by Amy Corwin
“By all accounts.”
“Indeed. By all accounts,” her mother agreed. Once again, her stride lengthened, and she dragged Victoria forward. “There is your father’s coach. I hope he hasn’t been waiting too long.”
“He would wait all night for you.” Victoria’s voice sounded harsh to her own ears.
“And we shall find you a husband who will wait all night for you. You will see,” Lady Longmoor said bracingly as she waved to her spouse.
“It’s more likely I’ll wait all night for him. Or perhaps I’ll be waiting forever,” Victoria mumbled beneath her breath, but she forced herself to smile and picked up her skirts to hurry forward.
After all, there was the list of approved suitors who were supposedly eager to be selected by her. Surely, one of them would be agreeable enough. She just needed to decide which one. A stifling pall of gray settled around her, however, at the thought of the placid, nice future that awaited her.
But wasn’t that what she wanted? There would surely be less pain and fewer tears. Her chest contracted until she could hardly breathe. What did she want, then? Laverick’s betrayal had left her humiliated and filled with terrible, wrenching tears. She couldn’t go through that again. The thought was unbearable.
Nonetheless, despite her resignation in treading the proper path, Mr. Archer’s warm brown eyes, flecked with sparks of pure gold, lingered in her memory. His handsome face rose briefly, like a dream that would vanish with the sunrise.
She sighed and climbed into the waiting coach.
“Good heavens, girl!” her father exclaimed when she settled onto the seat across from him. “Don’t tell me you allowed yourself to be seen in public in that thing!” He waved at Victoria with his right hand while he pummeled the ceiling with his silver-knobbed cane to encourage their driver to turn their carriage toward their townhouse.
Both Victoria and her mother let out exasperated breaths.
“It is not that dreadful,” Victoria replied, determined to protect the good name, not to mention the taste, of her beloved nanny.
Lady Longmoor shook her head, leaning forward to give Victoria’s wrist a squeeze before she turned to her husband. “You know we agreed to meet Nanny Barrows by the Serpentine. She is leaving London to retire to Hastings—her sister is there. They plan to share a cottage—”
“Why the devil should I care where the woman goes? What has that to do with my daughter being seen in public in a garment I wouldn’t use for a dog’s bed in my own kennel? If she had to steal something, why couldn’t it be a decent coat?” he interrupted her, his blue eyes flashing as he frowned at his wife.
“Lady Victoria did not steal it; Nanny Barrows made it especially for her,” Lady Longmoor stated firmly, though her eyes flashed toward her daughter.
I’m not a thief! Victoria winced and flushed, glancing out the window. She’d only been eleven and hadn’t even realized at the time that she’d inadvertently tucked that bright red ribbon into her sleeve while her mother was examining fabric at the village shop.
Red-faced and humiliated, Victoria had handed it back as soon as she’d realized what had happened. The shopkeeper had even been amused, as she recalled, when she stammered an apology.
Why couldn’t her parents forget the incident? Why did they insist on bringing it up every time something displeased them?
Her father puffed his cheeks out and huffed. “Good heavens, don’t I give you sufficient allowance to avoid staggering about in such abysmal rags? I certainly credited you with a great deal more taste than you are exhibiting at this moment, my dear daughter. Puce. Puce—the color of squashed fleas! I ask you!”
Victoria caught her mother’s glance and stifled another sigh. Reddish brown was not a color she would have selected, but Nanny Barrows had always loved it, claiming that any color so beloved by the French Court of Louis XVI must be tasteful and proper for any child in her care. Victoria hadn’t had the heart to reject the gift, and despite having to wear the pelisse in Hyde Park, she couldn’t regret it when Nanny Barrows’s face crinkled with joy when she saw her in it.
“As I was saying, my dear,” her mother continued serenely. “We arranged to meet Nanny Barrows, and if you will recall, Nanny made Lady Victoria’s pelisse as a gift last year. It would have been the height of cruelty to refuse to give her the pleasure of seeing her wear it.”
“To my way of thinking, it was the height of cruelty to expose such a thing to the public.”
Victoria pressed her gloved hand against her mouth to stifle a laugh. Even her mother’s wide mouth trembled, and she bit the corners to suppress a display of entirely inappropriate mirth.
Her father glanced from his wife to his daughter, his heavy, dark brows jutting out suspiciously. “No one of any consequence saw you, did they?” he asked, tapping his cane against the floor of their rattling coach. He peered at them with precisely the austere, forbidding manner of a judge forced to pronounce sentence on some dreadful felon.
“No, dearest. We spoke to Nanny Barrows for a few moments and then left, precisely as we said we would when we agreed to meet you at Grosvenor Gate. We did not stop to converse with any of our friends.” Her careful words and avoidance of all mention of Mr. Wickson and Mr. Archer were not lost on Victoria.
No one of consequence? Despite her father’s expression, a sizzling feeling went through Victoria as Mr. Archer’s face blotted out her father’s frowning one. She couldn’t agree with that assessment—he was very much a person of consequence. At least to her. She kept her face carefully blank, bordering on bored.
“Well bless you for that much consideration,” her father replied with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
Victoria exchanged a glance with her mother. “I plan to give my pelisse to Rose, Papa.” She leaned forward to give her father a peck on the cheek and almost fell on him when the coach rattled over a rut in the road. Catching his startled gaze, they both laughed at the same time.
He shook his head. “It is your pelisse, my dear. Do with it as you please.”
“Well, she expressed a liking for the color and owns a bonnet with ribbons of the same hue, so I’m sure she will be pleased,” Victoria said.
“And it is growing too warm for such garments,” he added with a wink.
“Papa!”
“Don’t tease her so,” her mother said. “You know perfectly well the weather has nothing to do with Lady Victoria giving away her pelisse. We can expect a great many cool days yet this spring.”
“Then I hope you’ve had the foresight to provide your daughter with another pelisse.” Lord Longmoor raised his hands in a gesture of surrender when both Victoria and her mother straightened and frowned at him. “Peace! Enough.” He focused his gaze on Victoria. “Have you reviewed the list yet? After a few private discussions at White’s, I have added another name or two. Plenty to choose from.”
A sinking feeling hollowed Victoria’s stomach. She slumped back against the red velvet squabs and stared at her clasped hands. “I haven’t had the time.”
“Then you shall do so when we arrive home,” her father said. “You must make a decision—you are two-and-twenty, and it’s high time you started your nursery. Don’t want to be teased about being an ape-leader or such. A great many young wenches are coming out—doesn’t look good.”
Wishing the cushions would open and drop her out of the coach, Victoria slumped lower against her seat. Her parents loved her too much to deny her yet another Season in London, but there were limits, and no one wanted a spinster daughter drooping around the house forever.
And she had no desire to be a bitterly lonely, unmarried daughter, either.
“My dear…” Her mother nudged him with her elbow.
When he glanced at her, she frowned and shook her head.
He held his fist to his mouth as he cleared his throat several times, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. No need to fret.” He attempted a hearty laugh and pressed a hand over her clenched fingers. “You’ll be the prett
iest girl at any ball you care to attend—younger girls notwithstanding.”
“When I’m not wearing a puce pelisse, that is,” she replied, trying for a teasing note and only sounding tired.
He laughed, a look of relief passing over his face. “That’s the spirit!” He leaned forward to glance out the window on his left. “We’re almost home. Now don’t forget that list.”
“There’s no time! We must change,” her mother objected. “Dinner is early tonight, as we have tickets for the theatre.”
“No matter. It will always be one thing or another, and she must look at that list and make a decision. These delays will not do, my dear. Not at all.”
“I will look at the list, Papa. It will not take me too long.”
“And make a decision,” her father repeated. “You cannot expect to string out these gentlemen forever. They deserve to know if they should look elsewhere.”
“Particularly when there are so many younger girls in London for their first Season,” Victoria said, unable to stop herself.
Her mother shifted uncomfortably on the seat across from her. She glanced first at her daughter, then at her husband, and finally down at the dusty floor. While she remained silent, Victoria was painfully aware of the fact that this would be her fifth Season in London. It was a testament to parental adoration and love that they’d been willing to provide her with new wardrobes each time, with no arguments or looks of despair. Neither one ever made mention of her disastrous near-alliance with Mr. Laverick, either.
Nonetheless, their patience couldn’t—and wouldn’t—last forever.
She bit her lower lip and twisted her gloved hands more tightly together in her lap. Each time she thought about it, she felt herself shrink a little more inside, like a newly sprouted seed withering from insufficient water. Dismay touched her with the fresh fear of reliving the pain of rejection once more.
“Precisely,” her father said, ignoring the bitter edge to her voice. “You may not like it, but we cannot ignore the truth of your situation.”
“No,” she agreed softly.
The carriage jerked to a halt, and they waited for their butler to open the front door and send out one of the footmen to assist them to alight from the carriage. A light misty rain had started, and Victoria felt a spattering of tiny drops when the door was opened. Her father alighted first, then her mother, and finally, Victoria.
On the shallow steps leading to the door, her mother waited and then linked arms with Victoria as she studied the gray sky. She sighed. “It was such a lovely afternoon. I suppose we should be grateful that the rain held off until now.”
“Come along,” her father said from just inside the doorway. “The list is on my desk in the library. Might as well take it and give it some consideration while you change for dinner.”
“Yes, Papa.” Victoria paused only to hand her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves to Mr. Kingston, their cherub-faced butler.
With his round, red cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, and fringe of graying blond hair, he looked more like a jolly friar from one of Mr. Chaucer’s tales than a solemnly formal butler. However, he’d been with the family for more than twenty years and had seen—and sensibly overlooked—many of the worst faults and foibles of his employers, and Victoria couldn’t imagine what life would be like without his placid, smiling presence.
Mr. Kingston bowed as he draped her pelisse over his arm and collected all their hats and gloves. His blue eyes twinkled when he caught Victoria’s gaze, but he carefully avoided smiling.
Mindful of her father’s request, Victoria excused herself and made her way to the library. His desk, situated under a long window at the back of the room, was overflowing, as usual, with papers. Half-finished letters, tattered broadsheets, notes to himself, and other documents vied for attention in shifting piles that threatened to cascade to the floor at the lightest touch. Just looking at the stacks made her want to turn around and retreat to her room, claiming that she couldn’t find the list.
However, a glance at the tallest mound revealed a paper right on top, carefully labeled Marriage List in her father’s bold flourish. She picked it up and glanced at it. Four names, four possibilities for a quiet, staid future that offered affection without the pulse-pounding excitement of love, or the gut-wrenching sobs of pain if—when—that love died.
Or was revealed to be false from the outset, as Laverick’s had been.
Maybe this truly was the best way. Holding the document, she made her way upstairs to her bedchamber. When she got to her room, she sat on the small padded bench near the window to read the list. Behind her, the panes of glass were smeared with moisture, and the evening light was dim and gray-tinged, but her father’s cursive script was clear.
Marriage List
Mr. Cedric Fitton
Sir Arnold Newby
Colonel Lord Parmar
Lord Taggert
They were all nice gentlemen. Pleasant. Polite and respectful. Well-off, if not rich. Colonel Lord Parmar was a distinguished officer in his late thirties, who’d recently inherited an earldom. He was accounted to be a very good catch, if not the catch of the Season. She rubbed her temple. Her father would be very pleased if she selected him. He wasn’t bad looking, but he was a spit-and-polish man whose rigid back and bearing might indicate a nature inclined to be a bit of a martinet.
Her instincts cried for her to cross him off the list. She picked up a pencil from her nearby desk. The point hovered above the name. Then a long breath escaped her. Her father considered him to be the best applicant for her hand in marriage, and she didn’t want to anger him by what might appear to be a too-hasty decision. It was too soon to cross him off. Nonetheless, with a sigh, she mentally consigned him to the bottom of her list.
The other names swam in front of her eyes. Certainly, none of them were loathsome or cause for despair.
However, her objections to the others were even more vague. None brought a flutter to her heart. Perhaps that was good, though. That meant they were unlikely to ever cause her pain or despair. At least until after they were safely married.
No life was free of all sorrow. She wasn’t such a fool as to believe that. So she might have a comfortable future with any of them, even Colonel Lord Parmar. Without realizing it, she curled inward a little more tightly and her shoulders bowed as she stared at the names. Behind her, the rain increased and pattered against the window panes, casting pale, streaky shadows, running like tears over her cheeks.
Chapter Three
“Are you certain she will be here?” John asked Wickson as they leaned against the lamppost opposite Lord Taggert’s townhouse.
“Well, Lord Taggert’s sister, Miss Urick, said as much to Miss Jacobs.” Wickson shrugged.
“And Miss Jacobs told you?” John asked in a dry voice.
The flickering light from the lamp didn’t light the street as clear as day, but it was sufficient to show a flush darkening Wickson’s plump cheeks. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow, glancing uneasily across the busy road.
Various coaches and carriages were lined up in front of the townhouse, disgorging guests swathed in silk and velvet. The golden light spilling out of the open front door glinted off jewels dangling from ears or around necks of the ladies as they laughed and turned to speak to their male companions before lifting their silken skirts to glide up the stairs to the house.
“Yes, well, not precisely told,” Wickson said. He coughed uncomfortably and pressed the rumpled handkerchief to his mouth. “Overheard.”
“Overheard?” John raised his brows. “How did you manage that feat? Drooling over the fair Miss Jacobs again? Or was it the Owsley twins this time?”
Wickson cleared his throat and scowled. “Not at all. The twins weren’t present, and I’ve never drooled over Miss Jacobs. Well, not so she’d notice. Well, it was near the Serpentine, if you must know. She’d dropped a handkerchief. I was returning it to her.”
“So you were following her
.”
“I was not!” Wickson exclaimed. “Sheer accident. Coincidence.” He waved a plump hand. “Shouldn’t think you’d care so much, unless…” His words drifted off as he turned to frown at John. His lower lip stuck out. “Unless you have developed an interest in her, yourself. Is that why we’re here? You have developed a tendre for Miss Jacobs?”
John laughed, his eyes fixed upon the illuminated entrance to Lord Taggert’s townhouse. “My dear Wickson, refrain from these hysterics. Please. Consider the original subject of our discussion.”
“Subject? Miss Jacobs?”
“You were the one who brought that fair lady’s name into the matter.”
“Well, and how long have I known you, John Archer? Have I not seen you waltz away with any new lady who caught your fancy, time and time again?” Wickson’s protuberant eyes bulged even further. Pulling on his lapels to straighten the dark blue jacket he wore, he stepped toward the edge of the walkway.
John brushed a speck of dust off the fine wool of his sleeve. “Lady Victoria,” he murmured. “Could we return to the matter of Lady Victoria’s presence at this Taggert affair?”
“Of what concern is that to me?”
“None, I trust.” He straightened.
“Well, I am the one with the invitation. So there you are.”
“Indeed. Here I am. So. Let us assume Miss Jacobs was correct.”
“Of course she was correct!” Wickson huffed. “Just what are you implying?”
“Nothing, my dear lad. Despite your fears otherwise, I am not impugning the lady’s veracity.”
“Well, see that you don’t.”
After a moment, John asked gently, “May we return to the point?”
“What point?”
After glancing up and down the street, John dodged oncoming carriages, dragging Wickson to the opposite walkway a few yards away from the front door of the Taggert townhouse.
“You, my dear Mr. Wickson, will go to the door, present your invitation, and enter. You will then make your way to the library at the rear of the townhouse and unlock one of the windows.”