Victoria and the Rogue (10 page)

“Captain,” she said, her calm tone at odds with the high color in her cheeks.

Beside her, Rebecca, whom she’d thought sufficiently recovered from her infatuation with the ship

captain, was proving that this was not the case. She had turned as pink in the face as Victoria, and

seemed not to know where to place her gaze. Victoria glanced frantically around for Mr. Abbott, but he

was, the selfish thing, engaged in a game of mumblety-peg and not even looking in their direction.

“Not a very promising day for a picnic,” Captain Carstairs said with a glance at the leaden sky above.

“At least it’s warm,” Victoria replied. Inside, of course, her response was not nearly so sanguine.

Weather? You stand there discussing the weather with him, with this obnoxious man who seems to think

he knows what’s best for you, and who has, probably for good, broken the heart of your most beloved

cousin? What is wrong with you? Tell him to take his horse and go to—

“Is that the dowager Lady Malfrey I see?” Captain Carstairs asked, squinting in Victoria’s future

mother-inlaw’s direction.

“Indeed,”Victoria replied tonelessly.

“Well.” The captain, from high atop his saddle, scanned the assorted guests seated upon the white sheets

and the footmen who moved about them with their bowls of sugared strawberries and trays of

champagne. She prayed that Jacob Carstairs was not farsighted enough to see the damp-skirted young

lady from his perch. “How nice.”

Nice? Nice? That was all he had to say? If that was all he had to say, why didn’t he ride on? Why did

he just sit there, looking out over the picnic blankets like a maharaja surveying his troops…?

It was at this point that Rebecca suddenly let out a startled cry. “My reticule!”

Victoria turned her head and saw, of all things, a ragged little miscreant—male, apparently, though it was

hard to tell beneath the dirt—dart by, clutching her cousin’s bag.

Rebecca’s shriek had startled the captain’s horse—as, Victoria supposed, the thief knew it would;

otherwise he would not have dared so bold a move, and in broad daylight… well, what passed for

daylight in this damp place. Still, Jacob Carstairs handled the steed admirably, crying, “Stop, thief!” while

still managing to keep his place in the saddle.

But the captain’s aid—though appreciated—was not strictly needed. Not when Victoria had merely to

stick out a foot and trip the recalcitrant young man, then rest her knee in the middle of his spine.

Nothing, of course, could have been simpler. But here came the earl and Mr. Abbott, along with the rest

of the picnickers, as if there were something they could do, as well.

Really, Victoria thought with disgust, but Londoners made such a fuss about things!

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Oh, Lady Victoria!” the dowager Lady Malfrey cried. “Don’t touch him! The dirty thing might… might

bite you or something!”

Victoria regarded her future mother-in-law calmly from where she knelt, with one knee pressed firmly in

the small of the little thief’s back. The boy was kicking a great deal, and wailing quite lamentably as well,

but wasn’t otherwise causing Victoria the least bit of concern.

“Here you are, Becky,” she said, plucking her cousin’s reticule from the boy’s hand, and passing it back

to the older girl. “I’m sure he’s very sorry for what he did. Aren’t you?” She leaned more heavily on the

boy’s spine. “Aren’t you?”

“Aye,” the lad cried. “Aye! Let me up! Please let me up, miss!”

Captain Carstairs, who by this time had gotten his horse under control and dismounted, leaned down

and laid rough hands upon the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, my lady,” he said to Victoria. “I’ve got him now.”

Victoria, noticing how close Jacob Carstairs’s face was to hers, and how, though he wasn’t anywhere

near as handsome as the earl—not with those collar points!—very amiable he looked, nonetheless rose

quickly, so as to be as far from him as possible.

“Well, let’s get a look at you, then,” the captain said, hauling the boy to his feet.

The thief was not, Victoria soon saw, a very prepossessing creature. Although he was covered in dirt,

from his scuffed boots to his mop of lank hair, there was a fist-sized clean spot in the center of his

face—but this was only because the frightened boy was weeping.

“Please, sir,” he begged between sobs. “Don’t call the Runners on me, sir.”

Runners, the dowager Lady Malfrey explained sotto voce to a perplexed Victoria, were the Bow Street

Runners, who kept the peace in the streets of London.

“They’ll hang me, sir.” The boy sobbed. “They already hung me dad.”

Victoria raised her eyebrows when she heard this. She was not opposed to punishing criminals, but

hanging thieves seemed to her to be a bit extreme. In India such a crime would have earned so young a

boy a mere whipping. Really, but the justice system in England seemed a bit harsh, sending tax evaders

halfway across the world to live amongst the kangaroos, and hanging poor little purse snatchers! Victoria

had had no idea things were so very strict here.

“Got him, then, Carstairs?” Lord Malfrey came striding up. “Little ruffian! Victoria, are you quite all

right?”

“Of course I am,” she said. Imagine, making such a fuss over a simple footpad! “Rebecca’s the one

whose purse was stolen, not me.”

All eyes turned toward Rebecca, who was crying almost as fitfully as the boy—although from fear, not

because she’d been physically harmed. Victoria was certain the thief hadn’t so much as bumped her.

“Are you all right, Miss Gardiner?” Charles Abbott asked with a look of genuine—and

tender—concern.

“Oh!” was all Rebecca seemed able to say. The next thing Victoria knew her cousin had thrown herself,

weeping stormily, into Mr. Abbott’s strong arms. He looked surprised but delighted by this turn of

events, and was soon guiding Rebecca away from the scene, with one arm curled protectively around her

slender shoulders. Seeing this, Victoria shot a triumphant look in Captain Carstairs’s direction, eager to

see how he would take the abandonment of a girl Victoria was certain he’d once numbered amongst his

conquests.

To her disappointment, however, Jacob Carstairs wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to Rebecca

Gardiner. All of his powers of concentration seemed focused on the footpad he was now holding by the

collar of the boy’s shirt.

“Someone must go for the Runners at once,” Lord Malfrey was saying. “I’ll hold the boy, Carstairs.

Take your horse and go for the magistrates.”

But Jacob Carstairs dismissed this with a curt, “You take my horse. I’ll stay here and hold him.”

“It’s your horse,” Hugo pointed out, not very nicely.

Jacob Carstairs grinned in a manner Victoria could only call wicked. “Afraid you won’t be able to

manage him, Malfrey?”

The earl looked affronted. “Certainly not! Only that… well, it’s my fiancée who’s been insulted. I’m the

one who ought to stay and comfort her.”

Everyone turned to look at Victoria, who, to her own certain knowledge, was far from needing any

comfort. She was quick to admit as much, saying, “I haven’t been insulted. And I certainly don’t need

comforting. I’m perfectly all right.”

Seeing Lord Malfrey’s slightly disappointed look—not to mention the way his mother shook her head

until her black (surely a woman of that age should have some gray in her hair) curls swayed—Victoria bit

her lip. Clearly she ought to have feigned light-headedness or something. Catching footpads with her bare

hands, like descending ladders from boats, was obviously not something proper English ladies were

supposed to do. When was she going to learn? She would never make a very good earl’s wife at this

rate.

“Please, sirs,” the boy the captain held so tightly wailed. “I swear I’ll never do it again, if you’ll only let

me go!”

He sounded, to Victoria’s ears, perfectly truthful. The boy looked terrified out of his mind.

The dowager Lady Malfrey apparently did not think so, however, since she said, “Stop standing about

arguing with the man, Hugo, and go and fetch a Runner so we might all get back to our picnic!”

Hugo, glaring darkly, turned to seize the reins of Captain Carstairs’s mount. It was at that point that

Victoria decided she had had quite enough of the entire situation. Whether or not it was proper for young

English ladies to go about catching footpads, she didn’t know. But one thing she did know: it wasn’t

proper to hang little boys.

And so, accordingly, she thrust a finger at a point in the air just above the captain’s right shoulder and let

out a bloodcurdling shriek.

As Victoria had hoped, Jacob was so startled he loosened his hold on the boy momentarily. “What?” he

cried, turning his head toward the direction in which she pointed. “What is it?”

The footpad, who was clearly no one’s fool, took off at a pace so incredibly fast, it was doubtful even

Captain Carstairs’s horse would have been able to overtake him— providing the captain had mounted

him in time. Which he did not, in fact, do. Instead Jacob Carstairs, realizing at once what Victoria had

done—and why—turned to look at her with an expression that could only have been called cynical.

“What?” Lord Malfrey was still searching for whatever had caused Victoria to scream so loudly. “What

is it, my love? Gypsies? Never say Gypsies have dared showed their faces in Hyde Park!” Then, noticing

that the footpad had escaped, he cried, “Carstairs, you great ass! You let him get away!”

Jacob Carstairs turned his cynical expression toward the earl. “So did you,” he observed.

“Are you mad?” Lord Malfrey wanted to know. “He’ll only steal some other poor young lady’s bag.”

“Tell that,” Jacob said dryly, “to your fiancée.”

Lord Malfrey swung toward Victoria with a stunned expression on his handsome face. “Vicky,” he

cried. “Did you… did you scream apurpose? So the boy could get away?”

Victoria looked heavenward. “Oh, dear,” she said, her gaze on the clouds. “Do you think it’s going to

rain? It doesn’t look very promising, does it, my lord?”

“Victoria!” Lord Malfrey was shocked. “You can’t allow scamps like that to run free! Why, he might

murder the next person he robs!”

“He looked eager to reform his ways to me, my lord,” Victoria said mildly.

“What can you even know of it?” Lord Malfrey wanted to know. “You’re far too innocent to be

acquainted with people of his sort—for which all I can say is, thank God. But I assure you, my lady,

rogues like that can never be reformed!”

Victoria could not help darting a glance in Jacob Carstairs’s direction upon hearing the word rogue from

her fiancé’s lips. She looked just in time to see the captain smother a laugh. Insufferable young man! By

rights he really ought to have been horsewhipped by someone.

“I think you’re wrong, my lord,” Victoria said evenly, speaking to Hugo though her gaze was on Captain

Carstairs. “I believe no rogue is beyond reforming.”

Captain Carstairs, to Victoria’s surprise, abruptly stopped laughing. His expression was very serious

indeed as he swung back into his mount’s saddle.

Victoria could not resist inquiring acidly, “Going so soon, Captain?”

“I’m late to an appointment as it is,” Jacob Carstairs replied from his seat so high above her, with a smile

completely devoid of warmth. “And I wouldn’t want to keep you any longer from your little party.”

“Kind of you, Carstairs,” Lord Malfrey said, taking Victoria’s hand and pressing it against the crook of

his arm…

…an action Jacob Carstairs observed with a distinct tightening of his lips before curtly saying, “If I see a

Runner, I’ll give him the boy’s description. We aren’t complete barbarians here in England, Lady

Victoria, whatever you might think. The child would not have been hanged. He only said that to play

upon your heartstrings. It worked quite handily, I see. Well.” He lifted his hat briefly. “Good day.” Then

he rode off.

He was, Victoria could not help noticing, an excellent horseman, who kept a very nice seat on his

fractious steed. She oughtn’t to have been surprised, she supposed, that Jacob Carstairs was as graceful

on a horse as he was upon a ship. The wretched man seemed at ease wherever he happened to turn up.

Something that Lord Malfrey evidently noticed as well, if his next words were any indication.

“I say,” Lord Malfrey declared. “That fellow does tend to appear at your side with alarming regularity,

Victoria. I believe he might be a little in love with you.”

Victoria, flicking a wary glance in Rebecca’s direction—she was not fully convinced her cousin was

completely over the dashing young captain—said, in a tone she hoped sounded quite unconcerned, “La,

my lord, you could not be more mistaken! Jacob Carstairs has made it very clear indeed that I am his

least favorite person in England.”

“Well, he’s a liar, then,” the dowager Lady Malfrey declared from where she’d stood, along with

everyone else, watching the excitement… for it wasn’t every day a mother got to watch her son catch a

footpad, even if, sadly, the heinous criminal had gotten away. “Because no one who met Lady Victoria

could help but count her as one of their favorite people.”

Victoria smiled, though her future mother-in-law’s words made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. The

dowager had not known her long enough, really, to make a judgment of this kind. She was, Victoria

supposed, only being kind.