you wed, if at all possible.’
‘My relatives? You mean my papa and Aunt Matilda? Well, naturally they would live with me…’
‘Daniel Hart was indeed philanthropic. But a new husband might not countenance such an arrangement, my dear,’ Alexander warned firmly. His brown eyes roved discreetly over her fitted buttoned bodice. Even the drab mourning grey and serviceable material could not deflect an appreciative glance at her slender ribcage and small rounded breasts.
He was determined to make his offer and in the circumstances was reasonably confident of it being successful. But his means and generosity would never stretch to her extended family. He earned a reasonable salary, had good prospects, and a comfortable home in St Albans. Victoria was very welcome to share it as his wife but his duty ended there. He had no intention of charitably boarding and lodging her brain-sick father or her outspoken widowed aunt, no matter what precedent Daniel Hart had vexingly set.
She would lose Hartfield. She had debts to pay and would thus lose the home her husband had had in his family for three generations. This was all that dominated Victoria’s mind. Daniel had left it in her safekeeping and within two months of his death it was to be lost. But how could she have prevented it? She could never have averted this disaster. Was there sense in Alexander’s proposal that another good man might be her salvation? She had married one kindly husband who had cared for her and her family. But then Daniel Hart and Charles Lorrimer had been old acquaintances: she had known her late husband all her life. She had always liked him…trusted him implicitly. It was the reason she had agreed to marry him when her future looked so bleak. She sighed dejectedly. ‘My papa and my aunt are settled here. I so wish my father could see out his remaining days at Hartfield.’
‘Well, I would do all in my power to please you, my dear,’ Alexander said. ‘But retaining Hartfield even for one more month is, I believe, quite beyond me.’
Victoria looked at him with wary grey eyes. Surely he didn’t mean…?
‘I see you have guessed, and I can’t say I’m surprised for I know I have difficulty at times in shielding my feelings for you. I have long admired you, Victoria. To my shame, I held you in great affection even when Daniel was alive. I envied him so…’ The admission seemed ripped from him.
‘Please, I feel I should stress that I…that I…’ Victoria could think of nothing to add quickly to make him stop.
‘No, let me finish. I must say these things, my dear. I have loved and admired you for a long while. It would make me the proudest man alive if you would consent to be my wife. I have a comfortable villa in St Albans and good prospects and salary. I have my business premises there and ambitions to expand and take on a partner—’
‘Please, I have to speak.’ Victoria softly interrupted him. She smiled and it prompted the florid-faced man to spontaneously reach across the table and grasp one of her small-boned hands in his pudgy fingers. The instinct to withdraw from his moist palm was not easily curbed. ‘I truly thank you, Mr Beresford, for your proposal. But I cannot…I cannot even countenance remarrying at present. Your kindness in offering to share your home with me does you great credit and me great honour. But at present I cannot consent…’
‘I understand; of course I do. A year at least to mourn one’s dear departed is usual…indeed expected. I have spoken too soon in the normal way. But circumstances are no longer normal. People understand that financial hardship countermands such codes. But I understand you need time to think.’ He gave her a rather sweet smile. ‘I pray you will consider quickly and favourably, Victoria.’ He hurriedly collected together his papers and within five minutes was gone from Hartfield.
As Victoria pivoted on her heel in the hallway after the great door closed behind him, she pondered on all he had told her. She thought of her father and her aunt and, because he was a kind man, she knew Alexander would provide for them. She turned back and stared at the arched oaken doors of Hartfield. He was quite right: her circumstances were exceptional. Protection for herself and her family was a priority; clinging to social niceties was not. She suddenly felt sorely tempted to run after him and give him her answer now.
Chapter Three
‘Well, I think it is an admirable idea!’
‘You do?’ Victoria quizzed her aunt, amazed.
‘Of course. What you have to bear in mind, Vicky, my dear, is that you are property-rich but income-poor. You need an alliance with a man who is the reverse. That would solve everything.’
‘I am not property-rich, Aunt Matty,’ Victoria patiently explained. ‘The bank will seize Hartfield, and Alexander Beresford is hardly rich…’
‘Tush, not him!’ Matilda Sweeting dismissed, contemptuously flapping a hand. ‘We can do better than him, I’ll warrant. We want a man of serious wealth, not reasonable prospects. No, what we will have to do, my dear Vicky, is take a trip to London and put you on the marriage block!’
‘You are simply priceless, Aunt Matty,’ Victoria censured on a giggle. ‘In case it’s slipped your mind, I am not a debutante of eighteen with an enticing dowry but an impecunious recent widow in her twenty-sixth year. Husband-hunting so soon and so blatantly would be frightfully unseemly. Besides, how many rich saints do you know that we can impose upon? For such a man is indeed what we need. Someone willing to take on all the responsibilities of Hartfield, and yet be content never to own it himself. A man prepared to support with equanimity a wife and her relations…’ Victoria glanced anxiously at Matilda’s reaction to that; she hadn’t meant to imply her aunt was a burden.
‘Keep your head still,’ Matilda ordered, unperturbed by Victoria’s tactless comment. She gently drew a silver-backed hairbrush through her niece’s thick hair, fanned ebony tresses over the shoulders of her white cotton nightgown and teased strands to frame her ivory complexion. Satisfied with her artistry, she curved her age-spotted hands over Victoria’s silken scalp, showing her her reflection in the glass. ‘Now tell me which man would not like that beautiful sight greeting him nightly.’
‘Aunt Matilda!’ Victoria admonished in an outraged squeak.
‘Now don’t get prudish with me, my girl. What you have to bear in mind is that what always counts with gentlemen when the chips are down—or more importantly aren’t down in our case, as we are all now so poor—is the lure of beauty. I suppose that tubby solicitor courting you told soppy tales of admiration and respect,’ Matilda fawned, contorting her lined cheeks into further wrinkles. ‘Pah! He desires you. So does every lusty male who claps eyes on you…that’s the truth of it.’
Placing her elbows on the dressing table, Victoria rested her slender chin in her cupped hands and looked. Limpid grey eyes roved across her creamy brow from where ebony satin hair curtained her small, heart-shaped face. She swivelled her pointed chin in her palm, examining her features. Her nose was too short and narrow, she was sure, and her mouth too full and wide. But throughout her life she had been told she was pretty. Even her papa had once grudgingly admitted that she mirrored her mother’s pale beauty and not a scrap of him…apart from his black hair. But she could only recall him complimenting her that once, when mellow with brandy and bonhomie after a successful afternoon’s gambling at his club. There had been very few such cheering incidents. He’d invariably lost, and heavily. Yet he would return to St James’s confident of recouping the previous day’s misfortunes.
Daniel had constantly said how proud he was of his child-wife, as he affectionately termed her. But the man who had pleased her most with his quiet compliments…she no longer
