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Victoria felt something very much like panic begin to beat at her.
Suddenly, she could remember all those little details she’d tried her best to set aside over the past six months. Not just from that night in the garden, but from all the previous times she’d interacted with the fiercely proper Ago, who seemed to wear his civility like a bit of bespoke fabric, stretched across the brutal ferocity that so defined him.
He was considered a refined, elegant gentleman. But in the same breath, the people who called him such a thing would turn around and whisper of his prowess in business, and the razor-sharp intelligence that made him the kind of weapon other men admired, feared, and wished to test themselves against in equal measure.
And more, Ago had no greater fan than her father—at least until the past two weeks, when Everard’s whole world had been rocked by the astonishing knowledge that the only man he’d trusted around his daughter was the one who had defiled her.
Victoria knew better than to say such a thing to her father, much less to Ago himself, but she did not feel defiled in the least.
She was sure that would be considered bad form. Or possibly sinful. Not that she supposed it mattered now. They were married. The child would be legitimate. All the patriarchal considerations had been met and now, she dearly hoped, she would get to live the rest of her life without all the scrutiny that had marked her first twenty-four years.
Are you well?Ago had asked her when she and her father had arrived in Italy several days ago. They had been standing in one of the grand salons that seem to flow this way and that in the great house she knew full well had been in his family for more generations than her father’s family had even been considered elevated from common stock.
Very well, she’d replied. For what could she say? That some weeks after that night in the garden, she’d felt under the weather—but who didn’t feel that way as summer burned too hot. Then came to a close when England’s fall rain took over. She’d assumed she was simply a bit gloomier than usual, that was all.
She hadn’t connected that night in the garden with anything that came after. And it had been a good four months before it had occurred to her that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d bled. And that, for the first time in her life, there was the possibility that such random fluctuations could mean something.
Victoria prided herself on her own intelligence, thank you, as it was all she’d had for years. And that intelligence had made it clear to her that there was no point telling Ago any of the things that had happened, particularly not before the wedding, because the wedding was her ticket out from under her father’s thumb and bonus, she wasn’t actively repulsed by her groom.
But also, for longer there than she cared to admit, she’d been little more than a pregnant girl afraid of what that pregnancy would mean.
More to the point, how her father would react.
And no matter how many times she’d told herself that feeling such things gave her kinship, through time, with too many other girls just like her to count, it didn’t make her feel any better.
How could she tell a man as powerful as Ago such a thing? He had no idea what it was like to feel either helpless or alone. How could he?
No...complications?he had asked, as if he was inquiring after the weather.
As if he wasn’t personally responsible for getting her pregnant in the first place. And as if she didn’t know exactly how he’d gone about it. What it was like to have all that heat and hard steel of him wedged between her legs, thrusting in and out, setting her alive and alight at once.
No, no complications at all, she had replied smoothly, shoving the unhelpful memories aside.
It hadn’t occurred to her until now that the primary complication in all of this was him.
Ago took her arm, and not in the sort of way that made her think it was wise to pull it back. Then he began to walk, at a brisk enough pace that her father was forced to break into a trot as he followed. Victoria felt cold, suddenly. The late November day had suddenly come over all British, casting aside the Tuscan sunshine, growing thin and pale.
The chapel was only a short walk from the main house, and Victoria tried her best to compose herself. She lectured herself with every step, because her uneasiness helped no one. Not her baby. Not herself.
It would give her father pleasure, and Ago too much control.
Surely she knew better.
Once inside the main house, Ago led them to a private dining room that she knew was separate from the main dining hall that could seat a battalion. His staff had prepared a small feast and he escorted her with excruciating courtesy to her seat at the bottom of the table. Then took his place at the top, waving her father in between them.
And as Victoria sat there, feeling the opposite of hungry, Ago proceeded to have one of the most boring conversations she’d ever heard with her father. As if all he could think of to discuss today were stock markets the world over.
She blew out a breath, smoothing her hands over the roundness of her belly to find her baby’s head. Then she moved it around until she felt a few kicks. That made her smile, and she reminded herself that whatever happened, she’d gotten everything she wanted today. She was free of her father. There had been too many times over the past few years, as Everard took her on a tour of all the eligible men who even remotely met his standards, that she’d imagined she would end up in far worse straits than these.
Ago was no monster. He was known far and wide as a fair man, if cold.
As far as she was concerned, that was an upgrade.
Better yet, she was not alone. In a few short months, her child would be with her and she would be a mother. She could barely remember her own mother, but the little scraps of memory she still held on to involved a feeling of intense well-being, a wide smile, and love. She might not have planned to become a mother quite so soon, much less with a strange man, but now that it was happening, she had to admit that it truly was the best possible outcome she could have imagined.
And she must have lost herself in these ruminations, imagining herself cradling a tiny child in her arms, a little boy or girl with eyes as blue as hers, and hair as dark as Ago’s. Because when she looked up, her father had left the room and it was only Ago and her sitting at either end of this table. A table she’d found overly large and long when they sat down at it, so formally, but now seemed entirely too small.
“Where did my father go?” she asked, because she was well trained to always, always know where her warden was. It was just common sense.
