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“I was under the impression when you were here that you wished to wear schoolgirl clothes, as you call them.”
“Elaine, my clothes were fine, really. It’s just that Lady Lucia believed I should wear different materials and styles, since I was no longer so young.”
“Who, pray, is Lady Lucia?”
“I spent my time in London with her. I stayed at her town house. She’s a grand old lady.”
“I’ve never heard of Lady Lucia,” Elaine said. “Why ever would she take you in?”
“Lady Lucia took Victoria in because I asked her to,” Rafael said mildly. “She’s always had a great deal of fondness for me,” he lied with the smoothness of a swindler of the first order. “Of course she quickly came to great fondness for Victoria as well. She stayed with Lucia until we were wed, as Damien knows.”
Elaine’s eyes flew to her husband. He was eating with single-minded concentration, seemingly ignoring the conversation at his table.
“Damien? You knew?”
So, Victoria thought, Elaine knows nothing of his perfidy. She waited, peas poised on her fork tines, to see what he would say.
“Yes, my dear. I wasn’t able to attend the small wedding, but I was present afterward. To give my best wishes to the bride and groom, of course. Indeed, it was incumbent upon me, as Victoria’s guardian, to give my brother permission to wed her.”
“Of course,” said Rafael.
Gentlemen, Victoria thought again. Why, they’d nearly come to blows.
“You know, brother,” Rafael said as he g
ently ran his fingertip along the crystal edge of his wineglass, “as a wedding present, would you consider giving us a ball? That way Victoria could see all her neighbors and friends, and I could renew old acquaintances. Five years is a long time, and it would take me an age were I forced to make morning calls.”
Elaine lost her belligerent look in an instant and exclaimed, “Oh, yes, Damien. That would be grand. We haven’t had a ball since—”
“—since the night before Victoria so precipitately left Drago Hall,” Damien finished, never batting an eye. “And she didn’t have the opportunity to attend that one.”
“But she couldn’t. I told you that she wouldn’t want to. After all, she is quite—”
“No, my dear, she isn’t at all. I don’t believe she cared for the ball gown I selected for her. Did you, Victoria?”
Rafael hadn’t been paying too much attention, but he was now. Victoria was quite what? What he saw at that moment was that his wife was quite without color. He assumed it was because of Damien’s ill-disguised attempts to embarrass her. He would give his twin a new direction for his thoughts, on the morrow.
“I had decided to leave,” Victoria said at last. “I didn’t want to be distracted with a ball.”
“The gown is still in your closet, I believe,” Elaine said. “A ball. I think it an excellent idea, Damien. You wouldn’t wish to be at all backward in your attentions.”
“Not at all. I agree. When would you wish to plan this evening of dissipation?”
“Next Friday, perhaps?” Rafael said.
Victoria looked toward Elaine, expecting her to shout out “lame and ugly leg” at any minute. But Elaine was still looking at Damien. She said at last, “Yes, I believe we could manage. Ligger will marshal the servants like a field general. He dearly loves to entertain, you know,” she added to Rafael.
Victoria was vastly relieved at Elaine’s reticence. She could dance without her leg collapsing under her, just not at great length. She asked her husband, “Are you a good dancer, Rafael?”
“Excellent,” he said. He leaned close to her and added, “Not as excellent a dancer as a lover, but close, Victoria, quite close. Dancing with me will provide you pleasure, just not the same sort as I give you in bed . . . or on the kitchen floor.”
She opened her mouth, snapped it closed, and clutched her fork in a death grip. “You will stop that,” she said, wishing she could smack that white-toothed smile off his face. “You are wicked as Satan. All you need is a forked tail and no one would doubt your identity even if you smiled that beautiful smile of yours.”
He gave a shout of laughter. “Satan, huh? Only I am firmly of this earth, Victoria, and all its earthly delights. What could be more delightful than a very responsive, very passionate wife? Now, about this tail business—”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing of any particular interest, Elaine,” Rafael said easily, straightening back up in his chair. “Victoria agrees that Friday next would be charming.”
