by Meggin Cabot
But though Captain Carstairs acknowledged the greeting with a deeper smile and a bow, he was not given a chance to reply, since Mrs. White began tugging rather forcefully on his sleeve. He bent down to hear what that good lady had to say, and Rebecca, looking a bit put out, finally glanced in Victoria’s direction. It was then that Victoria saw her cousin smile again, revealing twin dimples on either side of her rosebud mouth.
“Welcome, Cousin Vicky,” Rebecca said kindly.
Victoria found herself seized by a sudden wave of guilt. Just seconds before she had been struck by an inexplicable urge to box her pretty cousin’s ears. And not because Becky had grown up to be so very beautiful. Victoria never envied other girls’ looks, because while her own certainly might be lacking, she knew she had other qualities that made up for any want of dimples or curves.
No, Victoria had felt like slapping Rebecca because she’d caught her making eyes at Jacob Carstairs. Was the girl simple in the head? Did she not realize what a thoroughly despicable young man Jacob Carstairs was? And what was Victoria’s aunt doing, allowing her daughter to be on friendly terms with such a reprobate?
Rebecca’s “Welcome, Cousin Vicky,” however, was all that was civil and friendly. Victoria supposed she could forgive her. Besides, Victoria knew she would not have to put up with any of the Gardiners for very long. As soon as the earl returned from Lisbon, Victoria would demand that he procure a special license so that they could be married at once. A fortnight was all she thought she’d be able to bear of her aunt and uncle’s hospitality.
Victoria smiled at her cousin, then turned her attention to thanking her aunt, whose long monologue concerning Victoria’s defects had been interrupted by the sight of one of her younger children hauling a small dog about by the neck.
“Aunt Beatrice,” Victoria began, “it’s so lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for having me—”
“Jeremiah!” Mrs. Gardiner snapped. “Put that dog down! How many times have I told you not to hold him by the head? You might kill him!”
Not to be defeated in her attempt to thank her hosts, Victoria turned toward her uncle. “And it’s very nice to see you again, too, Uncle Walter.”
Her uncle, Mr. Gardiner, had terrified Victoria when she’d been little, due to his gruff uncommunicativeness. He had changed very little in the twelve years since she’d last seen him, she soon saw. “Harumph,” was all he said to her, though he did manage a bow of acknowledgment. Then he turned toward Captain Carstairs, who stood a few feet away, and growled, “Welcome back, Carstairs. And how did you find Africa?”
Victoria was not able to hear Mr. Carstairs’s reply, because her aunt had started up again.
“Let’s get poor Vicky home, darlings,” she was braying for all the dockhands in London to hear. “She isn’t used to English weather, and could easily come down with quinsy if the heavens break, which they seem threatening to do at any moment. And we wouldn’t want Cousin Vicky with a red, sniffling nose, now, would we?” Mrs. Gardiner let out a laugh that Victoria was certain could be heard all the way back to Bombay. “’Twould frighten away all her suitors!”
Just as Victoria was certain she could not possibly feel more humiliated, she heard Jacob Carstairs quip, “Oh, I can think of one or two who wouldn’t mind.”
Victoria shot him an aggrieved look, but saw at once that it didn’t do a bit of good. Captain Carstairs grinned at her above the heads of her cousins, and continued to do so as she was carried away by them toward the barouche. The last thing she saw, as they pulled away from the Harmony, was Mrs. White fluttering a lace handkerchief in her direction, crying, “Oh, good-bye, good-bye, Lady Victoria! I shall call upon you next week!” and beside her, Jacob Carstairs, smiling like a Hindi statue of Ginesh.
Insufferable man!
CHAPTER THREE
“How lovely it must be to be rich,” Rebecca Gardiner said with a sigh, as she held one of Victoria’s many ball gowns to her shoulders and admired her reflection in the full-length looking glass of the dressing room they were to share during the course of Victoria’s stay.
A stay that Victoria had already decided was going to be very short indeed. The Gardiners’ London town house was quite nice, but with nine children—nine!—four dogs, three cats, assorted rabbits, ferrets, and budgies, two parents, a butler, cook, housekeeper, two maids, a nanny, a driver and a stableboy, the place was entirely too crowded for Victoria’s taste. Already she was longing for the airy villa she and her uncles had shared, with a staff that lived out and only well-mannered dogs or the occasional mongoose—to kill the cobras that invariably coiled in the bath—as pets.
How very different things were in the Gardiner household! It seemed that Victoria could not turn around without stepping on a small child or cat’s paw. As if that were not bad enough, the help left a good deal to be desired. Victoria could see that she was going to have to take her aunt’s staff firmly in hand. She had already resolved that Mariah, the undermaid, was going to have to go. In fact, Victoria was too concerned over Mariah’s less than careful unpacking of her belongings to pay much attention to what her cousin was saying.
“Yes,” was how Victoria replied to her cousin’s statement. To the hapless Mariah, however, who was crushing a very expensive crepe de chine wrapper, Victoria said, “That is to be hung, Mariah, not folded.”
Rebecca, rather like Mariah, paid not the slightest bit of attention to Victoria.
“Mama says you’ve simply thousands of pounds.” Rebecca pointed one of her toes, and admired the way it peeped out from the ruffled hem of the dress she held. “I wish I had thousands of pounds. If I did, I wouldn’t stay here when I came to visit London. I would stay in a hotel, and order ices to be brought to me all day long.”
“If you ate ices all day, you would become ill. Besides, my uncles wouldn’t let me stay in a hotel,” Victoria said. “They said it wasn’t considered proper in England for a young lady to stay in a hotel without a suitable chaperon. Although in India no one would think twice about it.”
“It must be divine,” Rebecca said, clearly not in the least interested in hearing about India, “to have all the money in the world to buy pretty things. Tell me, how many fans do you own?”
“Oh, dozens,” Victoria said. “It was so hot most of the year in Jaipur. Oh, Mariah, do be careful with that gown. Can’t you see it’s silk?”
“I only have two fans,” Rebecca said glumly. “And Jeremiah ripped one of them. Oh, it isn’t fair! You have all the luck—a fortune, dozens of fans, and delicious Captain Carstairs all to yourself for weeks and weeks.”
That got Victoria’s full attention, as nothing else her cousin had said had. Mariah and her slipshod unpacking skills were forgotten as Victoria spun around to stare at Rebecca.
“Captain Carstairs?” she cried in astonishment.
Rebecca nodded dreamily to her reflection in the long mirror. “Isn’t he wonderful? I wish Papa had left me behind in India with you back in ’ninety-eight. Then you and I might have sailed back to England together, and had the company of delicious Mr. Carstairs morning, noon, and night.”
Victoria made a retching noise. It wasn’t ladylike, but she couldn’t help it.
Rebecca noticed, and raised both her eyebrows in surprise.
“You didn’t enjoy Captain Carstairs’s company during the voyage?” she asked in incredulous tones.
“Hardly!” Victoria declared. “Jacob Carstairs is the most contrary gentleman I have ever had the displeasure of meeting!”
Rebecca looked shocked. “But he is so exceedingly amiable,” she said.
Victoria snorted. “Exceedingly rude, impertinent, and offensive, you mean. And if you dare to tell me that he is considered by the ton to be anything like a catch, I shall scream.”
“Well, he is,” Rebecca said bluntly, and Victoria obliged her by screaming, shrilly enough to cause the hamhanded Mariah nearly to drop the bottle of rose attar she’d been lifting from one of Victoria’s many
trunks.
“But Captain Carstairs is all that is gentlemanly,” Rebecca went on very seriously. “He has business dealings with Papa and frequently stays to dinner—and often invites us, in return, to dine with him and his mother—so we are fortunate enough to see him quite often. He has never been anything but charming. And he is so excessively handsome and droll. And quite wealthy, besides.”
“Wealthy?” Victoria, rescuing the rose attar, looked doubtful. “He’s only a naval officer.”
“Not at all,” Rebecca said. “Do you know that ship you sailed, the Harmony? Well, Jacob Carstairs owns it. He owns the entire Harmony line. It was his father’s company, but when he died it all went to Captain Carstairs. And he, in a few short years, turned it from what was at the time of his father’s death—a bit of a disappointment, I think—into the quite profitable company it is today. Jacob Carstairs, thanks to his hard work, is quite fantastically rich.”
Victoria digested this. Jacob Carstairs, fantastically rich? Well, that certainly explained why he’d seemed to feel no compunction about teasing a duke’s daughter.
Still, what about those collar points?
“I don’t believe it,” Victoria said finally.
“Believe it,” Rebecca said. “He has forty or fifty thousand pounds, at least. He is every bit as wealthy as you are, Vicky.”
Victoria sent her cousin a pained look. “Must you call me that?” she asked.
“Vicky?” Rebecca looked mildly startled. “But we’ve always called you Vicky.”
“It’s Victoria,” Victoria said. “Vicky is a child’s name. And I am no longer a child. I am, in fact, very nearly a married woman.”
She slid her gaze toward her cousin to see how she took this news. She was gratified to see an astonished Rebecca suck in her breath.
“What?” Rebecca cried. “You’re engaged?”
“Indeed I am,” Victoria said, delighted that she was able to share her news at last. She’d been feeling as if she might burst from keeping it to herself. It was a relief to tell someone, even if that someone had the ill judgment to think of Jacob Carstairs as marriageable.
“See, here is his signet ring.” Victoria held out her hand so that Rebecca could examine the gold ring that Victoria was forced to wear on her middle finger, and not her third, as it was so large on her. Mariah, sidling by with her arms full of Victoria’s underthings, also stopped to admire it.
“But this is the crest of the Earl of Malfrey,” Rebecca cried as she bent to examine the ring. “Oh, Vicky! Don’t say you are engaged to Hugo Rothschild!”
“Indeed I am,” Victoria said importantly, pleased to see that this news seemed to be causing Mariah to treat her pantaloons with more reverence. “I met him on board the ship, and he asked me to marry him three nights ago, just before he disembarked for Lisbon, where he has business.” Then she added as an afterthought, “You must promise not to tell anyone, Becky. You, too, Mariah. Lord Malfrey asked that we keep our engagement secret until he returns to London and can introduce me properly to his mother.”
“I’ll not say a word, m’lady,” Mariah declared staunchly. Rebecca was not so quick to promise, however.
“Engaged!” Rebecca looked stunned. “And to Lord Malfrey! He is so very handsome! And stylish, too. Why, I have seen him at Almack’s many a time, and never once has he worn the same waistcoat. He is a most pleasing gentleman… all that is amiable and obliging.” Then the pretty face clouded over. “But Vicky, you’re only sixteen. Will your uncles allow you to marry so young?”
Victoria shrugged. “What can they do about it? They’re back in India, and I’m here.”
“There is quite a lot they could do about it,” Rebecca declared. “They could refuse to allow it. And then you’d have to elope. But then they might cut you off! And then what would the two of you live on? For I have heard, Vicky, that the earl’s fortune is not what it once was.”
Victoria said kindly, “Don’t trouble yourself on that account, Becky. My uncles cannot cut me off, for I came into my fortune last year. The money my father left for me is mine to do with what I like. And I know all about Lord Malfrey’s lack of wealth. That’s why our engagement is such a joy to me. I’ve always longed for something worthy to do with my wealth.” Victoria tried to put from her head the uncomfortable memory of Jacob Carstairs saying earlier that day, Well, you must be feeling very happy indeed, Miss Bee. Finally a chance to be useful to someone. Such a tiresome young man! “Now I will be able to put my fortune to good use, helping to restore my husband’s family to its former place as one of the best of London.”
Rebecca continued to look dubious. “I don’t think Mama will like it, Vicky,” she said. “Nor Papa, for that matter. In fact, I think it might be my duty as your elder cousin to tell them. You are so young, you know.”
Victoria prickled. “Only a year younger than you,” she pointed out.
“Still,” Rebecca said gravely. “There’s a great difference between sixteen and seventeen, you know. After all, I’ve already had a season out, and you haven’t. What could you possibly know about men? You’ve spent the whole of your life in India!”
Living with three of the most vexing, egotistical men in the world, who were completely incapable of taking their boot heels off the tabletop, Victoria thought crossly to herself. What I don’t know about men, Miss Becky, would fit into your thimble with room to spare.
“Are you saying you don’t think Lord Malfrey will make me a good husband?” was what she asked aloud.
“Oh, no,” Rebecca said. “Not at all. Only that… well, can you really be so sure you love him, Vicky, at only sixteen?”
Victoria, annoyed, asked, “Can you really be so sure you love Captain Carstairs at only seventeen?”
Rebecca blushed prettily. “I did not say I loved him.”
“Well, you do an excellent imitation of it. ‘He is so handsome and charming and droll,’ were your words, I believe.”
Rebecca tossed her head until her golden curls bounced. “What if I do love him? At least Jacob Carstairs made his own fortune, and won’t need to depend on his wife to pay his tailor’s bills.”
As there was nothing Victoria could say in response to the first part of her cousin’s remark, she responded only to the second half: “Captain Carstairs might think about switching tailors,” Victoria snapped, “as his own is allowing him to gad about town in scandalously low collar points.”
Rebecca sucked in her breath. “There is nothing wrong with Mr. Carstairs’s collar points!”
It was on the tip of Victoria’s tongue to assert that Jacob Carstairs’s collar points were as low as her opinion of his character, when it occurred to her that it would not do to alienate her cousin. Victoria had plans for Rebecca. For no sooner had she seen her cousin standing on the dock making eyes at Jacob Carstairs than Victoria had decided that he was the last man in the world with whom she could allow her cousin to become involved. Victoria intended to find a friend of Lord Malfrey’s for Rebecca, so that the four of them could summer together at the earl’s estate in the lake district. It was Victoria’s duty, she knew, to rescue Rebecca not only from the obnoxious company of her entirely too large family, but from Jacob Carstairs, as well.
And so Victoria swallowed down her ire and said in the sweetest voice imaginable, “Of course there’s nothing wrong with Captain Carstairs’s collar points. I was only teasing. Let’s not quarrel, Becky.”
Rebecca did not look inclined to stop quarreling. Nor, it turned out, did she seem inclined to keep her mouth shut on the subject of Victoria’s engagement.
“It just feels wrong,” she said, “hiding something like this from Mama.”
Victoria glanced at the gown Mariah happened to be unfolding from the last of her trunks.
“You know,” Victoria said slyly, “I probably won’t be staying long beneath your father’s roof, Becky. Soon Lord Malfrey and I will marry, and I’ll go away to live with him. Which is too bad, because I was just
thinking what fun it was going to be, living with another woman. I’ve never done it, you know… not since my mother died. I was thinking what a jolly time we’ll have, staying up late gossiping, and trying on each other’s clothes. If you like something of mine, you know, you need only ask to borrow it, and it’s yours for as long as you like. That gown you were admiring in the mirror, for instance. Wouldn’t you like to wear it to dinner tonight?”
In half a second, Rebecca’s expression turned from mulish to wistful.
“That gown?” she said. “I really might wear it? You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Victoria said. “But you’ll need to take the fan that goes with it. It’s the blue feathered one, Mariah, the one you just put in the top drawer.”
Mariah pulled out the aforementioned fan and presented it to Rebecca with a curtsy. “’Twill go with your eyes, miss,” she said obsequiously. And Victoria began to sense that there might be some hope for Mariah after all.
And hope for Rebecca as well, Victoria decided later, when, garbed in borrowed finery, her cousin made quite a splash as she entered the dining room. Mrs. Gardiner, fearing—wrongly, of course—that Victoria would be too fatigued from her long sea voyage to wish to go out her first night in London, had arranged for a quiet family dinner—though Mrs. Gardiner’s idea of quiet and Victoria’s contrasted sharply. Quiet, to Victoria, meant shutting all the little Gardiners up in their nursery so that the adults might eat in relative peace.