at the blankets as she neatened them.
‘I’m hungry. Is there some wine?’ he demanded testily, making Victoria smile wryly. At times her poor, confused papa had no difficulty at all in making himself understood.
‘I’ll fetch a little porter for you,’ she promised, while removing his spectacles from where he had wedged them in the side of the chair.
He suddenly stiffened and leaned forward to hiss, ‘Who is that? Do I know him?’ Victoria half turned, still bending slightly over him, and even before she saw him, she knew to whom her father referred.
David Hardinge was grouped with Laura, Sir Peter and several other neighbours who, curious as to his relationship with the deceased, had come forward to be introduced to this handsome, charming stranger.
And he was both, Victoria had to acknowledge. His manners and appearance were exceptional. He had removed his greatcoat and handed it to Samuel Prescott, her male servant, on entering the drawing room, and now stood, superbly attired in black superfine tailcoat and trousers of expert cut and finest quality. A large black pearl nestled in a silver silk cravat at his throat. That he was now fabulously wealthy was beyond doubt. Everyone in his vicinity was focussed on him, and although he returned conversation his attention soon drifted elsewhere. He raised his glass of warm ruby wine and tasted it while watching her and her father over the rim.
‘Who is that?’ her father demanded stridently, making several people close by turn and sympathetically smile at her. ‘I recognise that devil…’
‘Papa…hush…’ Victoria soothed, feeling her face heating. As she turned away, she caught sight of a strange, humourless slant to David Hardinge’s thin lips, and heard his murmured excuses to his companions before he strolled over.
He looked down impassively at the brain-sick, elderly man for several seconds before quietly saying, ‘Hello, Mr Lorrimer.’
Charles Lorrimer peered up at him. He dug frantically in the sides of his chair for his spectacles but, finding nothing, he simply squinted foxily. ‘I suppose it’s been two months, then,’ he finally snapped, running his rheumy grey eyes over the man’s supremely distinguished figure, ‘and you’ve come back to buy my daughter.’
Chapter Two
‘You have a fine memory, Mr Lorrimer,’ David Hardinge quietly, drily commented.
Long, sooty lashes swept to shield the horrified embarrassment darkening her eyes before Victoria snatched a glance through them. David’s face gave nothing away. He was watching her father with what could have been wry amusement twisting his hard-moulded mouth. Any anger or umbrage was admirably concealed. Victoria steeled herself to hold the narrowed blue gaze that sliced to her, hoping he could detect in her expressive eyes her heartfelt regret at her father’s indiscretion.
‘Hah, you see, I have a fine memory.’ Charles Lorrimer smugly emphasised his point by clawing at his chair with skeletal fingers and inclining his fragile frame towards them. ‘She will not believe me when I tell her so,’ he conspiratorially confided to David Hardinge. ‘She says I am confused. But it suits her to say such things…to be cruel to her father and to lie to me.’
‘Papa!’ Victoria gasped, hurt and shame hoarsening her voice.
‘I remember she said she would fetch me a nice glass of warm brandy, but she has not,’ was next sniped craftily at his white-faced daughter.
‘I said a glass of porter, Papa. And I will fetch it, or get Sally to do so, if you are just patient a moment—’
‘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
