Chapter 10
“There you are!” Charlotte chided. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?” Victoria had just shut the door to Elias’s room.
“I think I must have gotten turned around. This house is so very large.”
“Larger than a ship, that’s for certain. Come on, Lord Reginald and Elias will be waiting for us.”
“Not Elias.”
“Where is Elias?”
“Out in the woods.”
Charlotte sighed heavily.
“Speak, Mother. You clearly have thoughts on the subject.”
“He’s just…a very strange young man, isn’t he? I can’t help but feel this whole ordeal would be less upsetting if he were not around.”
“Who is upset? Surely not I. And besides, I like Elias.”
“How can you like that beastly young man?”
“What is so beastly about him?”
“His manners, for one. Lydia and Agnes had nothing good to say of him. They attribute the closed-off nature of this household to Elias, and I can’t help but think there is truth behind it. Edenbridge used to have the most lovely parties, but there’s been nothing in years. Nothing since Elias.”
“Well, for some of those years, he had been a child.”
“And since?”
“At any time, it is Lord Reginald’s duty to welcome friends to Edenbridge, not Elias’s.”
“He does not think much of us. He has said so himself.”
“Yes, well…we are thieving little hussies, aren’t we?”
“We are not.”
Victoria linked arms with her mother. “Don’t let the opinions of women like Lydia and Agnes sway your thoughts.”
“That is a wise suggestion. Those women are…not exactly what I would choose for you in terms of friendship.”
“Nor I.”
“But they are all that is available in Winstonshire. It is best to get on their good side.”
Victoria sighed. “I don’t care for them. I will be polite, but I prefer Elias’s company.”
“Do you?” Charlotte stopped to look down at her daughter and searched her own memory. Had there ever been a time when Victoria proclaimed interest in any man’s company? If there was, Charlotte could not recall it. “He is quite monstrous, don’t you think?”
“Monstrous? Not at all. He’s…” Fun. That was the word Victoria wanted to use. He was the only fun person she’d met since her feet had landed on solid ground. He was the only person she wanted to annoy. “Tall,” she said finally. “He’s just tall.”
“Tall, broad, scarred, frightening, hot-tempered…”
Victoria grinned. “Oh, Mother, he’s just a regular man.”
“I doubt that very much.”
And truthfully, so did Victoria. Victoria hated regular men, but she didn’t mind tall, ruggedly scarred, and hot-tempered ones…
“Darling, didn’t I put a ribbon in your hair earlier?”
“Oh…is it gone?”
“It is.”
“It must have fallen out.”
“What a shame.”