I longed all through my childhood for a knock to come at the door and for someone to rush in to tell me that I wasn’t really Victoria Quinton but a princess who had been stolen away by gypsies and sold to the Professor for a handful of silver coins,” she reminisced, smiling a bit at the memory. Having no real recollection of the mother who had died while her only child was still quite young, Victoria had resorted to fantasy to explain away her unease at being unable to love the strange man who was her father. “Oh well,” she acknowledged now with a wide grimace, “if my aristocratically slender bones didn’t gain me a royal palace, at least they saved me from being hired out as a dray horse in order to bring a few more pennies into the house.”
That brought her to the point she had been dreading, an inventory of her figure. “What there is of it,” she said aloud, giving an involuntary gurgle of laughter. Victoria might have inherited her above-average height from the Professor, but she had been blessed—or blighted, according to the Professor, who would have liked it if she could have been physically suited for more of the housekeeping duties—with her mother’s small-boned frame and inclination to thinness.
“Skinny as a rake, and considerably less shapely,” she amended, as her reflection told her clearly that the only things holding up her gown were her shoulders.
Victoria closed her eyes for a moment, sighed deeply, then lifted her chin and began twisting up her hair, fastening the anchoring pins with a total disregard for the pain her quick movements caused. “Point: Victoria Quinton, spinster, is an antidote,” she declared, staring herself straight in the eyes. “Point: Mr. Pierre Standish insulted me openly and then all but cut me dead. Point: The Earl of Wickford did not hesitate in revealing to me his distaste for women of my sort.” She stopped to take a breath, then ended, “Point: I don’t care a snap about the first three points.
“Mr. Standish is a soulless devil, everyone knows that, and the Earl—well, he is the most excessively disagreeable, odious man I have ever met, not that I have even spoken to above two or three of that unimpressive gender in my entire life. I don’t care a button what they think, and I am well shed of the pair of them!” She nodded her head decisively and her reflection nodded back to her.
She felt fairly good about herself and her deductions for a moment or two, until her mind, momentarily blunted by this rare display of self-interest, stabbed at her consciousness, rudely reminding her that she did need them. If she were ever to solve the puzzle of just who murdered the Professor, she needed them both very much.
Even worse, she acknowledged with a grimace, she needed to do something—something drastic—about making herself over into a young woman who could go about in public without either spooking the carriage horses or sending toddlers into shrieking fits of hysterics.
The two men who had been in the house in Ablemarle Street were not her only suspects—although they did for the moment stand at the head of the list of society gentlemen she had thus far compiled—and she must somehow inveigle introductions to certain others of the ton if her plan to ferret out the murderer was to have even the slimmest chance of succeeding.
Victoria pressed her fingertips to her temples, for she could feel a headache coming on, and looked about the room, searching for her spectacles. She still felt slightly uneasy about her decision not to wear the plain, rimless monstrosities, unwilling to recognize maidenly vanity even to herself, and decided to blame the insufferable Earl of Wickford, and not her foolishness, for the dull thump-thumping now going on just behind her eyes.
How she longed for her cozy bed and a few moments’ rest, for she had been sleeping badly ever since the Professor’s death three days earlier, but she discarded the idea immediately. “The Professor would have kittens if I dared to lie down in the middle of the afternoon,” she scolded herself sternly. Although she had never been afraid of the man, she had found it easier to keep her thoughts to herself and display an outward show of obedience, thus saving herself many a lecture.
But then, just as she was about to head for her work-basket that stood in the corner and the mending that awaited her there, she brought herself up short, and a small smile lit her features. “And who’s going to run tattling to him, Miss Quinton, if you do take to your bed—Saint Peter? You are your own mistress now, my dear,” she reminded herself, a bit of a lilt coloring her voice. “You have longed for this day, dreamed about it for years, and now—through no fault of your own—it is here. You are free, Victoria Quinton, free to do whatever you will!”
Pivoting smartly on the heels of her sensible black kid half boots, she exited the small drawing room in a near skip, heading for the staircase.
It was perhaps only a small act of rebellion after so many years of doing only what she was told, but it was to set a precedent for the future.
CHAPTER FOUR
PATRICK HALTED on the threshold of the club’s sedately decorated main salon and looked about for Pierre Standish, finally locating his quarry sitting alone and looking very much at his ease near one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the busy street below.
Sherbourne did not take himself immediately to that side of the room. Instead he spent several minutes wandering about in a seemingly aimless fashion, passing the time of day with some of his friends, although declining to sit and take refreshment with any of them.
He even took the time to place a wager with Lord Alvanley on the outcome of a mill that was to be held in the countryside later that week, before eventually arriving at his planned destination and sliding into a facing wing chair, a jaunty greeting on his smiling lips.
“Tsk, tsk. That took you precisely three minutes longer than it should have, my darling Patrick, although, in general, it was rather well done,” Standish drawled amicably before returning his large gold watch to his pocket and looking up at Sherbourne for the first time.
“I beg your pardon, Pierre?” Patrick questioned, keeping a carefully blank look on his face as he adjusted his coattails before crossing his legs at the knee, allowing one elegantly fashioned Hessian to dangle.
“Yes, I believe you should,” Standish answered smoothly as he motioned to a servant who was hovering nearby to fetch another glass for his lordship. “I recall that I have urged you to find an interest, my darling, but I fear your future does not lie in cloak-and-dagger machinations.”
Patrick shook his head in admiration, admitting defeat. “How did you know I was looking for you particularly? I thought I was being quite smooth, actually.”
Pierre took up the glass the servant had brought and poured some rich-looking red liquid into it from a decanter before handing the glass to Wickford. “I could, I suppose, say I have visited a wizened old gypsy in Europe who—because of some heroic service I rendered her—has given me the gift of foretelling events, causing you to look at me in awe, but honesty prevents me. Actually, dearest, I was at home when you called this morning but—how shall I say this without being indiscreet?— I was considerably engaged at the time.”
Taking a small sip of his wine, Patrick leaned back in his chair and quipped mischievously, “My deepest apologies. I can only pray that I didn’t interrupt at a critical moment? Some indiscretions have so little understanding of the link between concentration and performance.”
Pierre’s dark eyes twinkled slightly in his otherwise emotionless face. “I have amazing powers of concentration, thankfully. Besides, Patrick, you know I have always made it a point never to disappoint a lady.”
Patrick acknowledged his understanding with a slight nod of his head, knowing better than to dwell on
