Albert gave her a half smile, but inside, disappointment stabbed at him. He'd love nothing more than to kiss her, to shock her sensibilities into wanting him. Being so close to her, the desire and need she wrought was unbearable.
"You must know that for me, courting a woman is difficult. I'm not equipped with the easy manners, the words that a lot of gentlemen have when flirting with a lady. I fear all of your lessons, your help will be in vain, Victoria." Especially since he did not want any other woman on his arm but the one beside him, precious in her attempt to make him more suitable to the opposite sex.
"They will not be in vain," she said, meeting his eye. "I'm determined to have you at your best, to show other ladies what I see in you. A lovely kind and attractive gentleman who is ready to settle into a life of domesticated bliss. A man capable and confident. I will not fail in my quest."
Albert pinned an easy smile to his lips as they walked out of the conservatory, but a weight sat atop his shoulders. He needed to figure out a way to use Victoria's lessons to his own advantage, not on others but on her.
Chapter 9
Later that day, Victoria sat in the upstairs parlor that Lord Melvin had given her mama to use during their stay. She sat, sketching one of her wolfhounds, Pickle, from memory, but her mind kept wandering to Lord Melvin.
As much as he was interested in her lessons for him, she could not help but feel that his heart was not in it. Did he not want to marry? Or perhaps he had loved another several years ago and lost her to another gentleman. How terrible if that were the case and he was cradling a broken heart all this time, and she did not know it.
It would certainly explain the heroine in his first book, should he turn out to be Elbert Retsek, who had been grief-stricken at the death of her betrothed.
"Darling, you're scowling most severely at the parchment. Your drawing cannot be so terrible that you would glare so," her mama mentioned, catching her eye over the top of her knitting. She was making little mittens for Alice's baby due in several months.
Victoria laid the sketchpad in her lap. "You know that I’m to help Lord Melvin be prepared to court a lady next season. He's terribly shy and awkward in social situations, and I mean to assist him with that floor. But I feel he's a little distracted. He thinks it will not work."
"While I think your motivations are honorable, do remember widow or not, to be alone with Lord Melvin during your lessons does not put you in a welcome light."
Victoria sighed, wondering when her mama would see her as a woman who had married and buried a husband. “Mama, nothing untoward will occur and I am not a virginal miss. Stop acting as though I am.”
“Really, Victoria. The way you speak leaves me wondering if you had any lessons in manners at all growing up.”
She grinned, knowing she often ran away whenever lessons were held. The thought of Albert flittered into her mind once more. Had she been searching for a suitable match after Paul, she may have considered him herself, but she had no desire to be anyone's property, not a second time. To trust and be so wrong with that gift was not an easy jump to make. The embarrassment she endured at Paul’s affairs she had sworn never to subject herself to again. And she would not.
Not that she thought Lord Melvin would be so cruel to his wife as Paul had been. He was kind, honest, where Paul had been deceitful and ungentlemanly. A bastard through and through.
In the conservatory this morning as odd as it was, the idea of kissing him had entered her mind. He was a tall gentleman, fitted her own height well. His superfine coat tailored to perfection over his wide shoulders. His cutting cheekbones, his dark, hooded eyes that stared at her with such meaning that her heat had fluttered.
She shook the thoughts aside. He wasn't meant for her. That was not why she was here. He was meant for someone else, someone who actually wanted a spouse.
"Have you ever considered that Lord Melvin isn't interested in any other lady? He did, in particular, invite you and your family to his estate." Her mother’s knowing smile as she continued her knitting was worrisome.
Victoria frowned, having thought the invitation was due to friendship, nothing deeper than that. That they were now partaking in lessons, an idea suggested by herself, no, her mama was wrong. She shook her head, rejecting the idea. "No, he is not looking at me as a possible candidate as the future Marchioness Melvin. Do not be irrational, Mama."
"What is there to be unreasonable about? You're a duke's daughter, a sister to one. You are Lady Victoria Worthingham. There are not many men in London who would not seek such an arrangement."
"Except you forget I'm a widow to a man most of England despises since he’s slept with half our acquaintances wives’. I hate that marriage is so sterile and formulaic. If I should allow a gentleman to court me again, I will only be induced into giving myself to him before God by the strongest, unbreakable love." All things that would never happen, for Victoria was determined never to allow herself to be seduced a second time into a bad match.
Her mama raised one disagreeable eyebrow. "You have been reading too many novels or listening to your sisters too much. While I wish for you all to make love matches, that is not always possible. And not all men are rakes and ravish their brides to be. You should not speak in
