Victoria and the Rogue (11 page)

As, she was certain, her cousin was being as well, when she insisted to Victoria that she was not—no,

not in the least!—upset over Lord Malfrey’s remark about Jacob Carstairs being in love with Victoria.

“Lord Malfrey is in love with you himself, Vicky,” Rebecca reminded her very nicely, as the two girls

walked together back toward the picnic blankets. “Naturally he thinks everyone else should be, as well.

Besides, I told you, I don’t care a whit for Jacob Carstairs anymore. Mr. Abbott is ten times the man the

captain is.”

Victoria heard this with great approval. She agreed wholeheartedly, of course, and said so. Charles

Abbott, she pointed out, was handsomer, kinder, and far, far more intelligent than Jacob Carstairs,

because Charles Abbott had had the good taste to fall in love with Rebecca—not even to mention the

fact that he wore his collar points at an appropriate height.

“I do think, however,” Rebecca said, with a glance over her shoulder at their two suitors, who followed

some few yards behind them, “that it wasn’t entirely… well, ladylike of you to stop that boy the way you

did. You really ought to have left it to the men.”

Victoria heard this with raised eyebrows and a startled exclamation. “But, Becky, if I’d done that, he’d

have gotten away with your bag!”

“So I’d have lost a hair comb and fifty pence,” Rebecca said with a shrug. “It would not have been as

bad as losing my dignity, which I fear you did a bit, Vicky, when you… well, did what you did. Why,

even now, some of your hair’s hanging down.”

Victoria reached up to tuck the wayward strand back beneath her bonnet. She felt a prickle of irritation

with her cousin, whom she could only decide was the most ungrateful creature on earth. After all she’d

done for her, too, first convincing her of Jacob Carstairs’s lack of worth as a potential husband, then

arranging for the very handsome and desirable Mr. Abbott to fall in love with her, and then rescuing her

reticule! Why, this was not even including the incredible improvements Victoria had made on her cousin’s

home, what with the banishment of the tureen of beef, the turning of Mariah into an undeniably

professional lady’s maid, and forcing her younger cousins to act like quiet, well-behaved boys and girls.

And this was the thanks she got for all her very hard work! ‘Not entirely ladylike!’

It seemed to Victoria as if her many talents might never be suitably recognized—or appreciated—by

anyone. For in order to complete the transformation she was planning on Lord Malfrey—turning him

from titled but penniless peer into a man of wealth as well as privilege— she would have to progress with

careful subtlety, so that he might never know she was managing him all along. For men hated nothing

more than a woman who meddled in their business. Weren’t her uncles a prime example? Why, they had

sent her all the way to England when it finally dawned upon them that that was precisely what she’d been

doing since the age of five.

Well, it was, she supposed, the cross that people such as herself must bear. It was entirely possible that

her most selfless actions might never be acknowledged by those for whom they were exerted. Sad, but

true.

Still, Victoria would not allow self-pity to creep into her thoughts. She had a good deal to be thankful

for, after all, and those things included, of course, her forty thousand pounds, her sound teeth and

constitution, her exceptionally fine ankles, and most important, her talent for tidying up things that had

become, well, messy. For who didn’t long for an existence free from unpleasant drama and

catastrophes? That was why people like Victoria had been put upon the earth: to work at preventing

such things.

And as soon as she was married, Victoria knew the very first catastrophe she’d correct: her

mother-in-law’s hair. If the dowager could not be persuaded to allow it to gray naturally, Victoria could,

at least, convince her to wear a wig in a more natural shade than the ebony black of her current tresses.

Really, but it did seem at times as if Victoria’s work might never be done. She still had all of the

footmen’s coat sleeves to search, as well. Because over her dead body was a single one of them going to

escape with a scrap of the silver her future mother-in-law had hired for the occasion.

At Victoria’s expense, of course.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“But are you certain you want to go, Becky?” Victoria inquired of her cousin, with what she hoped

would be taken for very ladylike concern. “Because we needn’t stay if you don’t feel entirely up to it.”

Rebecca, descending from the coach-and-four with care, for she was attired in another of Victoria’s

borrowed gowns, this one in the palest of pinks, looked cross.

“I told you before, Vicky,” she said irritably, “it is nothing to me. He is nothing to me.”

Victoria was very relieved to hear this. Still, she was not entirely convinced.

“Because we can still give our excuses, you know,” she said in a low voice as the two girls trailed behind

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, as they ascended the stone steps to the front door of Jacob Carstairs’s Mayfair

town house. “We can say I’m not feeling well, and turn right around for home.”

Becky cast her cousin a disparaging look over one slim shoulder. She had been, ever since learning of

her mother’s acceptance of Captain Carstairs’s invitation to dine, coolly indifferent about the situation.

But that, Victoria was quite certain, was all an act.

Or so Victoria had thought, until her cousin’s next words hit her like a slap in the face.

“If you ask me, Vicky,” Rebecca said in a very sour voice, “you’re the one who seems to have a

problem dining at Captain Carstairs’s table this evening. For I certainly don’t care. My affections belong

entirely to another now.”

Victoria, exceedingly taken aback, declared, “I beg your pardon, Becky, but I do not have a problem

with dining at Captain Carstairs’s table this evening. Far from it. It’s you I cannot help feeling concerned

for. You did, after all, once confess yourself in love with him.”

“I’m not half as in love with him as you are, Vicky,” said Becky very snidely indeed.

And when Victoria—as she had every right to—let out a snort of indignation at this, her cousin had the

nerve to add, “Well, anyone who hates a man half so much as you profess to hate Captain Carstairs can

only be in love with him. In fact, I think Lord Malfrey and I got it all wrong: It isn’t the captain who’s in

love with you. It’s you who’s in love with the captain.”

It was on the tip of Victoria’s tongue to tell her cousin precisely what she thought of this very absurd

statement—not to mention what she thought of Becky herself—when the front door to Captain

Carstairs’s town house was thrown open, and they were all ushered inside by an extremely competent

butler.

“Girls,” Victoria’s aunt said through gritted teeth as her wrap was being taken, “kindly do not squabble

so. Mr. Gardiner and I would like to have a pleasant meal with Captain Carstairs and his mother.”

“I am not the one who is squabbling,” Victoria asserted, flattening a hand to her chest. “I am only

defending myself against your daughter, who seems to be casting aspersions against my character.”

Becky said in a hiss, “I am doing nothing of the kind!”

“What do you call accusing a person of being engaged to one man but in love with another?” Victoria

replied in a hiss of her own.

“I call her by her name, Lady Victoria Arbuthnot,” Becky snapped.

And in truth it was a good thing that Captain Carstairs’s butler announced them just then, or Cousin

Becky might have found her ears boxed; Victoria was that incensed.

Well, and what else could she have expected, really? Victoria’s ayah had warned her that few, if any,

people seemed to know what was best for them, and that Victoria should not expect anyone to be

grateful for the very kind help she was continuously offering them. The red ants Victoria saved from

drowning by coaxing them onto a stick and rescuing them from the gardener’s watering can would turn

around and sting her at their first opportunity. And the mongrel she saved from the village children’s

stones would bite her, even as she attempted to feed it.

But for Becky to have accused her of being in love with Jacob Carstairs—Jacob Carstairs! Why, that

was the cruelest blow Victoria had ever received. What could Victoria ever have done to put such a

ridiculous idea in her cousin’s head? She had had nothing but contempt and ill words for Jacob Carstairs

since the very unfortunate day they’d met. What could her cousin possibly be thinking?

The butler showed them into a well-appointed room, high ceilinged and very airy. Jacob Carstairs’s

home, Victoria saw at once, was pleasant and tastefully decorated. This was due entirely, Victoria was

certain, to the handsome and dignified woman introduced to her as Mrs. Carstairs, Jacob’s mother, who

clasped her hand warmly and said, “Lady Victoria, what a pleasure to meet you.”

Mrs. Carstairs, Victoria noted with approval, had allowed her hair to turn gray, and the silver tinge

added considerably to the lady’s charm. It was, in fact, incredible to Victoria that so unaffected and

natural a woman could have given birth to an unpleasant young man like Jacob Carstairs.

That individual stood by the fire—lit, of course, for though it was summer it rained, as it had virtually

without stopping since Victoria’s arrival—looking very content with himself indeed. Well, and why

shouldn’t he? Clearly his intention in inviting Victoria to dine in his home was to show her how very

wrong she’d been in her low estimation of him. Wasn’t that a Gainsborough hanging above his mantel?

And weren’t those Dresden shepherdesses on his sideboard? As if, simply because he owned these fine

things, his opinion on Lord Malfrey’s character ought to be trusted! How rich. Victoria wanted to laugh,

but she was still too upset over her cousin’s cruel remarks to do more than answer yes and no to Mrs.

Carstairs’s gentle questions about how Victoria was liking her stay in London thus far.

What, Victoria could only sit and wonder, as the others sipped champagne and chatted amiably about

the very topics Victoria most adored, India and the military, could Becky have meant when she’d

accused her of being in love with Captain Carstairs? Wasn’t it perfectly obvious whom she was in love

with? Wasn’t she, in fact, wearing his ring?

Becky was merely jealous. Yes, that had to be it. Becky was still in love with Captain Carstairs, and she

was jealous because Victoria was marrying the man of her dreams, while the man of Becky’s dreams did

not seem even to know she was alive. Really, if she thought about it, it was a very pitiable situation

indeed. Poor Becky, still so deeply in love with the captain that she lashed out at the very person who’d

tried so valiantly to cure her of that unfortunate malady! And poor Mr. Abbott, who was so genuinely

smitten with the eldest Miss Gardiner!

But most of all, of course, poor Victoria, who was the one forced to bear the brunt of her cousin’s

unhappiness in the form of some very unfair barbs at her own expense!

Well, Victoria supposed there were martyrs who’d fared far worse and survived. Really, being accused

of being in love with a man she could not abide was far better than being shot with poisoned darts or

bitten by asps.

Or so Victoria supposed.

By the time the gong sounded for dinner, Victoria had roused herself with thoughts like these, and was

actually able to join in on the conversation—which was, she had to admit, a far livelier one than any she’d

enjoyed so far with her fiancé and his mother, who had a rather dull tendency to talk of nothing but

people with whom Victoria was not acquainted. And the food, Victoria noted with approval, was

superbly prepared and elegantly served, proving that Jacob Carstairs’s mother was not only a charming

hostess but competent with the staff as well, a pair of skills that rarely went hand in hand.

Really, Victoria thought with some amusement as she swallowed a mouthful of savory fruit compote. It is

just as well I am not in love with Jacob Carstairs—nor he with me—because it wouldn’t do to marry him

at all. His house is already perfect, run to perfection by his mother. And he already has money. Why, he

doesn’t need me a bit. I wouldn’t have a thing to occupy my time all day long. I feel sorry for whomever

he does end up marrying. She’ll have a very dull time of it.

Victoria became even more convinced of this when it came time for the men to disappear for cigars and

brandy while the women repaired to the drawing room for coffee. Mrs. Carstairs even gossiped divinely!

She did not, of course, say anything that could at all be construed as malicious—she was much too

ladylike for that—but she did mention a certain young lady whom her son had happened to see at a

picnic at a park who—and here Victoria feared very much she would hear about her own little escapade

with a certain footpad, and glanced nervously at Rebecca lest she give away the identity of this young

lady with her surprised reaction….

But it turned out she needn’t have feared, since the young lady Mrs. Carstairs was speaking of was the

one who’d dampened her skirts to make them cling more provocatively to her legs. Victoria blushed

nonetheless, knowing now that Jacob had noticed the scandalously clad girl at Lord Malfrey’s picnic, and