Victoria bit her bottom lip on the admission that nearly slipped out—an admission that could leave the gentle Emma no choice but to think her an unnatural “daughter.” “Please, my dear friend,” she pleaded at last, “don’t try to make me into some sort of paragon, for I assure you, I am not.”
“Of course you are, Victoria,” Emma protested hotly. “Why, look at you now! Only last night you had to leave the theatre early because you were ill; yet here you are, hard at work again the very next day. I feel so shallow and flighty, taxing you with my silly problems. How could I be such a thoughtless widget? Please forgive me!”
Slapping the journal down onto the desk with a bit more force than necessary, Victoria rose to her feet and came round to the front of the desk to face her friend. “Emma…” she began slowly, searching for the right words to confide in the other woman her real reason for deliberately trying to lose herself in work this morning, which was the same reason that she had pleaded a headache at the theatre the previous evening, and the same reason that she had spent the remainder of that endless night sleeplessly pacing her chamber.
“I bid you good morning, ladies.”
Victoria wheeled sharply to see the Earl of Wickford stepping jauntily into the room, his curly brimmed beaver held in one hand, a highly polished wooden cane tucked under his other arm. He looked so handsome standing there in his impeccably tailored clothing that she suddenly found it difficult to breathe, let alone return his greeting.
“Miss Flint is busy in the foyer industriously attacking the bannister with some vile-smelling compound, so I volunteered to find my own way to the library. Mrs. Hamilton,” he continued, turning to bow to Emma, “I discovered a certain lovesick young fellow lurking about outside on the doorstep as I approached, a rather lovely bouquet of flowers clenched in his paw.”
“Oh!” Emma exclaimed, her hands going immediately to her perfectly arranged curls.
“Yes, indeed,” Patrick drawled in amusement. “It was none other than our friend Mr. Philip Spalding. I put him in the drawing room for you, if that’s all right? If you keep the door to the foyer open, I’m sure Miss Flint will be happy to act as chaperone.”
Emma had risen halfway out of her chair, her embroidery square slipping to the floor unheeded, when she realized that she could not allow her charge to be alone with the Earl. Looking from Sherbourne to Victoria and then back again, mute appeal in her eyes, she asked anxiously, “Whatever shall I do? This has never happened to me before, you understand, as I have never had a gentleman caller since poor Harry died.”
“If you will allow me to suggest a solution, Mrs. Hamilton,” Patrick said gently, “I do believe you might recall that the door to this room likewise opens onto the foyer. There’s a lot to be said for small houses, is there not?”
“Yes!” Emma returned with unladylike enthusiasm, already heading for the doorway as Patrick slowly advanced across the carpeting, his gaze now firmly locked on Victoria’s face. But before she could reach the hallway, Emma halted and turned to face her friend. “Victoria?” she breathed softly.
Standing very rigid and still, her gaze never leaving that of the man now standing a mere three feet away from her, Victoria answered tonelessly, “It’s all right, Emma, run along,” just as if her heart wasn’t threatening to burst out of her breast.
“SO?” PATRICK ASKED VICTORIA in a low, amused voice when the silence which descended after Emma left the room had stretched to nearly a full minute. “I’m waiting. Are you going to deliver that sharp slap to my face that you neglected to inflict last evening in favor of pleading a non-existent headache, or are you contemplating something entirely different? A friendly hello kiss would be nice, don’t you think?”
Victoria opened her mouth and then shut it again with a snap before closing her eyes tightly and saying from between clenched teeth, “How can you be so provoking!”
Sherbourne grinned as he reached to gently remove Victoria’s spectacles, causing her amber eyes to open wide in shock. “How can you be so adorably easy to provoke?” he countered, stepping past her to lay the spectacles on the desktop before turning around and taking hold of her shoulders so that he could place a short, gentle kiss on her lips.
“Hello, Miss Victoria Quinton,” he said huskily, loosening his grip and stepping slightly away from her.
Her amber eyes clouded momentarily, then sparkled angrily as she decided that the horrible man was amusing himself by trifling with her. “You are an out and out libertine!” she spat in some heat, beginning to pace swiftly up and down the length of the library, unable to stand still, yet remembering to keep her voice lowered so as not to have to deal with an infuriated housekeeper as well as an insufferable earl.
“That’s me down to the ground all right,” Patrick agreed amicably, resting lightly against the edge of the desk and watching interestedly as Victoria concentrated her pacing to a small area in front of him, the hem of her becoming light green sprigged muslin gown kicking out in front of her with each agitated step she took.
“Dead to all sense of shame, that’s what you are,” she went on passionately, waving her arms impotently. “You’re not in the least penitent, are you? You’re such an incorrigible flirt that you cannot even keep yourself in check when faced with such an unimpressive specimen as myself.”
“Now I do believe I must object,” Patrick countered suavely, pushing himself away from the desk to step in front of her, successfully putting an end to her tirade. “You may still be a bit scrawny, and maybe even a little fusty in your notions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re unimpressive.
“As a matter of fact,” he went on doggedly when it looked as if Victoria was about to speak once more, “it would flatter you no end if I were to tell you that I am beginning to think of you as quite beautiful—in your own way—and extremely appealing. I even like the spectacles.”
Victoria was going to faint, she was sure of it. Her body was hot and cold at the same time, her limbs were trembling almost uncontrollably, and she seemed to have a cannonball lodged partway between her throat and her stomach. She opened her mouth to speak, to ask one of the several thousand questions she could think of, and croaked weakly, “You really like my spectacles?”
Patrick took another step forward, putting himself so close to her that she could feel his warm breath against her cheek as he leaned over slightly and said, “I positively adore them. I have dreams about them. I envy the fact that they are allowed such intimate contact with your petal-soft ears, your magnificent amber eyes, your perfect little nose.”
“My nose is ordinary,” she mumbled inanely, staring intently at his wondrously tied cravat. “It’s just there to keep my eyes apart.” Oh Lord, she thought silently, I sound like the village idiot! Why can’t I say anything intelligent? Why can I hear my own heart beating? Why, she screamed silently as Sherbourne slowly lowered his head and began moving his mouth along one side of her elegantly long throat, am I asking myself silly questions? “Oh Patrick,” she breathed, tilting her head ever so slightly so as to give him better access to the tender flesh underlining her jaw.
His lips blazed a white-hot trail along the fine line of her jaw and up over her chin, then began nibbling at the sensitive corners of her mouth until her own lips opened under the gentle assault and she gave herself up totally to his questing mouth, his strong arms, and his lean, hard body.
“Missy, I’ve finished with the bannister, and now I’ll be wantin’ to get in here and—Oh Lord above, would you look at that! Quentin! Quentin Quinton, you come in here this minute and look at your niece!” In an instant, Wilhelmina was gone, hotfooting off on the trail of Victoria’s uncle.
At the sound of Wilhelmina Flint’s shrill shrieks, Victoria had tried to jump away from Patrick’s embrace, but he had held her fast against his broad chest, his strong arms still around her as if in protection. “Be still, my darling,” he now admonished softly. “I do believe it would be best if I handle things from here on
out.”
“Dffft mfffnn mmmff!”
Patrick put a hand behind Victoria’s neck and lifted her head slightly away from his chest. “What was that, my love? I’m afraid I wasn’t attending. Tell me, does your uncle have any pistols in the house?”
“I said,” Victoria gulped, trying to catch her breath, “don’t do anything rash. I mean, after all, it’s not like Willie is about to go screaming through the ton that you’ve compromised me or anything. Uncle Quentin is a man of the world; he’ll understand. You had a momentary lapse, a, er, a sudden brainstorm, and shouldn’t be held accountable for your actions. Besides, there’s something about me you don’t know. There’s more than one scandal attached to me. You see, I’m not really the Professor’s—”
“You couldn’t have said all that,” Patrick interrupted, smiling down at her before pushing her face back against his jacket front in order to shut off her impromptu confession, believing that, although there was a time and place for everything, this was neither. “As a matter of fact, you barely had time to think it. Now hush, pet, as methinks I hear the gentle footfalls of your uncle treading in this direction.”
“Wickford?” Quentin Quinton rasped, still panting after his rapid descent of the stairs, Wilhelmina’s prodding voice hurrying him as he went. “Willie’s locked Emma and Mr. Spalding in the drawing room and told me to get myself into the library because you’re mauling my Puddin’. She don’t look mauled to me. The child looks damned comfortable, as a matter of fact. What’s going on, my boy?”
“Felicitate me, Quentin,” Patrick answered calmly, trying not to look like he was struggling to hold on to Victoria, who had begun squirming the moment her uncle had entered the room. “Your niece has just made me the happiest of men by graciously consenting to become my wife.”
“She has!” Quentin shouted happily, her cherubic face splitting ear to ear in a wide grin.
“I have?” Victoria questioned wonderfully—and somewhat breathlessly, having at last freed herself.
“You have,” Patrick pronounced calmly, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her gently against his side.
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did.”
“I did? When?”
“Just now, you silly goose.”
“Just now—Ah, you mean just now!”
“Precisely.”
“Oh dear. But—”
All at once Quentin was upon them, lifting the bewildered Victoria into a crushing bear hug before setting her back down, grabbing onto the Earl’s right hand and shaking it with considerable energy as he exclaimed happily, “I knew it was coming, you know. Oh yes, I did. Ask Willie, she’ll tell you. Fell in love with her mind, didn’t you? Bright blue she is, though she doesn’t hit you over the head with it. Anybody can have a pretty face, right? My Puddin’ here, well, she sort of grows on a body, slow-like.”
“Like moss, as Emma hinted? Or perhaps you were thinking of a barnacle?” Victoria put in recklessly, beginning to believe that the Earl was serious—he actually meant to wed her.
Quentin grabbed Victoria’s cheeks between his chubby, beringed hands and planted a kiss on her mouth. “See, what did I tell you! Sharp as a tack, that’s my Puddin’!”
Sherbourne stood silently by until Quentin seemed to wind himself down, then suggested the man round up Wilhelmina and the unsuspecting couple she was holding prisoner in the drawing room so that they could all drink a toast to the up-coming nuptials, which he intended to have take place just as soon as possible without appearing unseemly.
Once Quinton had gone off to take charge of selecting just the proper vintage for a toast of this magnitude, Patrick turned to Victoria, a tender smile lighting his eyes. “You knew last night, of course, didn’t you, my dearest love?”
Victoria gazed up at him unblinkingly.
“That was quite a convincing performance of outraged womanhood you put on earlier, but I understood that you didn’t want to appear too anxious, knowing I had come here this morning with the express purpose of proposing to you. That’s why I goaded you so shamelessly, to give you an opening.”
“It was? You did?” Victoria blinked twice, trying to understand.
“Yes, of course I did. After all, you’re an intelligent little minx, just like Quentin said. You had to know that I had to have been overcome with passion in order to be so rash as to kiss you in public, where all the world and his wife could see us. I nearly declared my intentions then and there, except for your nervous headache. But I’m glad I waited, although I will agree that this is not quite the romantic proposal I had envisioned, what with the entire household surrounding us.”
A small crease appeared between Victoria’s straight brows as she considered his words. He actually felt passion for her—she who only a few short weeks ago had felt her future lay in the bloodless profession of tending other people’s offspring. “Wel-l-ll,” she began slowly, considering what she should say. She may not be all that worldly-wise, but she instinctively knew that the last, the very last thing she should ever do would be to admit that she hadn’t had the faintest suspicion of his intentions.
“Yes, pet?” he prodded, smiling down at her.
“Well, I don’t wish to appear smug, Patrick, but I am, after all, a woman—”
“Not yet, my dearest darling,” Patrick corrected mischievously, giving her rounded bottom a little squeeze. “That doesn’t come until after the wedding.”
“Oh!” Victoria exclaimed, blushing hotly just as Quentin and Wilhelmina came into the room loaded down with wineglasses and bottles of champagne, Emma and Philip in their wake, looking slightly bemused by it all.
“And never mind searching out my meaning in one of your books,” he whispered in her ear before releasing her to accept Wilhelmina’s effusive congratulations. “I do believe this is one question I’d prefer to answer myself!”
IT WASN’T UNTIL the impromptu betrothal party had wound down and the happy couple was left alone in the drawing room for the few minutes Emma felt were allowable under the circumstances that Victoria, her cheeks weary from smiling, took Patrick by the hand and led him to the settee. “I have something to tell you, my dearest. Something you should have been told before I allowed you to declare yourself,” she began solemnly. “At first I was too overcome, and then I thought Uncle Quentin would take you to one side and inform you—but I can see that it is left to me, after all.”
Patrick drew her hands into his and smiled soothingly, an endearingly loverlike expression of concern on his handsome face. “Sits it serious, my love?” he asked, already knowing what she was about to disclose. “Have you another fiancé hidden away somewhere whom I should know about?”
Victoria could feel the first stinging of the tears that were gathering behind her eyes as she shook her head and blurted out, “I have another father hidden away in my past, Patrick. The Professor married my mother knowing she was carrying another man’s child!”
“What?” Sherbourne exclaimed, feigning surprise. “But how absolutely wonderful! It’s comforting to know that this penchant for blackmailing isn’t going to spring up somewhere down the line in our children.”
“But—but, I’m a bastard,” Victoria stammered. “At least, I think I am, technically. Doesn’t that concern you in the slightest?”
“My second cousin Ferdy is rumored to be one of Prinney’s covey of misbegotten offspring,” the Earl countered, shrugging his shoulders as if to dismiss the subject. “I can’t see where it makes a halfpenny of difference if your father was the son of a doc—whoops!”
“You knew!” Victoria exploded, pulling away her hands and bolting to her feet to stand looking down at the love of her life in accusation. “I should have known Uncle Quentin couldn’t be trusted to keep silent. I vow that man’s tongue is hinged at both ends!”
Patrick rose to stand beside her and slipped his arms around her stiff frame, pulling her against him as he soothed, “Quentin means well, my darling. Besides, w
hat does it matter—if we love each other?”
After sniffling inelegantly a time or two, Victoria raised her tear-drenched eyes to the Earl’s face. “I do love you,” she breathed softly, her bottom lip trembling just a bit.
“And I do love you,” Patrick responded intensely, his arms tightening fractionally as he drew her more fully into his embrace. Then, easing the tense moment by employing one of his engaging grins, he added, “Convenient, isn’t it, how that works out?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a dizzying daze of happiness for Victoria, who had finally come to accept the fact that Patrick Sherbourne, Earl of Wickford, was truly in love with her—no matter who she was—and wanted her to be his Countess. The beautiful ancestral betrothal ring of emeralds and diamonds encircling her finger proved it; the notice in the Morning Post proved it; the hustle and bustle of trying to gather her bride clothes in time for the wedding planned for the end of June proved it.
But most of all, Patrick himself proved it. He was endlessly loving, he was almost embarrassingly attentive, he was almost comical in his attempts to pull her behind closed doors in order to embrace her, and, best of all, he had agreed to help her solve the mystery of the Professor’s death once and for all.
Although she couldn’t quite agree with him and Quentin that she was in danger as long as the murderer might decide that he was still open to blackmail while the Professor’s daughter was still alive, she allowed them to believe she did. After all, if Patrick knew her real reason for continuing the investigation (the one that had superseded every other reason she might have had previous to learning exactly what the contents of the Professor’s ledger meant), he might just lock her in her bedchamber until the culprit was in gaol!
So in love was she that she had even agreed to allow Pierre Standish a small part in the investigation. It wasn’t that she still thought him to be guilty that made her reluctant to have Standish included in their plans, she had explained to Patrick; it was just that his friend made her nervous. He seemed to see everything, know everything—while the air of mystery that surrounded him resembled nothing more than a cold, impregnable fog.
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