A Bloom in Winter (18 page)

She wondered what Nanny Iris would say about her new position. She should be happy for Victoria, who had long wanted to find an outlet for her energies and talents. But Victoria had a feeling in her stomach that Nanny Iris wouldn’t be thrilled with her new employment at all.

*   *   *

The world was coming to an end. Kit had long suspected it was going to happen before he had truly had the time to enjoy himself, and now here was the proof, right in front of his own eyes.

The Lady Edith Billingsly of Eddelson Hall is delighted to announce the betrothal of her son, Lord Sebastian Billingsly, to the Honorable Miss Rowena Buxton, niece of the Lord and Lady of Summerset, Lord Conrad Buxton and Lady Charlotte Buxton, and the daughter of Sir Philip Buxton, deceased
.

There was more, but Kit couldn’t bear to read any of it. He felt like Benedick in
Much Ado About Nothing
, when he lamented, “Is’t come to this? Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again?”

He was heading to the Billingslys’ tomorrow to stay for a couple of days. He would have to try to talk some sense into the young man. A favor, as it were.

Kit threw the paper down onto the table in disgust. He sat in a tea shop, waiting to meet a friend of his. They planned to walk to the club together and play a game or two of tennis before it was time to go home and dress for dinner. Soon, he wouldn’t have any friends who were still available to do such things. They
would all be married to spoiled little snits like Victoria, God save them. At least her sister had a better temperament.

Oh, but of course, Victoria wasn’t going to be married. Ever.

Kit poured himself a bit more tea and picked up the paper again, making sure to turn the page. Good Lord. She’d get married, of course, to some stuffy fellow who wouldn’t mind the way she just burst into recitations at the oddest moments, or recited bits of fairy tales at the most inopportune times. Though the incident where she quoted the big, bad wolf when the Lady Billingsly entered the room for tea was hysterical, even if her aunt did nearly have an apoplectic fit.

Certainly, she could be witty and sometimes downright funny, like the time they found the dead bird in her secret room and she had insisted having a ceremonial cremation for it until she realized, to her horror, that it smelled just like roast chicken and made their mouths water.

But she was so infernally grumpy. You never knew what would set her off. Sebastian would have a much easier time with Rowena, who was more even-tempered, and she was undeniably lovely, if you liked the black-haired, pale Madonna type with the sea-green eyes. Everyone considered her to be the far lovelier of the two, though Kit didn’t. He found Rowena to be rather apathetic and her coloring common when compared to her sister, whose blue eyes snapped with intelligence and personality. Victoria might be small, but her fairylike looks made everyone else seem big and bumbling by comparison.

Not that it mattered to him. Not a jot nor a farthing did any of it matter. Little Miss Victoria had made it abundantly clear what she thought of him and then again when she “accepted” his apology. She was lucky he hadn’t wrung her spindly little neck.

An errant fly buzzed around him and he rolled up the newspaper and swatted at it. So what if he rather missed her? Having a woman best friend had been an experiment that had not worked out, that’s all. He hadn’t expected it to, really.

He swatted at the fly again. Women were too bothersome, and Victoria was the worst of the lot, the way she was always going on about wanting some kind of accomplishments. Ladies didn’t work. They were decorative. Hell, gentlemen didn’t work, either. They hired solicitors to manage their money and give them enough to live on every year.

It wasn’t his fault that Victoria made him feel rather . . . idle. He was doing what he was supposed to do. What his parents, who were “new rich” by anyone’s standards, had brought him up to do. He lunched. He attended all the right functions, had his clothes made at Peel’s, and flattered the right people. He’d even had the right affairs with the right women, women unattainable enough to make him seem rather the rake. He was an important man in their world. Young, yes, untried, yes, but up-and-coming.

He swatted again at the fly and almost upset his tea. Stupid thing. Where was Peter, for God’s sake?

Except Victoria judged him through different eyes. Lovely, critical blue eyes that wondered about a man who didn’t wake up excited about his work. It was her father’s fault. A highly successful man who’d studied plants, of all the bloody things. He’d ruined her, the way he’d brought her up among intellectuals, artists, and captains of industry. Incited her to believe that every one had a talent and a passion and a God-given edict to find it and nurture it. He’d produced a daughter who looked like a goddess, with the mind of an intellectual, the imagination
of a sprite, and the temperament of a harpy. She’d been brought up to have absolutely no respect for men at all.

He found himself hating Sir Philip Buxton and he hadn’t even known him.

The fly bombed him again and Kit stood, swatting wildly. Bloody pest. What kind of place was this anyway?

“Is this some kind of new modern dance?” a voice asked from behind him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kit asked. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”

A dark-haired gentleman raised an eyebrow. “That’s not my fault, pal. I’m only five minutes late.”

“Felt like forever.” Kit tossed a coin on the table.

“Someone’s in a bad mood. A few games of tennis and supper at the club will knock that right out of you. Are you saving that for later, for our match perhaps?” He looked meaningfully at the rolled-up paper still in Kit’s hand.

Kit threw it onto the table. “No,” he said rather more viciously than was warranted. “I’m damn well finished with it.”

R
owena closed her eyes as Jonathon planed downward. She savored the sensation of weightlessness and the cold wind whipping about her cheeks. Droplets of mist stuck to her goggles and she wiped them away impatiently. They were flying low, beneath the cloud cover, and Rowena watched the fallow patchwork of fields as they moved lazily past.

They were testing a new aeroplane. Usually, Jon didn’t let her up in anything except a tried-and-true model, but she had insisted and he had given in, a tribute to her increasing knowledge and bravery. The new aeroplane seemed slower than Lucy, the plane he usually took her up in, but steadier, moving through the air smoothly, like a ship cutting through water. Jonathon dipped to the right and her stomach hit her ribs in that free-floating feeling she knew so well. Then he banked deeply back to the left and Rowena leaned with the aeroplane as she would a horse.

Then the nose tilted up in the air as Jon took the aeroplane steeply upward. Soon the cloud cover obscured everything, but Rowena could sense the aeroplane straining as it gained altitude. Within no time, they broke through the clouds and the world sparkled blue and white.

He leveled it out and Rowena wanted to scream in exultation. Tears came to her eyes, steaming up the corners of her goggles.

The change that flying had made in her life was irrevocable.

She would never return to the depressing grayness that had consumed her for too many months. Flying might not be considered a ladylike activity, but she would fight anyone who tried to ground her, because she had finally found something that completed her.

There must be other women like her. She would meet them, emulate them. Learn from them. She would stop Jonathon’s and Mr. Dirkes’s lollygagging around about her flying solo. It was time for her to find a way to break off the engagement with Sebastian and stand up for what she believed in: her future as a pilot. Her future with Jon.

She flung her arms out to embrace the sky, not caring whether Jon thought her gesture silly or foolish.

She would make her father proud.

*   *   *

“How did you say you broke your arm again?”

Kit glared at Sebastian. “Do I detect amusement in your voice? What kind of person would laugh at a friend with a broken limb?”

“No laughter here. What you’re hearing is disbelief and curiosity. How does the club tennis champ not only lose to Peter Tremain but break his arm while doing so?”

The two men were eating breakfast in the formal dining room of Eddelson Hall. The buffet had been set up to one side and a footman stood next to it in case they needed anything. Kit stared at the clumsy cast on his right arm. The only thing he
truly needed was to learn how to eat with his left hand, and that was something the servant couldn’t provide.

“I was distracted,” he snapped. He didn’t tell Sebastian that he had seen a fair-haired woman walking by the lawn and for a moment thought it was Victoria. Before he knew it, he had pitched headlong over the net, busting his arm in the process.

It shouldn’t surprise him. They weren’t even on speaking terms and she was still ruining his life.

Kit had driven down late last night, unable to stand his mother’s meddling. Besides, he needed a distraction from his constant thoughts of Victoria. “If we wish to talk about something amusing, let’s move on to the topic of your engagement to Rowena. I turn my back for a moment and suddenly you are engaged? Are you out of your mind?” Kit’s arm ached and he knew he was being grumpy, but he couldn’t help it. Besides, Sebastian deserved it. Who got engaged without first telling his best friend?

Sebastian stared at him. “Good God, man, settle yourself. You’re worse than an old woman.”

Kit shrugged. “I thought I would be the first to know if you had fallen head over heels, that’s all. I could have saved you from yourself. What happened to our agreement?”

Sebastian suddenly looked tired. He leaned closer to Kit and said under his breath, “I’m not in love with her. It’s a fake. A sham. She’s in love with someone else. It seems as if a scandal would have broken concerning her and her young man and, through a very opportune misunderstanding, I saved the day.” He looked distantly out the window. “It’s all rather comical, really.”

Kit blinked. Sebastian didn’t look amused but rather sad. Kit lowered his voice. “So you’re not in love?”

“Not anymore,” Sebastian said so quietly that Kit barely heard him.

He was confused. “Had you been in love with Rowena?”

Startled, Sebastian glanced up and smiled. “No. Of course not. Though the more I get to know her, the more I respect her.”

“You’re pretending to be engaged because you respect her?” Kit felt as though he was missing something elemental, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Kit studied his friend as Sebastian busied himself with his breakfast. “Of course not. I just wanted someone to have a chance at love. Call me an old-fashioned romantic.”

This wasn’t his forte. Kit’s specialty was witty repartee, not serious discussion concerning matters of the heart, but the quiet desperation in Sebastian’s eyes moved him. “What happened with the woman you were in love with?”

“Her name was Prudence and she married someone else.”

Kit sat back in his seat. “Victoria’s Prudence?”

Sebastian nodded, then cleared his throat. “How is Victoria anyway? I haven’t seen her since she got back from visiting her friends in London.”

Kit’s mind still reeled from Sebastian’s confession, but he could tell his friend no longer wished to discuss it. And no wonder. “I suppose Victoria is fine. She’s like a cat, always lands on her feet. I haven’t seen her since then either.”

Sebastian looked at him, curiosity evident in his eyes. “I thought you two were thick as thieves. What happened?”

Kit’s mind blanked. What had happened? Nothing, except he had been a cad and she’d called him out on it. Of course, if she had been like most girls, she would have forgiven him sweetly the moment he had apologized. But then, most girls bored him to death.

And Victoria did not. Ever.

He drummed the fingers of his left hand and then finally glanced up at Sebastian. “Difference of opinion.”

Sebastian whistled. “She got to you.”

Kit slammed his hands down on the table and then groaned as the pain shot up his broken arm. “She did not get to me,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’s a friend. That’s all.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? Because you were a much nicer person when she was around.”

Kit bristled. “I resent that remark.”

“All right. All right. She didn’t get to you. If she walked in the house right now, you would be unaffected. I get it.”

“Good,” Kit said shortly. “I would hate to beat you up with my cast.”

Sebastian pushed his plate away and the servant jumped into action, clearing it. “I suggest you make yourself scarce today. Mother’s taking calls all afternoon and I will no doubt have to pay my respects to her guests. You can convalesce in the library if you like. I’ll have a maid check up on you periodically to keep you in hot tea.”

Kit gave a shudder that was only partially put on. The thought of spending the afternoon with Sebastian’s mother and her cronies was chilling. He’d cozy up to the fire like an old man and read. His arm throbbed with pain and Kit hated taking the laudanum the doctor prescribed. He’d seen too many people become dependent on it.