Chapter Twelve
January 26, 1840
C reeping was a very serious word. A very heavy word. A word filled with negativity and drama and criminality.
He wasn’t creeping, not exactly. He was…lurking.
Thomas sighed as he leaned against a tree, eyes trained on the house opposite, wondering what on earth he was doing.
Well, he knew what he was doing . He was waiting outside the Ainsworth house, the end of the terrace on this street, hoping to goodness that at some point Mrs. Ainsworth would leave and give him the opportunity to go in there and…
And what?
That was the part of the plan, if it could loosely be called a “plan,” that Thomas had not quite worked out yet.
“I want lots of things, Thomas, but they can’t be found in that shop. They can’t be found in any shop.”
The words Victoria had spoken to him just days ago were still rattling around his head. What she had meant, he had been certain of at first. The more time he spent thinking about it, the more he wondered whether he hadn’t gotten the complete wrong end of the stick.
It was irksome beyond belief. At first, he had found it fortuitous to have encountered his intended on the streets of London that day, a sign that he’d been right to move past his reservations and ask for her hand. He had really intended, for quite a few minutes, to buy Victoria whichever ring she liked best. It would have been on the ring finger of her left hand before she had returned home, and Thomas in turn could have returned home and announced his betrothal.
Only when Victoria had stridden away from the shop, a strange look on her face, had he remembered.
Damn. No money . No money at all, only debts—and there was the fishmonger to pay, and that looked like it was going to be a large bill. How could so many sardines be consumed by so few people in such little time?
Speaking to Mrs. Ainsworth about the whole thing had been considered and swiftly discounted. He didn’t want to give Victoria or her mother time to think about it, to hesitate, like he had. The plan that was now looking like: marry Victoria, take her money, attempt to make her happy.
Dear God, he was in deep. Too deep.
And that meant it was time to confess.
Only that morning he had met with the housemothers of St. Thomas’s and promised them that the bills piling up in the small office there, held together by string, would be paid. Soon.
With Victoria’s money.
“And where’s all this going to come from, if I may ask?” one of the teachers had asked, her brow wrinkled and her mouth pinched.
And Thomas had not been able to bring himself to say the truth: that he was swindling some poor woman into falling in love with him just so that he could get his hands on her dowry.
“From somewhere good,” had been all he’d managed to say.
It wasn’t a lie. It was most definitely not the truth, but it wasn’t a lie.
And now Thomas blew out a long breath as his gaze flickered over the setting sun reflected in the Ainsworth house’s windows. The afternoon was wearing on. If Mrs. Ainsworth had intended to leave for an afternoon engagement, surely, she would—
Three things happened almost simultaneously. First, a carriage was brought around to the front of the house. Second, the door to the Ainsworth house opened wide, the figure of a woman illuminated by the candlelight behind her. Third, Thomas slipped in the mud in his haste to hide behind the tree.
“Damn and blast it—”
A bony, older woman in black walking past looked scandalized, picking up her pace so she could swiftly depart from the scoundrel’s remarks. At least, that was what it looked like. Thomas supposed it could have been complete coincidence that she almost ran from him, but he doubted it.
Picking himself up and trying to wipe the mud from the back of his greatcoat, Thomas glanced up hurriedly. Was it Miss or Mrs. Ainsworth who was leaving?
A voice rang out across the street. “And when I tell you to ensure Cook uses up the last of that bread pudding, I mean it! I won’t have waste, Victoria, you know that, and—”
“Yes, Mother,” came the genteel and slightly amused voice of the younger Ainsworth. A footman and the carriage driver were busy carrying a trunk to the carriage, completely ignoring the women and the women completely ignoring the servants.
“Don’t you ‘Yes, Mother’ me! Being away for a night and leaving you on your own. I don’t know—”
“You worry too much, Mother.” The silhouette of the younger Ainsworth had appeared in the doorway now, and she seemed to be wrapping a scarf around her mother’s neck.
“Don’t you ‘You worry too much, Mother’ me! And I forbid you from leaving the house this evening.”
“But, Mother—”
“Don’t ‘But, Mother’ me, either!” Mrs. Ainsworth had a set of lungs on her, Thomas would give her that. Her voice echoed so clearly across the street, it were as though he were standing right beside her. “You’ve been gallivanting after that Chance boy far too much, if you ask me—”
“Mother! I’d hardly call a duke a ‘boy.’”
“—and it’s time for him to do the chasing. See if he, I don’t know, sends you a note. But no leaving the house!”
In the silhouette, Thomas could make out the older Ainsworth woman brandishing a finger at her daughter.
“And have a lovely evening,” Mrs. Ainsworth added, pecking her daughter on the cheek before striding down the steps toward her carriage, a servant he guessed to be a lady’s maid behind her.
This time, Thomas was much more careful in his retreat around the wide, oak trunk and he did not slip over. He did, however, watch the carriage go off into the increasing gloom of the evening with a thrill.
That solved all his problems. Mrs. Ainsworth was out of the house, as he had hoped—and more than he had ever dreamed, she was staying the night somewhere else. True, Victoria Ainsworth was not permitted to leave the house…but that did not preclude him from visiting, did it?
It did, if he were a gentleman in the truest sense.
But a gentleman in the truest sense wouldn’t have done half the things he’d found himself doing with Miss Victoria Ainsworth.
It was with a spring in his step and a thumping pulse that Thomas crept out from behind the oak tree, stepped across the road—narrowly avoiding a yob in a barouche who clearly had no idea how to steer the blasted thing—and almost danced up the steps to the front door.
The bell jangled. Thomas waited.
His excitement made him tap his toes against the step. He would finally have the opportunity to talk to Victoria in the privacy of her own home, without any concern that they were about to be interrupted, assuming her servants kept to themselves. This was his chance to…
Thomas hadn’t planned this far. But there were quite a few things left unsaid between himself and Victoria, and though he would never have believed it, his conscience did not permit the situation to go on much longer.
He had to say something. He had to say—
“Victoria,” he blurted out as the door opened.
Mrs. Stenton’s face grew stern. “My lord.”
“‘Your Grace,’ actually,” Thomas said awkwardly. “Though now I say that out loud, I have no idea why I keep correcting people. Is… Is Miss Ainsworth at home?”
“No,” the housekeeper said, her wrinkled face impassive.
Thomas’s jaw tightened, though he allowed his mirth at the whole ridiculous situation to seep into what he hoped was a charming smile. “Oh?”
He knew damned well she was. Hadn’t he just seen her close the door behind her mother? That had only been—what, five minutes ago?
“Miss Ainsworth is not at home,” reiterated Mrs. Stenton, adding with a sniff, “and even if she were, which she isn’t, she wouldn’t be at home for you an’ all.”
Thomas’s eyes widened at this. Well, he knew one of his brothers was no longer welcome in some of the best dining rooms in London because of his nefarious behavior—but he hadn’t expected to be tarred with the same brush.
“Not at home for me?” he said blankly. “But—”
His query was broken off by his surprise at a strange noise to the side of the house. Thomas peered around and grinned.
The Ainsworth house, being an end-of-terrace house, had the benefit of something that no other houses in the row had: a side door. Out of that side door at this very moment was a beautiful woman with golden hair and a bonnet skewed to the right.
“Miss Victoria Ainsworth,” Thomas said happily.
Victoria jumped. “Thomas!”
“I’ve just been telling this here gentleman that you are not at home,” said Mrs. Stenton peevishly behind him. “And you’re not, are you?”
“No, not really,” Victoria said with a laugh, stepping toward them both.
“Because you’re sneaking out to see him, aren’t you?”
Thomas turned and saw a doting expression on the housekeeper’s face as she looked at her young charge.
When he turned back to Victoria, she was flushing furiously. “Maybe.”
“Well, I think it would be a great deal easier if you were to both come inside and save all this secrecy for another day,” said Mrs. Stenton, returning to the front door and opening it. “I’ve got to go to my sister’s, Miss Victoria, and if you give me permission, I will stay with her to help her look after her six boys.”
“Six—”
“What a wonderful idea, Mrs. Stenton,” Victoria said smoothly, cutting off Thomas’s exclamation. “I know that Danvers left to accompany Mother during her outing, but I’ll guarantee that Abigail remains, of course. For propriety.”
There was something most unpleasant happening to Thomas’s ears as he stepped into the Ainsworth house. They appeared, through no fault of his own, to be on fire.
“Well done, dear,” said Mrs. Stenton cheerfully, pulling on a pelisse and jamming the most robust bonnet Thomas had ever seen down over her ears. “I’ll see you bright and early in the morning, in time to welcome back your mother. Be good, Your Grace.”
And with that, she swept out of the house and shut the door behind her.
Thomas stared, agog.
“You can close your mouth,” said Victoria cheerfully, taking off her bonnet and hanging her pelisse up on the coatrack by the door. “She’s always like that.”
Hastily closing his mouth and hoping he did not look too much like a complete fool, Thomas took off his top hat, shrugged off his greatcoat, and winced at the mud that dropped on the doormat. “Like… Like what?”
“Oh, making sure that I technically keep to my mother’s rules, but also making sure that I can enjoy myself at the same time,” said Victoria with a grin. “She was my nurse before she was our housekeeper. We’ve had Stentons in the family for generations. Her son is one of our footmen. He’ll go with her, look after her. Tea?”
Thomas smiled weakly as Victoria swept, all calm and confident, into the drawing room.
Right. Good.
The trouble was, the plan was to see whether he could have a private audience with Victoria. His planning had never actually extended to what he would say when he got there.
“Thomas?”
Almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to enter the room, he was just in time to see Victoria ring the bell by the fireplace.
Some of the excitement leached out of him. Of course there were still servants about. It would be far too much to hope that they could be completely—
“Ah, there you are, Abigail,” said Victoria cheerfully as she sat elegantly on the edge of the sofa. “I wanted to let you know that I am happy to grant your request.”
The young, wiry girl who had just arrived in the door beamed, drawing even more attention to the swath of freckles across her face. “You’re sure, miss?”
“Very sure,” Victoria said.
Thomas’s head jerked from side to side between the two of them as he attempted to decipher this complicated code. What on earth is going on?
“It’s just, it’s only once a year, and—”
“Yes, yes, I said yes . And take Cook with you. And Gower—he deserves a night out. You can all stay with your mother, is that right?”
“Oh, she’ll be glad to have the company, Miss Victoria, if I’m honest. It’s awful lonely for her there.”
“Take this, and take a hackney cab—no, I insist,” said Victoria sternly, though with a twinkle in her eye. “It’s high time you three had a reward in this long and hard winter.”
Thomas swallowed as he watched the woman he cared for more than he thought strictly appropriate hand over a five-pound note to the maid.
A five—a five-pound note?
Abigail gasped as she looked at it and quickly bobbed a curtsey. “Oh, thank you, Miss Victoria! I am so grateful. It’s just what I—”
“Better make a start now, I think,” said Victoria, gently interrupting as she leaned back in the sofa and beamed. “Go on. Have a wonderful time.”
Amid a plethora of thanks, which were just as swiftly returned as unnecessary, Abigail closed the door and left them in silence.
Thomas found to his astonishment that he was still standing. “Have a wonderful time”? A five-pound note? Take Gower? Who’s Gower?
“You look puzzled.”
Blinking in an attempt to force his brain in gear, Thomas saw Victoria was smiling. And that was what forced his mind, finally, to act.
Moving across the room without a second thought, he sat—beside Victoria on the sofa. Her smile broadened, just for a moment. Unless he had been looking for it, he would not have noticed.
His own smile returned. She wanted this—wanted him, the two of them, alone. Was that what all that was about? Had she been—surely not. Surely, a young lady with such impeccable breeding as Miss Ainsworth had not sent away all the servants of the house?
As though she could read his mind, Victoria took a deep breath. “Well, we’re alone. At least, we will be within ten minutes.”
“You sent them away?”
“Abigail has been desperate to go to the circus ever since the posters appeared outside the Pump Room last week,” Victoria said. “You must have seen them. And Cook and Gower—he’s our other footman—well, they work so hard. They didn’t get much of a rest over Christmas, as they went so overboard with the decorations and the food and so… Well. I thought, what a nice opportunity to give them a treat.”
Her eyes had been downcast to her lap, but they lifted to meet his with her last words.
Yes, and a nice opportunity for the two of them to be alone. Completely alone , thought Thomas with a rush of need. Dear God, this woman was more than he had ever bargained for.
“I am glad you’re here,” Victoria said softly. “I…I have missed you.”
Thomas swallowed. This was the moment, the perfect moment. The introduction could not have been more perfect. Now all he had to do was say that he had missed her.
It was true, wasn’t it? So why did the words stick so painfully in his throat?
Just say it. Say it—it’s not hard. Say that you missed her. You missed. Just say that—
“What an exquisite doily,” Thomas heard himself say, to his own horror. “Did…uh… Did you make it yourself?”
He pointed at the doily on a console table on the other side of the room.
He wasn’t surprised that Victoria halted, evidently unsure of what to say next. What did one say to such an inane comment?
“I… No, I did not,” she said quietly. “What are you doing here, Thomas?”
Excellent question. “I…am… Well, the thing that I am here for… I am here for the—the thing. You know.”
Oh, dear God, my brain must be melting out of my own ears.
Victoria did not look away and Thomas’s pulse began to pound painfully as she said softly, “No. No, I don’t know.”
And he was able to bear it no longer. “I am here for you.”
She tilted her head, her lips curling into a delicious pout. “For me?”
“I… Oh, hang it, I was waiting outside your house waiting to see whether your mother would leave and give me the chance to see you,” he confessed, hating how swiftly she could wring the truth from him. “Alone, if at all possible.”
When he looked up, Victoria’s cheeks were pink. “You were?”
Thomas nodded ruefully. “It sounds a bit ridiculous, when I put it like that—”
“We’re leaving now then, Miss Victoria,” said Abigail, opening the door and letting in the hustle and bustle of people getting ready in the hallway. “You’ll have Mrs. Stenton, after all. She’ll be able to look after you.”
“But…” began Thomas, like the idiot he was.
“Yes, that’s right, thank you, Abigail,” said Victoria smoothly. “Have a wonderful time at the circus. Real lions, I hear.”
Abigail squealed and shut the door. Amidst a great deal of chatter, the front door opened then closed. The chatter disappeared.
“You… They think Mrs. Stenton is here, with you?” Thomas asked quietly.
Victoria did not look up at him but appeared to be inspecting the edge of one of her nails. “It certainly seems that way.”
“And Mrs. Stenton left,” he continued slowly, “on the understanding that you would spend the evening with Abigail.”
She still did not look up, but color was swiftly moving to her cheeks. “So it appears.”
Thomas stared for a moment. Then he grinned. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
“You like me?” Victoria looked up swiftly, fixing him with her gaze.
He swallowed.
Far too much. Too much to marry you, worse luck . Perhaps if he had gone about this honestly, had been open with her from the start. Perhaps if he had just told her, revealed to her just how bad things had become, how poorly he had managed everything, she would have…
But no. No woman like Victoria would willingly take on a husband who was such a disaster. Even without her knowing the truth, she surely realized that he was not the sort of gentleman whom a young lady like her sought for matrimony, his title notwithstanding.
Was he about to do the second-best thing in his life, and walk away from a woman he truly cared about…for her sake?
“I like you,” Thomas said hoarsely.
They sat for a moment in silence. The inches between them could be easily surmounted, yet Thomas could not bring himself to do it. Once he touched her, which he very much wanted to do, he knew all resolve to be the better man he wished to become would disappear. He would kiss her, and kiss her soundly, and now he knew they were the only two in the house and would be all night…
No, he was not going to be that sort of man.
Even if he wanted to be.
“You see through me, you know,” Thomas said softly. “I think… I think sometimes you see right through me. Into who I am. The core of me.”
Where the words were coming from, he could not tell, and worst of all, he could not stop them.
“There’s so much about me I don’t like, and even when I try to be good, I end up getting it wrong,” he confessed, longing to reach out and touch her, ground himself with her presence. “And I could offer to stay here and protect you—”
“‘Protect’ me?” Victoria said, tilting her head on one side again. “Protect me from what?”
Me , Thomas wanted to say. Me, and all the delicious things I want to do to you . “Robbers. Bandits, that sort of thing. You’re all alone in this house—”
“I’m with you,” she pointed out with a mischievous giggle. “Are you saying I need protecting from you?”
Thomas swallowed. Yes.
Touching her would be a betrayal of the commitment he’d made when coming here. He had intended at first to spill all—to tell her the truth, about the money, where it had gone, why he had spent it, everything. Perhaps to even tell her that he had first sought her company merely because he needed a dowry. That time was long past, at least. He hadn’t even noticed when it had ceased to be true.
Then watching her send all the servants away—Thomas knew he was not good enough for her. That marriage to her now would be a sham, a lie, a trick, a deception he should never have attempted and could not go through with now.
And still, his whole body hummed for her touch, for the slightest hint that she wanted him to take her in his arms and—
“I said,” Victoria murmured in a low voice, shifting so she was mere inches from him on the sofa, “are you saying I need protecting from you?”
“Yes,” said Thomas hoarsely, fingers inching toward her then balling into fists in his lap. “God damn it, woman, you know how I feel about you.”
“I know what you want to do to me, to be sure,” said the woman he cared about more than anyone, her cheeks flushing and her gaze unwavering. “I know how much you enjoy the kisses we’ve shared. The first time was on this very sofa.”
I am not going to lose control , Thomas told himself firmly. Even if the reminder was like a shot of rum through his bloodstream, slowly tearing down the barriers of control around his will—
“Every time I get close to you, I think… I think we are going to get even closer,” said Victoria softly, her voice quavering. “And I want it, and I’m afraid of it, and—”
“You should be.” Thomas had not intended to interrupt her, but he could not help it. “Damn it, woman, you’re an innocent!”
“And you are not.”
Christ, why had he not waited for this marvelous, heady woman? “No,” he admitted, hating that he had ever touched another. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“Why do you find it so hard to admit that you are attracted to me?”
“Because I’m so damn attracted to you, I worry that that’s all you’ll see.” Thomas exploded, standing up. “My need! My arrogant, selfish need for you, and it’s so much—there’s so much more than…”
His voice trailed away as he stared at the wall before him, not willing to turn to see her expression.
Where on God’s green earth did that all come from?
It had been there, deep inside him, for almost so long now, he had barely noticed it. The words he had fought for so long rose, unable to be contained any longer.
“I want you, yes,” Thomas said, whirling around. Victoria was standing now by the sofa, her eyes wide. “Christ, I want to plunge myself into you and show you, not just try to tell you, how badly I want you. I want to give you such pleasure that you’re not able to walk the next day.”
She swallowed. “Thomas—”
“But that would reduce what I feel—what I think I feel—to something, something animalistic, something thoughtless,” Thomas said, barreling on. There was no turning back now. “And it’s not that—I mean, it is, but what I feel, how I think of you, it’s so much more than—more than anything I could… I mean, it doesn’t even make sense!”
There was a desperation in his voice that Thomas hated. He hated this vulnerability, hated how she looked without judgment, with pure interest.
How could she do it? Stand there and listen to his nonsense?
“God’s teeth—I can’t explain it!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “If I could, I would have told you already!”
“But you have. You are.” Victoria stepped forward as she spoke, hesitantly, like one would approach a frightened dog. “Thomas, you—”
“Don’t you go telling me what I’m thinking because I don’t know half the time,” Thomas said bitterly, pulling his hand through his hair distractedly, light glinting on his signet ring. “If I could explain it to myself, if I had any idea—”
The way she twisted him up on the inside and made it impossible to steady himself—dear God, how did she do it? How had he allowed her to do it to him?
“You’ve shown me, and told me, countess times.” She was standing right before him now, and before Thomas could stop her, she had captured both of his hands in hers. “Every time you’ve wanted to take from me and stopped yourself, you’ve told me. When you kissed me, when you—”
“It’s not enough,” Thomas said in a voice cracked with emotion he could no longer control. “It’s not enough. You deserve—”
“I want you,” said Victoria fiercely. “Thomas, look at me— look at me !”
It felt good, so good, to be told what to do, to be ordered about by this woman whom he craved so desperately. Thomas lifted his eyes and met hers. Within her pupils blazed a fire that she had sparked, and would now never go out.
“I think it’s about time you ravished me,” Victoria said simply. “And—what did you say? Pleasure me until I couldn’t walk ?”
Thomas groaned. “I could never do that to—”
“I insist,” said the woman whom he had only started to court for her money, and who now owned him in a way he had never been possessed before. “I order you to lie with me, Thomas Chance. As man and woman. Right now.”