‘And where is Daniel?’ Her father tetchily cut short her hushed placation. ‘Danny said today I could have snuff. Where is my son-in-law? He treats me better than my own flesh and blood; I swear he does. He is a true friend, a fine fellow. He will fetch me snuff and brandy…’
‘What is up with you now, Charles?’ a female voice boomed into his senile self-pity. ‘What are you blathering on about?’ Matilda Sweeting’s black-bombazine-clad figure pushed forward and she thrust one of her glasses of mulled wine towards her brother. ‘Here, take this and cease crabbing,’ she ordered him bluntly. ‘And don’t guzzle it so or ‘twill make you cough. No doubt your lungs will then be my concern…’
As Matilda continued to upbraid her brother good-naturedly while tugging at his blankets to neaten them, and Charles ignored her advice and gave hearty attention to his wine glass, Victoria instinctively withdrew. The past few fortifying minutes had drained her complexion and dilated her pupils to glossy gunmetal. She thankfully noticed that none of those standing close seemed to have overheard her father’s impropriety. Or, if they had, they were paying scant attention to Charles Lorrimer’s latest odd ramblings. Indeed, there was an atmosphere of pleasant gregariousness about the mourners now that Sally and Beryl had set to and mulled wine was being freely distributed and imbibed. Victoria finally allowed her dusky eyes to glide up to David Hardinge’s face, for she was aware he had moved away from her father’s chair as she did.
‘I’m so sorry…’ she breathed.
‘I have to be going…’ he said.
Their quiet words collided and they fell silent together too. After an awkward pause, Victoria resumed her low apology. ‘I assure you he meant no real offence. He cannot help the way he is. I sincerely regret if he has caused you—’
‘He has caused me nothing. Nothing at all,’ David interrupted lightly, his eyes on a spot on the ceiling. ‘But you have every right to feel slighted. Is he often so?’
Victoria glanced hastily away from eyes that had swooped to hers, feeling more humiliated by this man’s pity than by her father’s rudeness. She simply nodded quickly, casting about in her mind for a change of subject in case he enquired further.
He did not. He repeated mildly, ‘I have to go now, Mrs Hart. I’m not offended, I promise. My leaving has nothing to do with your father…’
David glanced down into her beautiful, solemn face. Well, that’s the whole truth, ran self-mockingly through his mind as he forced his eyes away again. It certainly was nothing to do with her decrepit father. It was everything to do with her. If he stayed longer she might tempt him to do or say something he was sure to regret. The urge to touch her was tormenting him. He longed to discover if her hair was as silken; even now he could recall its fine texture slipping beneath his fingers. He wanted to glide his thumb across her sculpted jaw, the delicate ridge of her cheekbones—repossess skin that looked so incredibly pale and soft.
But he could control it, he sardonically reminded himself, because he was different now. He readily acknowledged burgeoning lust; more worrying was a stirring of emotional commitment. But it was a while since that had mangled him and the notion of ever again allowing such vulnerability was so ludicrous, it almost prompted him to laugh.
So what if her father treated her ill? It was none of his concern. So what if she was now widowed? It was hardly the time or place to capitalise on it. Propositioning a woman on the day she buried her husband was beyond even his amoral sensibilities.
So he was still leaving, right now, and going back to what he knew he wanted: a good tavern, a good friend and a good night of uncomplicated roistering. Because that was what he was good at. And then tomorrow, as he journeyed home to Mayfair and his life of luxury and debauchery, he could leisurely castigate himself for ever being idiotic enough to come here at all. God only knew why he had. Travelling in freezing weather to watch earth shovelled atop some distant relative he barely knew…sheer madness!
David flicked a glance at the elderly man he had once despised and felt nothing. No disgust, no hatred. But he avoided looking back at that man’s daughter, because he knew he couldn’t pretend the same apathy, much as he wanted to.
‘I shall just find one of the servants to fetch your coat,’ Victoria politely informed him, feeling ridiculously hurt that he would not stay longer; that he could not even seem to look at her for longer than a second.
Cool hallway air fanned welcomingly against her flushed cheeks as she sped to find Samuel. Her head hammered with tension and haunting words she’d believed she had successfully buried so long ago but never would stay forgotten.
‘He wanted to buy you…he said he would do it. He wanted to buy my daughter as though she was some common whore. But then that is all he is used to and all you mean to him…’
Her father’s bellowed words of seven years ago throbbed in her head. She had dismissed it all as lies. Everything she had heard whispered abroad about David and his family she had rejected as vile rumour. She was aware that the beau monde loved nothing better than to maliciously dissect reputations, especially those of their peers. Even when Aunt Matilda had tendered cautions about her socialising with roguish David Hardinge or his wayward friends, Victoria would have none of it. She was too much in love, too obsessed with this man who wooed her with a captivating, tender passion yet never once attempted to coerce or take advantage of her. And she knew there had been times when he could have, when fate and obliging friends had allowed them a stolen hour alone, and she would have summoned little resistance had he decided to seduce her.
During their short, six-month courtship, David had shown her more affection, more gentleness and respect than any other man she had known. Even her own father. And she’d told her father that, earnestly, and it had earned her a hefty blow and her immediate banishment from Hammersmith to Hertfordshire. Following her father’s ranting censure, still she would not believe that David Hardinge was a callous rogue who did not love or want her.
Unknown to her father, she had managed to smuggle out two letters to David and had been certain he would soon rescue her. In them she’d made so plain her love for him, and the fact that she was prepared to wait, to elope, to do whatever he wanted, so long as he still loved her and would soon come for her. Yet the weeks had passed with no message, no reply…
Then one afternoon, when her father was away from home, Matilda had managed to sneak to her room to gently break the news that David had left the country and was believed to be travelling abroad. With those few whispered words had come real despair. The first inkling that she had been duped…abandoned had iced her skin and made her stomach churn so violently, so indelibly that she could taste the fear again now. Curled on her bed on that autumn afternoon, she had finally given way to a keening, draining grief that no amount of calming draughts or soothing platitudes from Matilda could ease, and only exhaustion could curtail. The redolence of that earthy, rain-spattered October day teased her nostrils anew; the memory of the incongruous perfection of the rainbow that had later bridged the house dazzled her mind. Swollen-eyed at her window, she had watched the drizzle soften into a harvest evening of such serene beauty that somehow she had found the strength to weep again.
Yet still she would have waited…so desperate was she to believe David honourable and her trust in him justified. But the empty days had crawled by, her father’s rancour had escalated to new, demented heights and a final, painful decision had had to be made.
And now she finally knew the truth of it…The awful fear that she had been wrong to marry so soon, that she should have suffered in that harsh, soulless environment longer, had evaporated. Her decision to accept Daniel’s offer of shelter in an unconventional marriage had been vindicated.
‘I suppose…you’ve come back to buy my daughter…’ her father had just said in his painfully honest way, and David Hardinge had simply smiled and complimented him on his fine memory.
Her black lacy veil tumbled forward onto her brow and Victoria swiftly unpinned the hat, dropped it carelessly onto a hall table and hurried on.
What