“If you don’t mind doing that alone?”
“Not at all.I’ll go this morning.Powell, Mrs Reynolds and I will discuss our needs for servants.”The butler and new housekeeper seemed to be getting on quite well and Ada wanted to set up the household as quickly as possible.She wanted Vivienne and Deirdre happy in their home with their father, Wu-lai too must be feeling adrift in a new strange land.If she herself seemed at sea it was because Victor was not sharing his concerns.That she would not have.Secrets always made trouble.She’d not ruin her marriage before it’d begun by being a submissive woman who allowed her husband to make all choices, good, bad and indifferent.
If her marriage was to be a success or failure, she would actively participate in its rise or fall.
So her first order of business this morning when she went out was to order her hackney driver to stop at a news kiosk.She’d buy every newspaper available.Some things a man could not keep from a woman.One of them was gossip.
Victor left the house minutes after finishing his meal.Worried he had not fooled his young wife one bit showing her his newest gift, he put on his top hat and yanked on his gloves.He climbed into the hack his butler Powell had hailed for him and chewed on his lip.
Earlier he’d had a shock when he’d opened his mail of the past week.Reading three letters, he’d nearly run from the house in his dressing gown.One other letter addressed to Ada he did not open.But he pocketed it.He was being dastardly and unethical to keep her father’s note from her, but he had to save her from a few terrors as long as he could.
He’d fired off notes to his three correspondents and a fourth to his mother.From each man he requested meetings.From his mother, secrecy about Richard’s recent crazed behavior.
His first stop this morning was to have been his mother’s in Upper Brook Street.Although he certainly wished to combine that with bringing his daughters home, he did not want to delve into Richard’s recent public tirades with Ada in the room.He’d let Ada go to get his girls, but he’d first see Lord Grayson.As his major investor, Grayson held the key to his livelihood.And from the man’s letter to him which he’d written yesterday, Victor knew he owed Grayson a hearing immediately.
Two hours later, he sat in MacIntyre’s office alone.Grayson had been adamant: End the scurrilous rumors or he would pull all his funds from Cole and Company.
Hollowed out by Grayson’s ultimatum, he allowed MacIntyre to take him to the local pub.There, the two of them ordered up an early lunch of sausages and mash and tankards of ale.He wanted to reassure his manager of their future but had not the heart for any chicanery.It was his man who had fine words for him.“Even if Grayson pulls his capital, sir, I know we can attract more.”
“I know not who that would be,” he said.
“I’ve a few ideas, sir.”
And so, Victor had hailed another hack and taken it to Fleet Street.The owner of the disreputable scandal sheet that pilloried him was “not in,” said the ink-stained pressman.
“I’ll wait,” he told the man and took the only chair in the chilly, grim and airless room.
When the publisher did arrive, Victor got no satisfaction from him.He hated that he’d tried to use logic on the man.
His last appointment was at his club.Most delicate of all was this meeting with men he’d known and revered all his life.They were party leaders, long-standing members of Parliament, men with whom he would love to work.
Ada waited dinner for him.The girls were at table too, wishing to greet their father in their new home.But he did not arrive for dinner.Nor did he arrive before Ada sent them off to bed with Wu-lai in charge.She understood his reluctance to discuss the news reports she’d read in reputable papers.
For the virulence of the fabrications she’d read in the scandal sheets, she was bursting with outrage and sorrow.She’d also read a letter from her father, dated two days ago, delivered to her by Powell today after teatime.
All day she reaffirmed to herself the truth of her circumstances: she loved Victor and whatever ill befell them because of those stories, she would face them with him—and solve them.So she waited in the front salon, listening for the clomp of horses’ hooves or the crack of a cabbie’s whip.Tired, anxiety eating at her sympathy for his distress, she went upstairs to undress.Waiting in their sitting room, she’d tried to read and failed.Wearing a hole in the carpet from her pacing seemed the only solution to her fears.
When she finally heard footsteps on the stairs, she glanced at the clock.Twelve past midnight.
She braced for a confrontation.Was he drunk?Where had he been?Not that she mistrusted him, but she was owed an explanation.She waited, hands clasped, her teeth clenched…but he passed the room by.
Fury filled her that he would so disrespect her.That he would dismiss her and her interest.
She yanked open the door in time to see him disappear into another bedroom two down.She cut the distance between them in seconds.
“I waited for you,” she opened by announcing the obvious as she stood on the threshold.
His beautiful eyes were hooded as he took her in.He was sober.That was one good sign.“Go to bed, Ada.”
She marched to the bell pull.
“Do not summon my valet.I can do this.”He pealed off his frock coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, then dropped them to thechaise longue.Sinking into the overstuffed chair, he bent to remove his shoes.
“Tell me everything.”She wanted to know where he’d been, who he’d seen, why.She had a right to know.After all, the scandals that lived on everyone’s lips were about her.Mostly her.He suffered as a hero, an unwitting accomplice in a tragic tale.
His brows knit.And then he went back to attending to his shoes.“Not tonight.”
“Yes.Tonight.Now.”
