Chapter 11
In all his life, Victor had never wanted to make ladies leave him alone. He usually loved them. They flocked to him like butterflies to flowers, bees to pollen, and, well, just about any sort of cliche there was, moths to a flame, et cetera, et cetera, and usually he reveled in it.
He loved the company of ladies. He loved the way they smiled. He loved the way they laughed. He loved the way they talked. Frankly, ladies were much better than men, and sometimes he really thought it would be a very good idea if men stopped ruling society and ladies took over.
It would certainly be a good break for men to get themselves in order. As far as he could see, most men were miserable idiots, incapable of any sort of gentle appreciation for life.
Not all men, of course. But a vast many of them.
Honestly, men were making a muck of it all. The wars that were going on, the slaughter, the famine, the power struggles, poverty, slavery on several continents. Perhaps it would not be better in the hands of the ladies, but perhaps it should be tried.
Still, he knew it wouldn’t happen, at least not in his lifetime. It was a fantasy. Men would never ever give up control, even if it killed them all.
Gentlemen were bullheaded, impossible, arrogant, and not very interesting. Ladies were often generous, kind, compassionate, and willing to listen. He had said he wasn’t particularly interested in ladies listening to him in the past.
It wasn’t true. He simply liked to say shocking things.
He was always trying to find a way to make things up to the friend he’d lost. Jenny. Poor clever, gentle Jenny, who had trusted the wrong man.
He befriended ladies because, frankly, ladies did need friends. Friends who were powerful men. Ladies were so often shoved into corners and pushed aside by gentlemen, put into situations where they were in serious danger because they did not have male friends, and it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair the way gentlemen protected each other and left the ladies cast out. He never could, and he never would.
But at this particular moment, a certain lady was holding a croquet mallet, bouncing about the lawn, smiling rapturously at him.
She was not the only one.
He needed to find a way to extract himself. They kept waving their handkerchiefs at him. They kept making playful gestures.
He had simply come out here into the sunshine to collect himself because the one person he wanted to see was nowhere about, and then he had suddenly ended up at the center of a gaggle of women like a maypole surrounded by beautiful ribbons, twisting this way and that.
“Ladies,” he said. “I must depart.”
“Surely, you must not,” Lady Anne said in her sea-green frock, which danced beautifully about her frame.
“I must.”
“But you were always so good at this game,” said Lady Philippa.
“Thank you. I’ll take the compliment.”
“And you are far more fun than most gentlemen,” said Lady Sarah, her eyes bright under her straw bonnet.
“Thank you,” he said, desperately trying to keep his voice flat, though it was a struggle because he could not be cruel. “Again, a true compliment, but I must confess I need a moment of repose. Something disagrees with me, and I must return to my rooms.”
It wasn’t exactly the politest thing to say, suggesting that he had become indisposed in their company, but he needed to get away. So he turned himself on his booted heel…and ran.
It was rather undignified.
There was really no other way to put it, but it was most frustrating to be surrounded by women when the one woman he wanted was nowhere to be found.
He could not find her in the salon. He could not find her in the library.
He had truly hoped to find her in the library.
He could not find her in the music room.
She wasn’t in the garden. She hadn’t come down to breakfast.
Was she hiding like some sort of ghost in the house?
Quite possibly and, frankly, it was going to drive him mad.
Somehow, this had all gone terribly, terribly wrong.
In the endeavor of wanting to protect her, he had driven her away, which made him feel quite terrible.
He often felt sorrowful, but she’d done something to him.
She’d softened his heart because she had no machinations or manipulation about her.
She simply was. She didn’t try to convince anybody of anything.
She just plowed through the company wherever she went, talking about Rome, and it was the most lovely and refreshing thing he’d known in a very long time.
And he wanted to be around it, to be around her, because he hadn’t known that sort of honesty since, well, he didn’t want to think it. He didn’t want to say it, but he knew that he had to pursue it.