Chapter Two
“You cannot leave yet,” Amelia said softly, catching her by the arm. “You have been here scarcely an hour. An hour is not a visit; it is a rumour with its cloak on.”
“An hour is precisely what I promised,” Victoria said, “and I have a daughter upstairs who was assured she might summon me at any moment.”
“Stay another half-hour. If you go now, they will say you fled, and a woman who flees is presumed to have something to flee from.”
“And a woman who stays is presumed to have something to prove,” Victoria returned. “I gave up proving myself the day I buried the man who made a habit of requiring it.”
“You are impossible when you are frightened,” Amelia said under her breath.
“I am not frightened, Amelia.” Victoria smiled, though the expression did not reach her eyes. “I am tired. It lasts longer and answers to nothing.”
“You could remain beside me,” Amelia pressed. “I would not let them near you.”
“You could not keep a terrier from me in this crush, dearest, much less Lady Agatha. But I love you for offering.”
Amelia might have argued, but the crowd shifted, and the clear space Victoria had kept at her back closed like water.
“Surely you are not deserting us so soon.” Lady Agatha’s voice reached her a moment before a hand settled upon Victoria’s sleeve. “We have hardly begun to be a family again.”
“We were never a family, Lady Agatha. We were an arrangement, and it ended at the graveside.”
“How hard you have grown.” The old woman said it fondly, as another woman might admire a gown. “It is the child I think of, you understand. A girl kept from her father’s people can learn nothing of them. She will grow up half a stranger to her own blood.”
“The door was never shut,” Victoria said. “It was watched. There is a difference, and you have stood on the wrong side of it for five years.”
“And whose fault will it be,” the old woman continued, as though Victoria had not spoken, “when she asks one day what her father was and learns that her mother kept the answer from her out of spite?”
“Out of memory, Lady Agatha. I keep it from her out of memory. She is too young for the truth of him, and you are far too fond of the lie.”
Roland appeared at his mother’s side, a glass still in his hand.
“You must forgive my mother her plain speaking. She only says aloud what the rest of us are too polite to mention. A girl raised by a widow alone, with no man’s hand upon the household and no father’s name spoken kindly at her own table, may grow confused as to her proper place.
It is not a criticism, cousin. It is a mercy to observe it early, while some remedy may yet be found. ”
“And you are the remedy, I suppose?”
“I am her nearest kinsman on her father’s side,” Roland said pleasantly.
“The law has its views on such matters. It is not blind to how a child is kept, nor to who keeps her, nor to what may be said of that person in a crowded room. I merely mention it. A man likes to know the ground upon which he stands.”
“You mention it as a footpad mentions the hour,” Victoria said wearily, “so that I shall look at my watch instead of guarding my purse. I have been robbed by cleverer men than you, Sir Roland; and by one of your family with considerably more charm.”
“You do yourself no favours, cousin,” Roland said, unruffled. “A softer answer tonight might have spared you a difficult morning.”
“I ceased trading soft answers for difficult mornings some years ago. The exchange never once came out in my favour.”
“There is the girl’s portion to consider besides,” Lady Agatha added. “A child with expectations requires managing, and you were never taught to manage money; only to want it very quietly.”
“I was taught to want nothing aloud, which your son mistakes for having nothing. It is a convenient error. I have allowed him to keep it for years, and it has cost me dearly.”
Roland smiled and drank, offering no denial. It was the nearest thing to honesty his family had produced all evening.
Neither of them noticed the gentleman standing three feet away, his back half-turned to them as he contemplated a poor painting of a horse. He had not moved for several minutes. Yet something in the set of his shoulders had altered, as a room alters when a distant door opens upon cold air.
“You must both excuse me,” Victoria said quietly. “I find I have quite exhausted my capacity for family this evening.”
She turned before either could answer and made for the edge of the crowd. She had almost reached open space when a broad figure stepped directly into her path.
“There you are.” The voice came thickly and from much too near.
Sir Peregrine Crayle followed it, his waistcoat straining at its lowest button and his breath announcing him a full second before his words.
“The handsomest widow in the room, hiding herself in corners. It will not do. You must dance with me.”
“I am not dancing this evening, Sir Peregrine.” She made no move to accept the hand he offered.
“Nonsense. A widow who will not dance is only advertising herself, and you have advertised quite long enough. One turn. I insist.”
“You may insist upon a great many things. I remain, in the face of all of them, not dancing.”
“You wound me.” He reached towards her waist as though the matter had already been settled between them. “A little grief becomes a woman. Too much of it is greedy. Let a man cheer you out of it.”
Victoria stepped back before his hand could touch her. “Cheer another lady, sir. There must be one in this house who has not yet enjoyed the pleasure of refusing you.”
“Sharp,” he murmured, delighted, as though she had flirted with him. “I do like a sharp one.”
When she answered only with a look, his smile hardened.
“You will regret refusing me. Women in your position always do, once the invitations cease.”
“I have refused better men than you, Sir Peregrine, and regretted only that they troubled to ask. You told me you liked sharpness. I trust you will be satisfied with a sharp answer. Good evening.”
She left him there. She would regret it before half an hour had passed, for a man like Sir Peregrine did not hear no as a refusal. He heard it as an opening bid.
The heat and noise had begun to press upon her like hands, and she wanted three minutes in which no one possessed a face. A servant’s door at the end of the gallery opened into the conservatory, and she slipped through it into the dark.
***
The room was cool after the ballroom, illuminated only by moonlight through the long panes of glass. The damp, earthy scent of orange trees hung in the air. Victoria released a breath she seemed to have been holding since the carriage.
For a little while, there was only glass and moonlight and green silence, and her own reflection staring back at her, thinner than she remembered.
Then the door opened behind her.
“I knew you would want a private corner,” Sir Peregrine said as he entered and drew the door shut at his back.
“I wanted a room in which to be alone, which is the precise opposite of your company.” Victoria did not turn. “Open the door.”
“In a moment. We have not finished our conversation.” He settled his shoulders against it, comfortable in the doorway, a man who had done this before and been thanked for it afterwards.
“You are what… eight and twenty? Far too young to spend your best years playing the grieving saint. It does not suit you. And I assure you, it does not pay.”
“And you have appointed yourself physician to my condition?”
“I have appointed myself a husband, which is the only cure a woman in your position requires.” He spread his hands as though displaying a gift.
“Think of it. No more counting every shilling before it is spent. No more Hemsworths at your door disguised as concern. I take the widow, the widow takes my name, and every inconvenience in the county is settled at a stroke.”
“You find yourself unaccountably in debt,” Victoria said evenly. “That is not the same as finding yourself unaccountably generous, though I see how a man might confuse the two at this hour.”
He laughed, wholly untroubled by the accusation. “Sharp again. Marry me and be as sharp as you please every morning of my life. I shall grow to depend upon it.”
“You mistake me for a woman with a choice still before her. I made all the choices I intend to make concerning husbands, and I made them at a graveside. The position is closed.”
“Positions reopen,” he said quietly, moving nearer, “when a lady’s reputation resigns them on her behalf. And yours, I am told, is halfway out of the door already.”
“Then it requires no assistance from you to complete the journey.”
“One kiss,” he said softly, “and I shall call it a betrothal. You will thank me by spring.”
“I would sooner kiss the orange trees. They, at least, keep their hands to themselves. Move aside, Sir Peregrine.”
She stepped towards the door, and he caught her by the wrist.
His grip was not hard, which made it worse. It held the easy confidence of a man certain she would make no scene, because women in her position never did.
“Do not be missish about it,” he said. “I am trying to do you a kindness.”
“You are offering to become the very thing a woman requires saving from,” Victoria said. “Take your hand off me. I will not ask a third time.”
“Remove your hand from Lady Hemsworth before I remove it for you.”
The voice came from the doorway beyond the orange trees, quiet and almost pleasant. They both turned towards it.
The gentleman from the street stood there, the man who had bowed to a doll. No anger showed in him, which was the most frightening part. He looked merely patient, as a man looks when he has already decided how a matter will end.
“Harwood.” Sir Peregrine’s laugh came thinner this time, and his fingers loosened without quite releasing her. “This is nothing to you. A private conversation, nothing more.”