“Captain Carstairs is a very fine man,” she said mildly, continuing again with her braiding as her mind flew to various possibilities. “Hawk thinks very highly of him, I know.”
Victoria sighed. “It’s true. He is good and honorable. If he hadn’t come upon me, I shudder to think what might have happened. I owe him a great deal.”
Frances slipped in the final fastening. “There, all done.” Victoria stood and Frances hugged her. “Everything will work out all right. You will see.”
“Well, I trust you’re right, Frances, but I fully intend to do something myself. I’m going to see my solicitor tomorrow. He will be in no position to be a dictator like Rafael.”
Frances knew Victoria wasn’t one to sit knitting in a corner whilst events swirled about her. “If you don’t mind,” she said finally, “I shall accompany you to the solicitor.”
“You won’t tell your husband or Rafael?”
“No, neither of them deserves our confidence. Now, my dear, do you sing? Play the pianoforte?”
7
He who would have the fruit must climb the tree.
—THOMAS FULLER
It didn’t matter that the morning was dreary and damp, the air thick and cold. Victoria had made up her mind. She had to see Mr. Westover herself. She had to know about her inheritance, then make her plans. She couldn’t abuse Lady Lucia’s hospitality forever, after all. She frowned as she leaned back against the cracked leather squabs in the ancient hackney. She would not further tolerate Rafael’s whims—treating her as if she were an idiot child or, worse, a young lady of intolerable sensibilities.
If the hackney driver had thought it odd that a young lady, quite alone, wished to go into the City, he gave no sign, just spat on the roadway and made a noise that sounded, at least to Victoria, like affirmation. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but by the time the driver neared Derby Street, she was beginning, if not to regret coming, at least to be concerned about the four pounds she’d placed in a handkerchief inside her reticule. There was so much noise all around her. From the hackney window she saw hawkers everywhere, each of them shouting at the top of his lungs, hoping, she supposed, to gain the custom of the hordes of shiny, black-coated men whose heads were buried from the drizzle and cold inside wide-rimmed black hats. There was another element that made Victoria clutch her reticule firmly to her side. Men slouched in alleyways, eyeing the passing hackney with assessing and utterly cold expressions. Most of all, it was simply a depressing sight. In her new walking dress of lemon bombazine, the spencer of equally bright lemon color, she felt like an exotic specimen, a parrot in bright plumage surrounded by ravens.
Every few moments she heard her driver curse or shout at a recalcitrant who got in his way. There was so much traffic, the street itself full of drays, more hawkers, wagons filled with huge kegs of ale.
Just because you’ve never before been in a city of any size, you needn’t act like a provincial. It’s an adventure, not something to cower about. And that, she told herself firmly, was that. There wasn’t the slightest reason to cower against the smelly squabs. After all, Frances would come shortly, in her own carriage, and they would laugh and talk and Victoria would doubtless feel like a fool for all her alarms.
The hackney pulled to a halt in front of a narrow-fronted building, just like its neighbors, and Victoria, her money in her hand, jumped out and paid the man.
“Ye don’t wis’ me to wait, missy?”
“No, thank you. A friend is coming for me.”
He gave her a long look, then shrugged and clicked his miserable-looking horse forward.
It had stopped drizzling for the moment. Victoria stood there staring around her, wondering at this vastly different world from the one she knew. It was the avidly curious looks from several men that recalled her to her mission. She carefully lifted her skirts from a mud puddle and walked up the shallow steps to the solicitor’s office.
The clerk, upon seeing the somewhat wet but nonetheless elegant vision, was palpably taken aback. He gaped at her, dropping the piece of paper he was holding.
“I wish to see Mr. Westover,” Victoria said in an imperious tone that would have pleased Lady Lucia. “Please inform him that Miss Victoria Abermarle is here.”
“I . . . well, I don’t know, miss—you’re a lady, and, well, ah, you know—”
Victoria frowned down her nose at him, drawing on one of Lucia’s intimidating mannerisms. “Tell him that I am waiting, if you please.”
“Er, yes, miss, right away.”
Mr. Westover, hearing of his unexpected visitor, was out of his office in a flash. “Miss Abermarle?”
She nodded and smiled at him, waiting.
“Such a relief that you are again safe, miss. Where is Lord Drago? Isn’t he with you?”
I must tread carefully here, Victoria thought, I must go very carefully. “Lord Drago?” she asked.
“Of course. He was here just yesterday to tell me he had managed to rescue you from your kidnappers. So dreadful for you, my dear Miss Abermarle, but the baron . . . Well, all’s well, eh?”
Rafael pretending to be Damien? Very clever of him. He must have gotten all the information he wanted. But what was this about kidnappers? If that had been Rafael’s tale, she mustn’t make a liar of him.