Shouts; they sounded like Jimmons, and even Verbena, and suddenly her door flew open, slamming into the wall.
Phillip.
'Victoria!' He stood there, tall and wild, his cloak whirling about him and his hair falling over his brow. 'You are here, and safe!'
She was so aghast she did not move even to close her jaw; Verbena and Jimmons and Maisie the housekeeper were standing in the doorway, all speaking at once, explaining how it had happened that Phillip had made his way up here.
'Send them away,' he said to her, striding toward her where she remained in bed, her blankets pulled over her nightgown. 'I am your betrothed; we are to be married in three weeks… send them away!'
She had never seen him like this, the unruffled and proper Phillip in such a stir. 'Go ahead; you may go.' She waved at Jimmons and Verbena. Then, amazingly, considering the situation, she had a logical thought. 'Is Mother up and about?'
'She will be now,' replied Verbena.
'Keep her from me, then. Tell her whatever you wish, but keep her from here until the marquess leaves.'
'But it is not proper—' began Maisie.
'Go. Please. It will be fine if no one speaks of this.'
Only after they left did Victoria allow herself to look at Phillip. The knot in her stomach had twisted tighter. She had thought to have more time to decide what to do… how to respond to Phillip. How to tell him she could not marry him.
But her decision was made. It was the right one.
'Victoria, Victoria.' He stood next to her bed, hands behind him, as if trying to keep himself from reaching for her. 'I am so sorry, but I could not wait. I needed to make sure you were here, were safe.'
'Phillip…' She shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. What could she say? 'Phillip, I am fine. You see me; I am safe. I only had the headache.'
Where had that come from? She hadn't planned to continue her charade.
He looked at her from above, standing over her, his blue eyes sharp but still wild. 'Victoria.'
'Phillip, sit down. Here.' She smoothed her hand over the French-knotted coverlet, making a space for him next to her hip.
'I don't know if I… should.' He looked at her, and she saw something in his gaze she'd never seen before. 'If it's proper.'
Victoria laughed; she couldn't help it. 'Phillip, don't be absurd… you are already here, in my bedchamber. In three weeks I will be in yours.' Their eyes met and her mouth dried. Had she really said that? That lie?
He sat, his solid weight heavy on the edge of the bed, tilting her toward him. Through the layers of blankets his leg touched hers.
'In three weeks. I don't know that I can wait so long.' He reached over, touched her unbound hair, and let his hand trace her cheekbone before curling it back next to him. 'But I must know, where did you go last night, Victoria? Are you in some kind of trouble?'
'I wasn't feeling well,' she told him. Why was she still lying? She had to let him go.
'Victoria, I love you and you will be my wife, but one thing I cannot tolerate is dishonesty.' He was angry, an emotion she'd never seen in him before. True anger, layered with a sort of desperate concern. But not frightening. No, this was an anger she could live with. 'What were you doing in St. Giles last night? Tell me the truth.'
Then her tears burst forth. Everything she had held back in the last weeks, since she had had those dreams. Since she had learned of her calling.
Racking sobs, shaking, and trembling—the results of fear she'd submerged so deeply when fighting for her life—everything poured out of her into Phillip's shoulder, for he'd gathered her close, the bedsheets falling away as he wrapped his arms around her.
'Victoria, Victoria,' he crooned, smoothing his hand over her head, down over the tangled curls of her hair, bumping along her spine. 'My God, Victoria, what is it? I will fix it; just tell me. I will make it right. I am not without resources; I will use them all if I must.'
When she pulled away from his drenched coat, he had a handkerchief ready to mop her face and wipe her nose, as if she were a child. She felt like a child being cared for. For the first time in almost two months she felt like she didn't need to be in charge. In control.
The strong one.
She had never loved Phillip more than she did in that moment.
'Thank you,' she said with the soft hiccup of her last sob.
He dropped the handkerchief and grabbed her shoulders. 'What is it? Tell me. I cannot bear to see you like this.'
'I cannot.' She drew in a long, hitching breath. 'I cannot tell you, Phillip, but I swear it is nothing you can change. Even if you had all the money in the world, and you reigned over this land, you could not change this.'
He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes darting from side to side as if to get a better view inside her own gaze. The whites of his eyes were pink, cracked with red. 'You must tell me.'
'I cannot.'
'Last night I came after you. I know it was you, despite the arguments your cousin made. At first I was afraid you were meeting a lover, and I followed you… because I had to know. I had to know if your heart was given to another. I thought even then that if it were, if I just knew it for certain, I would still want to marry you. I would find a way to drive him from your mind.
'But when your hackney—my God, Victoria, don't you know how dangerous it is to use a hackney?—stopped in St. Giles, I didn't know what to think. You wouldn't meet a lover there, no matter who he was. I saw you get out of the hackney and go through a door into one of the most dangerous-looking places I've ever seen. I would not have gone there if I hadn't known I must protect you. I had to use my pistol to convince some of the street men to let me by.
'Your cousin saved my life. I am not sure what happened; it is all quite a muddle in my mind. I just know I left to look for you, and then I woke up at home. How I got there is very unclear. I dreamed about red eyes…
'You see, my darling, I don't understand what happened last night, but I did not come here with accusations or preconceived notions. There is nothing you can tell me that would change the way I feel about you. Please.'
She could give him something; maybe it would help him to understand. 'Do you believe in destiny?'
He nodded, a bare hint of relief tangible in his face. 'Of course. It was destiny that first brought us together years ago.'
'Destiny is unchangeable. It's indelible, written in stone. Power and money and resources cannot change it, Phillip. You cannot alter it. And that is why I cannot tell you, no matter how much you beg, what I was doing in St. Giles last night. Because that is my destiny.' A destiny he could not accept—a wife who killed, a world of evil and darkness. Phillip was too much in the light… she couldn't destroy his world.
'Victoria!'
She was shaking her head. 'I love you, Phillip. But I cannot.'
He looked stricken. 'Victoria, with all that I am, I ask you to please tell me. I will not be angry, no matter what it is. But I cannot have this between us if we are to marry.'
Now. Her hands frozen under the warmth of the blankets, she drew in her breath and closed her eyes. She would not look at him whilst she said it. 'Then perhaps we should not marry.'
He was still, so still. Even his breath stopped; she could hear nothing in the darkness of her closed eyes but the faint voices from belowstairs. And the rapid, painful thudding of her heart.
'Victoria.' The anguish in his voice opened her eyes. Phillip was not looking at her; he looked out the window at the sunshine pouring on the rooftop of a nearby garret. A blue jay, with its unpleasant squawking song, fluttered to a stop on a nearby tree limb.
'I'm sorry, Phillip.'
He stood abruptly, spinning away from the bed, stalking to the door. She watched him through pooling eyes,
