“I see.”
“I am glad, because this is very hard to put into words.” She swung around and stalked back the way she had come. “Do you, uh, recall what happened the other night in the carriage after we left the Green Pig?”
“Very clearly.”
She ducked her head deeper inside the hood. “I was astonished to learn that the connection between a man and a woman can be quite so … so intense.”
He hid his amusement. “I am pleased you found the experience pleasant.”
“Pleasant.” She halted and spun to face him, her eyes huge in the pale light. “It was vastly more than pleasant, my lord. It was rather unnerving in some respects but very, very exciting. Quite astonishingly delightful, in fact.”
Her delicious honesty on the subject entranced him. “You flatter me.”
“Not at all.” She resumed her pacing. “Lucas, I have given this much thought and I have decided I wish to repeat the experience. In fact, I have decided I would like to discover the full range of that particular sort of experience. As a matter of intellectual inquiry, you understand.”
“Intellectual inquiry,” he repeated slowly. “Rather like collecting beetles, I imagine.”
“I suppose one could say that.”
“Will you put me on display in a box when you’ve finished your inquiries?”
Victoria scowled at him from inside her cloak. “Lucas, don’t you dare tease me. I am perfectly serious about this.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“To be quite blunt, I would like to establish a romantic connection with you of the sort Isabel Rycott enjoys with her friend Edgeworth.”
“Good God, I sincerely hope not.”
Victoria stopped and turned toward him with a shocked, embarrassed expression. “You do not want me?”
Instantly he realized how she had interpreted his words. He moved forward and pulled her roughly into his arms, covering her mouth with his own in a kiss of such fierce possession that she trembled in response. When he finally released her, he captured her face between his hands and looked down at her, knowing the full force of his need was probably blazing in his eyes.
“I want you more than I have ever wanted anything else on the face of this earth. Don’t ever forget that, Victoria. No matter what happens, promise me you will never forget that.”
She circled his wrists with her fingers, smiling tremulously. “And I want you, Lucas. I have never known anything like this need I feel for you. Please, will you make love to me?”
“Vicky. Oh, Vicky, my sweet, wayward, passionate hoyden.” He crushed her against his length, light-headed with a strange combination of passion, tenderness, and relief. “I will make love to you until you go up in flames and then I will join you and we will burn together.”
“That does not sound particularly comfortable, my lord,” she remarked, her voice muffled against his coat.
He grinned. “Wait until you try it.”
She laughed softly and her arms went around his waist. She hugged him tightly. “Lucas, I am so excited.”
“So am I,” he whispered, and then added deliberately, “It is almost as if you had just agreed to marry me.”
She went rigid. “Lucas …”
“Almost, but not quite. Calm yourself, Vicky. I don’t mean to frighten you, but you cannot help but know by now that I would not be averse to something more than a romantic connection with you. Would you care to discuss marriage rather than a romantic liaison?” He held his breath, praying she would say yes and everything would suddenly become very simple.
“Thank you, Lucas. That is very nice of you, you know. Entirely unnecessary, but very nice. I do appreciate the offer, because you certainly were not obliged to make it,” she said, beaming.
“But the answer is no?”
“You know it is, but thank you again for asking.” She raised her head to brush her mouth lightly against his own. Then she smiled brilliantly up at him. “Now, let us get on to making our plans.”
Her rather casual dismissal of his proposal irritated Lucas. The little baggage thought she could have it all without paying the price. Perhaps it was time to gently point out that this was not going to be quite as simple and straightforward as she had anticipated.
“Very well. When?”
She blinked. “When what, my lord?”
“When shall we arrange our first meeting as lovers? And how? Have you given any thought to that? It needs some consideration. Also, there is the matter of where, isn’t there? We cannot just hire a carriage to drive us around London for several hours while we make love on the cushions. Most uncomfortable and I don’t want the coachman making a guess about what is going on inside,” he explained roughly.
Her expression moved from startled to appalled. “I thought … I thought you would take care of those little matters. That is, I assumed you knew how to make the arrangements for this sort of thing, Lucas.”
“Not likely. I’ve never formed a romantic connection of such an intimate nature with a young lady of your sort before in my life. It generally is not done, Victoria. At least, not by men who consider themselves gentlemen. You put me in something of an awkward situation, you see.”
She groaned. “Aunt Cleo warned me that it is not only my own reputation I am toying with, but yours also.”
“Did she really?” Lucas was not particularly surprised to hear that Lady Nettleship had guessed in which direction the wind was blowing. He wondered what Cleo’s real views on the matter were. “Lady Nettleship is a very perceptive woman. She obviously does not like the notion of you playing ducks and drakes with your reputation.”
“Or yours. Lucas, I understand this is not easy for you and there certainly are dangers involved. I am not so blind that I do not comprehend that.”
“That speaks well for your intelligence, Vicky.”
She bit her lip and slanted him a sidelong glance. “I suppose it really is not fair of me to ask you to do this.”
“As you said, one cannot deny there are risks involved.”
She sighed, a very tragic-sounding sort of sigh. “You are quite right. I have no business jeopardizing your reputation as well as my own, do I? Perhaps we should simply forget it.”
“My offer presents a possible alternative,” he began cautiously.
She patted his arm affectionately as if he were a well-meaning puppy. “Your offer of marriage was very sweet, Lucas. But I fear the only real alternative for me is to wait a few more years until I am well and truly established as a spinster. Perhaps then no one will care too much if I choose to follow in Lady Rycott’s footsteps. Do forgive me, Lucas. I am sorry I ever brought up the subject.”
Alarm swept through him as he realized she was already backing away from the affair. What’s more she was considering spinsterhood rather than marriage as the only alternative. If he let her go completely, he might never get her back. Even worse, she might find another man who would not have any hesitation at all in letting her take all the risks she wished.
Lucas reached out a little roughly and caught her chin between thumb and forefinger. “Victoria, if a romantic liaison is truly what you want, then it will be my privilege to give it to you.”
Her sudden smile was much too luminous and her eyes glowed with what looked suspiciously like feminine triumph. “In the spirit of intellectual inquiry, my lord?”
Somewhere inside Lucas a warning bell belatedly clanged. He studied Victoria’s delighted, cheerfully smug expression and a nasty notion was born in him that he’d just been well and truly outmaneuvered.
“I have always been a great believer in the benefits of intellectual inquiry,” he said grimly.
“Oh, Lucas, how can I ever thank you?” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. “You are always so good to me.”
Swearing silently, he succumbed to the allure of her obvious delight. He was beginning to realize that it would always be difficult to refuse Victoria whatever she happened to
want. He would do well in the future to remember his weakness in that regard.
Reluctantly Lucas pulled her arms from around his neck, kissing her reassuringly on the tip of her nose. “Then ’tis settled. Now, my sweet, you had better get back into the house. I think I hear a carriage coming down the street.”
“Oh, dear, that must be Aunt Cleo. I must go.” She turned swiftly, the cloak whirling around her sadly dampened slippers. Then she swung back with a quick frown of concern. “Do be careful of your leg when you go back over the wall, Lucas. I worry about all this climbing about. It cannot be good for you.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” The damned leg was already aching from his first assault on the wall this evening. Now he must repeat the process. “I look forward to the night when this wall climbing is no longer necessary. Good night, Vicky.”
“About our plans for our first, uh, liaison …” She glanced anxiously toward the conservatory door as she, too, heard the carriage in the street.
“Don’t fret, Vicky. I will arrange everything.”
“You will?”
He paused, straddling the garden wall, and looked down into her upturned face. He bit back an oath. “Yes, Vicky, I will. That’s my job, is it not?”
“You will let me know just as soon as you have got the details worked out?” she called out hopefully.
“Believe me, my dear, you will be the first to know.” He cleared the wall and dropped down into the alley. His thigh protested strongly and his limp was more pronounced than usual as he made his way back toward the street where he had left the carriage. One way or another he definitely had to put a stop to this wall climbing.
Lucas checked the street and saw no one. He crossed it and started around the corner. He very nearly walked straight into the man holding the knife.
The footpad appeared equally surprised at the suddenness of the encounter. He had obviously been lounging in the shadows, waiting for his quarry, and had not heard Lucas approach. But he reacted immediately, lunging forward with the blade held low.
Lucas was already diving to the side, cursing as he felt his bad leg give away. He landed hard on the knee of his injured leg and forced himself to ignore the pain while he reached up and grabbed for his attacker’s knife arm.
The man yelled in rage and surprise as Lucas rolled onto his back and tugged hard. The assailant slammed into the brick wall of the darkened house on the corner and the knife clattered to the paving stones.
Lucas kept rolling, moving up onto his knees. Then he staggered to his feet, bracing himself with one hand against the brick wall. Raw agony tore through his left leg.
The footpad was already thudding away into the darkness, footsteps echoing harshly in the night. He did not stop to retrieve his knife.
“ ’Ere, now,” the coachman yelled, pounding up the street as he belatedly realized his passenger was in trouble. “What’s goin’ on? What ‘appened, m’lord? Are ye hurt?”
“No.” Lucas glanced down at his expensive Weston jacket and swore again. He had just paid a fortune for the damn thing and now he would have to purchase a new one.
“Some footpad lookin’ to prig a gennelman’s purse,” the coachman declared, reaching down to scoop up the knife. “Wicked-lookin’ thing. The cove meant business, didn’t ’e?”
“Yes,” said Lucas. “But I am not certain just what sort of business he had in mind.”
“Streets ain’t safe for man nor beast,” the coachman remarked. “You ’andled him right proper m’lord. Saw the way you sent ’im flyin’. Learn that sort of thing at Gentleman Jackson’s academy, did ye?”
“No. I learned that sort of thing the hard way.” Lucas started toward the coach and sucked in his breath as his left leg nearly collapsed again. He summoned up a vision of the bottle of port waiting in his library. “Let’s be off, if you don’t mind. It is not my intention to amuse myself standing around the streets at this hour.”
“Certainly, sir. But I’d just like to say I never met a member o’ the fancy could ’andle ’imself as well as you just did in a street fight. Most of the nabobs I run across would o’ ended up with their gullets slit.”
Victoria stepped back into her room and closed the door quietly behind her. Then she shut her eyes and leaned back against the wooden panels. Her heart was racing and she felt as though her legs were going to melt.
She had done it.
It had taken more raw courage than she had dreamed it would, more than she had even believed she possessed, but she had done it. She was going to have an affair with Lucas Mallory Colebrook, the Earl of Stonevale.
Her hands were trembling as she came away from the door and walked a little unsteadily across the room to stare out of the window into the darkness.
Now that she had accomplished her goal after days of agonizing over the matter, she discovered she was weak with reaction. There were so many dangers, both for herself and for Lucas.
But the chance to discover passion in Lucas’s arms was worth any risk.
Such an admirable man. He was not a silly, foppish dandy or a callous rakehell. He cared about her reputation yet he accepted her desire to avoid marriage. He was not after her fortune, it seemed, only her.
“Dear God, listen to me. I sound as if I am in love with the man.” Victoria caught her breath as the realization momentarily swamped her. “I am in love with him.”
She hugged herself with the wonder of this latest adventure. To be in love and yet to be free. What more could a woman ask?
She stood at the window for a long time, trying to see the future in the darkness. But everything seemed cloudy and without solid form. After a long while, she went to bed.
At dawn she came awake suddenly, sitting bolt upright against the pillows.
Demon bitch. I will send you back to hell.
The knife.
Dear God, the knife.
She did not remember much about the nightmare that had jolted her from sleep, but she did not need to recall the details. She’d had similar dreams often enough during the past few months and they always ended the same way, leaving her restless and disturbed, filling her with a sense of dark, brooding menace that could not be logically explained away.
At least she had not cried out this time, she thought in relief. Occasionally she screamed in the middle of the terrible dreams and poor Nan would come running to check on her.
Victoria got out of bed. She knew from experience that daylight would banish the disquieting sensation. In the meantime there was not much point in trying to go back to sleep.
She reached for her wrapper. It was a clear day and soon the morning light would be streaming into the conservatory. A perfect day for painting. When all else failed, she could frequently find peace of mind by losing herself in her art.
Dressing quickly, she hurried downstairs. The household was just beginning to stir. She could hear cook clattering the pans in the kitchen.
Her easel, paintbox, and sketchbooks were just where she had left them. Victoria stood looking around the lush conservatory for a moment and then her eyes fell on the glorious blooms of Strelitzia reginae.
In the morning sunlight the flower was a wonderful cross between gold and yellow, a fabulous shade of amber touched with highlights of royal blue.
She quickly set about shifting all her equipment to a new vantage point where she would have a clear view of Strelitzia. She remembered how Lucas had admired it that first day in the conservatory.
She was going to paint it for him, she decided on a sudden impulse. He had appeared genuinely pleased by her botanical watercolors and sketches and there was no doubt about his new enthusiasm for horticulture. Perhaps he would like Strelitzia reginae as a memento of their first night together as lovers. It would be her gift to him on that memorable night.
Almost like a wedding gift, came the unbidden thought. She banished it quickly and sat down to go to work.
She saw the snuffbox inside her paintbox the moment she raised the lid.
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For a few seconds she simply stared at it, astonished, and wondered why anyone would deposit a perfectly good snuffbox in her paintbox. It was as odd to find such an object here as it had been to discover the monogrammed scarf on the conservatory door a few nights earlier.
With a small, niggling sense of dread, Victoria picked up the tiny snuffbox and examined it carefully. It was a nicely worked box but not particularly distinguished except for the letter “W” engraved on the inside of the lid.
For a minute she was short of breath. She reminded herself violently that she did not believe in ghosts. But the thought that someone might be playing a macabre game with her was even more chilling than the prospect of a phantom.
And even more impossible, she told herself, taking several deep breaths to calm her nerves. She had to be sensible. This could not be her stepfather’s snuffbox any more than the scarf could possibly have belonged to him.
This was all some sort of bizarre coincidence. One of her aunt’s numerous acquaintances had been on a visit to the conservatory and had left the scarf and snuffbox behind. The scarf had been found immediately but the snuffbox had been set down and forgotten only to be discovered much later. By her.
It was the only possible explanation because no one, no one except herself knew what had really happened on that dreadful night when her stepfather had died at the foot of a flight of stairs.
Four days later Victoria looked around the Middleships’ glittering ballroom at the sea of fashionably dressed guests and realized she was as nervous and excited as a bride at her own wedding party. This was the night.
As this was as close as she ever intended to get to a genuine wedding celebration, she had best enjoy it, she decided.
Three days ago Lucas had calmly told her that he had made all the arrangements for their first night together. The plans were contingent on Lady Nettleship accepting a long-standing invitation to a weekend house party in the country, he had warned. But that had been no problem. This morning Cleo had set off cheerfully for the nearby country home of one of her dearest friends.