Chapter 13
The lodge stood a mile beyond the city’s noisy edge, where the last straggle of houses gave way to fields and a thin line of dark trees.
It had once been a modest hunting box, built by some practical forebear who disliked the endless journey to the northern estate when he wished only for a quiet fire and a brace of pheasants.
Victor had improved it over the years. The stone walls were sound, the windows well glazed, the roof sealed against the weather. Inside, the rooms were simple yet comfortably appointed, with a small library, a drawing room, and a bedchamber few had ever seen.
It was useful for seclusion. For conversations that did not belong to town. For arrangements that could not be seen passing through the front door of Greystone House.
He had sent precise instructions that afternoon.
The note to his footman contained one line: meet Lady G at the garden gate at half past eleven and escort her to the carriage.
No fanfare. No visible crest on the door.
Only a dark, well-sprung vehicle and a driver paid as much for his discretion as his skill.
When the carriage drew up beside the lodge that night, the sky above was starless and thick, as if even the heavens wished to keep quiet.
Victor stepped out first, then turned to offer Gwen his hand.
“You are safe here,” he assured her. “No one passes through this road unless they have business with me, and I have business with no one tonight but you.”
She took his hand, her gloved fingers small and cool in his grasp. The hood of her cloak shadowed her face, but he knew its lines well enough now to read the tension in the set of her chin.
“Your confidence is impressive,” she allowed. “I wish I had it.”
“You may borrow mine for the evening,” he said.
Her mouth twitched. “I am not certain it suits me.”
They entered the lodge. A servant had gone ahead to stoke a fire and lay out a light supper, then left as instructed.
The drawing room glowed with the warmth of a modest hearth. A decanter of wine waited on a sideboard beside plates of bread, cheese, and dried fruit. A lamp cast a soft circle of light over a low table and a pair of armchairs, inviting without ostentation.
Gwen’s gaze swept the room. Victor saw at once the calculation in her eyes, the way she noted the doors, the distance to the windows, the absence of a third person.
This was a woman who had learned to count exits.
“You come here often?” she asked.
“Not as often as I can,” he replied. “The city is greedy for time.”
“It is greedy for everything,” she murmured.
He poured wine into two glasses. “Sit. You look as if you have spent the entire day in battle.”
“I was ready to speak with my mother, but Howard was home,” she said, taking the proffered glass and sinking into an armchair. “That in itself is a battle.”
“And?” he prompted.
“And we obviously didn’t get to talk as I intended, but she loves him,” Gwen replied. “She is afraid, but she loves him.”
“She’s hoping for a miracle,” Victor noted.
“She’s hoping he would remain the man she married,” Gwen scoffed. “Not the one he has become.”
Victor watched the way she held her glass. She did not drink at once. She turned it slowly between her fingers, as if the movement might conjure courage.
“You believe in that?” he asked. “In marrying for love?”
“Yes,” she replied, looking up at him. “I do.”
He sat opposite her. “Love is a poor protection.”
“Against what?” she asked.
“Against everything that actually matters,” he said. “Inheritance. Stability. A woman may starve quite handsomely for love.”
Her eyes flashed. “That is a remarkably cold sentiment, even for you.”
“It is simply accurate,” he countered. “My parents’ marriage was arranged. They shared no affection that I ever observed. They were courteous. They fulfilled their duties. The estate prospered. Their tenants did not freeze to death. I call that success.”
“Your mother never wanted more?” she asked. “Your father never did?”
“My father wanted obedience,” he explained. “My mother wanted peace. They obtained what they valued.”
She shook her head. “That is not marriage. That is a contract of survival.”
“What is marriage, then?” he asked, curious despite himself.
“Trust,” she said at once. “That is the first thing. To know that when the door closes at night, the man standing in the room will never raise his hand or his voice to hurt you. That his temper will not be the weather you must live under.”
Victor sensed the shadow of her stepfather in every word.
“And the second thing?” he asked.
“Love,” she replied. “Not the kind in novels, perhaps. Not all swooning and poetry. But the kind my mother had with my father. She told me once that when he entered a room, she felt as if there were more air in it, not less. That is what I would want, if anyone ever came near enough.”
“You sound very sure for a woman who has never been married,” Victor remarked.
“You sound very sure for a man who has never been in love,” she shot back.
He arched an eyebrow. “You assume much.”
“So do you,” she pointed out. “You speak as if hearts may be managed like leases.”
“They can,” he said. “If one is disciplined.”
“That is not discipline. That is fear dressed in fine language,” she retorted.
The words struck closer than she could know. His irritation spiked.
He leaned back, studying her. “You speak like a child of fairytales,” he said.
“You have seen what happens when love turns a blind eye to reality. Your mother chose affection the first time and security the second time. She chose wrongly the second time, not because she lacked love, but because she misjudged the man’s character.
That is not a failure of the institution. It is a failure of her judgment.”
Gwen bristled. “Do not blame her.”
“I do not blame,” he said. “I observe. If she had treated the second match as a transaction, evaluated it with the same clarity she applied to the first, she might have seen the cracks before she stepped on them.”
“You mean she should have married a man she did not love because the figures looked neat?” she demanded.
“Yes.” He nodded. “If the result spared her your stepfather’s temper, I would call it a great bargain.”
She rose from her chair, temper flaring. “You reduce everything to numbers and treaties. People are not ledgers, Your Grace.”
“They are,” he said quietly. “They simply dislike hearing it.”
“And you,” she hissed, “you would marry a woman you did not love simply because her dowry or her land satisfied your calculations.”
“I have no intention of marrying,” he declared plainly.
“That is monstrous,” she whispered.
“You speak of love as if it were a shield. I have seen it used as a weapon more often than not.”
They faced one another, the room suddenly feeling too small, the fire too hot for comfort. Gwen’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes blazing with anger and something sharper.
“You are wrong,” she insisted.
“You are na?ve,” he countered.
The words hung between them like drawn swords.
For a long moment, neither moved. The fire crackled in the grate, throwing restless light across the worn carpet and the straight line of Victor’s shoulders.
Gwen’s chest rose and fell quickly. He could see her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, delicate and furious.
He had never cared much for arguments. They were untidy things. Yet this one felt less like disorder and more like uncovering something that had been buried within them for years.
“You think you are safe because you feel nothing,” she muttered. “But you are only hiding behind your duty as if it were a wall.”
“It is a wall,” he agreed. “A necessary one.”
“And what happens when something climbs over it?” she asked. “What then?”
“Nothing can climb over it.”
She laughed, low and incredulous. “You are very sure of yourself.”
“It is required,” he replied.
Her hands curled at her sides. “You sound like him.”
The word hit him harder than any insult. Him. Howard. The man whose shadow bruised her voice.
“No,” he bit out.
“Yes,” she insisted. “You both speak of duty and obedience and arrangements. You both talk as if women are pawns to be moved where they will do the most good for your pride.”
“My pride has nothing to do with it,” he said, his temper rising.
“Your name will mean nothing. All of this work you’re doing will be for nothing. You’ll have no legacy,” she spat.
Those words struck him hard. His expression did not shift dramatically, but his eyes shuttered, as if a door had closed behind his pupils.
He took a step toward her.
She did not retreat.
“Careful, Gwendoline,” he said softly. “You speak as if you know what fills or empties me.”
“I know only what you show me,” she replied, her voice wavering for reasons that had little to do with anger. “Which is very little.”
“And yet you stand in a lodge alone with me at midnight,” he pointed out. “A man you claim to distrust, whose views you despise.”
“I am here because I need your help,” she emphasized.
“Is that the only reason?” he probed.
Silence met the question. Her breath came quicker. Her throat worked as she swallowed.
“Answer,” he demanded.
“You know it isn’t,” she muttered.
The admission hung in the air, fragile like a thread.
He closed the distance between them very slowly, as if giving her time to flee. She did not.
The fire warmed one side of her face; his nearness warmed the other. He could feel the pull of her anger and her fear and her bewildering desire.
“You are right,” he admitted. “I use duty as a wall. You use anger as a shield. Neither of us is being honest tonight.”
“I am honest,” she whispered.
“Then be honest now.”
He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers against her cheeks. Her eyes closed on a shaken breath. That sound undid something inside him.
“You came,” he rasped. “Despite everything. Despite your plans, the convent, your mother, and me. You came because you wanted to.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Good,” he murmured.
He pulled her closer, his hand wrapping gently around her neck, and found her warm lips.
Whatever arguments had bristled dissolved the instant his mouth met hers. This was not the tentative exploration of earlier nights. There was heat in it, and frustration, and the sharp, heady relief of dropping a burden one had been carrying for too long.
Gwen answered him at once, her hands fisting in his coat, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. Her lips parted under his, welcoming the deeper pressure, the slide of his tongue as he sought and found the exact rhythm that made her shiver.
He felt her sway and moved his hands to her waist, steadying her. The warmth of her through her gown, the give of her body against his, sent his restraint flaring and buckling like a sail in sudden wind.
He broke the kiss only to trail his mouth along the line of her jaw, down to the hollow just below her ear. She drew in a sharp breath, her fingers tightening on his shoulders.
“Victor,” she sighed.