Page 24 of Duke of Pride

Victoria inhaled sharply, and her lips tightened. Then, she smiled. With slow, deliberate wickedness.

“Of course, Your Grace.”

Stephen narrowed his eyes at her. Something about that tone, the way she had surrendered so easily, made him suspect that he had just made a grave miscalculation.

CHAPTER7

Disillusions

Stephen was never going to admit it, but this visit to Lord Prevost was indeed as excruciating as Victoria suggested it would be. But it was inevitable. And Stephen was capable of enduring any displeasure with dignity. Hell, he had stomached days with Victoria Crawford, and miraculously she was still alive.

But Lord Prevost was too much, even for Stephen. He was too proper, too stiff, too prim, and rigid to the extent that Stephen felt like a progressive reformist in his company.

The drawing room was suffocatingly still, as if time itself had been forced to mind its manners. The clock on the mantel ticked with oppressive precision, marking each painful moment Stephen had to endure in the old man’s company. Even the tea sat untouched, as if drinking at the wrong temperature was a punishable offense.

“I am sure you see why I had to write to you, Your Grace.” Lord Prevost’s even voice cut through the stifling atmosphere.

Stephen only nodded.

“The presence of the likes of Miss Victoria Crawford in Colborne House is a scandal. That house was respectable and proper. If your father?—”

Stephen would not tolerate being treated as a child. He was now the Duke of Colborne, outranking the frail, old man daring to drag his father’s name into this. He set his teacup down with deliberate precision, the faintest click against the saucer the only sound in the room. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his gaze locking onto Lord Prevost’s with the full weight of his authority.

“If my father were here,” he said, his voice smooth as cut glass, “he would be sitting precisely where I am, as the master of Colborne House, as the Duke of Colborne.”

Lord Prevost stiffened, then nodded.

Stephen, satisfied with that sign of submission, adjusted his cufflinks and then resumed drinking his tea, motioning for the older man to continue.

“What I meant was that a… lady likehershould be looking for a husband, not plotting mischief.”

Stephen’s jaw ticked. The tone Lord Prevost had used in referring to Victoria irked him. Did he sound the same when he addressed her? With such contempt and derision? Perhaps he, too, was lucky to have survived those few days under the same roof as her.

As the older man droned on about the importance of discipline, propriety, and the moral decay of modern society, Stephen studied him. And frowned.

Wasthiswhat lay ahead for him? Was this his future? Living alone in a deafeningly silent room where nothing was out of place, where the only form of entertainment was spying on neighbors and sending out complaints?

His mind went back to that very morning. The way the entire estate echoed with pure joy. His mother’s face came to mind, the way she was positively elated. And then he saw Victoria. How alive and vibrant she looked, brimming with vitality, her smile lighting up any room she entered. She was not wasting her life worrying about stupid rules. She grabbed life by the horns and forced it into a game of ridiculous croquet.

And him? What did he do? Did he go out? Did he roll up his sleeves and join them, teaching them how to play properly? No. He yelled at them from the window like an old, gruff man, snuffing out all the fun and joy.

“And those gatherings—scandalous, I am sure.” Lord Prevost’s tone brought him back to the mausoleum that was his drawing room.

“Gatherings?” Stephen pretended to be interested.

“Yes, ladies’ gatherings. All the nearby ladies meeting at Colborne House for God knows what.”

Stephen almost scoffed at the older man.

Lord Prevost was so prudish that he seemed to be protesting over some ladies gathering for tea and gossip. His mother had dutifully taken care of his father, basically alone in the house. She had every right to have some friends over.

“I will see into the matter,” Stephen said curtly.

“I am telling you, your mother was always a proper lady, the very picture of decorum. The moment that…womancame in, everything fell apart. But of course, vulgarnouveau riche, mingling with dignified ladies of the ton. Sign of the times.”

Stephen fixed him with a look that, if withstood a second more, would have given him a heart attack. And so he looked around the drawing room in a bid to suppress the rage rising inside him.

“As I said, I will look into the matter,” he offered. Before the man had the chance to protest, he added, “I see that you arrange your books by color, not by alphabetical order.”

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