The realization was both intriguing and startling.
Stilling, he puffed his cheeks, shook his head. “On second thought, something stronger.” He reached for a bottle and whispered, “For your long-suffering companion if no one else.”
Oh, the nerve, Victoria seethed, hoping he’d catch her eye so she could throw a perfectly placed, acerbic dart. Although she had no idea what that might be, so thank God, he ignored her. Agnes—who’d scurried to a dark corner to hide, the seamed tip of a brown slipper all that was visible—was long-suffering. Everyone would agree.
But how impolite to mention it.
Tray in hand, he paused before her, his penetrating attention issuing a challenge. She didn’t want him to become a puzzle because no one loved solving a puzzle more. However, the varied pieces of him didn’t quite fit. His expression, for one—irritation and concern. Her beloved brother’s gaze had often held those warring factions. But Charles had cared about her, loved her when this enigmatic man was a stranger.
As expected, the thought of her brother unleashed a coil of torment and the prick of tears.
Swallowing hard, she raised her chin and took a glass from the tray, the ample sip in response to Finn’s nebulous dare sending a screaming fire down her throat. As she coughed behind her gloved fist, he slouched into an oversized blood-red armchair, extending his long legs until his heels brushed the lace edge of her skirt. What a portrait he made sitting there, lids lowered, clothing impeccably awry, glass dangling from slim fingers better suited to a sculptor, a relaxed state of masculine dishabille as accomplished as the art gracing his walls. The Blue Bastard on display. The man women came to fisticuffs over. At the opera recently, in fact.
Drinking him in from head to toe, she could see why.
However, behind the beauty, his solemn expression held nothing of the frivolous rogue. Maybe no one, not even while he towered over them in bed, had taken the time to really look at the man.
She loathed, absolutely loathed, that she suspected there was more.
Victoria liked nothing less than being outmaneuvered.
Placing the glass on the table, she reached beneath her knitted wool cloak. His alert gaze followed. Drawing the envelope forth, she tapped it once against crystal. “Unlike the colonel’s wife, I brandish no pistol.”
Finn took a leisurely sip and eyed her over the rim, firelight etching inky slashes beneath his cheeks. “Fortunately, she was a terrible shot.” Dipping his head, his hair slicked over his brow. It was long, perhaps longer than any man’s in the ton, although he was two steps outside society and the rules imposed. A surprising slash of gray near his temple spoke of wisdom she wasn’t sure he’d earned.
Feeling the familiar rebelliousness rise within her, she yearned to fist her fingers in his dark strands and chase that impudent smirk from his face. Press her lips to his and erase it that way, no parlor trick involved.
She was quite good at erasing intent with kisses.
Flustered by the fantasy, she hurled the envelope at the jaded man across from her. It bounced off his open collar, drawing her eyes to the trail of hair snaking inside his shirt. She watched the cream vellum tumble to his lap, disliking herself and him. She would be damned if she fell in line behind half of London, waiting for the opportunity to do anything with or to Finn Alexander. “What is the meaning of this? An invitation to a summer house party at your brother’s Oxfordshire estate?”
Employing the insouciance he was known for, Finn set his glass aside and picked up the envelope, spinning it between his hands like a child’s top. “What would you like to be the meaning?”
She slid to the edge of the sofa until they sat close enough to drink in each other’s scent, hear each other’s rapidly-drawn breaths. His pupils expanded, the dusky ring leaching into indigo. Not as calm as he appeared. Because she was spiteful on occasion, his tension pleased her. “You didn’t ask me at Samuelson’s, as you could have. Instead, Viscountess Beauchamp directs the communication to my mother, a woman known to take tactless interest in all things society. With a minor”—she traced a nick in the table and glanced at him through her lashes—“addendum mentioning the Duke of Ashcroft’s possible presence.”
“God knows I don’t make the rules.” Finn sent the invitation skating across the table and against her hand. “But duke trumps baron any day of the week. Although we don’t know what your beloved Rossby holds over your family. Perhaps nothing more than funds…and your dear father’s wish to avoid a dank cell in debtor’s prison. Money does tend to speak loudly and force hands. But we can find out.”
Victoria popped off the sofa, then settled back with a huff. “This is madness. I have no baron. I simply signed an unwelcome, seemingly unavoidable betrothal agreement. And, yes, I would like to know why my father is indebted. But other than this, no one is concerned with me. Truly, not even my own family. I’m like one of the paintings lining these walls. An object. A duke showing interest, a man I’ve never met, is entirely implausible. If there’s a reason for this”—she tapped her knuckle on the envelope—“I want to know what it is. Not this balderdash about supporting my marital pursuits.”
His pupils expanded again, and she filed the tidbit. Amazingly, Finn Alexander, gambler extraordinaire, lover of women and mischief, was not wholly indecipherable. Cracks were showing in his façade.
There was a reason for the offer; he just didn’t feel she needed to know it.
“I’ve never been introduced to your sister-in-law, a woman who welcomed me to her country home with such exuberance. Odd that.”
“I forged the note. Piper will learn about the house party when we crawl out of the carriage at Harbingdon. Unless I get word to them first.” He polished off his drink, did a stretch that brought his bootheel atop her skirt. A subtle trap. “The duke part is true, by the by. Ashcroft’s looking for a wife for all I know—and he’s often at Harbingdon. You certainly won’t be more aggravation than he’s encountered previously. What’s the latest tattle? An opera singer, isn’t it? His romantic entanglements are…untidy. But so is his life.” Left unsaid: mine is not.
“Impossible. My mother will be otherwise occupied in Scotland and—”
“She sent a note of acceptance to my family’s Mayfair home this morning. I believe your maid”—he nodded to Agnes—“was stated as joyfully accompanying in her stead. Almost a second mother to you or some such rot. The package is, shall we say, wrapped. Unless you’d like to go to the trouble of unwrapping it. Tossing aside a possible dukedom for a barony is the height of insanity, but what does a man of my marginal station know?”
A loud sniffle erupted from the corner, followed by grumbling Victoria thankfully couldn’t comprehend.
Victoria jerked her skirt from beneath his heel and tried to concoct a sound rebuttal as the noose tightened around her neck. Her options were limited, her family’s circumstances desperate, and London held no opportunity for her to stumble upon a better marital prospect as the ton was vacating the sweltering city like rats from a sinking ship. Baron Rossby was simply dreadful, agreed, but most in the ton needed funds flowing in, not flowing out. He was one of the lucky ones who was flush. And she’d not a farthing to her name aside from a modest amount of pin-money she’d been saving. She’d been told she kissed well and—