Lucas’s head came up alertly. “Do you indeed, sir?”
The vicar coughed slightly again, but this time he looked a little more sure of himself. “Pleased to say I’ve had one or two papers published in the Botanical Progress. Working on a book on flower gardening at the moment.”
“What do you know about buckwheat?” Lucas asked bluntly, all traces of restlessness vanishing instantly.
“Fine animal fodder. Good for your poorest soil, of course, but I’m more in favor of oats, wheat, and corn where possible.”
“I have heard buckwheat can be eaten by humans in times of wheat shortages.”
“Only by those who live on the continent. Doubt you’d get an Englishman to eat it unless he was frightfully hungry.”
“I see your point. I have also become quite interested in marl as opposed to manure of late,” Lucas said. “What is your opinion?”
“As it happens, I have done a bit of investigation on the subject,” the vicar said, glowing with enthusiasm.
“Tried marl out on my wife’s rosebushes. Also peat, ground bone, and fish. Kept a detailed log. Would you care to hear the results?”
“I certainly would.” Lucas stood up. “Why don’t we go to the library where I have some maps of the estate we can look at?” He turned belatedly to Victoria. “You will excuse us, my dear?”
“Of course.”
“Come along, vicar, I have several questions to put to you. Now, about manure. I must admit it has the advantage of being readily available.”
“True. And when one does run short, one can always have it brought in from London. Several thousand horses stabled in London, you know. Something has to be done with all that manure. Have you by any chance read Humphrey Davy’s Elements of Agricultural Chemistry?”
“No,” said Lucas. “But I did get hold of a copy of Marshall’s The Rural Economy of Yorkshire. Marshall is very fond of marl.”
“It has its merits, I’ll grant you. I shall loan you my copy of Davy’s Elements, if you like. The man takes a very scientific approach to the subject of manuring. I believe you will find it most interesting.”
“I would appreciate that very much,” Lucas said.
The two men moved out of the room, talking intently.
Victoria looked at her guest. “More tea, Mrs. Worth?”
“Thank you, my lady.” She gave her hostess an apologetic look. “Please forgive my husband. I fear he is quite impassioned in his studies of horticulture and agriculture.”
Victoria grinned. “Believe me, he is in good company. My husband’s interest has grown just as strong of late. You may have noticed.”
Mrs. Worth relaxed. Her small chuckle was delightful. “I did. Imagine discussing manure in a drawing room. But, then, that is life in the country.”
“It is not altogether different from life at my aunt’s home in London. My aunt is very much interested in matters of intellectual inquiry and I fear I have followed in her footsteps. I quite enjoy such discussions.”
The vicar’s wife beamed enthusiastically. “Perhaps you and Lord Stonevale would be interested in attending some of the meetings of our local Society for the Investigation of Curious Matters. We meet every week on Monday afternoons in our home. Quite a large crowd attends, I am pleased to say.” The good lady suddenly flushed and began to stammer. “Of course our meetings would probably not be of great interest to you. I am certain you are already far ahead of us since you have had the advantages of being in Town.”
“Not at all. The prospect of attending your next meeting sounds quite delightful. I shall look forward to it.”
Mrs. Worth’s smile returned in full force. “How kind of you. I cannot wait to tell my friends.”
“You say you grow roses, Mrs. Worth?”
Mrs. Worth began to beam, and said shyly. “They are my passion, I fear.”
“I would dearly love to discuss some plans for the gardens here at Stonevale. I cannot live without a proper garden and Lucas is far too busy with farming problems to help me. Would you care to examine the grounds with me?”
“I should be delighted.”
“Excellent. And while we’re about it, we can get on with our discussion of the most pressing charity needs in the area. In all truth, I am far more anxious to get started on that project than I am the gardens.”
The vicar’s wife smiled with genuine approval. “It is easy to see why the villagers are so eager to believe their Amber Lady has returned.”
Victoria laughed. “You refer to my preference for a certain shade in clothing, I imagine. Pure coincidence, I assure you.” She glanced down at her yellow and white afternoon dress with a wry smile.
Mrs. Worth was startled and then embarrassed that her hostess would think she had made such a personal remark. “Oh, no, madam, I was not referring to your lovely dress, although I will allow the color is stunning on you and does create a sort of amber effect. No, I was referring to the legend. It holds that the knight’s lady was very kind and gentle.”
Victoria wrinkled her nose and grinned. “Then it cannot have been referring to me. I am certainly no paragon. Just ask my husband.”
A week later Victoria sat in front of her dressing-table mirror while Nan finished preparing her for bed. Her maid was handing her a dressing gown when the connecting door between Lucas’s room and her own was opened after a perfunctory knock. Lucas sauntered in with a proprietary air that Victoria was learning to expect from him. She glared at him in the mirror and nodded to her maid, who bobbed a small curtsy to Lucas.
“You may go now, Nan. Thank you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Shall I have a tea tray sent up?”
Victoria met Lucas’s sinfully amused eyes in the mirror and shook her head. “No, thank you, Nan. I will not be wanting any tea tonight.”
“Very well, ma’am. Good night to you and yer lordship.” She made her way quickly to the door.
Lucas waited until the door had closed behind the maid and then he moved with lazy menace to stand directly behind Victoria. He leaned forward and planted both hands on her dressing table, effectively caging her. His eyes continued to hold hers in the mirror.
Victoria could not repress a small thrill of anticipation. The man had a devastating effect on her senses. And she was learning the power she held over his physical reaction to her. She wondered if it would always be like this between them.
“I saw that a letter arrived from your aunt today.” Lucas bent his head to kiss her nape. “What does Lady Nettleship have to say?”
“That it appears as though we are all going to brush through the scandal relatively unscathed.” Victoria smiled ruefully, remembering the contents of her aunt’s letter. “Thanks to Jessica Atherton, who has put it about that our hasty marriage is the great romance of the Season.”
“Good old Jessica.” Lucas ran his tongue along the sensitive rim of her ear.
Victoria shuddered. “I swear, Lucas, I do not like being indebted to that woman.”
“Nor do I, but as a soldier I long ago learned to accept help from whatever quarter made it available.”
“Obviously, or we would not now be in our present position.”
“Shrew. You cannot resist such remarks, can you?”
“It is very difficult,” Victoria admitted. Her blood was already heating just from the expression in his eyes and his closeness. It struck her that even if someone waved a magic wand and dissolved the marriage tomorrow, she would never be truly free of this man.
“Any other news from your aunt?”
Victoria saw the flicker of intensity in his eyes and knew it had nothing to do with the sensual assault he was launching against her. “Do you mean has she discovered any other objects marked with a ‘W? The answer is no. She also states she still has not found anyone claiming to have lost either the scarf or the snuffbox.”
“Does she mention Edgeworth by any chance?”
“No.”
“Just as well. Tell me, Vicky, what sort of lette
r did you write back to your aunt?” Lucas asked.
“I told her about my plans for the gardens and invited her to visit at her earliest convenience. I also mentioned how you and the vicar have discovered a mutual interest in farming techniques, horticulture, and manure. That was about all, I believe. Oh, and I asked her to send me some plant cuttings and seeds.”
“What? No discussion of how you have nobly accepted your unhappy fate and have vowed to be a dutiful wife?” He kissed her neck. “No talk of how you have come to recognize that your womanly honor demands you submit yourself to your husband, even though the marital act is, naturally, quite repellent under the circumstances?” He nibbled on her earlobe. “No mention of how bravely you endure the performance of your duties in the marriage bed?” He kissed the curve of her shoulder. “No pathetic little commentary on how you have been made to pay the price of your folly and what a lesson this has all been to you?”
She shot to her feet and whirled around, pummelling him unmercifully in the ribs. “Stonevale, you are a miserable, teasing beast of a husband and you deserve to rot.”
“My leg, my leg. Cease and desist at once, madam, or you’ll ruin me for life.” Lucas retreated toward the bed, his laughter filling the bedroom.
“To hell with your leg.” She continued her attack, closing in on him, forcing him back until he toppled onto the bed. Then she jumped on top of him, straddling him triumphantly. Lucas held up his hands in surrender.
“I beg for mercy, my lady. Would you continue to beat on a helpless man who is already down?”
“You may be down but you are far from helpless, Stonevale. You still have the use of your mouth and it seems to me that is what got you into trouble in the first place tonight. You could not resist taunting me in a most villainous fashion, could you?”
His smile was slow and filled with sensual promise. “Allow me to put my mouth to better use, madam.”
He reached up with one hand and splayed his strong fingers around the back of her head. Then he dragged her face down to his and captured her lips with his own.
With a soft sigh Victoria gave herself up to the magic of her husband’s embrace.
14
Lucas knew he had only himself to blame when the gossamer web of domestic harmony he was just starting to weave was ripped to shreds on the following Monday morning.
He should have seen it coming, he told himself. He should have been prepared. He, who always prided himself on his sense of strategy and planning, had been caught off guard, and there was no excuse.
But his wife’s timing was as good as that of any field marshal who has studied the opponent well.
She breezed into the library, waving the newest letter from her aunt, just at the very moment Lucas was going through a detailed summary of her investments for the past three years.
“There you are, Lucas, I have been looking for you. No, do not bother to get up. I just wanted to tell you I shall be writing a fairly large draft on my account to cover an investment I plan to make soon. I assumed you would want to take it into consideration when you plan your own expenditures this month.”
Lucas sat down again and looked up, his mind still reeling from the shock of what he had learned recently about Victoria’s investment habits. She smiled brightly at him from the other side of the massive desk, looking as elegant and vibrant as ever in a sun yellow morning gown.
“How large a sum will you be needing and what sort of investment are you considering?” he asked cautiously.
“Oh, I should think a few thousand pounds will be enough to get me into this particular investment.”
“A few thousand?”
“Perhaps ten or fifteen.” She glanced down at the letter in her hand. “Aunt Cleo says the group will be investing in some new collieries in Lancashire.”
“Ten or fifteen thousand pounds? For a coal production project in Lancashire?” Lucas was stunned. “You cannot possibly mean to do anything so foolish. I cannot allow you to do it.”
It was when he saw the light of battle flare in her beautiful eyes that Lucas knew he had just made a serious, tactical mistake.
“Our man of affairs, Mr. Beckford, has recently recommended the project very strongly,” Victoria said. “Aunt Cleo writes that she intends to invest, herself.”
“Your aunt is free to do as she chooses, but I cannot allow you to pour that amount of money into a coal pit in Lancashire. One can go through a fortune very quickly investing in collieries.”
“I have a fortune, Lucas, remember?” she asked far too sweetly. “You married me for it.”
Lucas tried to forge a path out of the mire in which he found himself. “Your inheritance is sizable, my dear, but it is not inexhaustible. Far from it. You are intelligent enough to realize that. You do not have enough money to warrant taking risks of ten or fifteen thousand pounds. Sums of that size should be put into acquiring land, not digging expensive pits in the ground.”
“But I already own some properties in London from which I receive a very nice income. And,” she added, with a challenging smile, “I am now a partner with you in owning a good-sized chunk of Yorkshire. I do not wish to acquire any more land, Lucas.”
Lucas returned to the accounting summary and said, very matter-of-factly, “Then you can put the money into the improvements we will be needing here at Stonevale.”
“You are busy enough as it is spending a great deal of my money on such improvements. This colliery project is a personal investment I wish to make on my own behalf.”
“Vicky, trust me on this matter. Collieries are risky investments, especially when they are being run by others. If you are seriously interested in mining, we can think about having an engineer survey Stonevale. There is coal in Yorkshire as well as other minerals and there may be some worth going after on the estate. But I cannot allow you to throw your money into a distant project over which we will have no management control.”
Victoria marched to the library desk and threw the letter down. “You are going to forbid me the right to spend my money as I wish?”
Lucas prayed for divine guidance but there was none forthcoming. He would have to deal with the devilish question on his own and he already knew he was damned either way.
He tried to choose his next words with care. “You have come to me with a large income that must be protected for the sake of our children and our grandchildren and their children. As your husband it is my duty to guide you in your investments.”
“I thought so,” Victoria announced grimly. “This is how it always starts, I imagine. One’s husband begins by telling his wife that she is incompetent to manage her own affairs and that she must allow him to do it for her. From there he moves to take complete control, allowing her no say whatsoever in how her money is spent.”
That angered him. Lucas gestured impatiently at the account book lying open on the desk. “To be perfectly blunt, my dear, I am not certain you should be making all your own decisions. You seem to have a tendency to take great risks in your financial affairs. You have been in deep water more than once.”
“I have always come about,” she shot back. “As you can plainly see if you look at my current income.”
“Yes, thanks to your properties in Town. You see, Vicky? It is the investments in land that are most reliable. They are what shelter an inheritance such as yours. You have no business taking risks in the funds or in shipping and distant mining projects.”
“No business taking risks? That is ludicrous coming from you. Before you married me, your entire income came from taking risks. What can be more risky than the battlefield or the gaming tables?”
The fact that she had a point only served to annoy him further. “Damn it, Vicky, I had no choice in how I made my money. I did what I had to do. But matters have changed. We both have a responsibility to manage Stonevale and the income you brought to this marriage as wisely as possible. Your days of taking huge risks with your capital are over.”
She stepped forward
and planted both hands on his desk. Her eyes shimmered with fury. “Say it in plain language, Stonevale. I want us both to hear you say it.”
“I do not know how much plainer I can make it.”
“Tell me very clearly that you are forbidding me to spend my money in any way I wish. Let us have the words plain between us.”
His own temper leapt to match hers. “You are deliberately trying to set a trap for me, Vicky. You want me to choose between saying the words that will give you complete freedom and the ones that will damn me as just another tyrannical husband like the man who married your mother. Do you think you can manipulate me so easily, madam?”
“I am not trying to manipulate you. It is just the reverse. You are trying to manipulate me.” Victoria’s tone was unwavering under his severe gaze.
“I am trying to protect you from your own reckless nature.”
“Reckless? You call me reckless? You, who made your living first as a soldier and then as a gamester? Hah. That is an excuse and well you know it. You want complete control of my money and you are telling me you will no longer allow me any say in how I spend it. What’s next, Lucas? Will you force me to accept a small quarterly allowance? Will I be obliged to buy all my clothes and paints and books and the occasional horse out of whatever you choose to allow me by way of an income?”
That did it. He lost what was left of his temper. “Why not? If you are going to play the role of a frivolous, spendthrift woman who doesn’t give a thought to economy, I shall have no choice but to treat you as such. But we both know you are too smart to act that way just to spite me.”
“Are you forbidding me the free use of my money?”
“I am forbidding you to risk a vast sum on a project you know nothing about except that your aunt’s man of affairs recommends it.”
“I have made a great deal of money from some of Mr. Beckford’s recommendations.”
“You have also lost money on some of them. I have seen the evidence in your accounts. Mr. Beckford has been far from infallible,” Lucas said, flipping recklessly through Victoria’s business ledger.