She found Alice on the settee in the downstairs parlor reading the latest la belle assemblée. "Picking out your gowns for next season already, I see," she teased, coming into the room and bussing her sister on both cheeks.
Alice chuckled, shuffling up a little on her chair. "Oh, I'm so glad you called. I thought that I had punished you enough over your little lie."
Victoria told her dogs to sit, and they slumped before the fire, content now that Alice had patted both their heads. "She is disappointed to have left Rosedale. She has visited here a great deal. I do apologize for that."
Alice waved her concerns away. "It is no mind. She is only here ensuring I am well, and I could use the company. It's terribly boring waiting for a baby to arrive and with you both away, I have missed you."
Victoria smiled, pulling the bellpull for tea, having not thought about the consequences of her excuse she had given their parent. Her only thought at the time had been running away from the trouble she'd caused. She was such a coward.
"I'm sorry for the difficulty. I shall talk to Mama today and tell her you're much improved and merely needed rest. I'm sure that will halt some of the visits." Victoria hoped. Alice loved her family, but being so close to Dunsleigh did sometimes mean they were rarely without them underfoot.
Alice watched her a moment, her eyes narrowing before she said, "Was Lord Melvin who you believed him to be? Is he the famous writer, Elbert Retsek?"
Victoria sat across from Alice and swung her legs up under her gown on her chair, settling into a comfortable position. "I believe so, and I think he writes out at his hunting lodge. He snuck away there often, and when I saw him one day, he was scribbling away like a mad man. I do believe he is a writer, and I do think he's Elbert Retsek, but I never asked, and that is not why I'm home."
"How intriguing," Alice said, a mischievous light entering her eyes.
A footman came into the room and bowed. "Excuse me, my lady, the tea you ordered is ready."
"Thank you," Alice replied. "Bring it in, but we shall pour, and we're not to be disturbed." Alice waited for the footman to depart before she turned her attention back to Victoria. "Did you give him back the page from his book?"
"After what happened between us, I could not bring myself to ask him. I just wanted to flee. It all seemed so confusing, and I've acted atrocious, Alice. I was not thinking clearly or like myself at all."
Alice leaned forward in her chair. "I knew you had run away. I told Callum as much. What happened at Rosedale, Victoria? What did you do?"
What she did not do would be a more appropriate question. Victoria busied herself pouring the tea, taking up time setting out the almond tartlets before she admitted to her actions, her conduct that was reprehensible. She handed a cup to her sister, forcing the words out of her mouth that admitted her guilt. "You know how we have been friends with Lord Melvin for years. Well, due to that confidence, I offered to help him gain a wife by giving him lessons in etiquette, in conversation skills, on how to court a lady while I was a guest in his home."
"You did?" Alice’s eyes went wide with surprise. "And how did that go, may I ask?"
Victoria sipped her tea, shaking her head as shame washed through her. "Terribly. Well," she corrected, "not terribly, he did learn and become more confident at balls and country dances. I taught him how to help a lady when she played the pianoforte on a musical night. On how to talk while walking or taking the air in the gardens. But that is not the worst of it."
"What is the worst of it?" Alice demanded, staring at her, leaning forward a little at her words.
"I gave myself to him," she admitted at last. "I do not know how it happened." Although she did know how exactly how it had happened and at her prodding. "I had told him I would not marry him, that I did not want a husband, not after the hell that Paul put me through. I want my freedom, to travel and not have children, as much as I adore all my nieces and nephews. But when I found him in the library on our final night, the pain in his eyes, the longing, well, I could not leave without being with him. I wanted him with such force that even now," she declared, standing and pacing before the fire.
"I want him still. I think of him day and night. Of his kisses, his smile, his silly little ways of making me laugh, and it cannot be. I do not want a husband. I made such an error of judgement with Paul, what if I do so again?" She sat back on the settee, taking her sister's hands. "You must help me. Tell me what I am to do."
Her sister’s knowing grin did nothing to help in the slightest. "I will do no such thing, Victoria. The choice must be yours, but I do believe you are in love with him. Have you admitted that to yourself yet?"
"What?" she gasped. "Do not be absurd. Of course I'm not in love with him. In lust, yes. Infatuated, yes. But love? No. You are mistaken."
Alice raised one eyebrow. "Lust? You're a Worthingham. We do not lust after men unless we're in love with them. We marry for life and love only once. If you lust after him, you're emotionally tied to him, more than you ever were with Paul."
"I thought myself in love with Paul. I fear your beliefs about our family and love are unsound."
Alice shook her head. "Paul was not your soul mate.” She
