Chapter Two
Over the next two weeks, Victoria was swept up into the world of social calls, soirees, and other events deemed vital by Society’s elite.
Women asked her what the fashions were in New York—What did they eat at dinner parties?
Which dances were popular? Would she teach them the steps sometime?
—but, as keenly intelligent as she was, she very quickly learned these people were more interested in America, her family’s wealth, and what she could provide them rather than actually becoming her true friend.
This made the Duchess of Morton’s friendship all the warmer and more welcoming.
As promised, Lady Morton had delivered to her a copy of Lady Chaste. It was a slim book bound simply and cleanly in brown leather. She held it in her hands and wondered what made it so special to be the duchess’s chosen book.
Two chapters in, however, and Victoria no longer wondered.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly hadn’t been the liberal tale of a woman exploring what it meant to live unashamedly and unapologetically. Lady Chaste smoked cheroots, drank whiskey, rode astride in breeches, and—good heavens—she even took lovers.
Face burning, Victoria had set the book aside to press cooling hands to her cheeks, contemplating just how inappropriate even her indulgent father and brother would find the literature to be. Then she promptly picked it back up and read well into the night.
At its heart, the story was a commentary on societal restrictions placed upon females. It begged the question of what would happen if a woman simply acted as a man would. It was brilliant.
The next morning, she was so engrossed in reading the final chapter that she didn’t realize Luke had entered the library until he was practically standing beside her.
“What has you so enraptured?”
His voice came as such a shock that she jumped in her seat and actually tossed her book into the air. “Good God, Luke!”
Being the unfairly agile man he was, he managed to snatch the book out of the air. “Lady Chaste, hm?” he commented, reading the title. “No author?”
“The author wished to remain anonymous,” Victoria huffed and reached to snatch back her reading material before he could thumb through the pages. Dear Lord, what if he stumbled upon the scene in the carriage? She felt the skin of her throat burn at the thought.
“Interesting title.”
“It was sent by Lady Morton,” she said truthfully, clutching it to her breast.
“Oh? You two seem to be getting along well.”
Victoria made a thoughtful sound in reply, fully intending to write a letter to the duchess as soon as she finished the final few pages of the book, eagerly inquiring as to when the next Reading Society meeting would be held.
Victoria wished to be a part of any group that read such fascinating (and titillating) material.
She tilted her head and truly looked at Luke’s face for the first time since he’d entered the room. Though he smiled at her, there was a weariness to his jaw, deepening the lines around his mouth; it lessened the intelligent gleam in his eyes.
As rough a go as Victoria had been having with the invasive tabloids and the snobbish ton, she suspected Luke might have been experiencing his own difficulties assimilating into this English world.
She knew him well enough to recognize the fissures beginning to form in his normally unflappable facade.
The poor man was practically mobbed by desperate marriage-minded mamas and their daughters—or at least the ones who didn’t turn their noses up at the “unrefined” American.
Luke was caught in an awkward place of having access to more wealth than a great many peers, but no title or breeding to lend it the necessary credence.
Victoria could practically see the gold glinting in women’s eyes as they appraised her brother.
She always made sure to steer him far, far away from them. He deserved much better—as did she.
Unfortunately, there was a darker side to the discrimination against him, and he would have been greatly displeased if he knew Victoria was aware of it.
Whereas many Englishmen of Luke’s age were going to their clubs or raising hell, he was left out, not granted admittance to the same clubs.
She’d even witnessed him being treated with thinly-veiled contempt by some men.
She suspected his method of coping with the loneliness was to throw himself into his work for their company even more than usual.
If he wasn’t careful, Rockford Shipping would become his entire personality.
The plan had always been a three-month visit to England before returning to New York, but if it was determined that Rockford Shipping could benefit from expansion, then Luke would stay behind alone to oversee the venture.
He’d always been one of the most driven men of Victoria’s acquaintance, but the treacherous waters of this new life in London, coupled with the desire to prove to their father that he could manage an English branch of the company, drove him to new heights.
That made Victoria worry for her brother.
Without her nearby to arrange outings, distractions, and social obligations, it was entirely possible he would never speak to another being not directly involved in the shipping business.
When it became apparent that Luke was viewed as either a target or a rival in most of London’s social situations, he began sitting more and more of them out, leaving Victoria to bear the brunt of the curiosity-seekers and parties inquiring after her handsome, eligible elder brother.
At nine-and-twenty, possessive of an imposing build, dark chocolate hair and light hazel eyes, objectively, Victoria couldn’t blame them.
He’d have been a catch even if he had only half the brains and wealth he did.
“How are you, Luke?” she finally asked, tucking Lady Chaste beneath the folds of fuchsia pink fabric at her hip.
His eyes softened further; he didn’t even attempt to redirect her because he knew she could read him too well and wouldn’t stop until she received a satisfactory answer. “I won’t be accompanying you to the ball tomorrow evening.”
Victoria deflated. “Why not?”
“I have a meeting with some accountants for—”
“I thought Papa already met with the accountants,” she interrupted him, not caring if she was beginning to sound like a petulant child.
“He did,” Luke replied patiently. “But there are some new documents and figures to go over. A supper has been scheduled, and I will be attending instead of going to another ball.”
“Won’t Papa wish to be there for the meeting?”
“He has agreed to let me handle this on my own and will trust my reports on the matter.” She did not miss how Luke stood a little straighter.
Nothing made him prouder than earning their father’s trust and having an opportunity to prove it was not misplaced—especially when it came to the company their grandfather had built.
Still, she would have much preferred her brother attend the ball as well, because he had perfected the art of acting as a buffer to the eyes of the ton, and because he was so easy to converse with, making it easier to pass the time. However, she understood his decision.
“Admit it,” Victoria groused theatrically. “You far prefer those stuffy, number-loving Englishmen to escorting your little sister around London.”
Luke chuckled warmly. “You’ve found me out. I would have a thousand meetings with them to discuss an infinite number of dreadfully boring numbers if it meant I never had to set foot in another English dress shop with you.”
And so, the next evening, Victoria stood in a grand, gilded ballroom owned by a lord and lady whose name she could not recall, with her father by her side.
Most young women her age might have felt put out at being left to spend the evening with their fathers, but, as much as she’d complained to Luke, it did not bother Victoria in the slightest. She adored Papa, and he, in turn, doted upon her.
With his booming laugh and deceptively soft exterior, he’d always had a way of charming people and had never cared what anyone had to say to him or about him.
He was fortunate enough to know and be secure in his place in the world, and he was damned proud of his success—and rightly so, if Victoria had anything to say about it.
Her father’s unflappable joviality and confidence in any situation were enviable.
Lord knew Victoria would have benefited from inheriting some of her father’s disposition on more than one occasion; alas, she was cursed with having the most readable face in Creation (or so one New York tabloid had once commented).
As such, it was sometimes difficult for her to interact with a particularly acerbic matron without pulling at least once face.
This was, rather unfortunately, her current predicament.
A baroness with the jowls of a hound had taken it upon herself to educate Victoria on all the ways the English were superior to Americans.
At first, she’d believed it all to be in jest, but she’d quickly learned that that was not the case.
What the woman hoped to accomplish, Victoria couldn’t quite comprehend, but she was all but cornered between a wall and her father, who was too engrossed in a conversation with another guest to hear what was being said to his daughter.
Time and time again, Victoria had to snap herself to attention and remember to smile rather than grimace, to nod when she would have rather rolled her eyes.
“Furthermore…” the woman droned on indignantly, and it was everything Victoria could do not to give the woman the satisfaction of proving just how “savage” Americans could be. A well-placed flick of her fan to the woman’s throat might stun her enough for Victoria to make her escape…
But no.
That would not do.
She’d always prided herself on her openness and honesty.
As she’d come of age and experienced Society first in New York and now England, she’d learned some unpleasant lessons.
What she interpreted as a manifestation of her soul’s honesty, however, was not always well-received in English ballrooms. She’d discovered early on that the smiling faces and polite inquiries of the ladies at these events quite often acted as disguises for the most vicious venom.
It was galling to do so, but she’d promised her father that she would do her best not to insult anyone of any import.
The last thing Rockford Shipping needed was opposition from those who held actual sway in government (as opposed to those who simply held inflated opinions of themselves).
She liked to play a game with herself as she tried to distinguish between the two, pasting a smile upon her face as she remained resolutely confident.
She did her best not to sag in relief when the baroness finally ran out of wind and moved onto a more receptive target. Her relief was short-lived when she looked out at the expansive room and realized she was being watched by no less than a dozen pairs of eyes.
To Victoria, the men at these events were more welcoming than the vipers’ nests to be found in the clutches of women whispering behind their fluttering fans.
Unfortunately for her, these men seemed to find her so interesting that she barely had time to breathe.
Her dance card filled at an alarming pace, and to say that she was swarmed by admirers of the male persuasion would not have been an understatement.
Though she hid it well behind a practiced mask, Victoria found herself often overwhelmed by these Englishmen attempting to snag her attention and garner her favor.
Unfortunately, this only further villainized her in the eyes of the jealous women of the aristocracy who, more and more, saw her as their competition in what she’d quickly realized was the cutthroat field of the London Marriage Mart.
Victoria wasn’t deaf or blind—she heard the whispers calling her self-preservative ways sheer vanity.
She was viewed as taking away rightful attention from women and daughters who’d had centuries of breeding on her.
Unlike those women, though, Victoria realized the male attention she received had little to do with her charm, beauty, or wit, and much more to do with her fortune.
She’d have been quite happy if the attention ceased altogether, but that was hardly the case.
In fact, it seemed to worsen as word of the Americans spread throughout England.
She longed to share a genuine laugh with someone outside of her family, to find someone who might be a friend and companion these months abroad.
London, however, conspired against her, and most of the overtures of friendship she made were summarily shut down.
She was grateful for the friendship of the Duchess of Morton and would attend the next meeting of her Reading Society held at Morton House the coming week, but, being a duchess, she was also quite busy with her various responsibilities and organizations.
There was also the matter of the blossoming pregnancy Victoria imagined she could see beneath Lady Morton’s fashionable skirts.
To comment upon it would have been unseemly, but she believed it was the reason behind the duchess’s aberration of morning calls.
Even though she’d never been pregnant, she had enough acquaintances back home who’d experienced the state for Victoria to appreciate just how difficult it might be for a woman to adhere to social schedules when she felt unwell.
Though she was coming close with Lady Morton, this meant for the time being that Victoria was woefully without a true and consistent companion thus far in England, and she’d begun to despair of that ever changing.