“How dare you?” Victoria raised her voice, even though she had tried to keep it even for Melody. She clenched her fists to try to take control of the situation. “Richard is a man of honor! Melody is not his bastard. We care for her. For now, that is all that you will know. I am not going to accept any kind of gossip entering our home.”
“Ha. Don’t be a fool, Victoria,” Lady Grisham admonished, gliding toward Victoria’s side to get a better look at the now-silent Melody. “Why do you think the duke returned to you at this time, not long after the baby appeared at your home. Don’t look at me like that. Of course, I know. I hear enough about what is going on. If she isn’t his, it’s still a problem. She’s just a liability. A scandal. It will ruin the Hawksford title and your reputation, along with your daughter. I am here to help you manage the situation.”
“I don’t need or want your help,” Victoria spat.
Her mother didn’t look surprised. After all, she was Victoria, the girl who found ways to fight. Ironically, she had gotten her mother off her back when she married Richard.
Her mother’s idea of help would be her destruction. Lady Grisham had led a dangerous suitor to Daphne’s secret hiding place not too long ago. The memory still elicited a blind fury within Victoria.
“If you can remember, your kind of help almost destroyed my sisters. You cage them and twist them toward what you want them to do. If you are here merely to tell me these lies, it is best that you leave now. Our footmen will gladly help you out if you don’t.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. She was clearly shocked. Victoria was considered the hoyden of the family, but she had not yet behaved like this, ready to throw her mother out.
The Dowager breathed in and out heavily, then lifted her chin proudly. She purposefully strode toward her daughter. Melody, seemingly having sensed the hostility in the room, wailed as loudly as she could. Victoria whirled around to pick her up, but her mother was there at once to look down at the child.
Her eyes narrowed at poor Melody. “Loud little creature. It certainly shows a lack of breeding.”
“Well, I was a loud creature. Whose fault was that?” Victoria retorted. “Don’t you touch her!”
Victoria scooped Melody up with one motion, protectively cradling the baby onto her chest. The poor thing was already rattled, though, and so her cries increased in volume.
“Stop this at once, Victoria!” Lady Grisham admonished. Her eyes were wide with anger. “You are clearly overwhelmed if you are reacting this way. I will have my maid called immediately and my trunks sent in so I can help you take care of and hide that child!”
“No, you won’t do that! Why can’t you listen to me properly, Mother? I said your help is not needed. You can let your maid stay where she is. When my hand reaches that bell pull, the footmen will come for you!”
Victoria did not know where her maternal anger was coming from. She and Daphne were the youngest of the Grisham siblings, coddled and spoiled. Warned and scolded, but well-loved by older siblings.
“So, that’s what marriage to Hawksford has made you out to be!” Lady Grisham bellowed, recoiling as if struck. Her shock earlier had only hinted at disbelief; now her face was a mask of complete incredulity. “You are an ungrateful child! I have done everything for you, Wilhelmina, and Daphne. I have sacrificed everything to preserve our status. The lessons! The guidance! The advice! Most of the time, none of you listened! You would have hidden away or run from home altogether. And now, eachof you has married a duke, and this is the thanks I receive? You raise your voice to me as if I were the kitchen maid?”
“First of all, I do not shout at kitchen maids,” Victoria said, keeping her tone measured though firm. She cast a quick glance toward Melody, the baby too young to understand, but the instinct to shield her still prickled. “Secondly, everything you have done was for yourself, Mother. All your lessons, your guidance, your so-called advice were intended to preserve your standing with the ton, not to raise us. You were barely present while Wilhelmina, Daphne, and I grew up. The only time you truly appeared in our lives was to arrange our marriages, to ensure we would make advantageous matches. And now you dare to call me ungrateful?”
Victoria’s voice sharpened, but her posture remained composed, controlled. She refused to let the dowager see the fire that surged within her. “I do not deny what you arranged for us, but do not mistake the preservation of your reputation for the care of your children. That was never your concern; it was alwaysyourself.”
Lady Grisham’s lips parted, her hand rising as if to strike, then faltering midair. Her eyes widened, the color draining from her cheeks, and she swayed slightly as though Victoria’s words had physically knocked the air from her lungs.
Just as she opened her mouth to reply, heavy footsteps echoed through the room.
Victoria knew without looking that Richard had returned, and she turned to see him in the doorway.
He did not speak immediately, merely standing there like a statue, coat and leather gloves still in place, as though the journey had left no mark upon him.
Victoria’s eyes followed his, noting how they swept the room with quiet precision, and she felt that familiar shiver: the sense that, in that moment, he was already thinking three steps ahead, plotting in that deliberate, unhurried way that always made her pulse quicken.
Richard arrived just in time to see his wife red with anger and little Melody wailing in her arms. The baby no longer did that in Victoria’s presence, unless she was not well or was terribly hungry.
Neither situation had befallen them as of late.
What they were facing now was a visit from the Dowager Marchioness of Grisham. He had seen her only once, but that spiteful face was impossible to forget. There was a resemblance to his wife, certainly, but the dowager’s features were all arrogance and rigidity, her gaze assessing him as if he were merely a transaction to be completed rather than a new member of the family.
Normally, he could have ignored her hauteur, even found it amusing. Today, however, he could not overlook the way she was making his family feel small under her scrutiny.
And that, he realized, he would not tolerate.
“Victoria,” he muttered. “Lady Grisham.”
He tried to keep his tone even, though his chest was rumbling with rising anger. Victoria turned to him with wide, tearful eyes. She was not surprised. She had felt his presence the moment he entered the room.
“Richard,” she responded, with the same controlled tone that he tried to keep.
