Chapter 26

Now, in a world where love is a premium, and even respect is not cheap, it is a pity to add, by foolish pride, to the number of those who dislike you; but, if there were no other consideration, it is extremely unchristian, to say the least of it.

~ The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (The Last London Editor; 1860)

As Gabriel buried himself in his cups at White’s, Vicky was sneaking into Delores’s personal stockpile of sherry for some minor fortification.

For although she had regarded the previous evening at the opera a minor success on her part, she had been made blatantly privy to the sordid, cruel, and vindictive titbits of gossip that were circulating the mills. It had not been a happy day.

Usually the Colton townhouse would be bombarded with callers whenever they were in residence. Occasionally, but not often, Victoria would have to send gentlemen off, allowing their butler to inform them that she was not accepting callers at present. Ever since she had followed Gabriel to London, however, their numbers had dwindled significantly with each passing day and now, on the third day, not one knocked on their door. Well, she amended, not one of reputable attentions.

And this is what concerned her the most. In her reckless pursuit to win the heart of Gabriel Sinclair, she was also winning a tarnished and blackened reputation to the extent that several notorious rakes and elderly, nausea-inducing gentlemen had inappropriately propositioned her.

Delores, for all her stoic beliefs in propriety, could be a cunning old biddy when it came to her nightcaps and Vicky knew for a fact that her grandmother secretly imbibed the spirit just before she retired for the eve. This clandestine information she kept zealously guarded. With a strenuous heave, Vicky parted the lips of her mattress and inspected the space between. Nothing.

Huffing, she dropped the heavy bed down and plunked her hands on her hips. Just where the devil would she keep it? The bottle was here somewhere. She knew it was.

Strolling over towards the chest-of-drawers against the opposite wall, Vicky began to haul them open and rifle through the lacy contents unashamedly.

“Victoria Colton!”

Guiltily, she jumped.

“Just what do you think you are doing?” Delores demanded from where she stood ominously in the doorway.

“Uh…”

“I do not know what has gotten into you lately,” she ranted hotly, trumping into the room and slamming the drawer shut that Vicky had previously been scrounging through, “but snooping through an old woman’s undergarments? This is a new low, even for you!”

They were words deliberately chosen to make her feel wretched and they succeeded. Acutely aware of the laughing-stock she was making of herself, she could only imagine how her grandmother would be taking her public shaming. Not too gently, it would seem. “Sherry?” Vicky squawked and instantly felt tears prick her eyes.

Delores softened at the dampness apparent within her eyes and sighed forlornly, moving to the bed and bending low. From under it she extracted a small chest and, even more astonishing than the chest, from a pocket in her blue evening gown she procured a small key, which she then inserted into aforementioned chest and popped the lid. “I did not bring a glass with me tonight,” she said as she rose to her feet, the bottle clutched in her fist.

“I care not.” Arm extended, Vicky almost yanked the bottle from Delores’s fingers. She popped the cork hurriedly and swigged.

“I apologise for sounding harsh earlier,” Delores began while Vicky busied herself with the sherry, “but I am sure you can understand where my concern is coming from. This is a nasty business, to be sure.”

Vicky had barely touched her meals over the course of the past several days so the effect of the sherry was immediate. The bed provided an adequate support for her weight and she slumped into the mattress with a small groan. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore, grandmamma,” she said dejectedly. “It’s too hard.”

Delores stilled, her expression one of concern as she studied her granddaughter hunched over solemnly as she perched on the edge of the bed. After a moment, she positioned herself beside Victoria and gently took her hand in her own, aged one. “It is hard, my child,” she began, “nobody said it would be easier. You expected the worse, and it is what you have been dealt.”

“I never meant for this to happen.”

“I know.” Unexpectedly, Delores took the bottle from Vicky and wet her own lips with the sherry. “I think you should consider taking a hiatus.”

“Excuse me?”

“A hiatus, Victoria. This… this behaviour is reckless and clearly ineffectual. I think you should go abroad, just for a couple of months to let the furore settle.”

Now, of all times, Delores was consenting to her desire to travel. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. “I can’t. Not now.”

“This is unhealthy, child. You are not Juliet and he is not Romeo. For God’s sake-” Delores cussing was as rare as Vicky being angelic, so it came as some surprise that her grandmother would utter such a thing. “-you are pining away for him like some heartsick fool! This is not the headstrong, confident child I raised. Look at you. You’ve scarcely touched your food. Your skin is sallow. All for a man?”

God, she was pathetic. Vicky knew she was. The way she “pined” for Gabriel was absurd and quite out of character and now, to boot, she was making an outcast of herself. During the Promenade hour, several people had deliberately cut her, crudely ignoring her salutations despite having met Victoria on several occasions and then deliberately passing comment to their peers as they passed her along the lines of, “Shameful wanton, she is. Can’t be seen with the likes of her.” Or: “Did you hear she is now his mistress?” And even: “Poor Lady Colton. I hear she has taken to her bed. It is a lesson well-learned that one should never emulate the boisterous number of our set.”

That afternoon alone had been more hurtful than Gabriel’s rejection and Vicky feared that Delores may be correct: she should take a brief hiatus, allow the scandal to settle, before she tackled the matter of Gabriel again. But travel? Leave England? Lord, wasn’t that what all this fuss was about? Gabriel’s worst suspicions would be confirmed and she wouldn’t stand a chance after that. Maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad if she merely frequented the Continent for a couple of months.

But the way Delores described her behaviour over him made her ashamed. All for a man, indeed. She’d never deem herself fickle enough to stoop so low. How… despicable. “Perhaps,” she murmured, “you are right.”

“Well,” Delores said, “you can mull it over yourself whether you think you should or shouldn’t, but if that boy really loves you he will come to his senses, which is maybe why you should put some distance between the two of you.”

“Given the circumstances,” Vicky said self-mockingly, “I doubt he’d see it in that light. Besides, where would I go?”

Her grandmother made a flippant gesture with her hand. “Paris, of course. I have cousins you could stay with.”

“Hmm.”

“Like I said, just consider it.”

She did and quickly came to the conclusion that if tonight was not successful, then she would latch onto the opportunity because, ultimately, what she was about to do this evening at the amateur musicale at Northwick Park could have the most negative implications to her tattered reputation. And that was due to occur in approximately one hour from now.

***

He knew the second she arrived because the crush simultaneously seemed to seethe with silent outrage.

It was the change in mood, the change in frivolity, that provoked Gabriel’s senses to Victoria’s presence and he turned, following the actions of those around him, and studied her across the large hall where the musicale was taking place.

There was nothing about her that didn’t make his gut clench with longing and as he watched her approach, he could not help but admire the seductive sashay of her hips moving lithely beneath the silken red fabric of her gown. Ravishing, as usual, Victoria was one of the most beautiful women present, if not the most beautiful woman present, with her thick raven curls and eyes the colour of glistening sapphires, her skin deliciously creamy and her contours provocatively bestowed. But there was a solemnness about her now, almost a heaviness on her shoulders that didn’t make her seem quite as sparkling as she used to be. Although she held herself proudly, and coldly, he sensed that some of her spirit, some of that unique essence that was simply her, had dissipated. She held her stubborn chin aloft in the air, her eyes chillingly aloof as she moved through the crowd, the women she passed deliberately and cruelly cutting her.

A pang of guilt struck him.

Desdemona Fitzgerald made a disdainful sound from beside him. “Obviously,” she commented scornfully to the people surrounding them, “she admires being shunned or she is fickle enough to think that she is not immensely disliked.”

Several other women tittered snidely among themselves, but Gabriel could not remark nor could he bring himself to reprimand Desdemona for her crudeness so enamoured was he with Vicky’s progress across the hall. She was moving, it seemed, directly towards the low makeshift stage at one end where various instruments were placed for use of the guests should they desire to perform.

“Goodness,” another woman said to Desdemona, “she isn’t going to sing for us, is she?”

Oh, Christ. That was just what she was going to do. He had to stop her.

“Look! She is! There she is, on stage now-”

Gabriel didn’t hear the rest of those words, his body frozen with shock and urgency as he observed Victoria proudly take her place on the stage in front of a room full of people who abhorred the very air she breathed.

“Usually,” she declared to the room at large with a valiant yet wobbly smile, and all present were ushered into silence as they turned riveted eyes and ears to the most titillating piece of gossip about to occur, “someone with more skill at the pianoforte than I would accompany me-” Gabriel surged forward. He didn’t care how he got to her, he didn’t care that he was mowing down people as he ploughed through the crowd, and he certainly didn’t care that he was causing a scene. All he did care about was that she was about to commit the most heinous of social crimes: a performance to a room full of resentful people, people that scorned and ridiculed her behind her back. It would crush her and what little was left of her spirit would sputter and diminish.

“I know that if he was so inclined, he would aid me in my endeavours here tonight,” she was saying, “but you shall have to endure my dismal efforts as I attempt to devote- I say! Unhand me!”

Firmly slung over his shoulder, Vicky squirmed and Gabriel proceeded to the nearest exit.

It was going to be one of the most eventful seasons London had ever seen and the two of them had set quite an example that would be difficult to follow should anyone be so inclined. Gabriel hauled her outside to a private stone terrace ensconced by leafy scrubs and two lanterns placed on the balustrade. He deposited her unkindly on the ground when he had ensured that they did not have an audience.

“Well,” she grumbled as she folded her arms under her breasts and glared up at him, “that certainly will have tongues wagging for years to come. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Victoria, this has got to stop!” he told her savagely. “By God, there is not a single person in there who would call you a friend. This is madness-”

“I beg your pardon, Lord Sinclair,” Emily Weatherly piped up as she joined them on the terrace, “but I would proudly call Victoria my friend.”

Vicky gave the small girl a smile of gratitude before she clambered to her feet. “I care not a whit for the opinions of the fools in there,” she told Gabriel proudly. “I would gladly make a fool of myself for you ten times over.”

He ran his hand through his hair, frustration and desire warring within him jarringly. If Emily weren’t present, quietly reinforced by Delores’s disapproving form materialising through the doors behind her, he’d sorely be tempted to drag Vicky into his arms and ravish her soundly. “You need to stop this,” he growled. “It is madness to do this to yourself.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked him in a soft voice.

“Yes!”

“Are you certain?”

“For God’s sake, didn’t I just say that?”

She narrowed her eyes at him but her bravado was dimmed somewhat by the hurt he saw in them. “I am asking you, Gabriel, because if you tell me now to leave you alone, to never bother you again and walk out of your life, I will. I have fought for you. I have given you my pride and now my reputation. You already had my heart and my soul and my… You have everything I have to give you, but still that is not enough. So if you say the words now, I will leave you. I won’t bother you again. I will leave you to get on with your life. All you need to do is tell me that there is not the slightest possibility that you still love me.”

He opened his mouth but he could not summon the words because they were not true. He had not stopped loving her, not for one moment since their parting, but he had stopped trusting her and he could not say the words to her that would relinquish her from his life. But he was able to live with the ache and adapt his life to suit his needs without her, and he knew that by doing so he would be responsible for her ruin, for the destruction of her spirit. So he realised that he needed to release her, to free her from this incessant and delusional chase in order for her happiness to thrive. He could not expect her to wait while he learned to trust her again, nor could he allow her the belief that it might happen in the near future. It was not fair. Rather let her forget about him, put aside this ardency and love she harboured for him, than let her wither away in a society that would drain her very livelihood.

Although he could not make himself say the words aloud, he could shake his head, and her face shattered. “Very well,” she told him brokenly. Emily rushed to her side and slipped her arm through Vicky’s, giving him a baleful glower as she began to tug her away. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”

Flanked by Delores and Emily protectively, they ushered Victoria home, and Gabriel did not join the party again that night. He, too, went home and buried himself in the strongest bottle of liquor he could find.