Victoria and the Rogue (17 page)

impertinence—Victoria slammed the door closed again, shutting out the maid, and whirled upon the

captain with blazing eyes and even hotter cheeks.

“Now see here,” she said in a hiss. “I did what you said! I got rid of him—the man I loved!—because

you told me he was a rogue, and, as it happened, this one time you were right. But that does not, by any

stretch of the imagination, mean that I am about to welcome romantic attentions from the likes of you.”

Jacob looked unimpressed by this speech. In fact, he did not even appear to have heard the latter part

of it. He said merely, and with supreme confidence, “You didn’t love him.”

“I most certainly did, too!” Victoria cried, stamping her foot the way Jeremiah did when he wanted more

dessert and Victoria wouldn’t allow him any.

“No, you didn’t.” Jacob Carstairs shook his head. “You were drawn to him because he needed you,

and you can’t resist anyone in need. But that isn’t love.”

Victoria, blinking as if he’d slapped her, thought of the way she’d lain awake in the middle of the night,

perfectly unable to weep over losing the earl. Was it possible Captain Carstairs was right? Was it

possible she had never loved Lord Malfrey after all, and that was why she hadn’t shed a tear over him?

Before she had a chance to think this over, the captain strode across the room until he stood just a foot

away from her. Then, looking down into her upturned face, he said, “What you’ve got to do now is find

someone who doesn’t need you, and marry him.”

Victoria, entirely more conscious than she cared to be of Jacob Carstairs’s mouth, which was just inches

from hers, tore her gaze from it, and tried to think of nothing but her dudgeon over the captain’s

impertinence.

“And what,” she inquired, looking at the picture frame just behind Jacob Carstairs’s head, “would be the

point of my doing that, pray?”

“Everyone around you,” Jacob Carstairs said, “needs something or other from you. Your aunt needs

your help managing her unruly brood and her incompetent cook, your cousin Rebecca needs your help in

navigating the tricky waters of her romantic life, your uncle needs your help in keeping him from turning

into a harumphing automaton, the footpads of London need your help in avoiding the gallows. Wouldn’t it

be restful, Miss Bee, if, after a long day of flitting about and helping people, you could come home to

someone who needed nothing whatsoever from you?”

Victoria stared up at him, perfectly incapable of making out just what, exactly, he was trying to say. It

almost sounded—but surely not—as if he were…

Well, proposing.

But that, of course, was impossible, because first of all there was no moonlight; secondly, he was not

even touching her; thirdly, she had yet to hear anything like a romantic sentiment from him, such as

“Victoria, I can’t live without you,” or “If I don’t have you, I shall go mad”; and lastly, it was Jacob

Carstairs. And Jacob Carstairs would never ask Victoria to marry him. Why, he was forever teasing her,

calling her Miss Bee, and making light of her deadly serious attempts to improve the lot of others!

Not to mention the fact that she had, up until recently, been engaged to the man who had broken the

heart of his elder sister.

“I don’t… ”Victoria, for perhaps the first time in her entire life, could not think how to respond to the

captain’s very unorthodox proposal… if proposal it even was! She was still not entirely sure.

Feeling muddled, she said only, “I can’t say I agree with you, Captain. I don’t… I don’t think it would

be restful at all.” And thinking of Jacob Carstairs’s well-appointed town house, his competent, intelligent

mother, and superior household staff—she doubted tureen of beef had ever once been served at the

Carstairses’ dining table—she added with feeling, “In fact, I think it would be dull. Very dull, indeed!”

“Dull?”

And now he was touching her! He’d reached out and lifted one of her hands in his, and she wasn’t

wearing any gloves, and neither was he! She could feel the calluses on his fingers—his being a man who

worked for a living, even if now he was handling more of the administrative concerns of his business than

actually lifting rigging and tying off sails, she supposed Jacob would have calluses. Lord Malfrey, of

course, hadn’t had any, because he’d always worn gloves while riding or doing anything else athletic,

such as fencing.

Somehow the feel of Jacob Carstairs’s calluses made Victoria’s heart slam harder than ever against the

inside of her chest.

“I don’t think it would be a bit dull,” the captain said in a voice she had never heard him use before. She

realized, as she watched his fingers entwine themselves with hers, that it was a voice entirely devoid of

teasing, or anything at all that might be construed as vexing or snide. Why, she thought with some

surprise, he’s being serious!

“In fact,” he said, still in that same deep, serious voice, “I think it would be very exciting to be married to

someone who doesn’t need you, but only… wants you.”

On the word wants, Jacob gave her hand a gentle pull, and Victoria found herself, against all reason, in

his arms. How on earth this should have happened again, when she had instructed herself very firmly not

to let it, she could not imagine.

But there it was, and there came his lips down over hers, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing

Victoria could do about it, short of kicking him in the shins and running away, something that, once his

mouth was on hers, she was perfectly incapable of doing. Because his lips felt so very nice on hers—or

rather, not nice. Not nice at all. The opposite of nice…

Oh, why was this happening to her? She had just escaped a romantic entanglement. She could not throw

herself into another so soon….

And yet the captain’s lips felt so very right on hers! His arms, going around her, made her feel so very

safe and secure, so warm and—yes, there was no denying it— wanted. Not needed, but wanted, a

sensation that was as alien to Victoria as, well, poverty. Jacob Carstairs wanted her! Not needed

her—what on earth would a man like him need from a girl, even a girl with such very definite opinions on

the height at which one’s collar points ought to be worn, like her?

No, he wanted her, and that was, Victoria was becoming convinced, even better than being needed.

Except…

Except that he hadn’t actually proposed. He hadn’t actually said, “Victoria, light of my heart, will you be

my bride?” No, all he’d said was something about “someone,” but he had not specified one iota whether

or not that “someone” was him. Furthermore… furthermore, how dared he stand and kiss her in her aunt

and uncle’s drawing room without even a proper proposal first?!

Victoria, though it took every ounce of self-control she possessed—for being kissed by Jacob Carstairs

was quite the most exciting thing that had happened to her since… well, the last time she’d been kissed

by Jacob Carstairs—laid both hands upon the captain’s chest, and pushed him with all her might.

Jacob staggered backward and almost fell into Mrs. Gardiner’s stuffed bird collection, which she kept

under bell jars by the pianoforte. He regained his balance just in time, however, and demanded, with a

look of shock on his face that was so pronounced it was almost comical, “What the— Victoria, what did

you do that for?”

“I might well put the same question to you,” Victoria said, trying to ignore her wildly beating heart and a

pair of lips that still tingled from the impassioned way his mouth had moved over hers. “You come here,

teasing and insulting me—”

“Insulting you?” Jacob cried, looking more shocked than ever. “Victoria, don’t be an idiot. I want to

marry you!”

“Well, you have a fine way of showing it,” Victoria retorted. “Calling me an idiot, and Miss Bee—and in

front of the maid, no less!”

“You are an idiot,” Jacob said firmly, “if you think my calling you Miss Bee is an insult.”

“Well, it’s hardly a compliment!” Victoria shouted.

Jacob, however, did not shout back at her. Instead he said in a very even, reasonable tone, “Victoria,

I’m warning you. You had better stop arguing and accept me now, because I’m not going to ask you to

marry me again.”

“You never asked me at all!” Victoria cried. “All you said was that it would be very exciting for me if I

married ‘someone’ who wanted me, instead of needing me. You were not, I would like to add, at all

specific as to who that someone might be!”

“Well, who do you think?” he demanded. When Victoria said nothing, but only stood with her arms

folded across her chest, staring stonily into the corner, he said, “For God’s sake, Victoria. I’m not going

to start extolling your virtues and prattling on about how unworthy I am of you, if that’s what you’re

waiting for. You already got a proposal like that once, and look how it turned out.”

Victoria, furious now, turned to him and screamed, “Thanks very much for reminding me! Now get out!”

A look of mingled exasperation and disgust passed across Jacob Carstairs’s handsome features. The

next thing Victoria knew, he was in the doorway, collecting his hat and gloves from Perkins, the butler,

who was pretending he noted nothing amiss between Victoria and her guest.

“You know, Victoria,” the captain said just before he shut the door behind him, “you might be interested

in knowing that there is someone who is very much in need of your guidance… someone whose life

needs managing far more, I think, than Rebecca’s or your precious earl’s ever did.”

Victoria, thinking he must mean some orphan he’d encountered on the docks, blinked at him with wide

eyes, instantly forgetting their quarrel. “Really?” she asked. “Who is it?”

“You,” he said, and slammed the door.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Victoria refused to admit that she was in the least concerned over what had transpired between Captain

Carstairs and herself that morning in the drawing room. Jacob Carstairs was nothing but a rude, insolent,

conceited rogue, who hadn’t the slightest idea what was good for him and in no way deserved his patient,

competent mother. For that poor lady Victoria could only sigh. Mrs. Carstairs was going to be stuck with

her obnoxious son for the rest of her days. Because Victoria did not think there was a young lady in

London who would ever be compelled to marry him. Certainly she never would. And she was already

that season’s worst hard-luck case, due to her shattering breakup with Lord Malfrey.

But fortunately for Victoria, the general consensus amongst the matrons was that the only daughter of the

Duke of Harrow still had her choice of suitors, being at once rich and passably attractive, despite her

somewhat questionable parting with the Earl of Malfrey, and her tendency to criticize her hostesses’s

household staffs.

Still, despite the number of eager mamas who pushed their sons in her direction, Victoria remained, at

least for the first few days after her breakup with Lord Malfrey, and her blowup with Jacob Carstairs,

stubbornly solo. She had begun, in fact, to entertain fantasies of never marrying at all. Instead, she’d

decided, she would open a hospital— solely for the orphaned and indigent—where she could help scads

of people with their medical and romantic problems. She would be busy from morning until night, helping

people! A lovelier existence Victoria simply could not imagine.

Reality would, however, intrude upon her private dreams, and a week after her unpleasant interview with

Jacob Carstairs—who, true to his word, had not mentioned marriage again, nor (more disappointingly)

had he tried to kiss her again—she received a note from the wicked Lord Malfrey. This note, unlike the

many others he had sent since Victoria had ended their engagement, did not contain any impassioned

pleas that she give him another chance or take him back.

This time Lord Malfrey asked if they could make an exchange of letters—hers for his. As this was

standard form in any failed romantic relationship, Victoria agreed, and was piqued when Lord Malfrey

then insisted that they make the exchange in person. But Hugo argued that the things he’d written to

Victoria during the course of their courtship—the letters and poems he had, she was now fairly certain,

plagiarized from other, more talented authors than he—were so highly personal that he did not dare trust

them to a servant, much less the post, to deliver. No, an exchange must be made, and must be made

personally by the correspondents.

Victoria found this very vexing indeed. She had no time to be making clandestine assignations to

exchange letters with former fiancés. For from the dust of her own failed engagement had risen a new

one… her cousin Rebecca’s to the wonderful Mr. Abbott. Mrs. Gardiner was beside herself with joy,

and even Uncle Walter hadn’t harumphed about it once, and said instead that it was jolly good news.

Rebecca was completely incapable of discussing anything but wedding clothes and babies, though Clara

was not nearly so enthusiastic, frequently reminding her sister not to count her chickens before they’d

hatched, for look how poor cousin Vicky’s engagement had turned out!

To drag herself in the midst of all this to some appointment with her former fiancé to make an exchange

of what, to Victoria’s mind, were nothing but a silly pile of letters was most trying. But Victoria supposed