaned in months, and every surface bore a thin layer of neglect.
He shouldn’t have waited this long to deal with this place.
Wolf’s words from their conversation at White’s echoed in his mind.
Sell it. Today. Because as long as you keep that house, every gossip in London will assume you’re planning to install another mistress there.
His brother-in-law had been right, of course.
Keeping the house was foolish—a sentimental attachment to a past he could never reclaim, and a liability to his present that he couldn’t afford.
So here he was, finally, to sort through what remained and prepare the property for sale.
The task should have been simple. Most of the furnishings had come with the house—he’d simply pay to have them included in the sale. But there were personal items to collect, gifts he’d given Kitty that somehow felt wrong to leave for strangers to discover and speculate about.
His friends might think his peculiarities obscene…just like his father had. He kept most of his friends at arm’s length. No one really knew the real him.
Except Kitty.
Raven moved through the rooms slowly, memory ambushing him at every turn.
The settee where Kitty had curled up beside him, reading aloud from scandalous French novels while he pretended to disapprove.
The dining table where they’d shared intimate suppers, her laughter filling spaces that had seemed impossibly lonely before she’d entered his life.
The bedroom.
He paused at the threshold, unable to quite bring himself to enter. This room held his most vivid memories—not just of passion, though there had been plenty of that, but of trust. Of finding someone who accepted all of him, darkness included, without judgment or fear.
Kitty had been extraordinary in that way. She’d never flinched from his particular needs, never made him feel like a monster for wanting what he wanted. Instead, she’d met him with enthusiasm and creativity, teaching him that his desires weren’t perverse—they were simply his nature.
And now she was gone, murdered in this very house by a madman’s rage, a man who’d wanted to hurt Lady Courtney, and who he, himself, had killed to avenge Kitty, but it only left him hollow. He was left with nothing but guilt and longing and the weight of a marriage he’d never intended to make.
Raven forced himself to step into the bedroom, his throat tight.
The bed was still made, the coverlet smooth, as if waiting for occupants who would never return.
He could see the rings bolted to the headboard that he used to tie her to, and the ceiling was covered in mirrors.
Those would have to come down. He’d get his man to organize that.
On the nightstand sat a small jewelry box—he’d given Kitty emerald earrings just days before her death. They were probably still inside.
He should take those. Sell them, perhaps, or…
No. He couldn’t sell them. But he couldn’t keep them either. The thought of Ashley discovering them, asking questions about their origin—
The sound of footsteps on the stairs froze him in place.
The servants knew not to disturb him. He’d been explicit about wanting privacy while he dealt with this painful task. So, who—
“Raven?”
His wife’s voice. Here. In this house.
Horror and fury warred in his chest as Ashley appeared in the bedroom doorway, her expression tentative but determined. She wore a simple day dress of pale blue, and in the dusty surroundings of Kitty’s house, she looked impossibly clean and proper—everything this place was not.
“What are you doing here?” The words came out harsher than he’d intended, driven by shame and the terrible vulnerability of being caught in this place. “How did you even know—”
“Your valet mentioned you’d gone to a property in Chelsea.” Ashley took a careful step into the room, her eyes taking in the intimate space with what he could only describe as careful neutrality. “I… I asked your secretary for the address.”
“You had no right.” Raven turned away, unable to bear looking at her while standing in Kitty’s bedroom. “This is private business. It doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t it?” Her voice was gentle, lacking any accusation. “This house belonged to someone important to you. Someone you loved. That seems very much like something that should concern your wife.”
The reasonable tone, the lack of jealousy or judgment, somehow made everything worse. He’d expected anger, tears, perhaps a dramatic scene. Instead, Ashley stood there with quiet dignity, treating his dead mistress’s home as if it were simply another property to be managed.
“I’m selling it,” he said abruptly. “That’s why I’m here. To collect a few items before I turn it over to the estate agent.”
“I see.” Ashley moved further into the room, and Raven resisted the urge to bodily block her so she couldn’t see anything she shouldn’t. She probably wouldn’t know what she was looking at anyway. “That must be difficult.”
“It needs to be done.” He kept his back to her, staring out the window at the small garden below. “I should have done it months ago. Keeping it was…foolish.”
“Was it?” She was closer now—he could hear the rustle of her skirts. “Sometimes we need time to say goodbye to the people we’ve lost.”
The understanding in her voice threatened to undo him completely. He wanted her to be angry, to accuse him of keeping a shrine to his mistress. That, he could have responded to with his own anger, could have used as a shield against the raw grief still churning in his chest.
But this gentle compassion was impossible to defend against.
“She died here,” he said quietly. “Kitty. She was killed in this house by a man seeking revenge against Lucien. She was trying to be noble—for me. She tried to save Lucien’s daughter’s reputation.
” His hands clenched into fists. “I bought her this house thinking to keep her safe, and instead she was trying to do the right thing and was killed for it.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” He turned to face her finally, seeing his own pain reflected in her dark eyes. “I was trying to make her—respectable when I should have just let her be herself.”
“Then she might have died of disease, or childbirth, or any of a dozen other ways women in her profession meet their ends,” Ashley interrupted gently. “You gave her comfort and security. You can’t blame yourself because a madman chose violence.”
Raven wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he found himself simply looking at his wife—this woman he barely knew but who stood here offering him absolution he didn’t deserve.
“Why are you here, Ashley?” he asked tiredly. “Truly. Not just because my valet mentioned a house in Chelsea.”
She took a breath, seeming to gather her courage. “Because I want to understand. You loved her—Kitty. She was important to you, important enough that you’re still grieving her, months after her death. If we’re to have any sort of real marriage, I need to understand that part of your life.”
“There’s nothing to understand.” He moved away from the window, uncomfortable with her scrutiny. “It’s over. She’s dead, and I’m married to you. That’s the end of it.”
“Is it?” Ashley’s voice held a challenge now. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re still holding onto this house, still holding onto her memory, still keeping yourself separate from me, as if loving your wife would somehow betray her memory.”
The inaccuracy of her observation made him flinch. “I’m selling the house. Today. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Proof that I’m not maintaining a convenient location for future indiscretions?”
“I don’t want proof of anything.” Ashley moved to stand directly in front of him, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I want a husband who’s actually present in our marriage. Who doesn’t treat me like an obligation to be managed from a safe distance.”
“I’ve given you everything—”
“Except yourself. I suspect you hardly give anyone something of yourself.” The words were quiet but devastating.
“You’ve given me money, status, protection from scandal.
But you haven’t given me you, Raven. And I’m beginning to think that’s because you don’t believe I could handle who you really are. ”
His breath caught. How much did she know? How much had she guessed? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” She held his gaze steadily. “You’re afraid that if you let me too close, I’ll discover something about you that will make me recoil. Some part of yourself you believe is shameful or wrong.”
“Ashley—”
“Let me help you with this.” She gestured around the room. “Let me help you sort through her belongings, decide what to keep and what to let go. It’s not a betrayal of her memory—it’s honoring it properly. And maybe in the process, you can begin to let go of the guilt that’s keeping you trapped.”
Raven stared at her, this woman who should by all rights be jealous and possessive but instead offered understanding and partnership. “Why would you want to help me honor my mistress’s memory?”
“Because she mattered to you.” Ashley’s expression was earnest, open.
“Because pretending she didn’t exist won’t make either of us happy.
And because I’m tired of competing with a ghost, Raven.
I can’t fight someone who isn’t here to defend herself.
But I can try to understand what she meant to you, and in doing so, perhaps understand you better. ”
The logic was sound, but the emotional risk felt enormous. Letting Ashley into this space, into these memories, meant exposing parts of himself he’d carefully kept hidden. But perhaps that was precisely what their marriage needed—honesty instead of careful distance.