She was lying. Or at least not being entirely forthcoming. That Victoria enjoyed a bit of subterfuge was no secret to him, but her sojourns to bookshops and museums in the disguise of a plump, veiled widow in black were harmless. Or was she more like her father than Garrick wanted to believe? Was she dallying in more serious deceptions? He did not enjoy the off-balance feeling the thought gave him.
Lady Hawkins poked her head around the morning room door. While she was petite and delicate-looking, she had ambition and intellect to rival her husband. At the moment, her focus was centered on matching Victoria with a peer in hopes of their family rising another rung in society, and he had no doubt she would succeed. Lady Hawkins and Garrick got on like a hen tolerating a mutt as long as he kept the foxes at bay.
“Come and have tea while it’s hot, Victoria. We have an appointment with the modiste in an hour. How are you this morning, Garrick?” Lady Hawkins asked in a way that indicated polite disinterest.
“It’s a fine, brisk day, ma’am, with bright blue skies.” Garrick inclined his head. “And how are you?”
“Tolerably well.” A smile didn’t mar the stern lines of Lady Hawkins’s face, and her nod was perfunctory. “You take care of yourself and Sir Hawkins too.”
“You can count on me, ma’am.”
Lady Hawkins made a harrumphing sound, but the lines etched along her forehead smoothed. She retreated but left the morning room door cracked.
If anything happened to Sir Hawkins, Britain would be at a great disadvantage in the chess game of war. It was Sir Hawkins, and not Wellington, who deserved the accolades, but the world at large would never know his name.
Instead of rushing to do her mother’s biding, Victoria tarried with Garrick. The undercurrents between them ruffled his calm like a hand rubbing a dog’s fur the wrong direction. “What’s amiss?” he asked again, this time with more vehemence.
Her lips moved slightly, as if words were desperate to form themselves into a confession. She finally shook her head and smiled a bright, sunny smile that didn’t banish the shadows in her eyes, and her voice took on a falsely blithe lilt. “What on earth could be amiss? I’m to get a new frock this morning.”
With that, she glided away. But before she disappeared into the morning room, she glanced over her shoulder, and their gazes clashed like flint. Fingers of sensation tiptoed down his spine as she disappeared.
Still looking over her shoulder at Thomas, Victoria tripped over the rug and caught herself on the small breakfast table set for two. The bump made the china cups clatter in their saucers. Her mother shot her a glance over the top of the morning paper but returned to reading without commenting on Victoria’s unusual clumsiness.
Victoria had almost told Thomas about her complication. No, it had been a complication a fortnight ago. Now it was bordering on a full-fledged catastrophe. Why had she involved herself in someone else’s love affair?
It was easier to blame her penchant for novels than her naivety. It had seemed romantic and harmless to be the go-between with letters and notes to and from Lady Eleanor Stanfield and Lord Berkwith. Yes, Eleanor’s parents had forbidden the match, but Victoria thought Lord Berkwith charming, not unattractive or old, and in love with her friend. She had been happy to help nurture the tendresse.
Victoria hadn’t expected the tendresse to progress to talk of an elopement. Second—and third and fourth—thoughts had sprouted after subtle questioning had revealed Lord Berkwith had amassed a large debt gambling. Victoria couldn’t fathom how that much could be lost in a single year. Was the gleam in Lord Beckwith’s eyes when they alit upon Eleanor true love or avarice?
Victoria drank her tea and pushed the runny yolk of her egg around her plate with a triangle of toast. Her stomach was a mass of nerves, and not all of them could be attributed to Eleanor’s romantic entanglements. An unholy number of them were because of the man standing outside her father’s study only a few feet away.
Thomas Garrick. The man was a cipher. He exuded a raw physicality some found intimidating but she found darkly attractive. He was nothing like the gentlemen who danced attendance on her at London’s social gatherings, because he wasn’t a gentleman. His solid grip on her arm was evidence of that. She rubbed the place he had touched, her skin still tingling.
His dark eyes were calculating yet kind. And his voice… The deep silk was luxurious and mesmerizing and invited her to confess all her secrets. Secrets that went beyond promises made to a friend. Secrets like dreams where she woke tangled in her sheets, her body longing for Thomas to escort her through the door he’d cracked open with his kiss. The memory was nearly two years old, but heat still flushed through her until she wished for a fan in December.
At the time, she’d hoped it would be the start of something. Instead, her hopes had been cruelly dashed. Despair scuttled over her like clouds muting the sun. He would never kiss her again. A terrible mistake, he had called it. A moment of weakness from a man who was never weak.
She was twenty. It was time to leave her childish fantasies and dreams behind and choose someone suitable. Her mother was pushing her to marry into the ton. An heir to a title was out of her reach, but a second or third son would be a coup. Her father, on the other hand, would prefer her to choose a well-connected man with political aspirations.
As for herself… She wanted the one man she could never have.
“What were you and Garrick discussing so intently?” Her mother eyed her over the paper as if she could see straight into the maelstrom of Victoria’s thoughts.
“Nothing.” The knee-jerk response came out like a defensive jab. Victoria cleared her throat, dropped a sugar cube into her tea, and stirred. “That is to say, nothing of import. Only our plans for yuletide. I asked Thomas where he planned to bide his time.”
Her mother’s mouth tightened as if readying a lecture on the improper use of Garrick’s given name. It was an old argument, and one Victoria had long ago won. Her mother snapped the paper in annoyance but only said, “Harold probably has some errand for the boy. I’m sure he prefers to stay busy seeing as he has no family to speak of.”
“He has us,” Victoria said hotly.
Too hotly based on her mother’s glare. “Your father acquired Garrick to fill a position. He should be grateful he was not forced into manual labor or worse.”
Victoria bit her tongue. Her mother had always been sensitive to Thomas’s position. If Lady Hawkins had provided her husband with a son, Thomas would not have played such a prominent role in their household. It was a wound that pained her mother and manifested as a muted resentment toward Thomas.
Victoria regarded her mother over the rim of her teacup. “Perhaps he would have been better off doing an honest day’s work instead of the skullduggery Father requires.”
While they engaged in a tacit agreement not to discuss Sir Hawkins’s duties, Victoria was not dense. Men—and sometimes women—with the same hard edge as Thomas arrived at all hours during the day and night bearing messages. Thomas occasionally disappeared and returned battered and bruised, a haunted, hunted look reflecting from the obsidian depths of his eyes.
“Garrick is better educated than any man of his station. He was lucky your father recognized his potential.” Her mother folded the paper and did not meet Victoria’s eyes, which said more than the platitude she offered.