Stonevale flashed a crooked smile. “Which narrows the field for me.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. She is an engaging creature, rather refreshing in some ways, like her aunt. Victoria does have her share of admirers. But they all seem to be relegated to the status of friends.”
“In other words, they have all learned their places and they stay in them.”
“If they overstep themselves, she drops them immediately. Miss Huntington is known for being kind for the most part, always has a smile and a charming word. Quite willing to dance with the less attractive men in the room. But she is very firm with all of the gallants who hang around her,” Jessica added.
That did not surprise him. Miss Huntington would not have remained her own mistress this long unless she had learned the trick of manipulating the males in her orbit. He was going to find himself walking a very narrow line during this courtship.
“She is well educated, I take it?” Lucas asked.
“Some would say extraordinarily so. I’ve heard that Lady Nettleship assumed most of the responsibility for educating her niece and one can certainly see the results. Miss Huntington would undoubtedly have come to grief in Society long ago were it not for the fact that her aunt’s position is unassailable.”
“What happened to Miss Huntington’s parents?”
Lady Atherton hesitated, then spoke evenly. “Dead. All of them. Quite sad, really. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
“He certainly does.”
Lady Atherton cast him an uncertain glance and then cleared her throat. “Yes, well, the father died when Miss Huntington was a small child and her mother soon remarried. But Caroline Huntington was killed in a riding accident a little over eighteen months ago. Then Miss Huntington’s stepfather, Samuel Whitlock, died less than two months after his wife. A terrible accident on a flight of stairs, I am given to understand. Broke his neck.”
“A strange list of tragedies, but it does have the net effect of leaving Miss Huntington free of parents who might feel obliged to inquire deeply into my finances. The useful rumor of my uncle’s hoarded wealth would not hold up under close scrutiny.”
Jessica pursed her lips in disapproval. “I fear there’s no getting around the fact that Miss Huntington spent the minimal amount of time in mourning after her stepfather’s death. She made it quite clear she mourned only her mother, and even that ended as soon as it was seemly to do so.”
“You reassure me, Jessica. The last thing I want is a woman who enjoys such entertainments as extended mournings. Life can be very short and it’s a shame to waste it in a lot of useless grieving for what one cannot have, don’t you think?”
“But one must learn to endure the tragedies thrust upon us. Such things build character. And one must also be conscious of the proprieties,” Jessica admonished, looking faintly hurt. “In any event, Lady Nettleship, the aunt, is an excellent female with fine connections, but there is no denying she is a trifle odd in some ways. I fear she has allowed her niece to run a bit wild. Do you think you can tolerate Miss Huntington’s rather unusual manners?”
“I think I can manage Miss Huntington very well, Jessica.” Lucas took another swallow of champagne, his attention on Victoria, who was still dancing with her middle-aged baron.
She was not what he had expected, Lucas reflected with a curious sense of relief. He had been prepared to do his duty to his name, his title, and the many people for whom he was now responsible, but he had not expected to be able to enjoy himself in the process.
Definitely not what he had expected.
For one thing, he had not anticipated this near-violent rush of physical attraction. Jessica had informed him that Victoria Huntington was presentable enough, but that was as far as the description had gone.
She was taller than he had been led to believe, much taller than the majority of the women around her. But Lucas was a tall man and it was good to find a woman who’s head would rest nicely on his shoulder instead of somewhere down around the middle of his chest.
Not what he had expected.
And she moved with a long, graceful stride that had not a trace of the customary mincing quality women so often affected. She also danced well, he realized, not without a small pang of annoyance. He knew he could not even compete with the middle-aged baron when it came to partnering her.
Lucas watched as Victoria’s baron guided her effortlessly under a glittering chandelier. The massed lights revealed the golden highlights in her rich, tawny brown hair. She wore the thick stuff cut entirely too short for Lucas’s taste. But the short, artfully careless style did reveal the delicate, enticing line of her nape and framed her fine amber eyes. The lady definitely knew what she was about when it came to fashion.
Not what he had expected.
Jessica had warned him that although there was nothing truly objectionable about Miss Huntington’s features, she was not an outstanding beauty. Studying the lively, animated quality of Victoria’s face from a distance, Lucas supposed Jessica was correct in one sense. But he decided that the warm golden eyes, so full of challenge, the arrogant yet feminine nose, and that flashing smile went together very nicely. There was a fascinating, vivid element about Victoria that caught and held the eye. It hinted at an underlying passion that was just waiting to be set free by the right man.
Lucas took another glance at the smile Victoria was giving her baron and decided he would very much like to taste Victoria’s mouth. Soon.
“Lucas, dearest?”
Reluctantly Lucas turned away from the sight of his heiress. His heiress, he thought, amused as he ran the phrase through his mind again.
“Yes, Jessica?” He looked inquiringly down at the beautiful woman he had once loved and lost due to the lack of a title and a fortune.
“Will she do, Lucas? Truly? It is not too late to meet Miss Pilkington, you know.”
Lucas reflected on how Jessica, bowing to the dictates of her family, had married another man to secure both a title and a fortune. At the time he had not really comprehended or forgiven her. Now, having acquired the title but still lacking the fortune he desperately needed, Lucas finally understood the position Jessica had been in four years earlier.
He knew now that marriage was not a matter of emotion; it was a matter of duty. Duty was something Lucas understood very well.
“Well, Lucas?” Jessica prompted again, beautiful eyes full of grave concern. “Can you bring yourself to marry her? For the sake of Stonevale?”
“Yes,” Lucas said. “Miss Huntington will do very well.”
2
“Is my aunt at home, Rathbone?” Victoria inquired as she hurried into the front hall of the town house. Carriage wheels clattered on the street outside as Annabella and her elderly aunt, who had accompanied Victoria to the ball, took their leave.
Victoria was rather glad to be out of the close confines of the vehicle. Annabella’s aunt, who had acted as a chaperon for the younger women, had felt obliged to read her charges a lengthy lecture on the subject of the rather doubtful propriety of females playing cards with men at fashionable parties.
Victoria hated lectures of that sort.
Rathbone, a massive, distinguished-looking man with thinning gray hair and a nose that would have graced any duke, solemnly indicated the closed door of the library. “I believe Lady Nettleship is engaged with several members of her Society for the Investigation of Natural History and Horticulture.”
“Excellent. Pray, do not look so glum, Rathbone. All is not lost. Apparently they have not yet managed to set fire to the library.”
“Only a matter of time,” Rathbone muttered.
Victoria grinned as she sailed past him, stripping off her gloves as she went toward the library door. “Come now, Rathbone. You have been in the service of my aunt ever since I first came to visit as a small child, and never once has she burned the place down around our ears.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Huntington, but there was that time you
and she conducted the experiments with the gunpowder,” Rathbone felt obliged to point out.
“What? You mean to tell me you still recall our pitiful little attempt to manufacture our own fireworks? What a long memory you have, Rathbone.”
“Some moments in our lives are indelibly etched in our recollections, as sharp today as on the day they occurred. I, personally, shall never forget the look on the first footman’s face when the explosion occurred. We thought for one horrifying instant that you had been killed.”
“But, as it turned out, I was only slightly stunned. It was the fact that I was covered in ashes that gave everyone pause,” Victoria noted.
“You did look as gray as death, if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Huntington.”
“Yes, it was a rather spectacular effect, was it not? Ah, well, one cannot reflect too much on past glories. There are far too many new and intriguing wonders of the natural world waiting to be explored. Let us see what my aunt is up to this evening.”
Rathbone watched a footman open the door of the library, his expression making it clear he was prepared for virtually any sight which might await.
But as it happened, there was nothing at all to be seen immediately. The library was in utter darkness. Even the fire on the hearth had been extinguished. Victoria stepped cautiously inside, trying in vain to peer through the deep gloom. From the depths of the room she heard the sound of a handle being cranked.
“Aunt Cleo?”
The response was a brilliant arc of dazzling white light. It blazed forth from the center of the darkness, casting the group of people gathered into a small circle inside the room into stark relief for one flaring instant. The small crowd gasped in amazement.
A second later the giant spark vanished and a resounding cheer went up.
Victoria smiled toward the open door where Rathbone and the footman stood. “Nothing to worry about tonight,” she assured them. “The members of the society are merely playing with Lord Potbury’s new electricity machine.”
“Vastly reassuring, Miss Huntington.” Rathbone answered dryly.
“Oh, Vicky, dear, you’re home,” a voice sang out of the gloom. “Did you enjoy yourself at the Athertons’ rout? Do come in. We’re right in the middle of the most fascinating series of demonstrations.”
“So it would seem. I regret I missed some of them. You know how much I enjoy electricity experiments.”
“Yes, I know, dear.” The shaft of light from the open door revealed Victoria’s aunt Cleo as she came forward to greet her niece. Lady Nettleship was almost as tall as Victoria. She was in her early fifties and her tawny hair was elegantly streaked with silver. She had lively eyes and the same vivid, animated quality in her features which had historically characterized the women in Victoria’s family.
That quality lent an impression of beauty, even to a woman of Aunt Cleo’s years, where an objective eye could discover little true perfection. Cleo was dressed in the height of fashion, as always. Her gown of ripe peach was styled to reveal her still-slender figure.
“Rathbone, do close the door,” Lady Nettleship said briskly. “The effect of the machine is far more impressive in darkness.”
“With pleasure, madam.” Rathbone nodded to the footman, who shut the door in obvious relief, and the library was once more plunged into thick darkness.
“Come in, come in,” Cleo said, taking her niece’s arm and guiding her through the gloom to where the small group still clustered around the electricity machine. “You know everyone, here, do you not?”
“I believe so,” Victoria said, relying on her memory of the brief glimpse of faces she’d had a moment earlier. A murmur of greetings rumbled from the shadows. Visitors to Lady Nettleship’s house were accustomed to such inconveniences as being introduced in the middle of a Stygian darkness.
“’Evening, Miss Huntington.”
“Your servant, Miss Huntington. Looking lovely tonight. Quite lovely.”
“Pleasure, Miss Huntington. You’re just in time for the next experiment.”
Victoria recognized these three masculine voices at once. Lords Potbury, Grimshaw, and Tottingham comprised her aunt’s faithful circle of admirers. They varied in age from fifty in Lord Potbury’s case to Lord Tottingham’s nearly seventy years. Grimshaw, Victoria knew, was somewhere in his early sixties.
The three had danced attendance on her aunt for longer than Victoria could remember. She did not know if they had initially been as interested in scientific explorations as their lady was, but over the years they had certainly developed a similar passion for experimentation and collection.
“Please, do carry on with your demonstrations,” Victoria urged. “I can only stay for one or two and then I must be off to bed. Lady Atherton’s rout was really quite exhausting.”
“Of course, of course,” Cleo said, patting her arm. “Potbury, why don’t you let Grimshaw work the crank this time?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Potbury said. “Bit tiring, I must say. Here you go, Grimshaw. Put some push into it.”
Grimshaw muttered a response and a moment later the sound of the hand crank rumbled forth once more. Cloth rubbed rapidly against a long glass cylinder until a sizable charge built up. Everyone waited expectantly, and in due course another searing flash of light crackled and danced in the shadows. Gasps of satisfaction and delight again filled the room.
“Heard there’s been some efforts to reanimate a couple of corpses with electricity,” Potbury announced to the small group.
“How fascinating,” Cleo said, clearly enchanted with the notion. “What was the outcome?”
“Got a few twitches and such from the arms and legs but nothing permanent. Tried it myself with a frog. Easy enough to get a few jerks out of the limbs but still stone dead when all was said and done. Don’t think there’ll be much gained from that line of inquiry.”
“Where did the experimenters obtain the corpses?” Victoria asked, unable to stifle her morbid curiosity.
“From the hangman’s noose,” Grimshaw said. “Where else? A respectable experimenter can’t exactly go about robbing graves, y’know.”
“If the corpses were those of villains, then it’s just as well they stayed dead, I suppose,” Lady Nettleship stated. “No point spending all that time and energy hanging thieves and cutthroats only to have them spring up again good as new a day or two later because someone wanted to experiment with electricity.”
“No.” Victoria felt a little queasy at the thought of such a possibility. Such things were disturbingly close to the contents of her dreams lately. “I quite agree with you, Aunt Cleo. No point getting rid of villains if one cannot count on them staying dead.”
“Speaking of the difficulty of obtaining corpses for experimentation, I must say some people are certainly making a nice livelihood robbing graves.” The darkened room did not conceal the shudder in Lady Finch’s words. “I heard the resurrectionists struck again the other night at a little churchyard on the outskirts of town. Took two bodies that had just been buried that morning.”
“Well? What do you expect?” Potbury asked in prosaic tones. “Doctors at Edinburgh and Glasgow Schools of Surgery have got to have something to cut up. Can’t expect to train good surgeons without something to practice on. The resurrectionists may be illegal but they are filling a need.”
“Excuse me,” Victoria whispered to her aunt as the conversation about the traffic in dead bodies threatened to grab everyone’s attention. “I believe I will go on to bed.”
“Sleep well, my dear.” Cleo patted her hand affectionately. “Remind me in the morning to show you the wonderful collection of beetles Lady Woodbury brought by. Found them all on her last trip to Sussex. She’s very kindly agreed to let us study them for a few days.”
“I shall look forward to seeing them,” Victoria said, not without genuine enthusiasm. An interesting collection of insects was almost as intriguing as a new exotic plant from China or America. “But now, I really must be off
to bed.”
“Good night, dear. Mustn’t exhaust yourself, you know. Perhaps you’ve been going it a bit strong lately. Just as well you’re in before dawn for once.”
“Yes. Perhaps it is.” Victoria let herself out of the darkened library, blinking a few times in the glare of the brightly lit hall before she started up the red-carpeted stairs. As she reached the landing, her gathering sense of excitement was almost overpowering.
“You may go, Nan,” she informed her young maid as she entered her airy, yellow, gold, and white bedroom.
“But your lovely gown, ma’am. You’ll need help getting it off.”
Victoria smiled in resignation, knowing she would only create questions where there were none if she refused assistance. But she dismissed the abigail as soon as possible and then turned back to the depths of her wardrobe.
From beneath a pile of shawls she pulled a pair of men’s breeches and from under a stack of blankets she removed some boots. She found the jacket where she had stored it inside her large, wooden chest and set to work.
Within a short while Victoria was standing in front of her dressing glass examining her appearance with a critical eye. She had been quietly gathering the masculine clothing for weeks, and this was the first time she had tried on the entire outfit.
The breeches fit a bit too snugly, tending to outline the flare of her hips and the feminine shape of her calves, but there was no help for it. With any luck the tails of her dark blue coat and the night itself would hide the most obvious hints of femininity. At least her breasts, being rather on the small side, were easily concealed beneath the finely pleated shirt and yellow waistcoat.
When Victoria set the beaver hat at a rakish angle on her short hair, she was pleased with the overall effect. She was certain that, at least at night, she could safely pass as a young dandy. After all, people saw only what they expected to see.