Victoria and the Rogue (2 page)
by—”
“Not by and by,” Lord Malfrey said, flattening her palm against his heart with both hands. “Never say by
and by when it concerns us! For I never met a girl quite like you, Victoria, so beautiful… so intelligent…
so competent with the help. I cannot imagine what a perfect creature like you could ever see in a pitiful
wastrel like myself, but I promise that if, whilst I am in Lisbon, you will wait for me, and then upon my
return deign to give me your hand in marriage, I will love you until the day I die, and do nothing but try to
make myself worthy of you!”
La, Victoria thought, very pleased at this turn of events. How jolly this is! A girl goes to chastise a cook
for underdoing the roast, and comes back to the table a bride-to-be! Her uncle John would be quite put
out when he heard about it, however. He’d wagered Victoria wouldn’t get a proposal until she’d been at
least a year in England, and here she was getting one before even setting foot on shore. He wouldn’t be
at all happy about owing her uncles Henry and Jasper a fiver.
The three of them would be taught a sharp lesson indeed! Imagine them sending her off to England so
unceremoniously, simply because she had suggested—merely suggested, mind you—that one of them
marry her dear friend Miss… Oh, what was her name again, anyway? Well, it was simply ridiculous, not
one of them agreeing to marry poor Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was, when Victoria had had such a
lovely wedding planned. Now it was her own wedding she’d be planning instead! Perhaps when her
uncles caught a glimpse of her own wedded bliss, they’d give Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was a second
look….
“Oh, dear,” Victoria said in tones of great—and completely feigned—distress, batting those sooty lashes
as her ayah had recommended. “This is all so terribly sudden, Lord Malfrey.”
“Please,” Lord Malfrey said, clutching her hand even more tightly, if such a thing were possible. “Call me
Hugo.”
“Very well… Hugo,” Victoria said in her most womanly voice. “I…”
It was always a good idea, Victoria’s ayah had told her, to leave young men in some suspense as to
your true feelings for them. Accordingly, Victoria was about to tell young Lord Malfrey that his ardor had
taken her completely unawares, and that as she was but sixteen and hardly yet ready for matrimony,
she’d have to turn down his kind proposal… for now. With any luck, this answer would throw the poor
young man into such a fit of passion that he might do something rash, such as heave himself overboard,
which would be very exciting indeed. And if he survived the dunking, Victoria would be assured of a
good many more proposals from him when he returned from Portugal, which would give her something to
look forward to whilst she was staying with her horrid aunt and uncle Gardiner.
All of her hopes for a dramatic—and hopefully very damp—climax to this tender scene were dashed,
however, when, just as Victoria was about to turn down Lord Malfrey’s proposal, a deep and
all-too-familiar voice reached her from across the ship’s deck, its accents, as always, dripping with
sarcasm.
“There you two are,” Jacob Carstairs drawled as he stepped out of the shadows by the rigging and into
the silver puddle of light thrown by the moon. “The captain was wondering— Oh, I say, I’m not
interrupting anything, am I?”
Victoria snatched her hand out from beneath the earl’s grip. “Certainly not,” she said quickly.
Stuff and bother! What a tiresome young man this Jacob Carstairs was! Since he’d joined the Harmony
at the Cape of Good Hope six weeks earlier, he seemed always to be appearing at the most inopportune
times, such as whenever Victoria and the earl happened to find a rare moment alone together.
And it wasn’t as if Captain Carstairs—for in spite of his youth, the interfering young gentleman was a
naval officer—were so very pleasing a companion. Why, he wore his collar points shockingly low,
instead of level with the corners of his mouth, as Lord Malfrey and all the most stylish young men were
wearing them. And he had been exceedingly disrespectful to Victoria the time he had overheard her
advising Captain White that his crew would be a good deal less discontented if they were only made
aware of the merits of higher thought. Victoria herself had volunteered to read to them every noontide
from Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, and had been a good deal put out
when Captain White politely declined her kind offer.
Mr. Carstairs, however, had not been a bit polite about it. He had taken to calling her Miss Bee—as in
busy bee— and had ventured that if she was always this intent on offering her assistance to people who
hadn’t asked for it, it was no wonder her bachelor uncles were sending her to live with relatives back in
England.
And yet here Jacob Carstairs was, butting his nose into the private affairs of his fellow ship passengers!
Why, it was infuriating!
Lord Malfrey seemed to think so, too, if his next words were any indication.
“Actually, Carstairs,” the earl said in his smooth, cultured tone, “you are interrupting something.”
“So sorry,” Jacob Carstairs said, not sounding the tiniest bit sorry. “But Mrs. White wants Lady
Victoria.”
“Kindly tell Mrs. White I shall be there directly,” Victoria said, straightening her lace fichu, and hoping
that perhaps in the moonlight Mr. Carstairs hadn’t noticed how very close she and the earl had been
standing….
That hope was dashed, however, when Jacob Carstairs said in a tone that sounded not unlike one of her
uncles, “No, my lady. You had better go see Mrs. White now.”
Victoria felt another hot flush fill her cheeks. How dared he order her about as if she were his middy?
Jacob Carstairs, with his impertinent ways and too-bright gray eyes that seemed to see everything,
needed a lesson in manners. He ought to learn that young men who wore their collar points too low and
who teased young ladies to whom they were not even related would never earn the affection of anyone…
particularly any of those said young ladies.
And Victoria thought she knew just who could best give this lesson to the unfortunate captain.
Accordingly, she turned to Lord Malfrey, and, giving him her hand once more, said gravely, “My lord, in
answer to your question, I would be honored to be your wife.”
The look of astonishment that flickered across Captain Carstairs’s face at that moment quite made up
for Victoria’s no longer being able to look forward to Lord Malfrey’s leaping overboard in frustrated
passion.
In all, she congratulated herself on a job well done.
Very well done indeed!
England!
Victoria gazed at the crowded and busy wharf through the captain’s spyglass. So this, she thought, was
England at last. She had to confess herself unimpressed. England so far was nothing like her uncles had
led her to believe. The dock was almost exactly like the one she’d left in Bombay some three months
earlier, being both dirty and exceedingly disorganized-looking. Really, it might almost have been Bombay,
except for the general dearth of monkeys.
And, of course, there was the fact that above their heads hung a leaden and sullen sky, whilst the sky
that had stretched across Victoria’s beloved Jaipur had nearly always been cloudless, and as deeply blue
as a maharaja’s sapphire—except during monsoon season, of course.
Really, it was a lot to ask any girl to bear, this dirty sky and even dirtier dock… but it was far, far worse
for Victoria, who also had to endure the absence of her fiancé—her secret fiancé—since with the
exception of the loathesome Captain Carstairs, no one yet knew Victoria and Lord Malfrey’s happy
news. Two days! Two whole days since she’d bid the earl farewell! And now they expected her to
endure this bleak sky and shoreline as well? No. It was too much.
“Is it the rainy season, then, Captain?” Victoria asked, passing the spyglass back to Captain White,
who, along with his wife, had acted as her chaperones throughout the long ocean voyage.
“The rainy season,” the captain echoed with a chuckle. “My lady, in England, I am sorry to say, it is
never anything but.”
Mrs. White, standing beside her husband, looked shocked.
“Percival!” she cried. “Do not quiz Lady Victoria so. Don’t you believe a word he says, my lady. It is
spring, and while it does rain more than usual in England in the spring, I can assure you that we have our
share of fine weather, as well.”
Victoria nodded, but could not help darting a dubious look at the sky. If there was a sun behind that
thick layer of clouds, she could see no sign of it.
Not that it mattered especially, she thought with an inward shrug. She did not need the sun, after all. She
had her own special secret to keep her warm. Though should the sun choose to make an appearance at
some point, Victoria would not take it at all amiss.
“Oh, there is the longboat,” Mrs. White said, as the sound of a scrape was heard portside. “In a moment
the swing will arrive to take you down, my lady. Now, you mustn’t be frightened of the swing. It is
perfectly safe. You could not be in better hands than the crew of the Harmony, as I am certain by now
you are well aware….”
But Victoria was hardly paying attention. That was because she had seen, out of the corner of her eye, a
bright spot of blue amidst all the monotonous grays and browns that made up the garb of the crew. Only
one person on board—with the exception of herself, of course—wore such bold colors, and that was
someone Victoria hadn’t the slightest interest in speaking to just at that moment—or any moment, to be
honest. She turned her face resolutely toward the shoreline, though the damp wind that was tugging on
the hem of her pelisse blew from that direction, throwing occasional stinging drops of wet upon her
cheeks.
“…safe as a kitten in a basket,” Mrs. White was going on. Then she broke off with a glad cry. “Why,
Captain Carstairs! There you are! I was just saying to Lady Victoria that she needn’t fear the swing, that
in fact it is quite safe. Do reassure her as well, won’t you?”
Mr. Carstairs, Victoria noted after the briefest of glances in his direction, still wore the insolent grin he
seemed to have had on ever since Lisbon. Insufferable man! She pressed her lips together and wished
heartily, as she’d been doing ever since that unfortunate incident off the Portuguese coast—where the
captain had interrupted her moonlit proposal—that Jacob Carstairs might suffer a shipboard accident that
would render him comatose.
Sadly, it did not appear that any such calamity had befallen the young gentleman, since he seemed to
have total mastery over his own tongue.
“I am certain,” he said in the cool, mocking tone that so infuriated Victoria every time she heard it, “that
her ladyship needs no such assurances from me. Any young woman who has been brought up, as Lady
Victoria informs me that she has, by four decorated British officers in the wilds of Jaipur—an area, I
believe she said, that is rife with tigers—is unlikely to be daunted by a mere swing.”
Victoria sent the young man what she hoped he’d read as a scornful look. It was impossible to say what
Captain Carstairs would make of her expression, however, since he persisted in seeking her
acquaintance despite everything she’d done to discourage him.
“Tigers?” Mrs. White looked horrified. “Really, my lady? I must say, I… Tigers? Fearsome creatures, I
understand. Are you saying you encountered them? Regularly? How ever did you manage to get away?”
“I shot them, of course,” Victoria replied with some asperity, and, at Mrs. White’s gasp, flicked an
irritated glance in Jacob Carstairs’s direction. Honestly, if he wasn’t poking fun at Victoria’s suggestion
to Captain White that the decks be swabbed with lye instead of vinegar so that they’d get cleaner, he
was making light of her assertion that lemon juice made the best rinse for ladies’ hair. Apparently lemons
were not as bountiful in England as they were in India. But how was she to have known that? He seemed
to have an opinion on everything, and not the least compunction about sharing those opinions… most
especially those for which he had not been asked.
As if this were not irritating enough, Mr. Carstairs had the added fault of looking exceedingly agreeable,
despite his distressingly low collar points. His coats and breeches were impeccably tailored, his Hessians
highly shined, and his dark hair neatly trimmed. It was quite objectionable that so maddening an individual
should be so attractive.
How very different Jacob Carstairs was from a certain other young man Victoria could—but wouldn’t,
for propriety’s sake—name! As different as day and night, though the other gentleman was every bit as
handsome… but certainly better skilled at turning his shirt collar, as well as holding his tongue.
It was unfortunate that Victoria had not quite mastered that particular art as well, since Mrs. White was
all in a dither over her tiger remark.
“Shot them!” Mrs. White cried, her face going white as the lace inside her bonnet. “My lady! With a
rifle?”
It occurred to Victoria a bit belatedly that proper young English women did not as a general rule make a
habit of going about and shooting wild animals, and that she really ought to have kept this particular talent
of hers secret—rather like she was trying to keep secret that particular moonlit night off the coast of
