“I wanted to be prepared. We were playing with fire, love.”
Victoria closed her eyes to his satisfied grin. “And I got burned.”
“Are the flames so bad?” he asked softly, brushing his mouth across hers. His body reacted immediately and he groaned.
“I have given the situation much thought during the past few days,” she said, her expression very serious now. “If the world were a different place, I would never have chosen marriage.”
Her insistence on that point began to annoy him. He scowled. “If the world were a different place, I would not have been obliged to capture an heiress.”
“True. Lucas, as I said, I have given this much thought. We both did what was required of us by our sense of honor and now we have been forced to seal a bargain. This is something of a business arrangement. I have decided to think of our marriage in that light. I see us as two business associates who have invested in the same enterprise.”
Lucas frowned. “I do not like all this talk of going into trade.”
She shook her head restlessly. “Think of it how you will; the point is, we are investing together in a future, and as long as we can find a way to work comfortably together, I begin to believe we can be reasonably content together.”
“Reasonably content,” he echoed, thinking seriously of putting her over his knee. “Is that how you felt a few minutes ago when you were shivering in my arms? Reasonably content?”
The flush on her face was more than just the effect of the fire’s warmth. “Really, Lucas. A gentleman would not ask such an intimate question.”
“How would you know? You haven’t been with any other gentlemen in such circumstances.”
“I can hazard a guess,” she retorted. “Besides, that is not the issue.”
“And what is the issue? You mean to think of our marriage as a partnership? An investment? A business arrangement in which the associates happen to sleep together?” His eyes caught hers in a burning gaze.
“But is that not precisely what it is? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No, damn it. Tis not at all what I wanted.”
“I see. Perhaps you do not care for the notion of me being an equal partner? Perhaps you just wanted my money and would prefer I stay out of the matter entirely, except insofar as I am needed to provide your heir.”
“Vicky, Vicky, calm yourself. You are twisting my words and getting everything wrong.”
“I am trying to do as everyone says I must. I am attempting to find a sensible, intelligent way to deal with this matter. I thought you would be pleased that I am finally being so reasonable about everything.”
Lucas fought to quell his outrage. “I don’t want a business associate, I want a wife.”
“What is the difference, other than the fact that as your wife I shall share your bed occasionally?”
“It will be more than occasionally and the difference is that you love me, madam. You said so yourself.”
Her eyes widened. “I did not.”
“Yes, you did. That first night at the inn. I heard you.”
“I only said I thought I was in love with you. In any case, all that is naturally changed by what happened.”
“The devil it is.” His fingers tightened on her wrists. “Vicky, stop talking all this nonsense about a business arrangement. We are man and wife.”
“Are you saying there is more to our relationship than a bargain?”
“Of course there is.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you claiming to be in love with me, then, my lord?”
“You would not believe me if I told you I was.” He released her and sat up, adjusting his clothing.
“Who knows? Why don’t you try it and see?”
He looked at her and did not quite know what to make of the look in her eyes. But she was challenging him, of that much he was certain. “What do you want from me, Vicky?”
“What I imagine every new bride wishes to hear,” she said coolly. “A declaration of undying love and a promise of eternal devotion. But I am not likely to get it, am I?”
“Bloody hell.” He stood up, sensing the treacherous sand beneath his feet. Women were the very devil with words and a woman like this one would know how to take full advantage of any leverage he gave her. He’d already had ample proof of how skillfully she could maneuver him into going against his own better judgment. Just the memory of those dreadful nights climbing Lady Nettleship’s garden wall was enough to start his leg aching again. “You tease me at your peril, madam.”
“Does that mean you cannot give me what I want?”
“I do not trust your mood, Vicky, nor whatever is behind your request. I believe you are looking for a way to manipulate me. If I gave you a declaration of undying love and eternal devotion, you would hurl it in my face every time I refused to indulge one of your whims. You would say I had lied about loving you.”
“Does that mean you do not love me?”
“It means it was a goddamned mistake to indulge you so much initially in London. You have come to expect that with very little effort you can keep me on a leash,” he said through his teeth.
“I see.” She got slowly to her feet and concentrated on arranging her clothing.
Lucas stared at her slender, rigidly held back, feeling hunted. A few minutes ago they had been sharing a passion unlike any he had ever known. Now the fragile relationship seemed to have been shattered by mere words. For the life of him he could not figure out where everything had gone wrong.
“Vicky, don’t do this to yourself.” He turned her around and pulled her into his arms. He thought he heard a small sniff and he immediately felt helpless. He did not like the feeling at all. “You are no green girl, damn it.”
She hesitated and then nodded reluctantly against his shoulder, her face buried in his shirt. “You are right. I am behaving like a silly little chit straight out of the schoolroom who cannot face the world as it is.” She pulled back and looked up at him with renewed determination. “As I said, Lucas, I do believe this marriage can work if we both agree to act logically and reasonably. I vow I will uphold my end of this bargain.”
He looked down into eyes that still shimmered with tears and he did not know what to say. He realized he wanted to hear the sweet, tentative words of love he had heard from her that first night, but he sensed that now was not the time to demand them.
“Vicky?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Thank you for making up your mind to make the best of this marriage,” he heard himself say gently. “I am grateful.”
“You are welcome, my lord.”
He grimaced a little at the excruciating formality of her tone but managed a reassuring smile. As he stood looking down at her the amber pendant glowed in the firelight and Lucas relaxed slightly.
It would be all right, he decided. She would find the words again in her own good time. “Do not tie yourself in knots trying to dissect your feelings, Vicky. Or mine.” He touched the gold chain of the pendant and smiled. “Everything will come right in time. Let’s go home.”
She nodded in swift agreement and stood back as he shook out her cloak. The garment was dusty but otherwise unharmed. He put it around her, thinking that even though she was tall for a woman, she was still considerably smaller than he was. He was aware again of a fierce need to protect her and keep her safe.
“Lucas,” she said thoughtfully as he put out the fire, “if you did not arrange for us to be discovered that night at the inn, who did?”
He shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Lady Atherton, perhaps? In her never-ending zeal to assist you in your quest for an heiress?”
He grinned, relieved to hear the returning edge of impudence in her voice. “’Tis possible, I suppose. Does it matter? What’s done is done.” He took her arm and led her toward the door.
“You are quite right,” she said slowly. “What’s done is done. But there were one or two rather odd things that happened to me recentl
y in Town and combined with the mystery of wondering who had been spying on us, I began to think.”
“About what?”
“Never mind. ’Tis just my imagination.”
Lucas went cold. He dragged her to an abrupt halt just outside the cottage. “Victoria, what in hell are you talking about? What odd things happened?”
“Really, Lucas, it was nothing, I’m sure.”
“I would like an answer, madam.”
“Do you know, Lucas, when you talk in that particular tone, there is a strong tendency for everyone in the vicinity to jump through the nearest hoop. Did you learn that in the army?”
He prayed silently for patience. “Enough, Victoria. Tell me what made you ask me about who might have spied on us. Tell me now, wife, or we will stand here until you do.”
“It occurs to me that on the two occasions when we have conducted our intellectual inquiries, you have not been particularly affectionate afterward. The first time I will grant there was the extenuating circumstance of my aunt’s presence. But this time there is no excuse. Is it this way with all men?”
“You cannot resist goading me, can you? One of these days you really will push too far. Answer me or we are likely to discover that this is the day.”
Victoria shrugged. “Very well, but it really does not amount to much. It is just that on two occasions in Town I came across objects that did not belong to me. They were both marked with a ‘W.’ One was a scarf that had been left on the conservatory door. I found it that night we went to the gaming hell.”
“The night you were nearly run down by that carriage.” Lucas frowned. “What was the other object?”
“A snuffbox, of all things. I found it in my paintbox.”
“And no one ever claimed either object?”
“No.” She shook her head and resumed walking back toward the house.
He fell into step beside her, trying to think. “When did you find the snuffbox?”
She muttered a response that he did not quite catch.
He flicked an impatient glance at her averted face. “What was that?”
“I said I found it the morning after our last, fateful interview in my aunt’s garden. You may recall the evening, my lord. It was the night I asked you to arrange for us to, uh …”
“Oh, yes. That night. Fateful, indeed.” He turned her words over in his mind, looking for a pattern that was not there. “’Tis strange.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was attacked by a footpad that night on my way back to the carriage,” he explained briefly. “I wondered at the time if the man might have been deliberately waiting for me, but I dismissed it as unlikely.”
Victoria whirled around, her eyes wide with shock. “You were attacked? By a footpad? Why didn’t you tell me? For heaven’s sake, Lucas, you should have said something.”
“Such as?” Her renewed concern for his safety pleased and reassured him.
“Do not be flippant. This is a very serious matter. You could have been hurt. Did he take your money or your watch?”
“No, he did not.”
“No, of course not,” she agreed quickly. “You would have been much too quick for him.”
“You flatter me. I fear the simple truth is that I was lucky.” He took her arm again and resumed guiding her back to the house. “The footpad was of no particular consequence, unless one considers the damage done to my coat. But it is a rather interesting coincidence.”
“What is? And how can you say the attack on you was of no consequence? It seems to me it could have had very alarming consequences.”
“Yes, but the interesting part is the coincidence of each of us having a rather narrow escape just before you discovered those objects with ‘W’ inscribed on them.”
She was stunned into a rare silence. Lucas could almost hear her mind working feverishly. “What do you make of such coincidences?”
“To be honest, I do not know what to make of them. There probably isn’t anything at all to be made of them. I will admit it had occurred to me that the footpad might have been hired by Edgeworth.”
“Edgeworth. Oh, yes, him. Because of his embarrassing loss at cards? Do you think he would have stooped to that sort of vengeance just because he lost money to you?”
Lucas reflected on his last conversation with Edgeworth. “There was a bit more bad blood between us than just the gaming-table scene. But even if he resorted to such tactics, it still fails to explain the object you discovered in the conservatory.”
She frowned. “No. Nor does it tie in with the carriage incident, although I suppose that if that had been a deliberate attack also, we might have been wrong in thinking I was the intended victim.”
“You think I was the target?” He was surprised by her insight and took a minute to think about it. “I’m not sure. Tis possible. We were not standing very far apart on the street when it happened.”
“Edgeworth again?”
Lucas chewed on that. On the night of the carriage incident he and Edgeworth had not yet had their confrontation over Vicky’s honor. But there was still the matter of the gaming loss and Edgeworth might have begun to realize his reputation was declining in the clubs. And, of course, there was always that bit of bad business in the past that would forever stand between them.
“Possible,” Lucas said finally.
“But what could either of those attacks have to do with my discovering the scarf and the snuffbox?”
“Do you know anyone whose name begins with a ‘W’?”
“No. I mean, yes, of course. Several people. As I said, none of them had lost either item.”
She rushed on, telling him about all the people whose name began with “W” and how her aunt had talked to them all about the missing items, but Lucas was not listening.
His attention had been caught and held by the strange note in her voice when she had first answered the direct question. Once before quite recently he had heard that hesitation, detected that slight distance, as if she did not want to get too close to the question. He reflected for another instant and then he had it. He had heard it the night she described her nightmare.
“… and she also checked with Lady Wibberly, who takes an inordinate amount of snuff. Lord Wilkins, too, I believe. He wears scarves. And then we asked Waterson, but to no avail.”
“Vicky.”
“One can never be certain Lord Waterson remembers things all that well, however. It is entirely possible he lost both items and doesn’t recall it. Always has his mind on higher things like meteorology, you know. He has built the most impressive instrument for measuring rainfall.”
“Victoria.”
“As I said, what with my aunt’s long list of acquaintances, it is possible we missed someone.”
“Vicky, darling, please hush for a minute. I want to ask you a very particular question and I would be very grateful if you gave me a direct answer.” He stopped, obliging her to halt also. Then he turned her toward him and caught hold of her shoulders.
“Yes, Lucas?”
“Vicky, is there someone whose name begins with ‘W’ whom you do not like? Someone who frightens you or whom you feel you cannot trust? Someone who, perhaps, makes you exceedingly anxious?”
“No,” she said instantly.
He smiled slightly at the obvious lie. “Try again with your answer, my sweet. And don’t be afraid to tell me the truth, I’m your midnight companion in adventure, remember? You can tell me things you would tell no one else.”
“Lucas, please, do not press me like this.”
He urged her close, pushing her face into his shirt. Her amber cloak swirled around his legs. “Tell me, Vicky.”
Her shoulders were stiff, her body unyielding. “You do not understand.”
“Try me.”
“Lucas, he’s dead.”
Lucas frowned into her soft hair, hearing the desperation in that simple statement. He flipped through the information Jessica Atherton had given him before h
e began to stalk his heiress. It took him less than a couple of seconds to hit upon a name: Samuel Whitlock. “Are we, by any chance,” he asked gently, “talking about your stepfather?”
She jerked her head back, making a visible effort to pull herself together. “I told you it was impossible. He is dead and buried.”
“But you did not like him very much, did you?”
Her eyes glittered in the moonlight. “I hated him for what he did to my mother and for what he would have done to me if he’d gotten the chance. My mother saved me from that lecherous bastard by sending me to live with my aunt for most of my life. But she could not save herself. In the end, he killed her.”
13
“You believe your stepfather killed your mother?”
Lucas’s voice sounded amazingly calm, Victoria thought. It was the sort of voice in which he might have asked if she would care for a glass of sherry before dinner. As he spoke he draped an arm around her shoulder and resumed walking toward the house.
“Yes. Yes, I do, although I have never said as much to anyone except my aunt.” Victoria felt the heavy weight around her shoulders and was oddly reassured. He was so very strong, she thought fleetingly. Comfortingly so.
She was not certain why Lucas’s arm around her had such a soothing effect, but she didn’t question it just then. She was too busy reminding herself to be very careful about what she said next. She had already blurted out a great deal more than she had ever intended.
“What does your aunt think?”
Victoria clutched at the edges of her cloak. “That ’tis very possible. She knows the sort of man he was. A cruel drunkard who lacked any shred of decency. She did point out that if he murdered her, it would be interesting to know why Samuel Whitlock waited so many years to do it. Why did he not simply get it over and done soon after he married my mother and had access to her fortune?”
“There may have been no real reason to kill her in the early years,” Lucas said reflectively, as though working out a curious puzzle in his mind. “After all, as you said, he did have access to her money. Why should he risk hanging for murder?”
Victoria sighed. “That was Aunt Cleo’s point. My mother not only sent me to live with my aunt, she frequently came to stay with us for weeks, sometimes months at a time. After she realized what sort of man she had married, she spent as little time with him as possible. When he got drunk he got violent.”