Mrs. Craddock’s plump cheeks reddened with pleasure. “Thank you, my lady,” she replied politely.
Victoria dismissed the title with a smile and a wave, then vanished out the door.
“Now, there is a true lady,” Mrs. Craddock said to the others when Victoria left. “She is gentle and kind and not at all like those insipid misses you find in London, or the high-and-mighty ones his lordship has brought here from time to time. O’Malley says she’s a countess. He heard his grace say so the other night to Lady Kirby.”
Victoria carried the food out to the spot where she had been bringing Willie his meals for the last nine days. Instead of hanging back in the safety of the trees for several minutes, as he usually did, he trotted out a few steps when he saw her. “Here,” she said, laughing softly, “look what I’ve brought for you.”
Victoria’s heart began to pound with victory as the huge silver and black dog came nearly to within her reach—much closer than ever before. “If you’ll let me pet you, Willie,” she continued, inching closer to him and holding out the bowl, “I’ll bring you another delicious bone tonight after supper.”
He stopped short, watching her with a mixture of fear and mistrust. “I know you want this,” she continued, taking another tiny step toward him, “and I want to be your friend. You probably think this food is a bribe,” she continued, slowly bending down and putting the bowl between them. “And you’re quite right. I’m as lonely as you are, you see, but you and I could be great friends. I’ve never had a dog, did you know that?”
His glittering eyes shifted greedily to the food and then back to her. After a moment he moved closer to the bowl, but his eyes never left her, not even when he bent his head and began wolfing down his meal. Victoria continued talking softly to him as he ate, hoping to reassure him. “I can’t imagine what Mr. Fielding was thinking of when he chose your name—you don’t look at all like a Willie. I’d have named you Wolf, or Emperor—something as fierce-sounding as you look.”
As soon as he finished, the dog started to retreat, but Victoria quickly held out her left hand, showing him the huge bone she held. “-You must take it from my hand if you want it,” she warned. He eyed the bone for only a moment before his huge jaws clamped down on it, tugging it from her hand. She expected him to race into the woods with it, but to her delight, after a tense, wary pause, he flopped down near her feet and began chewing it to splinters. Suddenly Victoria felt as if the heavens were smiling down on her. No longer did she feel unwanted and unwelcome at Wakefield—both Fielding men were now her friends, and soon she would have Willie as a companion, too. She knelt down and stroked his huge head. “You need a good brushing,” she said, watching his sharp ivory fangs gnaw on the bone. “I wish Dorothy could see you,” she continued wistfully. “She loves animals and she has a way with them. Why, she’d have you doing tricks for her in no time at all.” The thought made Victoria smile, and then it made her ache with loneliness.
It was midafternoon of the following day when Northrup came to impart the intelligence that Lord Collingwood had arrived and that Lord Fielding desired her to come to his study.
Victoria glanced apprehensively in the mirror above her dressing table and then sat down to pin her hair into a neat chignon, preparing to meet a stout, coldly proud aristocrat of Lady Kirby’s age.
“Her coach broke down on the way here and two farmers took her up with them,” Jason was telling Robert Collingwood, a dry smile on his face. “In the course of removing her trunk from the cart, two of the piglets escaped, and Victoria caught one of them just as Northrup opened the door. He saw the piglet in her arms and mistook her for a peasant girl, so he told her to go round the back to make her delivery. When Victoria balked at that, he ordered a footman to evict her from the property,” Jason finished, handing Robert Collingwood a glass of claret.
“Good God,” said the earl, laughing. “What a reception!” Lifting his glass in a toast, he said, “To your happiness and your bride’s continued patience.”
Jason frowned at him.
Trying to clarify what he saw was a confusing toast, Robert explained, “Since she didn’t turn around and take the first ship back to America, I can only assume Miss Seaton has a great deal of patience—a most desirable trait in a bride.”
“The betrothal announcement in the Times was Charles’s doing,” Jason said flatly. “Victoria is a distant cousin of his. When he learned she was without family, and was coming here to him, he decided I ought to marry her.”
“Without first consulting you?” Robert said incredulously.
“I learned I was betrothed in exactly the same way everyone else learned it—by reading the Times.”
The earl’s warm brown eyes lit with amused sympathy. “I imagine you were surprised.”
“Infuriated,” Jason corrected. “Since we’re on that subject, I was hoping your wife would accompany you today so Victoria could meet her. Caroline is only a few years older than Victoria and I think they could become friends. To be frank, Victoria is going to need a friend here. Evidently there was some scandal in the ton when her mother married an Irish physician, and old Lady Kirby is obviously planning to stir up the pot again. In addition, Victoria’s great-grandmother is the Duchess of Claremont, and she apparently isn’t going to acknowledge the girl. Victoria is a countess in her own right, but that alone won’t gain her real acceptance in society. She’ll have Charles’s support behind her, of course, and that will help. No one will dare give her the cut direct.”
“She’ll have the weight of your influence behind her too, and that is considerable,” Collingwood pointed out.
“Not,” Jason disagreed dryly, “when it conies to trying to establish a young woman’s reputation as a virtuous innocent.”
“True.” Robert chuckled.
“In any event, Victoria has met only the Kirby women as samples of the English aristocracy. I thought your wife might give her a better impression. In fact, I suggested she view Caroline as a good example of acceptable manners and behavior—”
Robert Collingwood threw back his head and burst out laughing. “Did you indeed? Then you’d better hope Lady Victoria doesn’t follow your advice. Caroline’s manners are exquisite—exquisite enough to fool even you, I gather, into believing she’s a model of propriety—but I’m constantly bailing her out of scrapes. I’ve never known a more willful young woman in my life,” he finished, but his words were threaded with tenderness.