Page 54 of Scandalous Heiress
“What address, milord?”the cabbie asked him.
“White’s.St.James’s Street.”
As Victor settled into the spare black cushions of the cab, he removed his top hat and ran his fingers through his hair.By God, that had gone well.He’d been so right to trust MacIntyre with his business.It had been a risk, investing all of his father’s money into a new company that did not market the most profitable Eastern product of all.Opium.He did not sell it and he never would.
Pride in that difficult choice made him smile as the sun beamed down through the parting clouds.
Last week at first, he had dismissed his father’s offer to launch his political career.That ambition had died in him five years ago.To resurrect it would require devotion to rebuild his friendships.But meeting Ada Hanniford had awakened in him a yearning for his former self.The man who saw possibilities where others saw despair.The man who saw progress as beneficial.The man who knew what clean water, sanitation, good roads and transportation could do for people.How or why meeting Ada galvanized his old political ambitions was a mystery to him.And though he wished to analyze that, he had little time to do it as well as assess his real prospects.Diligent not to follow his impulse blindly, he’d discussed the matter again with his father.Afterward, he’d thought long and hard about the tasks before him.He made a list of his friends in Parliament.In the party.In the Sussex borough where he would stand for office.
He wasn’t convinced he should run.Wasn’t ready to say he could.The current MP had held the seat for more than a decade.But he was ill with the wasting disease and ready to step down.If Victor wanted this, he’d need more than the desire.More than his father’s political backing.More than the money to run the house the duke had so generously given him.
On his current income from his business, he could support a wife.However, he questioned if he could support one who was used to the finest luxury.Any bride, Ada no exception, would come with a dowry.Monthly income was helpful, but the idea that he would use it to supplement his expenses grated on him.Plus if he used whatever sum might come to him from her father, the amount might not serve well.Victor understood the ravages of inflation.Ada’s dowry, any bride’s dowry, could be eaten away by decline in value of the pound—and the past two years had seen a downturn in European economies.He hadn’t worked with French and Germans, Spanish and Portuguese traders not to know the value of savings against the rise in the cost of living.Even with the added income his father offered him, generous as the duke’s assistance was, he did not wish to use it all.He’d need his Hanover Square house repainted, new furnishings, drapes.He’d require a town carriage and a coachman as well as two or three maids, a cook, housekeeper and at least one footman to help his butler.As frugal as his Scots manager, Victor wanted to keep his financial independence and remain solvent, married or not.That required attention to every penny.
Even if his financial situation were conducive, Victor could not count on being elected.His father might control that borough, but Victor did not know the MPs from neighboring boroughs.He’d make friends…and perhaps a few enemies.Politics often meant wrestling in a barrel of monkeys.He could do it.Had the temperament for it.Wanted it.Had always wanted it.Only the disgrace of Alicia’s actions had killed his hopes of serving.
Now he had to learn if Ada Hanniford might join him in the tumble of political arenas.She was bright, frank and well read, but she was that unique creature, an heiress, and an American in the bargain.Would she think British politics foreign to her?He had to learn.
Politics took a man and consumed him.If he were to be of any consequence, a politician used his name, his fortune, his wife and his family.He had to know if she’d support him, day in and out.He would never force Ada to enter a world he alone chose.One that he alone dominated.Many men did and paid prices for their audacity.He had done that once.Out of necessity.Alicia had gone with him to China because she could not remain here.He had taken her because society expected it…and because he pitied her.She had hated every moment with the ‘yellow barbarians.’When she died, the only emotion he knew was relief.His living nightmare was over.
But his past raised the biggest challenge before him.It was one he could not analyze with figures in a ledger.Courting Ada meant he must come to terms with his long-held beliefs about marriage.He couldn’t simply wish away the bitter memories of his years with his wife.He had to deal with the problems that he’d been part of in that union.She’d been a spendthrift.Buying any frippery that caught her eye.He’d tolerated it.She’d been impulsive, self-centered.Appearing at his club to demand of the doorman that Victor receive her.He chastised her, but to no avail.She continued to outrage society.Evidently, her father or mother could not contain her either.Yes, she’d been young.Eighteen when they married.But he’d been twenty-three.Neither of them mature enough to deal with the issues that she brought to their marriage bed.The bigger problem they’d encountered was her disregard for morals.Though he’d not understood the breadth of her mendacity, he learned all too soon—and yet not soon enough—all her devious ways.He’d forgiven one lie, two, four.He overlooked one late night, two ruined gowns.But the final revelation appalled him.Her encounters with other men at tea in other women’s homes, in retiring rooms at balls, in the cloakroom in the box at the theater took his breath and his mind.
He growled, shutting his eyes to close out the worst of her offenses.He’d promised himself, two years ago after her death, to let her and all her outrages, die with her.He’d not call up all the sordidness now.Not now when he must focus on what Ada Hanniford was…not how she compared to a woman who merited no consideration at all.Alicia was dead, and thank God, gone.
He folded his hands.He needed a strategy to deal with his desire for Ada.
He sighed, acknowledged the truth of it.He must not allow himself to be carried away by his desire for her.He had to be prudent.Not persuade her, not seduce her to anything she did not want—neither Shanghai nor politics.For what value was love if not honoring the wishes of the other?
He paid the cabbie his fee, plus a bit extra.The sun shone now.A good sign.
“Good morning, my lord.”The elderly doorman at Victor’s old club greeted him as if he’d never been away from London.
“Thank you, Wells.”Victor appreciated the welcome, knowing full well that the gentleman he was to meet this morning must have left word with this man that they were to meet.He handed over his walking stick and gloves, then removed his hat and top coat.“Wonderful to see you looking so well.I hope your family is too.”
“They are, sir.My wife is chipper.”
“And by now, your son must be as tall as you.”Victor wished he could remember the boy’s name.
The man blinked, surprised but only momentarily by Victor’s remembrance.“He is, indeed, sir.My son is in Africa this past year.The Army.”
“Ah, yes, he always wanted to join.”
“To see the world, yes, sir.Recently promoted, he is, to sergeant.”The white-haired man beamed with pride.
“A good soldier.Dedicated to service, like his father.”
“Thank you, sir.Lord Grayson waits for you in the smoking room, my lord.”The man stepped aside to let him pass.
Girding for the challenge awaiting him, Victor took the winding stairs to the first floor.One key to a sound future was to always keep one’s major investor appraised of one’s desires.Even if Grayson need know nothing of Victor’s contemplation of marriage, he would want to know that Cole and Company would change how it was managed.
