Bewitching the Baron Read Online Free Page A

twenty-seven years old, and you have never had a sweetheart. They are all afraid of you. If the baron shows an interest, I see nothing wrong with experiencing a little of what life has to offer.”
    Valerian pulled out from beneath her aunt’s hands and quickly gathered up her things, her movements jerky. “When I do decide it is time to ‘experience’ things, it will not be with the baron. The very idea repulses me.”
    Valerian hurried out of the house, eager to escape her aunt’s knowing smile. Sometimes becoming a hermit and living in a cave sounded like a very good idea.
    The path she would take to Raven Hall was no more than a deer path through the hills and woodland. Raven Hall was between her own home and the town of Greyfriars, and the path she normally took to town made a wide circuit of the estate. Today she took the shortcut that would lead directly into the Raven Hall orchard, and thence to the gardens and the house.
    Once out in the late morning sunshine her mood lifted, and she managed to forget for a bit her aunt’s lewd suggestions. Her eyes scanned the greenery to either side of the path, taking in the first shoots of plants that had lain dormant through the winter. What should have been a ten-minute walk stretched to twenty, then thirty minutes as she repeatedly left the path to examine bits of flora, her mind cataloging locations and stages of growth. It was only when the path spilled her out into the edge of the apple orchard that she recalled with a start where she was headed and for what purpose.
    A glance at the sun told her that she might be late, and she hoped that the baron was not too punctilious. Mr. Carlyle, on the other hand, was probably thanking God for each minute of her absence. She hurried through the orchard, caught in a false blizzard of color as the breeze brushed through the blossom-laden trees, the silky pink-white petals catching in her hair and dress, floating about her in a springtime snowstorm.
    It was this vision of unexpected, almost magical loveliness that met Nathaniel’s eye when he reached the end of the gardens. Having grown impatient with waiting for Valerian in the house, he had come out to the gardens to walk and distract himself, and to silently chastise himself for caring whether she came or not.
    He stood motionless, frozen with surprise and wonder as she seemed to float towards him through the natural gallery of arching trees. He knew the exact moment that she noticed him, for she stopped and stared, her eyes wide, her full lips slightly parted. They stood, eyes locked, for an endless moment, and then the wrath of hell descended on his head.
    There was a scraping rush of wind and feathers, and then a great flapping blackness blinded him. He felt cruel claws digging through his hair, accompanied by a harsh and grating series of screams. He batted wildly at the demon, and was stabbed cruelly in the hand for his efforts, the creature’s hoarse and fiery cries of “Finders keepers!” barely penetrating his consciousness as he sought to rid himself of his assailant. Suddenly the weight of the creature lifted, and his hands touched his bare head, his hat gone, his hair snarled by the claws of the beast.
    “Oscar! You bad bird! Bad bad bad!” he heard Valerian scolding, and dazed, he looked around and saw an enormous raven sitting on his hat some ten feet away, its beak ripping gleefully at the gilt braiding that lined his tricorn. The raven stopped long enough to tilt its head and eye the healer, then squawked out, “Finders keepers!” once more and resumed its destruction of what had once been a fine piece of haberdashery.
    “Oscar!” Valerian hollered, clearly outraged. The bird hunched its head into its wings, and sat protectively over the hat. Valerian strode forward and yanked the hat away from the bird, who flapped his wings angrily and cawed in protest, then launched himself at her head.
    Nathaniel lunged, pulling her out of harm’s way, his hat