“But she had no money.”
“As a matter of fact, she took some twenty pounds from my strongbox.”
“That little thief. After all I’ve done for her, and she a worthless cripple.”
Damien merely shrugged.
Elaine continued with her brushing, calm again, watchful. “I wonder,” she said, again studying her husband’s face in her mirror, “why she ran away.”
“I imagine it was that pitiful bore David Esterbridge. He was after her, you know. Perhaps she was escaping from him.”
“I can’t think that is true. Don’t you remember? She was talking of David as if she’d made up her mind to wed him. I truly don’t believe David could be responsible for her running away.”
“That isn’t what David told me. Evidently she changed her mind. I wouldn’t put it past the stupid boy to have frightened her, mauled her about with no finesse and all that.”
“Lord knows she should take him. He’s probably the only chance she has at a decent match.”
“But then you would lose an excellently suitable companion for Damaris, would you not?”
“Why do you believe she’s gone to London?”
“Let me just say I believe it her only alternative.”
Elaine wanted to probe, but he was removing his dressing gown. He was quite naked. She watched him climb into her bed. She closed her eyes, but she could see his member swelling, feel his hands on her body, so knowing, his hands.
“I am breeding, of course,” she said in a thin voice.
He laughed. “Indeed. Your shape has become rather unusual. But I shan’t repine. I wish my son to know his father.”
He would make her want him, she thought as she slowly set down her brush. He would make her lose control, forget things, ignore what she more than guessed. God, she hated Victoria. The little viper, betraying her in her own home. Had Damien already bedded her cousin? Was Victoria in fact pregnant and Damien had sent her away? To London? Was he going to set her up there as his mistress? She shook her head even as she walked toward the bed. He wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t.
“Elaine?”
“You are so certain it is your heir I carry?”
“Yes.” He patted the pillow beside his. “If you are not, then we will simply have to continue trying. Come now, Elaine. I believe I want your very warm mouth tonight.”
“All right,” she said. “Yes.”
Victoria resigned herself to a long day of boredom. Rafael, curse him, was riding, and she was alone in the bouncing carriage. The carriage was an ancient, very musty excuse for a vehicle and it was as poorly sprung as Nanny Black’s single chair that had belonged to her mother’s mother. It was pulled by two singularly independent bays, each wanting to pull in a different direction. The driver, Tom Merrifield, a spare, balding man of fifty with a bland expression and equally bland outlook on his fellow humans, took the carriage and the bays in stride, having agreed in the fewest words imaginable to drive them to London and enjoy something of a holiday with Rafael’s money, then return carriage and horses to Mr. Mouls in Axmouth.
Victoria wondered how long it would take her to get her money from Mr. Westover. This excursion would cost her dearly, though Rafael hadn’t said a word about the carriage cost or Mr. Merrifield’s demands. She tried to pay attention to the passing scenery, but the movement of the carriage wasn’t all that comforting to her stomach.
As for Rafael, he thought of many things that day. Tom Merrifield, that man of so few words, was a robber, and that was what Rafael had told him. Tom cracked a smile. “Nay, ’tis London, ye know. Now, there be a place I have no wish to go.”
But he’d agreed, of course, after Rafael had offered him an exorbitant amount, and called him a bloody robber.
“It’s all a simple matter of which hat a man wants and what is available,” said Tom Merrifield, and spit.
It amused Rafael to realize after some hours that his thoughts continually went to the girl who rode in the carriage some distance behind him. He found himself turning every once in a while to assure himself that she was there, and safe. Which of course she was.
He thought of the inevitable problems that would arise very quickly upon their arrival in London. Victoria was so certain that she could simply wend her innocent way to the solicitor and claim her inheritance. If Damien were her guardian, he would probably be in control of her and her money until she was twenty-one, perhaps older. In complete control of her, according to the laws of the land.
When they halted for lunch, he watched her closely and was reassured. She bubbled on about a poet named Coleridge, a fellow he’d never heard of.
“He is still alive, you know,” Victoria said, chewing on a strawberry. “I think he lives in the Lake District.”
He let her prattle on. Let her enjoy herself for the time being, at least. Lord knew she was in for a crashing fall in London.