uncle stood in the middle of the room and her aunt, flamboyant as ever in an emerald-green gown and a glorious bonnet crowned with a sweeping peacock feather, lounged on the red velvet chaise.
It looked for all the world like a convivial family gathering—until Victoria realised that no one was smiling and that the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, looking to her father for an explanation.
It was her uncle who answered. ‘Victoria, my dear, I have just informed your parents of your stunning success at the Gryphon last night.’
‘And I have been trying to tell your uncle it is not a success!’ Mrs Bretton snapped. ‘It is an abomination.’
‘Come now, my dear,’ her husband said. ‘I think abomination is doing it up a little strong.’
‘Do you, Mr Bretton? Well, let me tell you what I think is doing it up a little strong. Your brother, trying to make us believe that Victoria has done something wonderful when anyone in their right mind would tell you she is making a fool of herself!’
‘Oh, Susan, you are completely overreacting,’ Aunt Tandy said with a long-suffering sigh. ‘Victoria did not make a fool of herself last night. Her work was applauded long and loud by every person in that theatre. Your daughter is a brilliant playwright—’
‘My daughter is a lady! And ladies do not write plays!’ Mrs Bretton said, enunciating every word. ‘They do not produce plays. And they certainly do not tell other people how to act in plays. Ladies embroider linens. They paint pictures. And they get married and have children. They do not spend their days at theatres with the most disreputable people imaginable!’
‘Here now, sister-in-law, I’ll have you know that not all actors are disreputable!’ Uncle Theo objected.
‘Indeed, I had a sterling reputation when I met Theo,’ Aunt Tandy said. ‘And contrary to popular opinion, I was a virgin at the time.’
‘Oh, dear Lord, must we be subjected to this?’ Mrs Bretton complained. ‘Will you not say something, Mr Bretton?’
Victoria looked at her father and wished with all her heart that she could have spared him this inquisition. He was a gentle man who disliked confrontation and who had spent most of his life trying to avoid it. Pity that his only brother and sister-in-law, both of whom he adored, should be the two people his wife resented more than anyone else in the world.
‘I’m not sure there is anything to be said, my dear,’ he said. ‘I cannot help but be proud of what Victoria has accomplished—’
‘Proud? You are proud that our eldest daughter has to pretend to be a man because if anyone found out what she really did, we would be cut by good society?’ Mrs Bretton demanded. ‘You are proud that she spends her days with actors and actresses and avoids the company of fine, upstanding people?’
‘I do not avoid their company, Mama,’ Victoria said. ‘In truth, they have become the source of some of my most amusing and successful characters. Nor do I think my conduct is putting anyone in this family at risk. I have been very careful, both about what I say and about how I behave when in society because I know there is Winifred’s future to consider and I am very cognisant of that. But to suggest we would be cut is, I think, going a little far. Other ladies write plays—’
‘I do not care what other ladies do!’ her mother snapped. ‘I care about what you do and how it affects your future. Something you seem not to care about at all! Spending all that time at the theatre and consorting with people like that is not good for your reputation.’
‘I am well aware that certain people think Laurie and I spend too much time at the theatre,’ Victoria allowed, ‘but surely the fact that Uncle Theo owns the Gryphon excuses us to some degree.’
‘It does not excuse you, and in truth, I blame him for everything that’s happened!’ Mrs Bretton said coldly. ‘If he had not encouraged you when you first went to him with your stories, we would not be having this conversation now. You would be doing the kinds of things a lady of good birth should be doing.’
‘What, like taking a lover thirteen months after she married and produced the requisite heir?’ Uncle Theo said laconically.
Mrs Bretton’s face flushed crimson. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Haven’t you heard? Lady Tavistocke went to Venice and took up with a gondolier,’ Uncle Theo said. ‘Shocking scandal. Poor old Reggie Tavistocke doesn’t know what to make of it.’
‘Mind, you can’t blame the poor girl, darling,’ Aunt Tandy said. ‘Reggie is getting on for sixty, after all, and you know how dashing Italian men can be. And gondolas are very comfortable. I’ve always thought the movement of the water very conducive to—’
‘Enough!’ Mrs Bretton shrieked. ‘Get out of my house! Both of you!’
‘In point of fact, this is my house, Susan,’ Uncle Theo said amiably. ‘And one I am very pleased to have you and my brother staying in. However, perhaps it is best we leave you to your discussions. Just don’t be too hard on Victoria. She is not in the least deserving of it. Speaking of which, there is something I would like to say to her before we go.’
‘Something we wish to say,’ Aunt Tandy corrected him with a smile.
‘Of course, my darling, something we wish to say. And that is, how very proud we were of you last night, Victoria. After you left, I had a visit from Sir Michael Loftus—’
Victoria gasped. ‘Sir Michael!’
‘Yes, and he was very impressed with your latest play. Or rather, with Valentine Lawe’s latest play. He thought it was … now, how did he phrase it exactly? “A comedy of stunning brilliance exquisitely characterised and plotted with a deft hand.”’
Victoria gazed at him in wonder. ‘Sir Michael Loftus said I had a deft hand?’
‘Those were his very words.’
She was floating on air. Euphoric. To have received such praise from one of the foremost critics in the theatre. She must surely be dreaming …
‘And you looked absolutely beautiful,’ Aunt Tandy said, giving Victoria an affectionate hug. ‘I noticed several gentlemen watching you throughout the evening, Lord Vale and Mr Chesterton amongst them, and I hear even the top-lofty Mr Devlin stopped to speak to you.’
‘Mr Devlin?’ Mrs Bretton said with a gasp. ‘Lord Kempton’s heir spoke to you and you did not think to tell me?’
Victoria blushed, uncomfortably aware that her mother was staring at her with a mixture of astonishment and reproach. ‘There really wasn’t any point, Mama. We were not formally introduced and spoke only about the play.’
‘But he engaged you in conversation,’ Mrs Bretton persisted. ‘Without benefit of introduction. He must have had a reason for doing so.’
‘He thought I was in need of assistance,’ Victoria said, her cheeks warming at the memory of his long, slender fingers undoing the knots in her ribbons … and of her turning down his request that he be allowed to call upon her. ‘I’m sure
