Raven groaned again at the tormenting memory.

Just then a quiet rap sounded on the bedchamber door behind her. With a start, she glanced over her shoulder, dreading having to respond. Before she could decide whether or not to bid entrance, the door opened and a man stepped inside the room.

Sweet heaven, she hadn’t dreamed him. He was tall and athletically built, with ebony hair that was thick and curling. A lock fell carelessly over his strong brow, calling attention to his harshly sculpted features and a mouth that was alarmingly sensual. Yet it was his gaze that disturbed her most. Those intense black eyes fringed by dark lashes were startlingly familiar.

Raven stared. The resemblance to her imaginary lover was uncanny…

Still there were differences. A scar slashed across this man’s left cheekbone, making him look more dangerous than her pirate lover ever had in her dreams. And there was no tenderness in the chiseled features of his face.

He shut the door behind him and leaned one shoulder negligently against it, surveying her with a cool, raking glance.

Raven felt herself flush as she saw him take stock of her attire. He must know she was naked beneath her wrapper.

She came to her feet and faced him, clutching the edges of her robe to her throat defensively. Her lover had never made her feel threatened, either.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, instinctively lashing out, believing anger was better than vulnerability.

“I believe this is my bedchamber.” His reply held an edge of wryness.

“A gentleman would not intrude on a lady this way.”

Her belligerence sent one jet black brow winging upward. “That presumes I am a gentleman.”

He spoke like one, certainly. The timbre of his voice was low and cultured, that same voice that had consoled and cajoled her all night long. He was dressed informally, however, wearing a brown superfine waistcoat over a white shirt and buff buckskin breeches and boots, with no coat or cravat.

Pushing himself away from the door, he moved toward her deliberately. He must be a sportsman to have developed such a lithe, muscular body, Raven reflected absently. And he emanated a raw vitality that buffeted her senses-

Willing away her disturbing awareness, Raven held her ground as he came to stand directly before her. “Must you be here when I am not dressed?”

“It is a bit late to worry about observing proper convention, considering last night. I saw every one of your charms when I was soothing your fever.”

“You call what you did ‘soothing’?”

“What I did was alleviate your suffering, Miss Kendrick. Believe me, you would have been much worse off had I not intervened.”

Raven set her teeth at the mocking gleam in his midnight eyes. She had never seen such a darkly, insolently beautiful male…except in her fantasies. To her dismay, she felt herself flushing again. “Did I…? Did we…?”

Somehow he understood her stumbling queries. “Yes, you did assault me. It was all I could do to keep you from ravishing me. But no, we did not enjoy sexual congress. You’re not entirely unscathed but nevertheless still a virgin.”

Under his slow, deliberate stare, her cheeks turned scarlet, and she had to look away.

“Not a very convincing performance, Miss Kendrick.”

The edge of contempt in his voice made her chin snap up again. “What do you mean?”

“Your pretense of the affronted victim isn’t at all persuasive. You might be virginal, but you are hardly an innocent. You can’t expect me to believe you’ve never lain with a man.”

Raven was hard-pressed to answer. She had never lain with a real man, of course. Yet doubtless the knowledge she’d gleaned from the journal had made her appear far more practiced than she actually was.

“What you believe,” she replied, humiliation making her sound breathless, “is of little consequence. I am not obliged to explain myself to you.”

She had to mentally brace herself against the impact of his hard gaze. Suddenly feeling a spell of dizziness, Raven turned and sank into the chair again, letting her head drop into her hands.

Amazingly enough, his tone bore a trace of compassion when he asked if she was all right.

“Oh yes, I am simply thriving,” she muttered with no little sarcasm. “I am regularly accustomed to being abducted and beaten and drugged!”

He stepped closer. With a finger under her chin, he turned her face up to his, his piercing, dark-eyed gaze assessing her intently.

“How could I possibly be all right after everything your brother did to me?” Raven demanded, her voice unsteady. “First he struck me with the butt of his pistol and rendered me senseless. Then he tied me up and forced me to drink some foul potion…” She held up her arms, revealing the livid bruises on her wrists. “He brutalized me.”

A grim frown scored Kell Lasseter’s mouth for an instant, but then he visibly repressed it. “I am sorry for what my brother did to you, Miss Kendrick. It was inexcusable. But you are not entirely blameless yourself. Not when you seduce gullible young bucks for sport.”

Raven’s gaze narrowed with her own frown. “That is a lie! I have never seduced anyone, most especially your brother. The worst I am guilty of is offering him friendship.”

“You spurned him because of his Irish blood and his lack of a title-because you considered him beneath your notice.”

“I rejected his suit, yes, but when he proposed marriage to me I was already betrothed.”

Kell Lasseter’s expression only hardened, his stare unwavering, relentless. “But you had him thrashed for daring to raise his eyes to you.”

“I certainly did not! Your brother became drunk one evening when I was at Vauxhall Gardens with friends. He accosted me and tore my gown and almost ravished me-”

“So you deny setting your groom upon him?”

“Yes, I deny it!” She shot him a fierce look. “My groom only intervened to protect me, for which I was eminently grateful. As it was, I barely escaped scandal.”

“But first you ordered Sean beaten half to death.”

“I tell you, that was not what happened. O’Malley struck him, true, but only to make your brother release me.”

“Your groom just happened to be strolling through Vauxhall with you, Miss Kendrick?” Lasseter drawled, his tone sardonic.

“No, he was keeping a watchful eye on me in case of trouble! Your brother had been tormenting me for so long, he had become dangerous. During the fireworks he separated me from my party and dragged me into the woods. O’Malley came after us. I’m not certain what happened to your brother after that, since I was rather distraught at the time. To my knowledge, O’Malley left him there to sleep off his inebriation.”

A muscle flexed in Kell’s jaw. “That is nothing like the story Sean tells.”

“If so, then he has been deceiving you-completely distorting the truth.”

“The scars on his back are no distortion, Miss Kendrick.”

“What scars?”

“From the brutal floggings he endured. Compliments of the British Royal Navy. Sean was taken up by an impressment gang that night and spent four months in hell. Have you any idea of the damage a cat-o’-nine-tails can inflict on a man’s flesh? Those scars will be with him till the day he dies.”

Raven stared, not knowing what to say.

“Is it any wonder Sean was desirous of revenge after enduring such brutality?” his brother asked grimly.

She swallowed, unaccountably feeling a measure of guilt. “If that’s true, then I am sorry. But I swear, it was not deliberate. I had no idea what happened to him. After that night, he never approached me again. Frankly, I was thankful to no longer have him plaguing me. I was at my wits’ end… But I never saw him again until yesterday.”

Kell regarded her skeptically, studying every emotion that crossed her beautiful face. Her complexion held a delicate pallor from her ordeal, highlighted by hot flags of anger and humiliation burning on her cheeks.

Was it possible that her version of events was the truth? That she wasn’t to blame for Sean’s impressment? Or was she simply an excellent actress with the skill to dupe him along with every other witless male she encountered? Even if she hadn’t deliberately orchestrated Sean’s downfall, would she even care if she sent an innocent man to his doom?

“Perhaps you don’t know your brother as well as you think you do,” she muttered defensively, breaking into his thoughts.

Kell found it difficult to scoff at her observation. Was Sean really the victim in this damnable conflict…or was she? Once more Kell felt a surge of anger at them both.

“In any event”-she drew an unsteady breath-“he should be well-satisfied with his revenge, since he has totally ruined me.”

Her lower lip suddenly trembled, the first sign he’d seen in her of any frailty. When she blinked back her tears resolutely, Kell felt his heart twist hard. Her vulnerability touched him in a place where he thought he had no real feeling left.

She squared her shoulders, drawing her dignity around her like armor. Her eyes glistening, she held his stare with defiant pride.

Kell swore under his breath at his body’s unwilling reaction to her arresting beauty. Those eyes were such a vibrant, startling blue…the color of a wild Irish sea. They haunted him almost as much as the memory of her nipples rising eagerly to his mouth last night.

Still half feeling the thrust of her soft hips against his loins, the softness of breasts barely constrained by her shift, Kell clenched his teeth. Lust was hazardous, and so was sympathy.

“Where is your brother?” she suddenly asked.