“You are quite certain you do not mind staying here alone for one evening?” Aunt Cleo had demanded for the third time as she tied her bonnet and prepared to follow several bags into her traveling coach.
“Hardly alone, Aunt Cleo. I have all the servants including Nan. I shall do very well. You will recall that I am invited to the Middleships’ ball tonight and their soirées never end before dawn. I shan’t be home until sunrise and you will be back in the afternoon.”
“Well, you are nearly twenty-five. I daresay no one can remark upon you staying here in your own home for one night without having me, and you will be accompanied by Lady Lyndwood and her daughter when you attend the ball, so all is well. Take care, Vicky.” Cleo had given her a good-bye peck on the cheek before settling into the coach for the trip.
Victoria had waved from the steps and then felt her stomach do a series of strange little flips as anticipation set in with a vengeance.
This was the night. There was no turning back now. This was what she wanted; Lucas was the man she wanted. She was on the brink of a romantic liaison with the man she loved. The dazzling prospect of this sort of intellectual inquiry was enough to take away her breath.
The time had come. Victoria began to edge through the crowd, making her way unobtrusively toward the door. Lucas would be waiting.
“Off so soon, Victoria?” Isabel Rycott seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
“I fear I have a number of engagements this evening,” Victoria said politely. “I promised a friend I would drop in at the Bridgewaters’ for a while and then I have to go on to yet another rout after that.”
Isabel tapped Victoria’s gloved wrist admonishingly with her fan and smiled her mysterious smile. “I understand completely, my dear. You will slip from one party to another until you happen across your earl, will you not?”
Victoria flushed. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Lady Rycott.”
Isabel laughed softly but with a strange touch of bitterness. “Don’t be embarrassed, my dear. It is not so very unique to find oneself attracted to an interesting man. It is part of the female condition. But a wise woman takes care to remain in command of her emotions and the situation at all times. She is careful to choose men who are not particularly strong, men who can be easily managed.”
“Really, Lady Rycott, I must be off.”
“Yes, of course. But do keep my words in mind. As Samuel’s and Caroline’s friend, I want only the best for you.” Isabel’s eyes glittered with sudden harshness. “And you needn’t act so superior, damn you.”
Victoria was shocked. “I assure you, it is not my intention to offend you in any way.”
Isabel’s mouth twisted in a smile that was not in the least charming or even particularly mysterious. “Yes. You are noted for your kindness, are you not? But I know what you think of my friend Edgeworth. I saw it in your eyes the day we met in the park. You find him sadly lacking when you compare him to your precious earl.”
Victoria started. “I never said—”
“You did not have to say anything. I saw it in your eyes. Such arrogance. You think I have landed the spavined, broken-down pony while you have got the fine-blooded stallion. But you will be sorry for your choice,” Isabel hissed.
“Please, Lady Rycott, do not upset yourself.”
“I am not in the least upset. I will tell you something, my dear. I will take an Edgeworth over a man like Stonevale any day, and if you were smart you would do the same. Your failure to do so will probably be your downfall.”
Victoria was nonplussed by the bizarre conversation. She wondered how many glasses of wine Lady Rycott had consumed. The gem-hard glitter in Isabel’s beautiful eyes was almost frightening. “Please excuse me, Lady Rycott.” She made to move away, but Isabel’s fingers reached out to grip her bare arm.
“You think you have chosen the more exciting, more interesting man, but you are a fool. The plain truth is that men are of little use to a woman if they cannot be manipulated. Don’t you understand? We are trapped by Society into being dependent on men for so much. Our only defense is to be stronger than they are in all the ways that count. When a strong woman allies herself with a weak, manageable man, she can have everything she wants. Everything.”
“Lady Rycott, you are hurting my arm.”
Isabel glanced down at her own fingers, registering surprise. She instantly removed her hand from Victoria’s arm, quickly regaining total control of herself. “Never mind. It is undoubtedly too late for you anyway. But you should have been shrewd enough to know by now that a strong man is very dangerous. If you’d had any sense, Vicky, you would have picked an Edgeworth, not a Stonevale.”
Isabel turned away and disappeared into the crowd, but not before Victoria thought she glimpsed the brightness of tears in her exotic eyes.
Victoria stood staring after the other woman for a moment, utterly at a loss. Her happy anticipation was briefly dimmed by the startling encounter. But by the time she had collected her cloak and pulled the hood up over her head to conceal her features, she was back in the grip of excitement. She hurried down the steps of the town house.
The closed carriage was waiting for her, just as Lucas had promised. The coachman sat on the box, heavily shrouded in his top hat and enveloping cape. She shot him a quick, laughing glance and then allowed one of the Middleships’ footmen to assist her into the carriage.
A few minutes later the vehicle was making excellent progress through the streets of London, and within a short while they had reached the quieter, outlying areas of the city. The noise of passing traffic faded and the buildings grew more sparse. Moonlit meadows, fields, and farms came into view.
Then, without any warning, the carriage came to a halt in an inn yard. Victoria’s mouth went dry. The time had come and she was suddenly awash in a sea of contradictory emotions. Anticipation and excitement and longing did battle with anxiety, uncertainty, and a few second thoughts. She was forced to wonder once more if she was doing the right thing.
But she was four and twenty, she reminded herself, not a silly little seventeen-year-old chit fresh out of the schoolroom. She knew her own mind and she had already made her decision. She would not back out now.
She glanced out at the courtyard, listening to her “coachman” give directions to the young boy who came out of the inn to assist with the horses. No matter what sort of orders he was issuing, Lucas always sounded so very much in command.
A moment later the carriage door opened and Lucas stood looking at her. He had removed the hat and coachman’s cape. Without a word he held out his hand.
“Are you very certain this is what you want, Victoria?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Lucas. I want this night with you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”
His smile was enigmatic but tender. “Then you shall have it. Come with me.”
A short time later Victoria found herself sitting in front of a pleasant fire in a comfortable upstairs room, sipping tea the landlord’s wife had brought her on a tray. There was a decanter of sherry next to the teapot. The good woman had addressed her as “my lady” and Victoria knew it was because Lucas had informed the innkeeper that she was his wife. No one had thought to question two obvious members of the Quality who claimed such a relationship.
“I’ve told the innkeeper that you are weary and we plan to rest for a few hours, but that we are in a hurry and must be on our way before dawn,” Lucas announced as he walked into the room and shut the door behind him. “That will give me time to get you safely back to the last party on your list of invitations tonight before most of the guests have taken their leave. You will be able to go home with Annabella Lyndwood and her mother, just as you had planned. No one will be the wiser.”
“Except, perhaps, myself?” Victoria smiled tremulously over the rim of her cup.
Lucas’s eyes gentled as he looked down at her. “I think both of us are going to learn a great deal tonight.” He walked over to the
chair that stood across from hers near the hearth. His eyes were gleaming as he sat down and poured two glasses of sherry. “Here’s to intellectual inquiry, Vicky.”
She put down her teacup and took one of the sherry glasses from his hand, aware that her fingers were trembling slightly. “To intellectual inquiry,” she murmured, lifting her glass in a small toast.
Lucas raised his glass in an answering salute, his eyes never leaving hers. They finished the sherry in a charged silence and then Lucas removed the glass from Victoria’s fingers and set it down alongside his.
Victoria remembered her gift and stood up abruptly. She hurried to where she had hung her cloak and reticule.
“Vicky? What’s wrong?” Lucas called after her.
“Nothing is wrong. I have something for you. A small present.” She turned back toward him, clutching the little parcel in both hands. It suddenly seemed like a rather paltry gift. “It is not much, really. I thought, hoped you might like it.” She smiled wistfully. “It seemed like the sort of night one might want to remember with a gift.”
He stood up slowly. “It is exactly that sort of night. I only wish I had a gift for you. My lamentable military mind, I fear. I was so concerned with the practical aspects of this evening that I failed to think about other, perhaps more important matters.” He came toward her and took the parcel out of her hands. Then he led her back to her seat by the fire and sat down to open his present.
Victoria sat tensely as Lucas reverently removed the paper wrapping and stared thoughtfully down at Strelitzia reginae. She realized she was in an agony of suspense. It really was not much of a present, she thought. Just a painting of a flower.
But when Lucas looked up again, revealing a rare, intense emotion in his eyes, she took a deep breath and relaxed slightly. He was pleased.
“Thank you, Vicky. It is beautiful and I will hang it where I shall be able to look at it daily. And whenever I do look at it, I will remember this night.”
“I am glad you like it. Not every man would care for a picture of a flower, you know.”
“Just as well. I’d as soon you didn’t go around giving any other man your paintings under similar circumstances.” He reached out and took her hand.
“Lucas?”
“Your fingers are cold,” he observed, cradling her palm. He turned her hand in his and bent his head to kiss her bare wrist. Her fingers curled. “You are very tense.”
“I am nervous, if you must have the plain truth,” she admitted.
“Would it make you feel any better to know that I, too, am anxious about what lies ahead?”
“That I refuse to believe, my lord.”
“Then you sadly overestimate my fortitude. I want you very much, Vicky, but I do not want to hurt you or frighten you or somehow spoil the magic with clumsiness or a lack of self-control,” Lucas said quietly.
Victoria looked up at him in surprise and was suddenly overwhelmed with a need to reassure him. “I should have realized this would be as awkward for you as it is for me. We are very much alike in many ways, are we not?”
Lucas nodded. “I like to think so.”
“You are doing this because I asked it of you. I have forced you to go against your own code of honor.”
He smiled faintly and his hand tightened around her fingers. “Do not credit me with too many fine scruples and sensibilities, Vicky. You cannot know how much I have wanted to hold you naked in my arms and feel you shiver when I enter you, how much I have longed to have you cling to me and draw me deep inside you. I am here tonight because you have made it clear that this is the only way I will ever learn how hot you will burn and I cannot live the rest of my life without discovering the answer to that question.”
Victoria stared at him, unable to look away from the intensity of his gaze. She felt the heat of the flames on her skin, but it was nothing compared to the warmth that was pooling within her. She knew her fingers were trembling within his.
“Lucas, I have something to tell you.”
“What is that, my sweet?” His voice was indulgent as his fingers trailed along the inside of her arm.
“I … I think I have fallen in love with you,” she blurted.
“Only think?” He glanced up, eyes gleaming.
“Oh, Lucas.”
He tugged her gently out of her chair and down onto his thighs, where he held her tightly against his chest. He speared his fingers through her curls, gripped her head, and kissed her.
Victoria thought she would drown under the impact of his mouth. At the touch of his tongue against her lips all her qualms and fears vanished as if he had waved a magic wand. Of course he wanted her. There could be no doubt of that. And she wanted him. Dear God, how she wanted him.
The next few minutes were a haze of small movements and tender, stroking caresses that somehow combined to remove Victoria’s gown and petticoats along with most of her remaining inhibitions. It occurred to her that she ought to be feeling at least somewhat embarrassed. But all she could really feel was her own stirring passion and a sense of wonder that this man should want her so much that he would risk his reputation to please her.
“You are very good to me.” She touched his cheek with gentle fingers. “You give me so much. All those nights of adventure and now this very special night.”
“Just remember that from now on all your adventures must be with me.” His hand stroked her slowly from breast to thigh until she moaned against his shirt. The heat in his eyes sent flames through her.
He set her on her feet and then led her over to the bed. When they reached it, she snuggled under the covers, watching in fascination as he doused the candles. When only the flames of the small fire lit the room, Lucas sat down on the edge of the bed, putting a considerable dent into it. A moment later one highly polished Hessian hit the floor. The second soon followed.
Victoria unconsciously clenched the sheet in her hands as she watched Lucas undress. The firelight turned his skin to bronze and underscored the smoothly muscled contours of his broad shoulders. His belly was hard and flat. Something gleamed in the mat of dark curls on his chest and Victoria looked more closely.
“What is that pendant, Lucas? Is it made of gold?”
He touched it absently. “Amber. There’s a small carving on it. It’s been in the family for years, I was told.”
“And you wear it always?”
He shrugged. “I have worn it constantly since it was given to me by my uncle.” Lucas smiled. “I like to think it brings me good luck, and it must work, otherwise I would not be here with you.” His fingers suddenly tightened around it. “But I think it would suit you better than it does me.”
He removed the chain from around his neck and moved closer.
“No, Lucas, I could not possibly take your pendant. It is a family heirloom. You cannot give it away.”
“I can do anything I want with it.” He placed it carefully around her throat and nodded in satisfaction. The amber glowed like honey-colored fire against her skin. The small figures of the knight and his lady were visible in all their exquisite detail. “It looks right on you. I want you to have it, Vicky. ’Tis a symbol of what we will share between us tonight. As long as you wear it, I will know you care for me and that you think you might be in love with me.”
She answered his gentle, sensually teasing smile with one of her own. “In that case, I will never have cause to remove it. I cannot imagine not feeling about you the way I do now.”
“Remember that, hmmm?” He brushed his knuckles lightly across her cheek before reaching down to open his breeches.
He stepped out of the remainder of his clothes, revealing a hard, aroused male body. But Victoria noticed nothing else about him in that moment except the wide, ragged scar on his thigh.
“Dear God,” she whispered.
“Does it bother you?” He stood waiting, his breeches still in his hands, his eyes unreadable.
She reached out to touch the ruined flesh with gentle, soothing fin
gers. “Bother me? Of course it does not bother me. Not in the way you mean.” She looked up at him, stricken. “But how it must have hurt you. I cannot bear the thought that you suffered such agony, that you came so close to death.”
“Hush, Vicky. Do not fret about it. It was a long time ago and I assure you right now it is not bothering me in the slightest. I have far more important things on my mind and none of them have anything to do with death. They are all matters of life.” He caught her fingers in his hand and kissed them. “Do you know I didn’t think it would upset you too much. There are women who would have recoiled in shock and revulsion. But somehow I rather thought you would not be put off by it. You are a most unusual woman, Victoria.”
“Not really, but I—” She broke off as she finally noticed the rest of him. “Oh, my.” Victoria gazed at him, mesmerized. He was hard and swollen in a state of full arousal and his masculinity appeared overwhelming to her inexperienced eyes.
“Well, at least your mind is off that damned scar,” Lucas observed with wry humor as he tossed his breeches over a chair.
“You are very …” Her tongue seemed to grow awkward in her mouth. She moistened her lips and tried again. “You are quite magnificent, my lord. Rather large, in fact. Bigger than I had imagined.” She felt herself turning red as he quirked a brow. “Not that I was quite certain just what you would look like, but I am … that is, the plain fact is that I was not expecting quite so much of you.”
Lucas muttered an exclamation that was half laugh and half groan as he came down beside her and slid under the covers. “Vicky, my darling, you say the most delightfully honest things at the most amazing times. God, but you are sweet. I wonder how I waited this long to have you near me like this.”
He pulled her close, his hand closing around her bare buttocks to urge her against his strong thighs. He used his foot to gently pry apart her legs and she suddenly realized she had been clamping them together. Fully intending to force herself to relax, she wound up squeezing her knees even more tightly shut.
Lucas’s smile was deeply sensual. “I must tell you, sweetheart, that this particular aspect of our intellectual inquiry cannot proceed much farther if you keep your knees locked together.”