Chapter Nine
January 21, 1840
I t arrived in the second post of the day—and was almost missed.
“I’m certain it is intended to be addressed to Mrs. Ainsworth,” Mrs. Stenton said sternly as Victoria picked up the heavy letter and looked curiously at the seal.
“I very much doubt it,” breathed Victoria.
She didn’t need to know who had sent it to recognize that seal. She’d seen it on carriages before, and on the small signet ring Thomas wore.
An elaborate, ornate C.
“Miss Victoria, what are you—”
“It’s correctly addressed, and to me,” said Victoria cheerfully as she ripped open the letter, casting aside the outer envelope and skimming the card it contained.
Her fingers tightened around the invitation. The invitation…to the Chance ball.
It would greatly please the Chance family if the bearer of this invitation—
Mrs. and Miss Ainsworth
—were to attend the annual Chance ball on the 21st of January, 1840.
Répondez, s’il vous pla?t.
“What have you got there, my dear?” came her mother’s voice from the drawing room. “More post? I hope it’s something pleasant.”
“More than pleasant.”
Victoria had been certain, almost certain, that she had gone too far at the Assembly Rooms. Frightened him off. Made Thomas think she was a wanton woman who cast herself into the arms of any young gentleman who came along.
“And you want me. I tasted it in your mouth when you kissed me…”
Perhaps she had come on… Well. A little strong.
She had not seen him for the remainder of the night, heard neither hide nor hair from him since. Victoria had ensured she had not left the house ever since, desperately worried she would miss him—or worse, that she would not only miss him, but that he would speak to her mother.
Just that morning, she had started to give up hope. The ton was abuzz with news of this ball being moved up a week and she—the woman the duke was courting—had not been invited. She had not missed the slight. Evidently, Thomas Chance was not nearly so seducible as she had hoped.
And now…an invitation.
“A ball, and tonight,” Victoria called out to her mother as she entered the drawing room. She would not think about what it meant to get the invitation only today. Thomas had hesitated to include her. But in the end, he had. “You poor thing.”
Mrs. Ainsworth perked up her head from over her embroidery. “Why ‘poor me’?”
“Because you have already accepted that invitation from Lady Romeril to play whist,” Victoria said smoothly, lowering herself into an armchair and thanking her lucky stars her mother would not be accompanying her tonight. “Such a shame.”
“I would say it is a shame for the pair of us,” said her mother, returning to her embroidery with a look far too smug.
The excitement started to die away. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, it’s not as though you could attend a ball on your own, could you?” her mother pointed out, far too reasonably for Victoria’s liking. “It would be quite out of the question.”
Victoria slumped against the back of the armchair.
She should have thought of that. Her mother was right; it would cause a stir if she were to attend alone, even if the Chances were one of the most refined and celebrated families in the ton . Perhaps because of that.
“What’s that?”
Victoria looked up, but her mother seemed inexplicably to be pointing directly at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“That, written on the back of the invitation you’re holding,” her mother said with a frown. “Don’t tell me you did not notice?”
Whirling the card invitation around in her hand, Victoria saw the hasty written words.
Lady Romeril happy to help. Tell your mother my sister will be your chaperone. T
A thrill flickered through Victoria as she read the words again. Lady Romeril—why on earth was she helping them? She had always thought the woman eager to be seen at the finest events of Society, not playing card games as a distraction. It was the strangest thing.
Still. If it meant she could attend the Chance ball without her mother…
“Lord Thomas—I mean, Lord Cothrom, has offered me his sister as a chaperone,” Victoria said quietly. He’d thought of everything. He must really wish for her to attend.
“Did he now?” That had certainly gotten her mother’s attention. The embroidery was placed on the cushion beside her and her mother’s eyes became focused. “In that case, we will need to consider your ensemble. Gown—the blue, I think—”
“Surely, the green?” Victoria interrupted, leaning forward in anticipation.
“The way your cheeks pink in his presence? I think not,” said her mother with a knowing look. “Trust me, my dear. You’ll want to avoid green for a few months into your marriage when—”
“ Mother !”
“Just a little hint, dear, no need to get your chemise all twisted,” said Mrs. Ainsworth happily, picking up her embroidery. “You know best, I’m sure. Though speaking of chemise—”
“ Mother !”
It was all Victoria could do to force her mother to speak of anything else during afternoon tea. It probably did not help that her hair had already been put into rags to give her the curls her mother said were so inviting— “Mother!” —as Danvers furiously polished the silver jewelry her mother was lending her for the occasion. “So much more flattering for your blushing complexion, my dear.”
That had been two hours ago. Now Victoria was being handed into the carriage while her mother took a hackney cab to Lady Romeril’s. “I insist, my dear, I insist. You cannot arrive at your intended’s in a hired coach!”
Why she felt so nervous, she was not sure. Perhaps it was because she and Danvers had spent longer on her attire this evening than they had in a long while.
Perhaps it was because the last time she had seen Thomas Chance, he’d been sporting between his thighs a… Well. A definite and most obvious regard for her.
Perhaps it was because this would surely be the night— the night. The night during which Thomas would propose matrimony for her fortune, though he did not know she knew it, and her seduction would—perhaps—finally be complete.
It was a lot to take in.
“Let go, Thomas. Take me…”
Victoria clutched her invitation as she stepped out of the carriage before the tall townhouse that was the Chances’ residence in Bath. At least, this set of Chances. There were four brothers in the elder generation, weren’t there?
The footman examined her invitation closely.
“It’s not a forgery,” Victoria tried to jest as he held it up to the candlelight.
He did not smile back. “There are many people in Bath, Miss, who would be grateful for an invitation such as this. Your mother is not here.”
“Ah, no, but she—”
“There you are.”
Victoria almost melted onto the pavement.
How did he do it? There was something so…so visceral about the way Thomas spoke. Was his voice always like that, or was it something special for her?
He looked more handsome tonight than he ever had. Crisp, white breeches and a dark coat that made his broad shoulders even broader.
Trying desperately not to think about the way he had kissed her, pressed against the velvet sofa in her mother’s drawing room, Victoria curtseyed low. “Your Grace.”
“Miss Ainsworth is my personal guest, Bradbury, and will be accompanied by—ah, there she is.”
“I suppose you know all about this, Miss Ainsworth, and how tiring it all is,” said Lady Maude, wearing a dazzling pink gown. Yes, she could see it now, in that small smirk—a slight resemblance, as would befit half-siblings.
Try as she might, Victoria could not prevent her shoulders from drooping, just a tad. “Oh, Lady Maude. I did not intend to be a bother. I—”
“All this ‘needing a chaperone’ nonsense, I grow quite tired of it,” Lady Maude said breezily, taking Victoria’s hand without a moment’s warning and slipping it in the crook of her own. “I long for the day ladies can gallivant about the place much as the gentlemen do. I’m sure you agree.”
“I… Yes, I suppose I—”
“Out of my way, Thomas, you really are most untidy,” said Lady Maude to her brother, the Duke of Cothrom, as though he were a mere footman. “Honestly!”
Victoria stifled a giggle as she glanced at Thomas while she and Lady Maude entered the impressive hallway. Then her levity faded.
“We’re all at sixes and sevens, I’m afraid. Thomas brought the ball forward by a week, so the place has hardly been spruced up,” Lady Maude said airily. “A real shame. I wish you could see the place at its best.”
At… At its best?
Lady Maude led Victoria hurriedly through a magnificent hallway lined with ancient portraits, swords on the walls, and a chandelier with more crystals on it than diamonds in Victoria’s jewelry box, then along a corridor lined with thick, red carpet and landscapes edged in gold-gilt frames, then across an atrium with a skylight that showed the stars. It was all Victoria could do to keep her breath.
She lost it as they stepped into the ballroom, Lady Maude waving off the butler standing to attention there to announce the guests.
“Oh, my…”
“Yes, a little tawdry, I must say,” said Lady Maude with a wrinkled nose. “A tad last century, but Mother likes it.”
Victoria was not surprised. The place was astounding. Far larger than she could have imagined based on the front of the house. The ballroom was exquisite: mirrors lined two of the four walls, creating the sensation that the place went on forever, and the genteel muttering and chatter of their guests was tastefully accompanied by a quintet of musicians. There were footmen in the Chance russet livery meandering about the place, ensuring that glasses were topped up with wine and delicacies restored the energy of the dancers in between sets. The ceiling… Oh, the ceiling was a masterpiece. Victoria would not have been surprised to be told that Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci had taken a short visit to Bath during the winter months and had decided to paint it…
“You like the classics?”
Victoria blinked. Lady Maude was looking at her curiously.
“My brother is a great fan of the classics,” she said, poking the gentleman beside her. “Aren’t you, Thomas?”
“I admire the classical form, yes,” he said quietly, his gaze not quite meeting hers.
Victoria tried to keep her face reticent and genteel. “Yes, I thought I spotted that.”
“Oh, and there’s Jessica and Irene—you must excuse me, Miss Ainsworth,” said Lady Maude cheerfully, withdrawing her hand and pointing at a pair of ladies who had a resemblance to her. “Our cousins, you know, from the most junior branch. Until later, Miss Ainsworth.”
She swept off in a rush of silk.
Victoria stared back up at the ceiling. It was the sort of ceiling one could enjoy over and over again; there was so much to see, so much to attempt to take in. Clouds upon which sat gods and goddesses, fountains, bowls of fruit, stars, cherubs flying in the sky—
“I hope you like what you see,” said Thomas’s quiet voice.
Her attention snapped to the gentleman who had invited her to the Chance ball. “I-I beg your pardon?”
“It is old-fashioned, I know,” he said softly, stepping closer. “I suppose whoever I marry will have to put up with it, however, as the Duchess of Cothrom. My mother wouldn’t hear about it being replaced with anything newfangled and modern.”
Victoria’s nerves betrayed her and her fingers started to fiddle with her fan.
She supposed this was the way of gentlemen, to hint at a thing before one made it, as it were, official.
And she had done her best. Victoria could not think of anything else she could have done to seduce the man before her, short of throwing herself at—no, she had tried that at the Assembly Rooms. It hadn’t worked.
Well, fine, it had worked—she’d seen the evidence for herself. But Thomas had held back. Held himself back. Yet he needed her money so badly.
So why hadn’t he asked her to marry him?
“I suppose it takes a great deal of money,” Victoria said quietly. “The upkeep of a place like this, I mean.”
When Thomas met her eyes, it was with a knowing look. “More than you could guess. And there’s other properties. Stanphrey Lacey. The townhouse in London.”
“Very expensive, indeed,” she said. “Might I ask, how will you—”
“There you are, Thomas, I—oh. Good evening, Miss…?”
A woman had approached them. She was slender, elegantly attired in the latest of fashions, with diamond earbobs illuminating a charming face with a curious smile. She had to be in her late forties, Victoria would have surmised, but she had retained her youthful beauty. Why, there was barely a line on her face.
“Miss…?” repeated the woman.
“Victoria Ainsworth,” said Thomas, his jaw tightening somewhat. “Miss Ainsworth, may I introduce you to the Duchess of Cothrom.”
Victoria’s jaw fell open. The Duchess of—
“My mother,” he added with a wry smile.
“Duchess no longer, after my husband gave up the title earlier this month. People have come to call the pair of us the ‘dowager duke and duchess,’ and it suits us well enough,” said the dowager duchess cordially. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Ainsworth. I hope my son is not boring you.”
“No, no, not at all!” Victoria spluttered, hardly knowing what to do with herself. “No, I—”
“Miss Ainsworth was admiring your ceiling, Mother,” said Thomas gently, drawing a hand around his mother’s shoulders in a side embrace.
Try as she might, Victoria could not help but stare at the intimacy. She’d never had brothers and never really felt the lack of them. Boys were dirty, unpleasant things when small, and it appeared to be a lottery whether or not they ever grew out of it.
This side of Thomas… It was a softness she had not seen before.
Though really, she should have been paying attention to what the elegant, mature woman was saying.
“—painted near the end of his life, right in his prime,” the dowager duchess was saying. She wasn’t really a dowager, nor was there supposed to be a “dowager duke,” but she supposed the titles fit. “The clouds here, the shadow and light is most impressive, interplaying with the—”
“I hope you do not mind, Mother,” interrupted Thomas gently. “But I was hoping to ask Miss Ainsworth to dance.”
Heat prickled in Victoria’s cheeks and she did not know where to look as his mother said, “Oh, of course, off you go. You young people should share a dance—I know I did, in my day.”
“Your day is hardly over, Mother,” said Thomas fondly, placing a kiss on her cheek before releasing her and offering out his hand. “Miss Ainsworth.”
It was difficult not to feel self-conscious as Thomas’s mother watched her take her son’s hand, but Victoria managed to not trip up over her own skirts and fall into his arms, no matter how much she had considered it as a ploy to extract a proposal.
This isn’t the time.
This was the time for standing in a line opposite the man she loved and she was absolutely not manipulating, probably, with her dowry, and—
“Thomas!” she gasped.
She really shouldn’t have gasped. There were probably people who had heard her, heard the shock in her voice, the sudden, desperate need for air…as Thomas took one of her hands in his, placed his other hand on her waist, and pulled her tightly against him.
Very tightly.
“It’s called ‘a German waltz,’” said Thomas with a grin. “My mother would be horrified—”
“Thomas William Arnold Chance!”
“—yes, there she goes, but I paid the musicians to ensure they played at least one, Mother notwithstanding,” he said in a low voice in her ear.
It wasn’t a difficult dance to pick up, as the pairs around them managed to imitate Thomas’s steps as well. The closeness of the dance, the inches upon inches of herself that was pressed against himself…
“You requested a waltz…for me?” Victoria gasped.
It was difficult, this close, to look up into Thomas’s eyes and not kiss him. Thankfully, the myriad pairs of eyes evidently fixed on them were enough of a preventative.
At least, for now. Lord knew what she would do if he said anything ridiculous like—
“I wanted to be close to you,” said Thomas quietly.
Victoria swallowed. Hard.
She was not about to lose all self-control. She was not. And yes, it had occurred to her that this would be a very good time to lean up on her tiptoes and kiss Thomas Chance, Lord Cothrom, thereby creating a scandal of such epic proportions that even his mother would be forced to insist on their marrying…
But she did not kiss him.
The realization was painful, in a way, and it was this: yes, she could seduce Thomas Chance.
But she did not want to.
Seducing him, relying on his animal appetites, tempting him to do what he had done with surely countless other ladies… That was no longer enough.
She wanted more.
“You are a very good dancer, you know.”
Victoria permitted herself a laugh, letting some of the tension flow from her. “You’re the one doing most of the work. I’m…I’m just following you.”
There was a twinkle of mischief in Thomas’s eyes. “Is that a promise?”
She almost rested her head on his shoulder, unable to bear the intensity of his look. This was a dangerous game she was playing. He wanted to marry her dowry, she wanted him to fall in love with her…but it appeared only one of them was going to get what they wanted.
When she met his gaze again, Victoria’s smile faltered. He was a very good actor. He really made her feel…desired. Wanted. More than that, as though her company were something he craved.
It was all part of his ploy. She mustn’t forget that.
“Victoria,” said Thomas quietly. “Miss Ainsworth, I mean. I…I was thinking, I—”
The music stopped abruptly. He released her just as he was about to say something Victoria was almost certain she very much wanted to hear.
He turned and swore under his breath. “Mother!”
“That’s more than enough waltzes for one ball,” the Dowager Duchess of Cothrom said with a fiery glare that reminded Victoria very much of her eldest son. “You and I will talk about this tomorrow!”
Victoria could not help but laugh as she saw the look of concern in Thomas’s eyes. “Once a mother’s boy, always—”
“It’s not like that,” Thomas said quickly as the other dancers around them began conversing about the familial altercation. “Well, perhaps it is a bit like that,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Would you like some wine, Miss Ainsworth, or punch?”
“Yes—anything,” Victoria said gratefully. All this pining over a gentleman who was only interested in one’s bosoms and banknotes was exhausting.
The place was starting to fill up and so it took Thomas time to find a footman, despite being the host of the ball. As Victoria stood there, wondering just how pink her cheeks were, a pair of ladies walked past her chattering away about something.
“—and I heard that he spent every single penny!”
“What has this ball been funded with, I wonder? Promises? Yes, he’ll be needing a wife—that poor, innocent Miss Ainsworth. She has no idea he desires the dowry, not the debutante!”
Their giggles swiftly became swallowed up with the noise as they walked on.
Victoria very carefully prevented her head from dipping.
Well, that was what they were all thinking, wasn’t it? She would likely as not have thought the same thing about another woman, if she had seen a brigand like Thomas Chance pursuing them.
But she would have the last laugh, wouldn’t she? She would be the one he married. She would be a duchess. If she continued to take her chances, surely, she would be the one with whom he fell in love?
“Here you go.”
Victoria jumped. So lost had she become in her thoughts, Thomas had returned to her side without her noticing.
“Here,” repeated the duke, offering her a glass of red wine. When she took it, he offered his own up in a toast. “To our future.”
Victoria almost swallowed her tongue. “To our …?”
“To the future, then,” he amended, a wicked look in his eyes. “I suppose you do not mind drinking to that?”
To that, to him—Victoria was hardly sure what she was doing. A gulp of the fiery, red wine did nothing to clear her head, but it at least loosened her tongue. “Is that a line as well? A toast you have offered to other young ladies?”
“You think quite ill of me, don’t you?” he said languidly, stepping closer to her to avoid a passing footman.
Very close. So close that when Victoria looked up, it was to breathe against his jawline. His immensely kissable jawline. One so sharp, she would not be surprised if the man would cut down ladies in their thousands.
“I don’t think ill of you,” she whispered.
The moment of startling honesty went unnoticed by Thomas, who was laughing. The musicians had started up a waltz again and Lady Maude appeared to be physically restraining her mother, who was desperately trying to reach the musicians.
“If they’re not careful, they’ll cause a scene.” Thomas chuckled. “Father would not appreciate that!”
In fact, the last time he had seen the man, he had been attempting to hold back the dowager duchess who was muttering something about uncouth dances and inappropriate music.
“Your family have high expectations for you, don’t they?” Victoria said without thinking. “You, and your siblings, I mean.”
It was a very personal thing to say, but then, she had kissed the man. She did plan to marry him.
Thomas nodded, downing the rest of his wine and placing it on the platter of a passing footman. “All we Chance cousins have a lot to live up to, and I… I intend to make my parents happy. One way or the other.”
Victoria swallowed. “I—”
“Do you wish to dance again, Miss Ainsworth?” Thomas said with a grin. “Oh, I do apologize, you’ve not finished your—Victoria!”
She had downed the rest of her red wine in much the same attitude that he had. Unlike him, Victoria had struggled to prevent her eyes from watering at the sudden burn in her throat.
“You know, you are nothing like what I expected,” he said, offering his arm.
“Of course not,” Victoria said, hoping to goodness the wine would not go to her head—anymore, that was, than the gentleman before her already had. “Lead on!”