by Joan Avery
“Victoria, come with me.”
“Where, my lord?” she pleaded. Where could she find peace and comfort?
“Hugh,” he corrected her before adding, “I want to take you to a magical place.” His voice was soft, so soft. It was an invitation she couldn’t refuse. Her distress was heartrending but despite that, she smiled.
“Come with me.” He extended his hand, and she took it as a lifeline.
He led her through the darkened house until they came to small door. He threw it open and led her outside into the cold.
She took in a quick breath of the night air and shivered pleasurably—from the cold or his attention, she didn’t know which. He didn’t stop. He hurried on, his hand holding hers tightly. She didn’t know where she was going. Didn’t care.
It was only when they turned the corner of the house that she knew. Lit up brightly by the gaslights that also served to warm it, the beautiful conservatory glowed in the winter night like a fairyland. Its delicate iron metalwork disappeared in the night sky and there, beneath the glass, was the promise of warmth and beauty, of the exotic and the unusual. She could think of no better place to flee.
He opened the door, and she stepped in and was embraced by the moist, warm air. Here was the source of the beautiful white lilies that had decorated the dining room table. Here were colors so alive they defied the night sky, defied the cold outside. Reds and greens, whites and yellows. Deep blues and pale pinks.
It was as if winter didn’t exist, as if nothing outside of this place existed.
Her heart lightened. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
He didn’t say a word. He merely took her hand gently and led her into the maze of beautiful flowers.
He rushed as if what was ahead might escape him. He looked back at her, and his eyes were bright with anticipation and his smile warmer than any she could have imagined. It was contagious. She smiled back and laughed slightly.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he drew her on still deeper into the conservatory.
“To a magical place. A place where everything is good and sweet and no harm can befall anyone.”
Tonight she could use such a place. This man, whom she was just beginning to understand, seemed different here. He seemed a child again, joyous and free from worry. The foliage had become dense on either side of them. As they moved deeper into the conservatory, the gaslights offered less and less illumination.
“Close your eyes,” he demanded.
She was about to object but somehow she couldn’t. Couldn’t say anything to bring this man back from the pleasure he was experiencing. He had slowed and when she closed her eyes, he led her forward about ten feet before he stopped.
“Put your head back and then you can open your eyes.” His voice was a warm whisper.
She did as he asked. When she opened her eyes, she gasped with pleasure. Above her, the night sky was alive with thousands of stars. They were in a clearing. Around them, bamboo and other foliage reached up toward the canopy. It seemed as if there was no glass or metal, no structure above them. It was as if they were the only ones on earth, and the sky was their canopy.
“It’s beautiful.” She looked to him. He was studying her.
“It’s beyond beautiful. It’s magical.” He smiled again.
He took her at arm’s length and began to slowly twirl her around, both their eyes skyward. “When I was a boy, this was my sanctuary, my special place. My mother and the duchess were close. When my mother would visit, I would beg to come with her. Here, in this place, my father didn’t exist. Here, in this place, everything was good and peaceful and safe. No one could hurt me here.”
He seemed lost in another world, in another time, much younger than his age, vulnerable and human. So different from what she had thought that first day in the courtroom. Everything she had learned about him since then countered what she had once believed.
She stopped him then and they stood only inches away. He was so different than any man she had ever known. It would be so easy to…
But that was impossible now.
…
He saw the change come over her, the delight drain from her eyes and reality harden them. Did she still think he was going to take advantage of his position? Use her and then abandon her?
Until the trial was over, he couldn’t convince her otherwise. He was more than aware of the impropriety of their developing relationship. The lawsuit stood between them, forbidding them any contact other than a general social one.
He released her hands. This had been foolish. Foolish, because all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and kiss her. Hold her in his arms and take her away from the world and all the pain it caused her. Once more, he was forced to be prudent and patient. And once more, he faced the threat of losing a woman who offered a life without pain and regret. A life full of promise. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. This time he might not survive.
“Do you want to return to the ballroom, or to your room?”
He, too, had become a realist. The emotions, so recent and so lovely, drained away. The moment was lost, perhaps never to be refound.
Chapter Nineteen
“Good night, then.” Hugh had returned her to her room as she had asked.
“Thank you.” Neither had spoken on the way back from the arboretum. He was as lost in thought as she, and obviously burdened by self-restraint. It was awkward and yet it wasn’t. They had come to some agreement without ever speaking of it. Each flailing against the fates that seemed to work against them.
Hugh bowed slightly. “I hope you sleep well.”
Victoria doubted she would. “Thank you for everything.” She didn’t put into words what “everything” included. Not just saving her from Stanford but sharing the arboretum and opening up to her in a way she hadn’t thought possible.
She stepped into her room and closed the door.
A deep sadness overcame her. A loneliness, like none she had experienced before, seeped into her soul.
She rang for the maid and undressed slowly, remembering each item of clothing as if their memory alone would ensure she never forget that, for a moment at least, she had been inexplicably happy.
After the maid left, she began to comb out her long hair. A quiet rap at the door startled her and made her heart jump. She rose and quickly went to the door, a smile unbidden on her face.
She was about to step out and close the door behind her when she was thrown back into the room, falling hard on the floor at the foot of the bed. The breath was forced out of her lungs, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream.
“You’ll give me my due.” The laugh that followed was cruel and demeaning.
“Get out!” She found no breath to give the words the force they deserved.
Lord Stanford was enraged and drunker than she had ever seen him. The earlier humiliation in the ballroom must have increased his desire for vengeance.
He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, guarding her only means of escape.
Victoria struggled to get up. She was way too vulnerable on the floor. He was on her before she got her footing. This time he grabbed her arm and threw her back down hard. She whimpered as she hit the floor again. He was on top of her, alternately pulling her nightgown up and struggling with the buttons on his pants. His other forearm was across her neck, making it impossible to scream and almost impossible to breathe.
She needed to do something soon, or she would suffer a fate worse than even she had imagined.
…
Hugh reached his room. He had returned to the ballroom briefly to thank the duke and duchess and say his good-byes. After removing his coat, he sat on the edge of his bed and loosened his black cravat. He laid it beside him. Unbuttoning his vest, he stood and removed it.
He was about to remove his shirt when he remembered something he had wanted to do. Something important. In the passion of the moment, he had forgotten. He intended to be
gone early, before breakfast. He had better do it now.
The ball was still in full progress and the music filtered up to the darkened corridor. The house was otherwise quiet. He hated to impose, but perhaps it might avoid a future catastrophe if he shared the knowledge he had of Lord Whitney’s profligate gambling. Surely at this rate, the man would lose his wife’s fortune even more quickly than he had lost his own. Victoria was a friend of the man’s wife. Perhaps she could somehow intervene. He did not want to see Whitney in his courtroom again.
He was still distracted as he approached her room. He was about to knock when he stopped. There were strange thumps and muffled words coming from the room.
He knocked quietly. “Victoria, it’s Hugh.”
Suddenly the noises stopped. He knocked again, a little harder this time.
“Victoria, are you there?” He was concerned now.
There was a muffled scream. He opened the door slowly, afraid that if he was mistaken, he might startle her.
It took only a moment to register what was happening. Victoria was on the floor of the room at the foot of her bed. Her nightclothes were up above her knees and Stanford was on top of her, one hand across her throat, the other at the fly of his pants.
Hugh didn’t think, didn’t pause, but strode into the room and pulled the man up by the back of his jacket and threw him across the room. Stanford crashed into the armoire, hitting his head and drawing blood, temporarily stunned.
“Are you all right?”
Victoria pulled at her nightgown and robe attempting to gain some form of modesty.
What had happened since he had left her? “Why did you let him in?”
The question appeared to enrage her.
“I didn’t know it was him. Do you think it was my fault? That I invited him into my room?” she said through her tears.
Hugh was properly shamed. He walked over to where Stanford lay. The man had managed to extract a handkerchief and was holding it against the gash in his head. His fly was half-open.
Hugh was filled with disgust. He pulled Stanford up by the lapels of his jacket and almost sent him to the floor again with another blow.
“Let him go. Make him go. Please,” Victoria pleaded. “I want him away from me. Far away.”
Hugh still held Stanford. It took all his restraint to honor Victoria’s wish rather than punish the man further. “Go pack your things and call your carriage. I want you out of this house this minute. If I find you have not left, I will see you’re brought before a magistrate on charges. Do you understand?”
Stanford sneered. “You’ll face judgment soon enough yourself, you son of a bitch. You’ll see.”
The threat made no impression on Hugh who half walked, half carried the loathsome man to the doorway. He threw him out into the corridor and closed the door.
He placed his hands on the door frame, staring into the wood grain for a long moment, trying to collect himself and recover some sense of decorum. What was happening to him? A month ago, he couldn’t have imagined such a scene.
“Thank you.” Her voice was high and thin. She sounded barely in control. Why had he made the accusation he had? He knew better. This woman would never have let Stanford into her room willingly.
He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should never have said what I did. It was unforgivable. Did you think it was the maid returning?”
He chided himself once again. He, who prided himself on being fair and understanding, had made a comment that was not only unconscionable but somehow reflected what he believed he was incapable of—jealousy.
She was shaking. From fear…with anger…he didn’t know which.
When she looked up at him, pain had replaced her fear.
“I thought it was you,” she whispered.
She broke down sobbing after she said it. She gasped for breath, her disheveled hair hanging messily over her white robe and her eyes blank with despair.
She couldn’t have said anything more reproachful. He ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a low, guttural sound.
He moved to her slowly. Afraid she would flee like a frightened animal.
When she didn’t, he pulled her to him, enfolding her gently but firmly in his arms.
Chapter Twenty
They hadn’t spoken for over an hour. He had carried her to the bed and propped himself up in it, laying her beside him, cradling her head against his chest, and keeping her securely in his embrace. She was still awake. He knew that, somehow, although she had not moved.
He still couldn’t believe his own callousness. He was a man who prided himself in treating others fairly and yet…
And yet he had hurt the one person on the earth that he…
That he what?
It was the question that haunted him. What was she to him? What could she be to him in this infernal mess that was their lives?
The warm pressure of her body against his, the softness of her hair that lay across the opening of his shirt, was almost too much to bear.
She smelled of lavender.
He wanted to press a kiss into that hair. Turn her and cover her with his body. He wanted to explore her breasts and flat stomach with a trail of kisses. He hardened at the images that tempted him.
Now was not the time. This was not the place. He couldn’t know the future but he couldn’t betray the present. He was still lost in thought when she spoke quietly.
“Why did you come?” she whispered. “To my room at this hour?”
He told her the truth, at least part of the truth.
“I was planning to leave before breakfast in the morning, and I wanted to warn you about something that might affect you.”
She rose to a sitting position. “What?”
“Do you know Edward Whitney lost his previous fortune gambling?”
She nodded, acknowledging she suspected as much.
“He’s gambling heavily again. He has many creditors. It won’t be long before he will have lost all of your friend’s fortune as well.”
Victoria shook her head in disbelief and denial. “He wouldn’t do that to her. How could he? He isn’t an evil man. He is gentle and kind. Emily herself told me that.”
“That may be, but he has misled her, at the very least. He has told her he was away at their country estate when, too often, he was at the clubs. I personally like Lord Whitney, but he seems possessed by the need to wager at the gaming tables. He is in the clubs from morning to late, moving between them as his credit is denied. I wanted you to know.”
“But what am I to do about it? I can’t stop him.”
“At least you could warn your friend. Perhaps she could speak with him.”
He moved to stand up. The motion brought them both to an impasse.
He didn’t want to leave her. The quiet hour they had spent together had been even more intimate than the time in the conservatory, but he had to go before his body betrayed him.
Victoria had found comfort in the steady beat of his heart and in his arms securely around her. This was all she wanted. This feeling of surrender, knowing her vulnerability wouldn’t be abused. She could be strong. She had been strong all her life. It was this other feeling that haunted her. She needed to feel safe before she could relax. Hugh, in some way, offered her this.
She was more than ready for this kind of relationship. What she had once dreamed of was possible, but there were almost insurmountable complications. Hugh was a man to whom queens and prime ministers listened, a man whose career changed the lives of others for the better. Was it fair to put him and his career in jeopardy?
“I need you to know something.” She put a hand on his arm to hold him a moment longer.
He paused. “What?”
“Lord Stanford,” Victoria paused, “saw me kiss you in the copse. He has suggested some impropriety between us. He has threatened to ruin you. Whether he says I seduced you or you seduced me, it makes very little difference.”
She didn’t know the
truth herself, but she couldn’t deny there was something in the accusation. In fact, she longed for the very thing Stanford would use against them. That they were here in her bedroom alone and in dishabille at this hour of the night would only confirm his claims.
“The cad will stop at nothing to get what he wants.” Hugh was angry. Was he angry with her? Surely, she had been complicit in dragging him into her sordid mess. She should never have kissed him in public. In full view of her vile enemy.
He rose from the bed. It seemed she had told him the one thing that would drive him off and never allow them to be together. However much she might want it, nothing would happen. Not tonight. Not for the foreseeable future. Probably not ever.
He walked slowly to the door. Once there, he turned back to her. “I’m sorry.”
For what was he sorry? There were so many things to regret in both their behaviors. She feared whatever might have been was at an end. And she had only herself to blame.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Ah, there you are. We had about given up hope.” Lady Edith sat at the table in the family dining room. Breakfast had been set on the sideboard. “Are you quite well? You look ill?”
Victoria was paralyzed for a moment. She had hardly slept, going over and over what had happened last night. She had prided herself on her self-sufficiency and independence. Stanford had proved how reckless that concept actually was. She had been overpowered and almost violated. But for the appearance of Hugh, she would have lost her battle. It had sobered and saddened her. A man had been her nemesis and a man her savior. She could no longer think of men as mere adjuncts to her life. She was as guilty as those men who undervalued women.
Lady Edith repeated herself. “What has happened? You don’t look at all well.”
“Is your husband around, by any chance?” Victoria asked.
“He must be around somewhere, but at this moment I couldn’t tell you exactly where. Please join me. I’m sure Henry will be along shortly.” She patted the seat of the chair next to hers. “And you must call us Edith and Henry. I insist.”