“My apologies, Christopher. I thought you meant single ladies.”
“Normally, yes. But I’m desperate.” With an engaging grin, the youngest Grafton brother presented the bouquet to Victoria. “For you, my lady,” he announced, and swept her an elegant bow.
“Vixen, please,” she said, chuckling. “And thank you.”
“Vixen it is. Is my brother with you? Oh, no, of course not. Parliament’s in session today, isn’t it? Since it’s Wednesday, it—”
“Christopher,” Lady Drewsbury interrupted, “since you seem to be carrying on an adequate conversation with yourself, please do it elsewhere.”
“Oh, bother. Yes, Grandmama. Vixen.” With another easy grin, he left the room.
“I’m not sure whether he’s keeping me young or making me old,” Augusta said with a smile. “Taft, please put Lady Althorpe’s flowers in water.”
The butler approached and relieved Victoria of the disheveled daisies. When he’d gone as well, Lady Drewsbury poured them both tea and sat back to sip hers.
“Now,” she continued, “where were we? Ah, the fellow who’s definitely making me old. Sinclair.”
Victoria spooned sugar into her tea. “I’m not really sure why I’m here,” she began, “except that I had a few questions Sinclair can’t—or won’t—answer, and I thought perhaps you might be able to assist me.”
“I would have to hear the questions first. I’m afraid I don’t know Sinclair nearly as well as I used to.”
Bitterness and regret tightened the baroness’s tone. Still, it seemed like the best invitation Victoria was likely to get. “First, I…need to ask for your word that this conversation won’t go beyond the two of us.”
Augusta’s gaze sharpened. “Is Sinclair in some sort of trouble? Or should I ask whether he is in more trouble than usual?”
“Not trouble—not the way you’re thinking, anyway.”
The two women looked at one another. Victoria, at least, wondered what the dowager baroness saw.
“You have my word,” Augusta said finally.
“Thank you. When Sinclair left for Europe, had he and Thomas quarreled?”
“They argued incessantly,” their grandmother confirmed. “Which isn’t that surprising, considering that Thomas was so conservative, and Sinclair was even wilder than Christopher is now. When I think about it, Christopher is about the age Sinclair was when he went off to begin his adventures. Thank goodness Christopher doesn’t seem so inclined. I couldn’t stand to lose the last of them.”
“Have you lost Sinclair?”
“That, my dear, I don’t intend to answer.”
Sometimes she just didn’t know when to shut her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude.”
“Of course you do. And I mean to answer you, where I can. I find myself curious as to why he chose you—and you, him.”
“I’m not sure it was a choice, so much as a mistake.” Victoria flushed. “I didn’t mean that to be an insult. I’m just very…confused.”
To Victoria’s relief, Lady Drewsbury smiled. “Then ask your next question, Victoria, and we’ll see if we can remedy that.”
“Oh. Yes. Was Sinclair ever in the military?”
“Heavens, no. Thomas even offered to purchase him a captain’s commission, and Sinclair turned him down.”
That didn’t quite fit. Victoria sipped her tea, remembering the swift, efficient way Sin had drawn his pistol at one of the men in the stable yard, and how he hadn’t done it last night when she had surprised him in the office. “I’m not quite certain how to ask this,” she said slowly, “but do you have any idea what might have kept him in Europe for the last two years? Especially when he seems to have wanted so badly to return to London.”
“If he’d wanted it badly, he would have done it.” The older woman sighed. “I have no idea. Sinclair and Thomas, despite the difference in their ages, were very close.”
“He told me he was ‘prevented’ from returning.”
“I can’t think of anything that would keep him away—not even Bonaparte and the war.”
“He wouldn’t tell me, except to say that he enjoyed the wagering and the drinking and the women.” Victoria scowled, then wiped the expression from her face as Augusta looked at her curiously. She was not jealous. It was just so frustrating trying to figure him out, like trying to look at a painting with a veil thrown over it. “Since he fakes his drinking, though, I’m not certain I believe—”
Lady Drewsbury straightened. “What do you mean?”
“He and his three friends—the ones who are trying to help him investigate the murder—he said they pretended to be drunk to encourage people to talk more freely. He said it had gotten to be a habit. Why or how, I’m not sure.”
“He’s investigating?”
Victoria nodded. “He’s very serious about it. Almost obsessed, I think.”
For a moment the two women sat looking at one another. Then Augusta set down her cup of tea. “You think he was somehow involved with the war, don’t you? He never told me he was investigating anything—much less Thomas’s death.”
“I could be completely wrong, but—”
“No. I don’t think you are.”
Slowly Victoria smiled. “Neither do I.” She set her own cup aside. “He said he corresponded with Thomas. Do you have any of his letters?”
“I have them all.” Lady Drewsbury stood, looking more robust than she had upon entering the room. “Come with me, Victoria.”
When Victoria returned to Grafton House, she was armed with both Thomas’s old sketches and some very interesting letters Sinclair had written to his brother. She carried them up to her private sitting room herself, refusing even Jenny’s assistance with the bulky package.
She thought she had uncovered the truth, and now she needed to decide how to confront Sinclair with it—and with the fact that his grandmother and brother would be joining them for dinner.
A heady anticipation made her pulse race. Despite his reputation, she hadn’t quite thought she’d married a blackguard. Discovering that Sinclair Grafton was, in fact, a hero—even better, a hero in disguise—left her with warm, tingling skin and the desire to throw herself on him as soon as he returned home.
The door burst open. “Vixen, did you hear?”
Victoria started, then finished tucking the parcel behind a chair. “Lucy? What are you—”
“Never mind that!” Her eyes wide with suppressed excitement, Lucy Havers hurried across the room to grab Victoria’s hands. “You didn’t hear, did you?” She giggled, her cheeks glowing.
For once she was less than pleased to see her friend; Lucy hadn’t figured in her daydream of waylaying Sin. “No, I didn’t hear. What in the world is it?”
“Your husband floored Lord William!”
Victoria frowned. That didn’t quite fit her view of Lord Althorpe either. “William Landry?”
“Yes! Drew his cork! Lionel said William’s nose bled for twenty minutes!”
“But why in the world would Sinclair hit Lord William? He knows we’re friends.”
Lucy flushed a deeper scarlet. “I think William said something,” she whispered, though the only one close enough to hear was Lord Baggles, who had gone back to sleep in the windowsill after the initial outburst.
“Said something about what?” Victoria eyed her friend, who abruptly began to stammer. “He said something about me, didn’t he?”
The younger woman nodded.
“And Sinclair hit him?”
“Several times. A big, blond-haired man had to pull him off William before Sinclair killed him.”
That would have been the well-built gentleman from the stable yard, no doubt. Perhaps William had interrupted another secret—or not so secret—meeting. “When did this happen?”
“Last night, at Boodle’s. Lionel said Lord William was drunk, but that Lord Sin couldn’t have been—not with the way he moved.”
She’d seen that briefly before—tha
t lithe, dangerous way he had when he forgot himself. “Or perhaps Sinclair is just more used to being drunk than William is,” she offered, trying to ignore the additional acceleration of her pulse. She was going to combust if he didn’t arrive soon. Sinclair had slipped, defending her honor. And then he’d come home and she’d quarreled with him, dash it all. “Lucy, he’ll be home any minute. I don’t want him to know that I know.”
Her friend smiled. “But are you pleased?”
Victoria grinned like a madwoman. “Yes. I’m pleased.”
“It’s so romantic. Tell me what he says.”
“I will.”
After Lucy left, Victoria rose and paced. His actions last night didn’t change anything, she kept telling herself. If he was what she suspected, he was used to putting himself in harm’s way. But this time he had risked doing it for her.
A confident hand knocked at the door.
Victoria jumped. “Come in.”
Sinclair pushed open the door and leaned into the room. “Milo said you wanted to see me?”
“Yes. I…ah…I wanted—could you close the door?”
He complied, then followed her as she edged toward the window. Her heart beat so hard and fast that she thought he must be able to hear it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Oh, she was being ridiculous. Just because he had surprised her about himself was no reason for her knees to get wobbly. Just because the attraction she’d felt for him from the beginning was a candle compared with the burst of sunlight she felt now was no reason for her carefully thought-out words to become all tangled in her mind.
Humor touched his amber gaze. “Are you sure you’re all right? You haven’t adopted an elephant or something, have you?”
A laugh escaped her throat, nervous and giddy and not sounding at all like her. “No. I just wanted to apologize…for being so short with you last night.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? I had it coming to me. I told you I was nasty and cruel.”
“No. I interrupted your private thoughts about your brother, and took advantage of your raw emotional state.”
To her growing agitation, Sinclair took another step toward her, a panther stalking a gazelle. She couldn’t back away any farther without falling through the window—which didn’t matter, since she was a gazelle who very much wanted to be caught. In fact, she was feeling rather like a panther herself. But she wanted to tell him that she’d uncovered his secret, if she could manage it before she completely lost the ability to speak.
“You couldn’t take advantage of me if you tried, Victoria.”
That did it. At the sight of his knowing, teasing smile, she couldn’t help herself any longer. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Victoria strode up to her husband, twined her fingers into his black, wavy hair, pulled his face down toward hers, and kissed him. His lips, hard and soft at the same time, molded with hers, pulling and teasing until she quite lost track of who was kissing whom.
Finally he lifted his head to take a breath. “I like the way you apologize,” he murmured, his amber eyes glinting.
She rose on her tiptoes, catching his mouth again. “It’s not just an apology,” she managed shakily. “It’s also a thank you.”
His hands slowly slid down her back to her hips, and he pulled her closer against him. “You’re welcome, whatever the hell I did.” As her heart skittered again, his mouth skimmed her chin and trailed down the base of her jaw and her throat.
Victoria groaned. “Lucy…told me you were at Boodle’s last night.”
Sin’s mouth found hers again. If it hadn’t been for his strong arms around her, she thought she would fall to the floor. His tongue teased her lips open, and then pushed inside to explore and plunder her. She liked this, with a fierceness she hadn’t expected. Men had wanted her, and had tempted her before, but Sinclair was different. If what she suspected was true, Sinclair wasn’t some idle nobleman with no ambition other than netting a wealthy heiress.
“What did William say that made you hit him?”
He lifted his face from hers. “Do you really want to know? Is it important?”
“I don’t want to know because of William,” she murmured, sliding her hands down his chest, feeling the hard muscles there. “I want to know because of you.”
A half-smile touched his sensuous mouth. “You want to know what made me react.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
Sin drew a breath, studying her with that intensity he usually kept hidden. And she abruptly realized what it was. Desire. Desire he concealed behind his cynicism and his jaded quips, and that he couldn’t hide from her now. “He wanted to know what you were like. In…intimate circumstances.”
“And?”
“And I was angry—because you had obviously considered him a friend.”
“I’ve never expected much of my male friends. They all seem to have the same curiosities.”
“Well, I have those curiosities, too, Victoria.” Moving his hands in small, caressing circles down to her hips and her buttocks, he pulled her more closely against him. “Do you feel my curiosity?”
Her mouth abruptly dry, she nodded again. “I’ve been aware of your…curiosity for several minutes now.” His growing hardness against her hip made her curious, too, and intensely aware.
“That’s why I hit him, Victoria—because I didn’t know the answer to his damned question.”
It would have been easier if he had just pushed her to the floor and thrown himself on her. “To be perfectly honest, my lord, I don’t know the answer either.” Her hands shaking, she tugged his shirt loose from his breeches. “Men have such expectations, you know.”
Sinclair caught her hands in his and held them up against his chest. “You said you’d kissed men before. By the dozens.”
“Yes I have.” She gave a bitter smile. “I even kissed Lord William once. Obviously a mistake.”
“But not more than kissing?”
His question was sharp, his voice a deep growl. He demanded an answer, and he was jealous, even after guessing what she was going to say. Victoria wanted to melt into him. “Never more than kissing.”
“Until now.”
She pulled her hands free to run them up his chest again, this time under his shirt, against his warm skin. “Not until you.”
Sinclair rested his forehead against hers, his lips relentless as they teased hers and then backed away, until she wanted to grab him and hold him still so she could kiss him again and again. “Victoria,” he murmured, “as I recall, last night you didn’t like me very much.”
“Today I think maybe I know who you are.”
He opened his mouth again, but this time she put her palm over it. “Are you going to stand there and ask questions all afternoon long? I might change my mind, you know.”
He pulled her hand away from his face. “No, you won’t,” he said.
Still holding her hand, he backed toward the door of her bedchamber. She had no choice but to follow—not that she had the least objection to that. There was steel beneath the velvet of his grip but only passion and desire in his gaze. She could still say no if she wanted to, and that was why she didn’t. This was the Sinclair she’d kissed in the garden that first night—the one she’d desired, and the one she burned for now.
“You have some expectations to live up to yourself, you know,” she said shakily. “Living in a brothel for six months—”
“I’ll attempt not to disappoint you.”
Lord Baggles rose from the windowsill to follow them, but Sin shut the door before he could do so, leaving the startled feline in the sitting room. His short, disgusted yowl made Victoria chuckle.
“You’re not earning any commendations from my cat.”
“I’m not going to make love to your cat,” he said dryly and pulled her forward, into the circle of his arms.
She expected him to kiss her again, but he merely looked into her eyes for a long moment. “What?”
“I’m
becoming acquainted with you,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you since the damned Frantons’ garden. Even before that.” Then he dipped his head and claimed her mouth again.
Lust. That’s what it was; lust. She’d wanted him from the beginning, too…. Victoria moaned.
Most men assumed that she was more worldly than she was. As a consequence, and because she’d never bothered correcting their misinformation, she’d heard a great deal about sexual activities. Some of it had been interesting, and even arousing, but much of it—especially the ardent reactions of the nameless females involved—had sounded completely comical. She also suspected that some of the escapades had been fabricated.
It was with some surprise, then, that she realized how affected she was by him. Pulling the coat from Sinclair’s shoulders and dropping it to the floor was simple, even with her hands shaking. The small buttons of his waistcoat, though, were completely beyond her. “Drat it all,” she hissed. “I’m sorry.”
With a low chuckle, he covered her hands, tightened his grip on the sides of his waistcoat, and pulled. In quick succession, the buttons flew off and plunked to the floor. “Don’t be. You excite me, too.”
He treated the buttons running down the back of her gown with more respect, though she almost wished he wouldn’t. Having him stand behind her, his lips caressing her shoulders and the back of her neck, nearly made her insane. She wanted to touch him, to hold him, but she was faced in the wrong direction. “Just rip them, Sinclair,” she ordered in a voice so husky with desire that she barely recognized it.
“I like this dress,” he protested, his murmur rumbling against her shoulder and going through her down to her toes. “Be patient.”
If she was patient, she might come to her senses. Victoria whipped around to kiss him again, hot and open-mouthed. “I don’t want to be patient. I want to be with you. Now.”
He’d released the buttons far enough to slide the violet gown forward off her shoulders. It fell in a lavender-scented heap around her ankles, leaving her in her shift and her shoes. Sin sank to his knees, fitting his hands around her right ankle. A slight tug and her shoe was untied.
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