“I’d like that very much,” she said, quietly rising to her feet and slipping from the room.
Trace followed her to the entry where he’d left his outerwear then accompanied her to the kitchen where she’d left her things by the door. He held her coat while she slid her arms into the sleeves then slipped on his coat while she wrapped a scarf around her neck, settled a furry hat over her head, and yanked on a pair of gloves. He pulled open the door and they stepped outside into the nippy night air.
Victoria tugged up the collar of her coat, adjusted her scarf, and walked down the porch steps. “Where would you like to go?”
Trace shrugged. He had no destination in mind. His only intention was to spend more time with her. Alone. Beneath a sky brimming with stars and a winter moon. If he was given to flights of fancy, he would have said it was a night made for wooing a girl.
They meandered down the lane toward the road, neither speaking as the quiet of the evening settled around them. Victoria glanced over at him, the moon shining on her smooth, perfect skin in a way that made it hard for him to keep from brushing his fingers over her cheek.
“Tell me something about you,” she said, breaking the silence that lingered between them. “For all your teasing ways, I hardly know a thing about you, Trace Travers. Like your name. Is Trace a nickname?”
“Yep.” He would turn back around, mount his horse, and leave her standing alone in the dark before he’d share the detestable name his parents had saddled him with at birth.
“And what does Trace stand for?” she asked.
“A name I hate. There are only four people who know my name and two of them are gone.”
“Those two who are gone, are they your parents?”
Trace nodded. “My father died when I was twelve and I lost my mother when I was twenty.”
“Truly, I’m sorry, Trace. I know how hard it is to lose a parent. I thought the world had ended when my mother passed away. I was only eight, and Gray was just six. Our older brothers were barely in their teens. It was a hard time for us all.” She placed a hand on his arm. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
He patted her hand where it rested on his forearm, then tucked her a little closer to his side as they continued walking. “And I’m sorry for yours. It had to be hard to lose your mother so young, especially with three brothers. Being a rascally boy myself with a younger sister, I can imagine how much you needed her.”
“I did need her,” Victoria admitted. “But Papa and my brothers did their best.” She glanced over at him. “Are you close with your sister?”
“Reasonably so. I don’t see her as often as I like, but when we have the opportunity to spend time together, we greatly enjoy it. She has a son and daughter, they’re five and seven.”
“What fun ages. I’m so glad I came to visit Gray and Claire, if for no other reason than to spend time with Maddie.” She gave him a long glance. “Might I assume you are the favorite uncle who plies them with treats and spoils them rotten?”
A chuckle rolled out of him at the accurate description. “Teresa threatens to send them home with me when I visit because I let them eat candy before supper, wind them into a frenzy of activity, then declare it time for me to go.”
Victoria shook her head. “Exactly as I pictured it.”
He laughed again and guided her onto the road when they reached it, heading in the direction of the Decker place. Fred and Elsa were among those gathered around the piano at Gray and Claire’s home, but they wouldn’t care if he and Victoria strolled that way.
“I, um…I’m sorry about the loss of your brothers, Tori. It must have been horrible for you to find out…to realize that…” He struggled for a polite way to discuss her murderous husband then decided he’d been a dunce to bring up the topic in the first place.
“It’s okay, Trace. I’m sure you’ve heard it was my husband that killed Cliff and Warner and Gray’s wife along with our beloved nanny.” A long, sad sigh drifted out of her, turning into wispy fronds in the chilly night air. “Wendell Ness was an attractive, dashing, charming man, or so I thought when I met him at a party when I was nineteen. As the only girl growing up in a house full of men, I was rather sheltered and protected. Wendell seemed so worldly and I was thoroughly enchanted that a man like him paid attention to me. He was thirty-two when I met him. His parents died when he was twenty-three, leaving him with substantial funding. Most people would have been able to live on it for a long, long time. Not Wendell. He’d spent every dime of it within a few years. His parents had spoiled him, pampered him, never made him learn how to do anything for himself or to help others.”
Victoria grew silent as they slowly walked along on the packed snow. Trace could tell she struggled to continue.
“It’s okay, Tori. You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to.”
“No. I want to.” She cleared her throat and went on with her story. “Papa and my brothers took an immediate dislike to Wendell. Papa thought he was a conniving wastrel, which was true, but I was so blinded by his looks and his silver-tongued compliments I didn’t listen to his warnings to stay away from Wendell. Although he didn’t give us his blessing, Papa accompanied me down the aisle the day of my wedding.”
She stopped walking and looked as though she shuffled through her memories. “The first month of our marriage seemed normal, then it started to change. Wendell was the type of person who was never happy, never content, always wanting more, wanting what someone else had. Papa tried to teach him the craft of creating violins, but Wendell had no talent for it or interest in actually working. Eventually, Papa put him in charge of a made-up position that basically entailed Wendell talking to people at parties about Carter & Sons violins. Generations of my family have created them and now that legacy rests on Gray.”
Victoria glanced back at the house where lights glowed with cheery welcome in the windows. “I used to resent my brothers because no one ever questioned where they belonged or what they would do. They were accepted into the business just because they were boys. I had a head for numbers and enjoyed doing the books. Erroneously, I assumed my contribution to the family business meant it would someday be divided amongst us equally. Then my father explained that Carter & Sons is only for the sons, not the daughters. Wendell grew so angry I thought he might actually do harm to Papa. I later discovered he married me because he thought he’d have a share in my family’s enterprises, but that wasn’t the case. That’s when he started…”
“Started what?” Trace asked, already guessing the answer. When she turned away from him and began walking briskly down the road, he caught up to her, pulling her around to face him. “He beat you, didn’t he?”
Victoria nodded, refusing to meet his gaze. She lifted her hand and rubbed her jaw where he’d felt the bump then she sighed again. “I was a coward, Trace. A coward and a fool. It’s because I was such a stupid, naïve, brainless girl that we lost Laura, Nanny, Cliff, and Warner. It’s all my fault they’re gone.”
“No, it’s Wendell’s fault. No one made him do what he did. Who knows? He might have done the same thing even if you hadn’t married him. Or he would have done the same thing to another family.” He took her arms in his hands, forcing her to be still. “You are not to blame for anything that happened, Tori. You have to believe that.”