Page 26

" Y ou're being utterly ridiculous ," Victoria snapped the moment they'd come to a place of solitude. "Are you truly unable to see how foolish you're being? Do you genuinely not know?"

"You can't speak to me that way." James curled his hands into fists by his sides.

He hadn't anticipated that he could feel this angry with Victoria—but then, perhaps he should have.

She seemed to have a gift for provoking him.

"You must show me more respect than that.

While we're in public, if at no other time, I insist upon it. "

Victoria looked as if she might lash out at him.

She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "You humiliated me in there," she informed him.

"You made me look like an utter fool. And now you're telling me that I haven't shown you enough respect?

You jest, James. I don't know how you can say such a thing to me at the moment, when you and I both know that if it hadn't been for your involvement, I would be inside right now having a perfectly appropriate and respectful conversation with a gentleman who was nothing but kind to me.

I don't see how that can be anything other than what you want. "

"I told you that you could choose for yourself what gentlemen you were involved with?—"

"That's right, you did!"

"But I didn't mean that you could make those choices without so much as consulting with me!" he stormed. "What did you think—that you would be able to simply come to me one day and inform me that you had made your selection? That I would agree without asking any questions?"

"You're being ridiculous," Victoria snapped.

"I was seated next to Lord Harbury at dinner—a dinner party that you wanted us to attend, might I remind you—and when he spoke to me, I responded with polite interest. Now you're acting as if I was on the verge of running away with him!

Tell me, what would you have me do when someone approaches me with a polite question?

Do you want to see me ignore people at parties?

And if so, why are you bringing me to parties at all?

You want me to marry. You've made that abundantly clear.

Well, Lord Harbury was quite right when he said that it would never happen if no gentlemen felt free to talk to me without being reprimanded by you! "

She was breathing heavily by the time she had finished speaking, and for a moment, James could only stare at her in awe. She had such confidence. She was so sure of herself when she spoke.

Someone is going to fall in love with her.

It won't take long at all for her to find a match.

I thought her reputation would be more of an obstacle—but I don't think it's going to be much of an obstacle at all, truly.

It will be easy for people to see, just as it was easy for me to see, that the things that have been said about her do not reflect the truth of her.

No one will think she's a murderer for very long, for a lady who could speak with such genuine openness and passion could never be evil.

He was shocked to find that the thought made him feel sadness instead of joy.

It shouldn't have. He should have been happy, both for the fact that his mission would be accomplished and he would be rid of her and for the fact that she would be able to shake off the vicious rumors about her.

But he didn't feel that way.

This meant she didn't need him. It meant that she would be able to sort out her future without him handling it for her.

If she had asked, James always would have told her that it was something she was capable of—that she didn't need his help to make someone see everything that was worthwhile about her.

He would have believed that himself. But as he confronted his feelings now, he realized he had been counting on the fact that he would be a part of the process.

He had assumed that, even when he'd told her that she could make her own choice when it came to the matter of who she would marry, she would need his help in finding someone.

But she didn't.

That was what tonight had demonstrated. If she could sit down at the dinner table with a gentleman she hardly knew and strike up such a successful conversation, she would be able to find comfort and acceptance in any room she chose to enter.

She would be more than capable of providing for her own future.

She had never needed him, he realized suddenly.

She had been right to feel bothered when he had first come back to London and told her that he was going to clean up the mistakes she had made in her life, because that wasn't something she'd needed.

She had been living the life she'd wanted to live.

She could always have done this—she could always have gone out and found herself a husband if she had wanted to.

He wasn't rescuing her, and he wasn't an important part of her story.

Victoria was watching him, obviously trying to process what she saw on his face. "What's the matter?" she asked him. "This isn't about Lord Harbury, is it?"

"What do you mean? What else would it be about?"

"I don't know," she said. "All I know is that you don't even know him, and you can't possibly be that upset about him. I understand why you didn't want me to get close with Benjamin?—"

"Don't bring Benjamin into this," James snapped.

Victoria threw up her hands. "There's no pleasing you," she told him.

"If I had come to this party and kept to myself, refused to speak to or acknowledge anyone, you would be criticizing me for being antisocial.

But when I do speak to someone—the gentleman I was seated next to, not even someone I selected for myself—you have nothing but negativity for me.

I don't know how to please you, and to tell you the truth, I'm about to lose interest in even trying to do so.

But I do want to know what it is about my efforts that makes you so unhappy.

Why is it that nothing I do is right, that nothing is good enough for you? "

"I don't believe I ever said that."

"You don't have to say it. You show it to me with everything you do. If I didn't know better…" She shivered slightly and looked away from him.

A strange sense of foreboding loomed within James. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like whatever she was about to say.

He also had a feeling he needed to hear it. "What?" he asked her. "If you didn't know better, what?"

"Well, it almost seems as if you're…jealous," she murmured. "It seems like you don't want me to speak to other gentlemen. I can't understand why, unless…unless there's some part of you that wants to keep me to yourself."

James burst out laughing.

His laugh was as forced as a laugh could possibly be, because he hadn't found anything about what she'd said remotely funny.

The truth was that it struck a deeply uncomfortable chord within him.

It felt as if she had spoken to some inner truth that he didn't want to acknowledge, as if she had pulled back a curtain protecting an inner chamber of his heart to allow the sunlight in. He recoiled from it.

His laughter felt like a way to force her out, to push her away. It felt necessary.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he told her.

"Jealous! What could I possibly be jealous of?

Do you think I want to be seated beside you at some dinner party?

I have dinner with you every night. Do you think I want to be introduced to you and have you struggle to make idle small talk with me?

You know perfectly well that I have no interest in such things—that I don't even have a desire to marry. "

"And I don't have a desire to marry either.

I never have. Yet here we find ourselves," Victoria said.

"I think you ought to resolve in your own mind what it is you want, James, because at the moment you seem to be almost impossibly conflicted.

Do you want me to be social at parties and to make a good impression upon the ladies and gentlemen of the ton , or do you want me to be reserved and to speak only to the people you select for me?

If you choose the latter course, you must know that you will be unlikely ever to see me married—and that makes me think you don't want me to marry at all. "

"And from that, you deduce that I'm jealous."

"Give me another explanation."

"I don't have to give you any explanation at all."

"Then you can hardly expect me to bend to your whims," Victoria said firmly. "If you can't tell me why you want me to avoid pleasant conversation with the gentleman I've been seated next to…"

"I think he considers himself a suitor for you, Victoria."

Victoria threw up her hands. "Why shouldn't he?"

And James found himself at a loss.

She was right, of course. If he wanted her to marry—and he had made it clear, how many times now, that he did want that—then gentlemen should feel welcome to talk to her.

There was no other way to achieve his goal.

If he persisted in pushing people away from her, she would never find a husband, and he would be stuck with her for the rest of their lives.

Stuck with her no longer felt like the appropriate way to describe that condition, though.

He wasn't jealous. He couldn't be jealous. That didn't make sense. He had no desire to marry, so there was nothing here for him to feel jealous about.

But he had to admit, now that he was faced with the question, that he didn't want her to leave his house. He had told her again and again that he wanted to be rid of her, but the truth was that he didn't want that. He wanted her to stay.

He would miss her when she was gone. It was a reality he hadn't yet confronted, but now he realized that he couldn't ignore it anymore.

Did that mean she was right, and he was jealous?

That couldn't be. His interest in her wasn't romantic. The two of them weren't in love. It was just that he had gotten used to having her around, that was all.

That had to be all it was.

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, hands on her hips, clearly waiting for him to answer her question. Waiting for him to give her some reason why Lord Harbury—or any other man—should be denied the pleasure of her company.

He wanted to give her a reason. But he couldn't, for there was no reason. He was being ridiculous, and he knew it.

Her face seemed to fall slightly, and James thought—did she want him to have come up with something? Did she want to be dissuaded from returning to dinner?

When she had asked him if he was jealous…had she wanted the answer to be yes?

If she had, it was too late. She had seen in his eyes that he had nothing to offer her.

"I'm going back to the table," she told him, and James couldn't argue. He stood and watched in silence as she turned and walked away.