by Gayle Callen
Victoria had to admit that the drawing room looked splendid, with a riotous bloom of flowers from their garden in a beam of sunlight. It was a simple way to make her mother feel better. One room in the house would look as normal as possible. She’d gathered their last decent possessions: the sofa from Mama’s sitting room, matching tables from a guest room, the last of her sister Louisa’s collection of clocks Father had brought her from his trips to the Continent. There were still so many paintings on the wall. She allowed herself to enjoy them for a few minutes, and then she began to catalogue their worth in her household journal. Much as she loved art, they would have to be sold soon.
Mrs. Wayneflete entered the room, and in a formal voice, said, “Viscount Thurlow is here to see you, Miss Shelby.”
Before Victoria could say that she wasn’t at home today, the viscount himself rudely appeared behind the housekeeper. He loomed large in the doorway, so very foreign in this household of women.
It had been only a day since Victoria had seen him, but her feelings of anger had not lessened, only waited to be roused.
“Mrs. Wayneflete, do tell His Lordship that I am feeling ill today.” She wished she could have left the room, but he was blocking the only exit. So she simply stared at him, waiting for his good manners to assert themselves.
They didn’t.
He handed his hat and gloves to Mrs. Wayneflete. “Do leave us alone, please.”
“That wouldn’t be proper, my lord,” the housekeeper said stiffly. “I did not realize that Miss Victoria was unwell.”
Victoria felt gratitude pour through her.
Lord Thurlow looked down at Mrs. Wayneflete with a respect that Victoria didn’t trust.
“Your protection of your mistress is understandable, but we are childhood friends, and I need to explain something to her.”
Victoria wanted to call him a liar, but she couldn’t. And she couldn’t leave her dear housekeeper in the middle like this. “Mrs. Wayneflete, you may leave us, but keep the door open.”
The housekeeper curtsied, shot a curious look between the viscount and Victoria, and left the room.
Victoria faced the man and waited. She didn’t have to make this easy on him. His presence was still just as intimidating, though he watched her almost warily.
“We need to discuss what happened yesterday, Miss Shelby,” he said, “and what happened all those years ago. I have no excuse for the lie about my identity. I was but ten years old, and can only blame my behavior on my own unhappiness at the time. I ask for your forgiveness.”
Well, he wasn’t going to get it.
“Thank you.” She started to walk past him to show him down to the front door, but he caught her arm.
“I’m not finished yet,” he said firmly.
She hardly heard his words. She was staring at his hand on her black sleeve, feeling the hot imprint of each of his fingers. He leaned over her; tall, powerful, a man who didn’t know what it was like to wonder when his next meal would be.
“You may release me, Lord Thurlow. We are quite done.”
His hand fell away, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I have more I wish to say to you.”
“What more could there be?” she asked, not bothering to hide her bitterness. “You have revealed your lies, and shown me what a fool I was.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Good day, Lord Thurlow. If you don’t wish me to escort you to the door, then I assume you can find it on your own.”
“Miss Shelby, I have a proposition that might help us both.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Of course you do. Your father is dead and you have no way to support yourself.”
She pressed her trembling lips together. She never should have given in to impulse and gone to Banstead House. “So you already know everything about me.”
“I’m sure it is not quite everything. But after you left yesterday, I was curious about your motives. I discovered your regrettable situation.”
“Discovered?” she echoed.
“I hired a man to look into the situation.”
“You had someone spy on me?” She didn’t think she’d ever be able to breathe again. She looked about the room as if she expected to find a man hiding behind the draperies.
“Of course not,” said the viscount. “He looked into public records. My sympathies to you and your family on the death of your father. I was in the north at the time.”
“And you would have come to his funeral?” she said, appalled at the bitterness that filled her every word. She had sworn she wouldn’t allow her desperate circumstances to change her so very much, and she regretted it. “Forgive me, my lord, that was uncalled for.”
“You do not need to apologize to me,” he said in the mildest voice she’d yet heard from him. “You have been through enough.”
Oh God, did he know the truth about Father’s death? Was he even now going to shout her deception to the world? She’d never thought that the man she’d known as Tom the cook’s son would be capable of such a thing. But this was Viscount Thurlow, a man whose family was no longer respected by the ton, their own class of society.
“You are a survivor, Miss Shelby,” he continued. “I am impressed at your thought to come to me.”
“I didn’t come to you,” she said, swallowing back her relief. Surely he would have said something if he knew her secret. “I came for Tom’s help.”
“But I’m Tom, and I have a proposition for you. Marry me.”
Victoria stared up at the viscount, feeling the blood drain from her face. Surely he was making a terrible joke at her expense. She looked for a sly expression, but found none. He was watching her impassively, and there was nothing to indicate that he was even attracted to her.
Because, of course, he wasn’t. He had his own plans, just as she did. Stepping away, she put down her notebook and really looked at him: a successful, handsome nobleman asking a poor, maidenly commoner to marry him.
A buried part of her was weak enough to want to shout “Yes!” with terrifying relief. Thank goodness another, stronger part of her surfaced. “My lord, this is terribly presumptuous on your part. We don’t even know one another.”
“Don’t we?”
His voice had deepened, softened, and for a moment she thought back longingly to lazy summer days spent reading his words and laughing, so anxious to write back. She stared into the viscount’s eyes, looking for the man she thought she’d known. But he was a stranger.
“No, I don’t know you,” she answered firmly. “You may have written to me, but since you pretended to be someone else, everything you wrote is suspect.”
“My true identity was a secret, but that did not mean everything was a lie.”
He looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t used to needing persuasion to get his way.
“But I’ll never be able to believe that, will I?” Oh, where did her words spring from? In the end, what would she accomplish by this—driving away a rich viscount who’d asked to marry her? How could she let her pride stand in the way of her mother’s empty belly—of the woman’s very sanity? But if Victoria married him, how would her own name be tainted?
With a heavy sigh, she turned away from him and sat down in a straight-backed chair. She rubbed her arms as if she might never be warm again.
Without looking at him, she said, “Tell me why you wish to marry me—and don’t say that you’re rescuing me. We both know that that is not the reason.”
“It’s part of the reason. You came to me for help, and I’m offering it.”
At least he didn’t know that she’d been forward enough to come looking for a husband. “You can have any woman you want, my lord, and they would bring along fine dowries.”
“I don’t need money,” he said shortly.
She studied him, trying to step away from her emotions to see what he was hiding. But he was too good at wearing a mask. After all, this was the man who’d lied about his identity
from the time he was ten.
She had to make certain of his motives. “Then you need prestige, a woman who can bring you connections.”
“I don’t need that, either. I remember everything you wrote to me about your training as a gentleman’s daughter. You will make a fine wife.”
A fine wife. What did that mean? And most of Lord Thurlow’s class would not call her father a gentleman. He was their banker, their trusted confidant where their finances were concerned—but not a gentleman, because he had accepted money for his services.
She tried to remember what girlish musings about her wifely education could have possibly impressed Tom—Lord Thurlow—but her thoughts were too jumbled with confusion. She needed to understand why before she accepted his offer of marriage.
Because, of course, she couldn’t refuse. She could tell herself to be wary of his reputation, but in the end rumors mattered little compared to a harsh life in poverty.
“I need more of an explanation from you, my lord,” she said simply, too tired for subterfuge. “Why me?”
“Because I need a wife, and you need a husband,” he said briskly, beginning to pace as if he didn’t want to truly see her. “You came to Tom because you thought the two of you got on decently together, am I right?”
She gave a reluctant nod.
“And I think the same thing. Yes, I could choose some pretty chit fresh into her first Season, and I might be lucky—or not. They seem so very young lately. But with you—”
He paused, and she thought she almost detected a hesitation in his gait.
“But with you,” he continued smoothly, “I have a better idea of the woman I’d be marrying.”
“Do you, my lord? We have never spoken, and haven’t written to each other in ten years. You think you know me so well?”
“I would never presume such a thing, Miss Shelby. But I know the kind of girl you were, and that is enough for me.”
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Life had changed her. It had certainly changed him. But in what ways?
Victoria’s mother chose that moment to enter the drawing room, draped in a black gown that hung on her thinner frame. Mama stared between her daughter and the viscount in obvious confusion. Victoria’s resignation faded into tender worry. She rose and took the woman’s cold hand in hers.
“Hello, Mama. I’m so glad you came. I’d like to introduce you to our neighbor, Lord Thurlow. Lord Thurlow, my mother, Mrs. Lavinia Shelby.”
Confusion clouded her mother’s eyes, but then a tentative smile touched her pale lips. “Are you the little boy from next door?”
Victoria smothered a gasp, staring at her mother in shock. Had Mama read Victoria’s journal all those years ago?
Lord Thurlow bowed over Mama’s hand, watching the older woman as if he sensed nothing amiss. “I am, Mrs. Shelby. Have we met?”
“Once on the street my bonnet blew away, and you ran and fetched it for me.”
“Ah, I see,” he said. “Forgive me for not remembering.”
“You were quite young, but very polite.”
She looked around, and Victoria saw her gaze take in the moved furniture, and regretted the confusion it caused.
“I don’t believe you’ve come to call before,” Mama said.
Victoria frowned at the viscount, warning him not to speak of what was not yet settled between them.
“And it was past time I did visit,” he said. “We are neighbors, after all, and such bonds carry a certain…weight.”
Victoria didn’t know what he was implying, and it was obvious her mother was even more confused. Victoria slipped her arm into Mama’s, and she almost flinched away. The rejection stung, and Victoria felt the unwanted start of tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of Lord Thurlow.
Victoria guided her to the door. “Why don’t you find Mrs. Wayneflete, Mama? I understand that she wanted your opinion about the dinner menu.”
Without even acknowledging the viscount, her mother wandered out of the room. Victoria turned and looked at Lord Thurlow, waiting for what he would say. Would he change his mind and leave her to poverty? Or would he stay, which was frightening in itself?
Suddenly she couldn’t stop thinking of the intimacy involved in a marriage. She would have to let him…touch her.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m sorry to see how difficult your father’s death has been on your mother.”
He was watching her too closely, and it unnerved her. She turned away, waiting for his rejection.
“Our marriage would help your mother, too,” he said.
She let out a deep sigh. “Why are you trying so hard to convince me to marry you, my lord? You know how difficult it would be for me to refuse. Tell me what you require of me as your wife.”
He’d begun pacing again; she could feel his movement behind her. It made it easier for her to turn and face him.
“My requirements are quite simple, Miss Shelby. You will run my household, and the household of my family seat, where we’ll spend several months of each year. I shall need an heir”—that part was rather rushed—“and of course, I would need my wife to be above scandal at all times.”
Inside a coldness began to grow within her.
“Scandal, my lord?” she said, trying to sound unperturbed.
“Yes. I have a career in the House of Commons—and someday the House of Lords—to think about. Members listen to the opinion of a man they can respect.”
He didn’t quite meet her eyes, as if he wasn’t telling her everything. Was that what he longed for, respect? What had his father done to make the name of Banstead something that harmed even the next generation?
Yet she could not find fault with Lord Thurlow’s honesty, when her own was suspect. What would he do if he discovered that her father, a man who was well known within the circles of the ton, had killed himself, and that she and her family had hidden the truth?
But she would live with the guilt of her crime, rather than ruin this opportunity to keep her mother safe.
Chapter 3
David found himself studying Victoria’s every emotion, so openly revealed on her face. She was worried about his marital requirements, but he couldn’t decide if it was the thought of sex, or how she could carry off her position as a future countess. He didn’t know whether to be flattered by her concern or annoyed.
He still couldn’t forget the horror in her expression when he’d revealed himself as Tom. She certainly had a way of taking him down a peg or two without even trying.
He was having to convince her to marry him, she a poor spinster with no other prospects. He had thought he’d gotten used to women rejecting him because of his father’s notoriety, but Victoria’s reservations seemed even more personal. He refused to continue thinking of it that way. She was a scared woman taking care of an ill mother, with little choice left in her life.
“So do my conditions for marriage meet with your approval?” he asked.
“You know they do, my lord. I would ask nothing less of myself as your—as a wife. But if you don’t mind, I have conditions of my own.”
He raised a brow in acknowledgment of her courage. “Please speak them freely.”
“I ask that you make a place for my mother in your household.”
“Of course, Miss Shelby.”
She went on quickly, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I promise I will take care of her, and she would cause no—” She stopped, and her wide-eyed gaze found his.
He was feeling properly insulted. “Did you think I would turn your mother out on the street?”
“Forgive me if I gave such an implication, my lord,” she said quietly. “It was not my intent. But my mother has not been well since my father’s death, though she is showing signs of improvement. I felt the need to make everything clear between us.”
“There is nothing else you wish for yourself?”
“Just that my sisters be allowed the occasional…lengthy visit, my lord.”
“Of cour
se. You are a rare woman, Miss Shelby. In the interest of making everything ‘clear,’ allow me to assure you that I will provide you with a comfortable life, including an extensive wardrobe and spending money of your own.”
Her complexion had deepened to scarlet throughout his speech. It was obvious that she was a proud woman, unused to having to ask anyone for anything. He wondered how well he would have handled her situation were he in her place, how it must feel to be condemned not to work by society. He knew some of that feeling, of course, because his business dealings crossed the line into commerce, something that would be frowned upon by other gentlemen if it were common knowledge. Other than investments and land dealings, gentlemen did not lower themselves to trade. Being told how he could earn his money did not sit well with David, but it wouldn’t stop his railway venture.
Victoria had no way to earn money at all as a gentlewoman unless as a companion or governess, which her sisters had done, two positions that demanded the utmost work and the utmost in humbled circumstances.
“My lord, your generosity is appreciated,” she said. “If there is anything else you wish of me, please say so before we agree on this arrangement.”
“Arrangement,” he said in a chilly voice. “This won’t be an arrangement, Miss Shelby, but a marriage, a real one in every way.”
In two strides he was right before her, and she stared up at him with wide, beautiful eyes. But she didn’t shrink from him, and for that he was grateful. He reached for her hand, deftly unbuttoned her glove at the wrist, and slid off the offending accessory. She inhaled sharply. Her hand was not as soft as that of every other lady of his acquaintance. This woman had worked hard to feed and shelter herself and her mother. And he admired her.
He brought her trembling hand up and bent over it, never taking his eyes off hers. For just a moment he let her see the sensuousness in his gaze. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, lingered, inhaled the elusive scent he couldn’t quite place. Ah, the smell of flour and baking, a woman who helped prepare meals. He found her practical nature and his lack of familiarity with it almost erotic. He dipped his tongue against her skin to taste her.