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CHAPTER 2

RULES

V ictoria went downstairs for breakfast even before the staff had the opportunity to set the table right. But she had given up pretending she was going to sleep well into the night as she tossed and turned in her bed. She decided to drown her frustration in buttery croissants.

She was ready to do exactly that when Dorothy, the Dowager Duchess of Colborne, walked in with her usual smile, having had a good night’s sleep, unaware of what unfolded under her roof.

“Victoria! You are up early!” Dorothy approached the table.

“His Grace is here!” Victoria blurted out.

Dorothy stopped in her tracks and looked around as if her son would be conjured by sheer thought. Which, given the Devil he was, might happen.

“Stephen is here?” She seemed beyond herself with happiness. “He didn’t send word.”

That would have saved us the… incident .

The ‘incident’ was what Victoria decided to refer to as the dressing room debacle from now on. Her mind kept betraying her, replaying the way his hand had landed, not clumsily or by accident, but firmly, as though claiming the curve of her hip.

It was scandalous. It was outrageous. And, worst of all, it was unforgettable. Victoria didn’t see anything, and that was the main reason she believed that he hadn’t either, but she felt him everywhere, and that was somehow worse.

“I haven’t seen him for so long,” Dorothy lamented, her voice filled with longing.

She turned to head back out of the room, but then she paused and looked at Victoria.

“Oh, dear!” she gasped, realizing the implication of Stephen arriving in the middle of the night. “He must have been shocked to find you in his room.”

In his dressing room, to be more precise .

Victoria bit her lip to chase the memory of the ‘incident’ away. It would do no one any good to inform Dorothy exactly how both her companion and her son were entangled, naked, in the dark.

Blood rushed to Victoria’s cheeks as she thought of his stormy blue eyes. She shook her head sharply and took a sip of her tea, now lukewarm. No, this would not do. She would compose herself. She would regain her balance.

“Please tell me he did not overreact. He can be so…”

So massive and solid? Hot? Dangerous? Because he could be all things and then some.

“He was surprised, of course,” Victoria replied carefully. “But he was an absolute gentleman.”

She may have stretched the truth a little bit too much there.

“Ah,” Dorothy sighed.

“He insisted I return to bed, but I thought that it was too much to keep him out of his room. I asked Alfred to prepare me one of the guest rooms.”

“I hope you got the one with the garden view and the blue roses.”

“Of course I did,” Victoria confirmed.

Dorothy nodded and smiled.

Victoria opened her mouth to ask why the Dowager Duchess had failed to inform him about her presence in the house as her companion when the air shifted. She knew instinctively why, the way innocent prey would freeze when a dangerous animal prowled around.

The Duke entered the room—fully clothed, thank the Heavens—in confident strides. Not that it helped at all. He was fully dressed last night, too. Well, in wet clothes that clung to his body, almost transparent. In addition, he hadn’t bothered with a cravat or properly buttoned up his shirt, so Victoria got a glimpse of his collarbone. A sight that has proved to be more upsetting than she would have thought about mere bones on a body.

Focus on something else, for all that is holy!

Victoria decided to notice how Dorothy’s face lit up when she saw her son, and she smiled.

The older woman stood up and wrapped her arms around her son. For a few precious moments, Stephen returned the embrace before he tensed.

“Dear, you never sent word that you were coming,” Dorothy said.

“I did not exactly plan to come, to be honest.” Stephen took his seat at the table.

Then, he turned to Victoria painfully slow, as if he too was mortified by their late-night ‘incident.’

“Miss Victoria,” he greeted.

“Your Grace.” Victoria smiled for Dorothy’s sake.

They resumed their breakfast.

Victoria could already feel the change in the air, the shift that his presence brought. Breakfasts with Dorothy were usually fun and light, filled with crazy stories, gossip, and plans for the day. Now, it was all cups clinking against saucers and the soft rustling of clothes.

Dorothy looked at Victoria, imploring her to end the silence, but Victoria motioned that she was on her own in that venture.

“You are staying for long, I hope,” Dorothy said sincerely. “Or even better, you are back for good.”

“It depends on how a certain matter is resolved.” Stephen’s deep voice filled the room.

“A certain matter?”

Stephen took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to his mother. He kept drinking his black tea, looking at her over the rim of his cup.

“Well, that is…” Dorothy frowned.

“Concerning,” Stephen supplied.

“I was going to say ridiculous,” Dorothy huffed. “Here, Victoria, see for yourself.”

Victoria read the letter Lord Prevost had sent to Stephen. She knew him. He was the next-door neighbor. It was a short letter that basically warned Stephen that his mother “ had lately gotten involved with the wrong crowd .”

Her back straightened, and her fingertips slightly dug into the paper.

“Mother.” Stephen’s voice sent a chill through the room. “How could you have not told me about Miss Victoria living here? For almost a year, from what I gather.”

“Because, dear, I knew precisely how you would react.”

“And how, pray tell, is that?” His tone was clipped, though there was the faintest tick in his temple.

Somehow, Victoria found the fact that he was so tense was pleasing. It served him right for being so…

If she waited long enough, the word would for sure come.

Or perhaps it had better not.

“Like you are now, in fact?” Dorothy offered.

“Concerned and rational?”

“Absurd and irrational,” Dorothy dared.

“Mother, you are a duchess. Your household should reflect that dignity.”

“And it does.” Dorothy’s expression remained unchanged.

Victoria scoffed at that.

Stephen caught the faint sound and turned his attention to her. She felt the weight of his gaze pin her to her chair, his piercing blue eyes locking onto hers. The intensity seeped into her skin and down to her bones. But she was not going to cave just because he was looking at her with those ridiculously azure eyes of his.

“I am glad that you find it funny,” Stephen chastised as if she were an unruly subject before a magistrate.

Victoria’s breath caught at his tone, and then her anger flared.

“You disapprove of my presence, Your Grace?” she asked, lifting her chin. “And here I thought the pleasure was mutual.”

Dorothy coughed delicately into her napkin, but Victoria saw the hint of amusement in her eyes.

Stephen’s gaze darkened. “You know precisely what I mean.”

“Oh, but I do not,” Victoria countered smoothly, tilting her head. “Please, do enlighten me. What is it about my presence that offends you so deeply?”

Stephen’s jaw ticked. Seeing him torn between propriety and the need to speak his mind as he saw fit was enough to sweeten her sour mood.

“Miss Victoria, surely even you recognize that your presence here invites speculation.”

“Do forgive me, Your Grace, but I hardly think the ton lies awake at night, whispering about whether or not the Dowager Duchess’s companion is causing scandal in her drawing room.”

“Lord Prevost seems to be doing exactly that.”

“So, that is what this is about?” she challenged. “A bitter, old man with too much time and too little entertainment writes you a letter, and suddenly I am a matter of concern?”

Stephen’s jaw tightened. Victoria’s nostrils flared. Neither backed down.

Dorothy watched in awe as if she didn’t believe such a scene was unfolding at her breakfast table.

“It is not just Lord Prevost. You must see how your presence here?—”

“My presence,” Victoria cut in sharply, “has been of comfort to your mother.”

“That is not the issue.” Stephen inhaled slowly, the muscle in his jaw flexing as he spoke.

“Then what is the issue?”

A pause. A long pause. A pause in which Victoria saw something flicker in his gaze. It could be hesitation, perhaps, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. When he finally spoke, his voice was as firm as ever.

“Women of your kind do not belong in houses like this. They tend to be brazen and improper.”

The words settled heavily between them.

Victoria went stiff. Her heartbeat stuttered, her hands curling into the folds of her skirt.

Women of my kind…

It was not her wit, her independence, or their long-standing animosity that made him so determined to keep her away. It was the simple, unchangeable truth of her birth.

“You are displeased,” she said, her voice deceptively light, “because I was not born with a title.”

“It is not personal, Miss Victoria. It is not about you. It is about how people might read into this.”

“How convenient. You say it is not personal, that it is not about me, yet somehow, I am the problem.” Victoria narrowed her eyes at him.

“Argue all you like, Miss Victoria, but facts remain facts. My mother?—”

“Her Grace,” Victoria cut in, “invited me here. Yet you keep treating me as if I invaded your house and set up camp in the east wing.”

Victoria was shaking with anger. She was torn between storming out of the room crying or getting the butter knife and testing its sharpness on human flesh.

“I am merely stating that your presence here is not something that would be kindly looked upon by?—”

“Society,” she spoke over him, almost biting out the word. “Yes, yes. How tiresome it must be, having to uphold such burdensome standards.”

“There is a reason that standards exist,” he protested.

“Then by your standards, it is perfectly fine to look down on me because I was not born into nobility?”

Stephen looked at her as if he wished that murder was not illegal in most cultures. Victoria had cornered him. This was her victory. She drew first blood.

Stephen regrouped and folded. Only temporarily, she suspected.

“I do not look down on you, Miss Victoria,” he said, his voice turning even colder. “I merely don’t want you around my family.”

The temperature in the room dropped further. The only thing that could be heard was the proverbial ice solidifying between them.

“Stephen!” Dorothy realized that this was turning improper, and fast.

Stephen exhaled through his nose, his gaze raking over Victoria as if assessing the extent of the challenge she had just issued him.

“There will be rules.”

“Rules, Your Grace?” Victoria arched a single, mocking eyebrow.

“Yes. If I am to remain at Colborne House, and you are to keep your… position here, then certain boundaries will be established. Firstly, no one will disturb me while I am in my study. I have matters to attend to, and I will not have my time wasted with frivolous interruptions.”

His eyes flicked briefly to Victoria before settling back on his mother.

Victoria clasped her hands in front of her and smiled sweetly. “But Your Grace, what if the house is on fire?”

“Then you may inform me of the matter after I have finished my work,” he retorted dryly.

“Gladly,” she said in a tone that said she would sit back and watch him being burned alive.

“Secondly, I expect the household to maintain a level of decorum befitting its master. That includes keeping unnecessary noise to a minimum. Lastly, there will be no social gatherings. No visits from unwanted company. No unnecessary disturbances to the order of the household.”

“So, to summarize, lonely, boring, and quiet,” Victoria murmured.

“Precisely,” he said in a tone that conveyed that her sarcasm was not appreciated.

“Are those all the rules, then? Or shall we also be forbidden from laughing in your presence? Are we to be spanked if we don’t comply?”

A flash of something dark and hungry passed behind his eyes. Something devious and hot shot through her. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked at his mother instead.

Be thankful for the small things, Victoria.

“Mother,” he asked, “did I make myself clear?”

Dorothy nodded, the saddest look on her face. “Yes, dear,” she said quietly. “You have made yourself quite clear.”

Victoria felt the need to scream in his face that he had no right to come in after so long and ruining everything, but she knew whether insufferable or not, Dorothy loved her son. And she missed him. To have him back after so long was a true gift, and she would pay any price for that.

That didn’t mean that Victoria would just sit back and see him treat his mother like a child, not even asking what she wanted or what made her happy. Victoria knew how hard the past years had been for her friend, and she wouldn’t allow anyone to force her back into her melancholy.

“Are my rules understood, Miss Victoria?”

Still, this was the Duke’s house, and he had every right to set the rules. Victoria was nothing but a guest, after all, and though his mother was the Dowager Duchess, he was the real master and he could question anyone’s presence. So Victoria did what was proper and beat a strategic retreat.

“Understood, Your Grace.”

His expression did not change, but his eyes—those sharp, stormy blue eyes—darkened. Victoria had expected contempt, irritation, and perhaps even triumph. But this? This was something else entirely. He picked up the gauntlet she had thrown, and he seemed determined. No, not determined. His look was deep, unreadable. Hungry. And she was the next meal.

The air between them tightened, stretched thin. Victoria’s pulse quickened, her breathing suddenly uneven, her body betraying her in ways she refused to acknowledge.

No.

This was a man she detested and could potentially grow to hate. She could not be this affected because he was just looking at her. But for a brief second, she thought that maybe she was the one who would regret this.