“Oh.”
He nodded and walked to the adjoining door. He said over his shoulder, showing his white teeth in a roguish smile, “I too have a dressing gown.”
“I am exquisitely relieved,” she said, showing her own white teeth. He gave her a mock salute and strode into his bedchamber, closing the adjoining door behind him.
Victoria didn’t undress until the maid had left. It was more a habit than anything else. Ever since Elaine had seen her leg with its knotting muscles she didn’t want to feel another’s pity or revulsion. She spent fifteen minutes in the hot water, feeling the muscles loosen and relax. She sighed deeply, and leaned back against the copper tub rim. She started up when she heard a light tap on the adjoining door.
“Victoria? Are you ready for me?” Why the devil had he phrased it like that?
“No,” she called, “not yet.”
“Is your ankle all right?”
“Yes, please, I’ll just be a moment.”
He should have fetched a doctor, Rafael thought, staring at the closed door. But she seemed to have eased during their dinner. He turned back into his room and sat down, waiting. He was tired, weary to his bones. He was a long way from Falmouth and Lindy and a long way to London. A very long way.
When she called to him, he was half-asleep. He blinked his eyes and wits awake and went to her. She was seated again in her chair, her nightgown covered by a very prim schoolgirl muslin dressing gown that was tied by a ladder of blue ribbons to her chin.
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
“Nearly nineteen. December the fifth.”
“In that maidenly casing you’re wearing you look like a little girl. Didn’t your cousin, my dear sister-in-law, clothe you properly? Aren’t you to have a Season? Meet gentlemen, attend endless balls, and all that?”
“No, and I didn’t expect to,” she said with no regret that he could detect. “You see, I thought I was the poor relation until I just happened to see—”
Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d given away. She ducked her head down, color rising on her cheeks. Stupid fool.
Rafael sighed. Trust, he supposed, was an elusive sort of thing. Not given lightly. And after all, he was the spitting image of his brother.
He let the fish gently off the hook. “You said you are going to London.”
She nodded, mute.
“You said you had business there. Relatives also?”
“No, no one. But you already guessed that, didn’t you?”
He said very patiently, “Listen to me, my child; a young lady doesn’t go alone anywhere. Look what very nearly happened to you tonight.”
“I shall be more careful in the future.”
“I applaud your courage, but your naiveté will bring you low.”
“I might not be of your advanced years, but I am not all that naive.”
“If not naive, then stupid.”
“That is unkind of you. I think I would rather fit the pattern card of naiveté than stupidity.”
He grinned and said without further consideration, “All right, dammit, I’ll escort you to London.”
“Escort me? Are you certain? Are you jesting with me?”
“Do I sound like I’m carried away with hilarity?”
“No. Rafael, you don’t mind, truly?”
He winced at the plea in her voice. “No, I don’t mind. However, what am I going to do with you once we’re there?”
Her chin went up. “I have someone to see there. After I have seen him, I shan’t have to worry about money. I will be able to see to myself.”
Rafael wasn’t either naive or stupid. “So you discovered you really aren’t Elaine’s poor relation?”
She paled under his interested gaze.
“I won’t tell my brother. To tell you the truth, Victoria, there’s little love lost between us. Now it’s your turn for some home truths. Go ahead, I’m listening. You stole the twenty of Damien’s pounds . . .”
“Yes, from Damien’s strongbox, in his study. I will pay it back. It was then that I saw a packet of letters. One of them wasn’t folded quite properly.”
“And you unfolded it unproperly?”
“I saw my name written on the unfolded part. It was to Damien from a solicitor in London. I’m not poor. I’m really quite well-off, it would appear. At least I hope I still am.”
“Damien is your guardian?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. He has never spoken of anything to me. No one told me I had any money. I guess it is from my mother’s side of the family. Father had the good name, you see, but few farthings in his pockets.”
“I imagine that Damien has been making free with your funds,” Rafael said quietly, more to himself than to her. “Hopefully he has shown some good sense in his financial dealings.” Rafael sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers, lightly tapping them together.
“I don’t think so,” Victoria said in a morose voice. “The letter from the solicitor said something about his concern about the principal. I don’t know anything more.”
“So you were going to leave Drago Hall even before you knew you were an heiress?”
“Yes. I really don’t know if I’m what you would call an heiress. There is money, that’s all I know.”
“You planned to escape with a paltry twenty pounds?”
“I had no choice. In my position, what would you have done?”
I would have beaten him senseless, Rafael wanted to say. But of course he was a man, a very strong man, not a young girl dependent on a man for the roof over her very head, the same man who also wanted to make her his mistress.
“I would have perhaps done the same.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You’re just trying to make me feel better. Less naive, less stupid.”
“Victoria, you couldn’t very well have coshed him on the head or planted your fist in his face. You did very well until the smugglers.”
“If it weren’t for a kind Fate, I should be a morsel on this Bishop’s plate.”
Rafael had never before been a kind Fate. It wasn’t the worst thing a man could be. He grew thoughtfully silent and she watched in fascination as he began again to tap his fingertips rhythmically together. He was thinking that he was a bachelor, that he knew absolutely no proper female in London. He was at an impasse. Suddenly he remembered Lyon Ashton, the Earl of Saint Leven, laughingly telling him of his tartar great-aunt, Lady Lucia Cranston. She lived in London, the old martinet, and tried to govern his life whenever he was within firing range. She had, Lyon said, decided that he and Diana Savarol would match up perfectly. And damn the old lady’s hide, she’d been right.
“I know what to do now,” he announced, straightening.
At his smile, she stiffened a bit. “It is something proper, I trust, sir?”
“Pure as the driven snow. My idea, that is.”
“Well?”
He grinned as he rose. “I think I’ll leave you in a bit of suspense. We’ll leave early in the morning.” He paused, looking at her carefully. “I will hire a carriage.”
“I can ride.”
“It would take us three days’ hard riding to reach London, perhaps even four.”
Victoria thought of her leg and the inevitable strain. She knew Rafael wouldn’t think she was suffering again from a sprained ankle. Nor could she see herself limping into the solicitor’s office. She sighed. “All right, a carriage, then. And, Rafael, I shall pay you back.”
“Of a certainty you will,” he said smoothly. “With interest from your immense fortune.”
“It might not be all that immense.”
“We shall see.”
“I shall see. Once you’ve escorted me to London, you can be on your way and well rid of me.”
“We shall see about that too.”
He turned slightly at the adjoining door. She was still seated in the chair, her profile turned toward him. Why the devil did he have this near-compulsion to kiss her and smooth h
er hair and tell her he would give his life to protect her? I am becoming a half-wit, he told himself. She had a very stubborn jaw.
Elaine sat in front of her dressing table, rhythmically brushing her long hair. It was thick and black as a raven’s wing and it was her vanity and a source of great pride. She saw her husband enter her room and said, “I simply don’t understand it, Damien. How could Victoria be so ungrateful? Damaris is carrying on and Nanny Black can’t quiet her.” She was studying him closely in the mirror, alert and watchful, but his expression didn’t change.
“I have sent out men in search of her, my dear,” he said, yawning. “We should hear something soon.” What he didn’t tell her was that he was certain Victoria had seen the tied letters that were beneath the strongbox. He’d discovered that fact but a few minutes before, and felt his jaw clench with helpless rage. Damn, he should have burned the letters, but who would have thought . . . ? Well, he would find her. He said now, disinterested as a clam, “In fact, you seem so very worried, my dear, that I intend to join the search on the morrow. I believe it likely she has gone to London.”
“But she had no money.”
“As a matter of fact, she took some twenty pounds from my strongbox.”
“That little thief. After all I’ve done for her, and she a worthless cripple.”
Damien merely shrugged.
Elaine continued with her brushing, calm again, watchful. “I wonder,” she said, again studying her husband’s face in her mirror, “why she ran away.”
“I imagine it was that pitiful bore David Esterbridge. He was after her, you know. Perhaps she was escaping from him.”
“I can’t think that is true. Don’t you remember? She was talking of David as if she’d made up her mind to wed him. I truly don’t believe David could be responsible for her running away.”
“That isn’t what David told me. Evidently she changed her mind. I wouldn’t put it past the stupid boy to have frightened her, mauled her about with no finesse and all that.”
“Lord knows she should take him. He’s probably the only chance she has at a decent match.”
“But then you would lose an excellently suitable companion for Damaris, would you not?”
“Why do you believe she’s gone to London?”
“Let me just say I believe it her only alternative.”
Elaine wanted to probe, but he was removing his dressing gown. He was quite naked. She watched him climb into her bed. She closed her eyes, but she could see his member swelling, feel his hands on her body, so knowing, his hands.
“I am breeding, of course,” she said in a thin voice.
He laughed. “Indeed. Your shape has become rather unusual. But I shan’t repine. I wish my son to know his father.”
He would make her want him, she thought as she slowly set down her brush. He would make her lose control, forget things, ignore what she more than guessed. God, she hated Victoria. The little viper, betraying her in her own home. Had Damien already bedded her cousin? Was Victoria in fact pregnant and Damien had sent her away? To London? Was he going to set her up there as his mistress? She shook her head even as she walked toward the bed. He wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t.
“Elaine?”
“You are so certain it is your heir I carry?”
“Yes.” He patted the pillow beside his. “If you are not, then we will simply have to continue trying. Come now, Elaine. I believe I want your very warm mouth tonight.”
“All right,” she said. “Yes.”
Victoria resigned herself to a long day of boredom. Rafael, curse him, was riding, and she was alone in the bouncing carriage. The carriage was an ancient, very musty excuse for a vehicle and it was as poorly sprung as Nanny Black’s single chair that had belonged to her mother’s mother. It was pulled by two singularly independent bays, each wanting to pull in a different direction. The driver, Tom Merrifield, a spare, balding man of fifty with a bland expression and equally bland outlook on his fellow humans, took the carriage and the bays in stride, having agreed in the fewest words imaginable to drive them to London and enjoy something of a holiday with Rafael’s money, then return carriage and horses to Mr. Mouls in Axmouth.
Victoria wondered how long it would take her to get her money from Mr. Westover. This excursion would cost her dearly, though Rafael hadn’t said a word about the carriage cost or Mr. Merrifield’s demands. She tried to pay attention to the passing scenery, but the movement of the carriage wasn’t all that comforting to her stomach.
As for Rafael, he thought of many things that day. Tom Merrifield, that man of so few words, was a robber, and that was what Rafael had told him. Tom cracked a smile. “Nay, ’tis London, ye know. Now, there be a place I have no wish to go.”
But he’d agreed, of course, after Rafael had offered him an exorbitant amount, and called him a bloody robber.
“It’s all a simple matter of which hat a man wants and what is available,” said Tom Merrifield, and spit.
It amused Rafael to realize after some hours that his thoughts continually went to the girl who rode in the carriage some distance behind him. He found himself turning every once in a while to assure himself that she was there, and safe. Which of course she was.
He thought of the inevitable problems that would arise very quickly upon their arrival in London. Victoria was so certain that she could simply wend her innocent way to the solicitor and claim her inheritance. If Damien were her guardian, he would probably be in control of her and her money until she was twenty-one, perhaps older. In complete control of her, according to the laws of the land.
When they halted for lunch, he watched her closely and was reassured. She bubbled on about a poet named Coleridge, a fellow he’d never heard of.
“He is still alive, you know,” Victoria said, chewing on a strawberry. “I think he lives in the Lake District.”
He let her prattle on. Let her enjoy herself for the time being, at least. Lord knew she was in for a crashing fall in London.
“Are you tired, Rafael?” she said at last, shoving her plate back.
“Tired? Why ever should I be tired?”
“Well, you have been so very quiet.”
“You’ve done all the talking. Since I am a gentleman, I would not interrupt you.”
Victoria hoped he was teasing her, but she wasn’t certain. “You aren’t regretting our trip, are you?” she said at last.
“Yes, but no matter.” He shrugged and looked out the inn window to see Tom Merrifield talking to the ostler. He wondered if the ostler knew he was talking to a damned bloody robber. “Are you ready, Victoria?”
Because of excellent weather and an equally excellent pair of horses Tom had bargained for with Rafael’s money—an excellent bargain—Rafael kept them on the road until they reached Broadwindsor.
He didn’t know the innkeeper at the Bisley and he felt his hands clench at his sides at the man’s leering looks.
“Your sister, sir?” came the oily inquiry.
Victoria, bless her innocent heart, was giving her rapt attention to the particularly fine molding that was three centuries old and, Rafael suspected, bug-ridden.
He kept his voice calm, though he gave the innkeeper the look that had brought many a recalcitrant sailor into line. That’s right. I should like the rooms to adjoin,” he added. “One can never be too careful about protecting a lady.”
The innkeeper drew himself up at that, and crisply called out for a lad.
The private dining room Rafael hired for the evening was small and rather airless. The furnishings were as ancient as the moldings, Rafael thought as he helped Victoria into her chair. She’d changed from her girlish gown into yet another, equally girlish gown of pale pink muslin. They were served boiled beef, stewed tomatoes, and a kidney pie. He told her she shouldn’t wear pastels.
She didn’t rise to his bait, and simply agreed with him, which made him frown. “I wish you would prattle a bit. What’s the matter with you?”
Sh
e smiled. “I’m just a bit tired. I’m not used to so many endless hours of travel in a closed carriage.”
Rafael said finally, “If you would like to ride with me tomorrow, I can arrange a mount for you.”
Instant color brightened her cheeks and her eyes. “Oh, yes, thank you, Rafael. It’s so very boring, you know, to ride alone. And it was quite hot.”
She prayed her leg wouldn’t betray her. It was just one day, after all. She took her first enthusiastic bite of the kidney pie. “You said you haven’t been to Drago Hall for five years. Where have you been for all that time?”
“Here and there,” he said easily.
“What countries are those? Or perhaps they are capitals?”
“I am a sea captain. My ship, the Seawitch, is docked in Falmouth this very moment, undergoing repairs. If she hadn’t been damaged in a storm, I shouldn’t have met you.”
Victoria forgot all about her dinner. “Seawitch,” she said, savoring the word. “You are so very lucky. Now I must call you Captain Carstairs.”
He was peeling a ripe peach. “No, not anymore. My first mate, Rollo Culpepper, will take her over now. I’m going to return to Cornwall and become a landed gentleman.”
She leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hands. “Five whole years with your own ship. The excitement of it all. Whilst I was trailing about Drago Hall becoming a very boring person, you were sailing everywhere. Did you go to China?”
“China?” He smiled and handed her a slice of peach. “No, not China. I did, however, just return from the Caribbean.”
“You’re a merchant?”
“I suppose you could say that. I do owe my improved fortune to trading.”
“Come, Rafael, you are being entirely too closemouthed. Please, tell me of your adventures.”
“Victoria, you’re not boring.”
“No? Well, I am certainly nothing compared to you. Come on, now, tell me.”
He described Tortola to her, and St. Thomas. He told her of mangos and how they tasted. He mentioned Diana Savarol and Lyon, the Earl of Saint Leven. “I married them at sea,” he said, grinning in fond recollection. “Perhaps we will meet them. Who knows?”
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