Page 419 of From Rakes to Riches

David sat back on his heels and looked at his wife, all flushed and soft and aroused just for him. He had thought of this all day, to the point of distraction. How was he supposed to get any work done, when he was contemplating new ways to seduce his wife?

In the candlelight, her plump, pink breast glistened with moisture, and he wanted to taste it again, to tear the garment from her body and taste everything.

He was surprised by how difficult it was to stop, how hard it was to think when he was touching her. He’d once thought himself in love, yet he’d never feltthisway before.

But Victoria needed to talk to him, and he found he could refuse her nothing. He reached a hand down to her, and although she took it, she fumbled to cover herself. Her breast, so plump and delicious, disappeared from his sight as she rose to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be, Victoria. Go ahead and say what you need to.”

“I accepted Mr. Dalton’s dinner invitation for both of us.”

He frowned. “I thought you understood that I didn’t need to go.”

She pressed her lips together and continued to hold her nightdress against her throat. “I think we should attend, for the sake of your career and your place in society.”

“But this doesn’t matter to me.”

“I think it should. I’m trying to be a good wife to you, David. I thought a good wife should help you socially, not be a hindrance like I am, with my common background.”

He rubbed his hand across his face. “You don’t need to put yourself through this. People of thetonare not nice, and in the end, they’ll hurt you.”

“Have they hurt you, David?” she asked softly. “Is that why you don’t wish to be among them? What went on in this house after your mother died?”

He stiffened, and silently cursed that he’d so revealed himself to her. “She has nothing to do with this, Victoria. Good night.”

“You could try writing your thoughts in the journal,” she called. “That helps me think what I can’t say aloud.”

And there was that old journal, on the table where she’d left it for him to see. He wanted to fling it across the room with an anger he thought he’d put behind him. Instead, he went into his own room and very carefully shut the door.

In the morning,Victoria was shocked when David took her horseback riding, as if they hadn’t had an argument the night before. It was as if he’d shut her behavior from his mind because he didn’t want to deal with it. He certainly had not been lying when he said he knew how to play a part.

Was that how he wanted to spend his life, hiding behind the façade of the man hethoughthe should be? It made her angry all over again that he’d decided the course of their marriage, and he wanted nothing changed.

She wanted change; she wanted to change for him. Didn’t he realize how hard she was trying? She needed him to meet her even part of the way.

She had accepted a dinner invitation; she was not going to give society another reason to ridicule her by changing her mind.David would be gone in the evening, as usual. She would attend without him.

Her decision put her in a nervous flutter all day. When she went upstairs to dress, her mother followed her, and sent the maid away. Victoria stared at her with suspicion.

“I’ll help you” was all Mama said.

Victoria was down to her corset and chemise before Mama spoke again.

“Your husband doesn’t know you’re going, does he?” she asked.

Victoria bit her lip. “It’s important to go. He’ll never get over his past until he confronts it. If my meeting people helps, then that’s what I have to do.”

“I’m worried about you, Victoria, but I’m not sure I have any advice to give—none that you’d take anyway.”

Tears sprang to Victoria’s eyes as she realized that her mother was right. Since her father’s death, and the revelation of their financial problems, Victoria had lost faith in her mother. She didn’t know how to get it back. She was arrogantly trying to heal the rift between a father and son, but had never seen that she had to work on her own relationship with her mother.

“I have to do this, Mama,” she whispered.

“I know. But I worry for you. I remember every party you hated, how miserable you were. Now you’re going all by yourself.”

“I’ve grown up, Mama. I handled David’s business colleagues; I can handle his political colleagues. It’s a first step to facing all of theton.”

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