“Not when you brought it up, ma’am.”
“‘Ma’am,’ am I? Well, I suppose you are right. What I meant was that I could draw a question out of my hat and David would immediately spring for an answer.”
“How old is Esterbridge?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Ah, so he was a suitor?”
“He was, that’s true.”
“What happened?”
Victoria wasn’t about to tell anyone of that dreadful debacle. Rafael was regarding her, at the best, with mild interest. She said only, “I had decided to marry him, to escape, you see, from Damien and Drago Hall. Unfortunately, it didn’t . . . well, we determined that we wouldn’t suit.”
“I pray you won’t stop now, my dear. I’m fairly crackling with interest.”
Victoria raised her chin and her eyes flashed with remembered anger and hurt, but she managed in a nicely distant voice, “It was a boring denouement, truly. He didn’t really want to wed me, nor I him.”
Rafael gave her his best incredulous expression.
It was an excellent ploy, and Victoria found herself quickly filling in the silence. “It’s odd. According to David, it was his father who wanted to have me for a daughter-in-law. Perhaps he knew I wasn’t a poor relation, perhaps he wanted my money.”
“I doubt that sincerely. Damien, whatever his failings, never would make free with information that was of a private nature, and your money would have been very private.”
“Yes,” Victoria said, “perhaps. I think it was for the best. I didn’t love David, you see. It would have been unfair to him had I married him.”
“Oh? He wasn’t the one to break things off?”
“Well, perhaps . . . a bit . . . somewhat, I guess.”
Rafael laughed. “Well done, my dear girl. If you learn more such definitive words, I pray you will tell me.”
“Maybe, if it pleases me to do so.”
“I begin to believe that a girl raised in Cornwall has a sufficient measure of wits. You please me, Victoria.”
She ducked her head at that compliment and fiddled with her napkin.
“As for David Esterbridge, he’s what I’d call meager, no shoulders, you know. Not at all a sterling specimen.”
“That’s what I thought, but I felt ashamed to be so very unkind in my appraisal of him.”
“As for you, you would have made his life a misery.”
“Misery. You make it sound as though I am some sort of termagant, a fishwife, a—”
“No, not at all. But you are strong-willed, are you not? I venture to say that most other young ladies, finding themselves in such an untenable situation as you did, would have succumbed.”
Mollified, Victoria smiled, just a bit. “One has to be a bit strong-willed if one is much alone,” she said without a shade of self-pity.
He was glad that he’d asked her to ride with him on the morrow.
The direction of his wayward thoughts drew him up abruptly. He rose, scraping back his chair. “It’s late. I wish to leave early. I shall see you to your bedchamber.”
Victoria frowned over at him. Had she said something to anger him? She didn’t think so, but her experience with men wasn’t all that impressive. She followed him to her room, where he left her with a nod and a curt good night.
By the following afternoon, she knew she’d made a grave mistake in judgment.