"Thank you, Your Grace," Maxwell said, his relief evident on his face. "She and her guests are in the sitting room."
"Herguests?"
"Were you not aware that she had people visiting?" Maxwell looked as if he had swallowed a rock.
"This has gone too far," James said. "She cannot continue to take advantage like this. I'm going to go and have a word with her right now."
And he strode from the study, intent on doing just that.
CHAPTER 7
"Victoria, over here!"
Victoria laughed, turning toward the voice that had called her name. She believed it to be Edwina, though she couldn't be sure. The blindfold over her eyes made it surprisingly difficult to distinguish between Edwina's voice and Lavinia's.
Cressida was always familiar. Victoria heard the sound of her giggle and knew that she was to the left, but she kept her focus on Edwina just the same. In games of Blind Man's Bluff, she liked to ignore her sister until the very end. Cressida was always the easiest person for her to find.
"Victoria!"
Victoria laughed and took a few cautious, stumbling steps. The friends had cleared the furniture to the sides of the room so that there wouldn't be much chance of tripping, but even so, it was difficult not to be cautious when playing this game. Victoria wassomeone who liked to see what was in front of her, and it made her uneasy to be blindfolded—but she wanted to be included. She wanted to be able to play.
The room now fell silent, and she supposed that they were moving around on tiptoe, trying to disorient her. She paused, listening, trying to detect the sound of footsteps.
There! Someone was right behind her. She whirled, arms out, and caught the person by the shoulders?—
But something wasn't right. Those shoulders were much too high, probably a foot above her own. None of Victoria's friends were so tall, and she froze in alarm.
"What's the meaning of this?" a gruff male voice demanded.
The next thing Victoria knew, the cloth had been torn from her eyes and she was staring the duke in the face. His cheeks were red with anger, his eyebrows pulled together, and now she understood why the room had gone silent. The others must have seen the duke come in looking angry like this. They must have been intimidated by his presence.
Well, Victoria would not allow him to see that she was remotely intimidated. She took a step back and held out her hand for the cloth that had been over her eyes. "You're interrupting our game," she told him.
"I don't recall saying that you could bring guests to the house."
"I don't see why I would need your permission to visit with my sister."
"It's my home. You should ask me before you bring anyone into it," he said firmly. "That's what I expect you to do going forward."
"Well, they're here now," Victoria said.
"They'll have to take their leave. I've had a very long day, and I'm not in the mood to entertain anyone."
"You don't have to entertain them. I'm entertaining them. Go back to your office. You've been there all day anyway. We don't require anything from you."
"No," James said. "I'm finished with my work, and I wish to sit in my sitting room. It's not a good time for company to be here."
"Victoria, maybe we should just go," Lavinia said.
Victoria's frustration knew no bounds. That he could just come in here and interrupt her socialization, send her friends away—it was a level of control she hadn't experienced since she'd come to live in this house, and it was something she had allowed herself to believe that she would never experience again. It was maddening to have to deal with it now.
Yet at the same time, she knew that he was right about what he was saying. Hedidhave the right to determine who was in this house. There wasn't really anything she could do about it.
"We'll meet again soon," she told her friends and sister. "I'm very sorry about the duke's rudeness." It gave her some satisfaction to comment on his inhospitality right in front of him, even though he was probably too callous to feel anything about what she had said. She was sure he didn't care whether he was perceived as rude or not. He only cared about himself and about what he wanted.
And he had the nerve to worry aboutherreputation! It occurred to her now that he had quite a bad reputation himself—but then, gentlemen could get away with more when it came to public perception.
She stood and watched as her friends filed out, casting glances at her over their shoulders. Cressida was the last to leave, and she appeared downright worried as she went, as though she thought something unpleasant might happen to Victoria in her absence.
