Victoria and the Rogue (23 page)

At which point, much to her surprise, Jacob settled his hat upon his head, dropped her hand, and said in

a cold voice, “Well, I’m certainly glad we’ve got that straight,” and stormed out the door.

Victoria watched him go with raised eyebrows and a bemused expression. What a strange and abrupt

young man he was! She supposed that, judging by what Rebecca had told her, he’d have preferred to

have found her swooning and teary-eyed over what Lord Malfrey had done to her. And she supposed if

she’d clung to him and begged him not to go after the earl, it might have been more effective than asking

him not to kill him for Mr. Abbott’s sake.

She probably could have shown a little more gratitude for his coming out in the middle of the night to

fetch her….

But hang it, none of it would have happened in the first place if he hadn’t insisted on her breaking her

engagement with the earl!

Really, Victoria thought wearily as she turned around and headed at last for the stairs and for bed. Men

were excessively tiresome creatures. Particularly the ones with whom one couldn’t help but fall in love.

She was nearly to the landing before she realized what she’d done, and when she did, she gasped as if

she’d been stung by a wasp, and flung a hand to her throat, causing Perkins to ask worriedly if she was

feeling well.

“Oh,”Victoria replied. “Perfectly well, thank you.”

Except, of course, that she was lying. She wasn’t perfectly well at all. Not when she’d realized the

horrible, glaring truth at last.

She was in love with Jacob Carstairs!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Well, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t warned her.

One day, Lady Victoria, he’d told her, you’re going to meet a man whose will can’t be bent to suit your

purposes. And when that happens, you’ll fall in love with him.

How infuriating—how perfectly nauseating!—that he had been right. She had met a man whose will she

couldn’t bend, no matter how hard she tried—and Lord! How she’d tried. And she had gone and fallen

in love with him.

How she could not have realized it until it was, in all likelihood, too late, Victoria could not imagine.

Everyone had been telling her she was in love with Jacob Carstairs— or, at least, Rebecca had—but

she’d refused even to entertain the thought. Her, Lady Victoria Arbuthnot, in love with a man who called

her names, and did not in the least know how to dress? Perish the thought!

But there it was, obvious as the nose on her face. Why else did his kisses make her feel so… well,

comforted? And why else had he been the first person she’d thought to contact when it had come time to

write a note back in Peter’s little hovel?

But most of all—and this was the thought that rankled hardest, that kept her up, even tired as she was,

half the night, when she should have been dead to the world after her ordeal—why else had she agreed

to marry the ninth Earl of Malfrey in the first place?

Oh, her cheeks burned even in the darkness of her own bed as she thought of it. But it wasn’t any good

pretending it wasn’t true. She had already admitted to herself that she had said yes to Lord Malfrey’s

proposal to vex the captain. She’d wanted to make him jealous. Why?

Because, irritating and impossible as he was, she was in love with him… had been in love with him,

probably, since the first moment she laid eyes on him.

But how was such a thing even possible? Why would she fall in love with such a man? Jacob Carstairs

didn’t need her. His life was perfectly in order, his affairs laid out neat as the pins in Victoria’s workbox.

And he was always very rude to her, teasing her, and making light of her very serious calling, which was,

of course, to manage the affairs of others.

But he had been right about one thing, Victoria realized blearily in the wee hours of the morning. And

that was that her own affairs were in a perfectly disgraceful state. Particularly if she went about falling in

love with men who didn’t need her.

But wanted her. He had said that the other day, the day he’d asked her to marry him. That he didn’t

need her, but that he wanted her just the same. He seemed to think wanting was better than needing, but

Victoria hadn’t been so sure.

Now, lying in her bed, listening to the steady breathing of Rebecca in the bed beside hers, Victoria

began to wonder if perhaps she hadn’t been too hasty when she’d turned down Jacob’s proposal. Oh, it

hadn’t been a proper proposal… there’d been no moonlight or flowers, let alone a ring. She hadn’t felt

she’d had any choice, of course, but to say no.

But now… How very different she felt! If Jacob were to propose to her on the morrow—even a flippant

proposal—even if he called her Miss Bee and made buzzing noises, as he did sometimes—Lord help

her, but she might… she would… say yes.

Only he wasn’t going to propose to her on the morrow. Why should he? He had already warned her

once that he wasn’t going to ask her to marry him again. Badly as she’d treated him—and except for the

kisses, she had treated him very badly indeed—she didn’t exactly blame him. What kind of man went

about constantly proposing to a girl who kept turning those proposals down? Worse, who accepted the

proposal of his worst enemy?

Oh, no. Jacob Carstairs would not propose again.

And that was why Victoria lay awake half the night, wondering how on earth she was going to get

herself out of this particular mess. Because Jacob had been quite right when he’d said there was one

person whose life was a perfect shambles, and who dreadfully needed the management skills of Miss

Bee: and that person was herself.

Only it was so different when it came to one’s own affairs! Victoria was perfectly comfortable telling

other people—her uncles; her aunt; her aunt’s cook; her aunt’s children; the hostesses at Almack’s;

everyone, really—what to do. But when it came to herself—at least insofar as concerned Jacob

Carstairs—she seemed completely incapable of making the correct decisions. If she had simply been

honest with herself from the beginning, none of this would even be happening. She, like Rebecca, would

happily be planning her wedding… and this time, to the right man.

But instead she found herself tossing and turning half the night away, wondering how on earth she was

ever going to get Jacob Carstairs to propose to her again.

Morning found Victoria, instead of well rested and calm, irritable and short-tempered. She snapped at

poor Mariah—who really was making remarkable progress, for a maid who’d started out as such an

incompetent—half a dozen times as she was arranging Victoria’s hair. And then she shouted at Jeremiah,

who’d thoughtlessly left a toy wagon on the stairs that Victoria had nearly tripped over. Was this, she

could not help wondering, what love—true love—did to people, then? Turn them into nasty-tempered

shrews?

She supposed so. Unrequited love, anyway. Because that was what hers was, until she could see Jacob

again and explain herself. For though Victoria would never have advised anyone else—Rebecca or Clara

or any girl, for that matter—to be truthful with the object of her affection in regards to her feelings, all the

rules went right out the window when it came to herself. She was going to tell Jacob Carstairs everything

the first moment she saw him. So what if he held the information like a whip over her head for the rest of

her life? Victoria, so used to telling others what to do, was beginning to think she might enjoy being

bossed about a bit for a change.

But as the morning wore on, and there was not a single call or note from Captain Carstairs, Victoria

began to worry. Surely he ought to have written, if not stopped by in person. Where on earth was he?

The more Victoria wondered, the more she remembered the unpleasant way they’d parted the night

before. Jacob had been most put-out with her for her lack of concern over his personal safety. You might

show some concern for my life, he’d complained.

And what had she done to soothe his wounded feelings? Why, poured salt into them, of course!

I might, indeed, if I cared about you. That’s what she’d said! What a wit! What a fool! Now he might

never come calling again, and he would be perfectly justified. Why, he might very well choose simply to

ignore Victoria altogether from now on! He might never call her Miss Bee or laugh at her—or kiss

her—again! How would she bear it? How on earth would she bear it?

When they had received no word from him by eleven o’clock the morning after her escapade in the

back alleyways of London, Victoria—though no one else in the household, of course—began to grow

truly alarmed. This simply wasn’t like Jacob. He seemed always to be hanging about, saying disparaging

things about her needlepoint and hauling the younger Gardiners about on his back. Where was he? Was

he really that angry with her?

Flummoxed, Victoria did the only thing she could think of: she bundled up the gown and slippers Jacob

had lent her the night before, and sent them, along with a note, to the Carstairses’ residence. The note,

over which she agonized for an hour, said:

Dear Jacob,

Enclosed you’ll find the things you so generously loaned me last night. I cannot thank you enough for

your kindness in coming to my aid in my hour of need. You were a true knight-errant, and I will be

forever in your debt. Please forgive any impertinence on my part, as I was overtired after my ordeal.

Yours very truly,

V. Arbuthnot

Victoria had hesitated over the address. Should she call him Captain Carstairs? Weren’t they, by now,

on a first-name basis with each other? The man had, after all, seen her in her undergarments.

And the part where she’d apologized for her flippant remark about not caring for him… was that not

specific enough? Perhaps she ought to have mentioned the exact impertinence for which she was asking

forgiveness.

She hoped that the Yours very truly would make it clear to him that she had had a significant change of

feeling toward him… or rather, not a change of feeling, because she felt she’d always loved him. She just

hadn’t admitted as much to herself until now.

Then she told herself she was being ridiculous. It was only a note, after all, not the Magna Carta. She

needed to calm down. She needed simply to send the package and wait for his reply.

She sent the package.

When, by four o’clock, no response had come—no note; no letter; and certainly not Jacob Carstairs

himself— Victoria began to wonder if something hadn’t happened to him. Supposing, on the way home

from the Gardiners’ house the night before, his carriage had met with an accident and turned over, and

Jacob was even now lying crushed beneath the wheel spokes!

But no, she supposed if there’d been an accident like that, she’d have heard. Jeremiah and his brothers

were very keen on carriage accidents, and scoured the neighborhood daily in search of them.

Then, at five o’clock, an even worse thought occurred to Victoria: supposing Jacob had, in spite of her

warnings, gone ahead and challenged the earl! Supposing he was lying dead in Hyde Park even now,

with a bullet to the heart!

Oh, no! Surely not! Surely if Jacob and Lord Malfrey had dueled, she’d have heard about it by now.

Mrs. Carstairs would have written to tell them the unhappy news….

Besides, if Jacob and the earl were to duel, Jacob would surely win! Why, Lord Malfrey was a coward

who tried to trap innocent heiresses into marrying him! Surely a man like that would never win a duel, not

against a man who had single-handedly built up his father’s shipping business into a company worth forty

thousand pounds, if not more….

“Heavens, Vicky,” Rebecca said as the two of them were changing into their ball gowns—for it was

Wednesday, and Wednesday meant Almack’s, rain or shine, dead lovers or not. “You’re skittish as a

cat.” For Victoria, hearing a bell ring downstairs, had rushed to the window to see if Captain Carstairs’s

carriage was below. But it was only the iceman. “Are you certain you’re all right? You didn’t catch a

cold from your fall in the river, did you?”

Victoria, woefully eyeing her reflection, thought to herself that if Jacob Carstairs really had been killed by

Lord Malfrey, she would have to purchase all new gowns. For even though she wasn’t married to him,

she would feel like a widow.

“I’m all right,” Victoria murmured in response to her cousin’s question.

“Well, you don’t look it,” Rebecca generously assured her. “Pinch your cheeks a bit. There, that’s

better.”

“Becky.” Victoria stared at her cousin’s reflection in the mirror. “Remember when you said that you

thought Jacob Carstairs was in love with me?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Rebecca said, donning one of Victoria’s sapphire ear bobs, and admiring the way the

gems glittered.

“And that you thought perhaps I was in love with him?”

“Yes.” Rebecca pinched her own cheeks. “What about it?”

“Oh,” Victoria said, then sighed. “Nothing.”

Rebecca turned to look at her, her fair eyebrows raised.

“Victoria!” she cried, her eyes glittering as brightly as the sapphires in her ears. “You do love him, don’t

you?”

“No, I don’t,” Victoria said quickly. “I don’t, really.” Then, realizing what she was saying, she buried her

face in her hands. “Oh, all right. I do. I do, and it’s too late, because I’ve been so horrid to him! Oh,