Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(83)

Victoria leaned the side of her face into his hand. "I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking."

"About what, my love?"

"I want to see my sister. I want to go to Forest Crest and sleep in my own bed."

Grant removed his coat and placed it over her shoulders, enfolding her in the thick silk-lined broadcloth. The garment held the warmth and scent of his body, and she held it closely around herself. His voice was like a stroke of velvet as he spoke above her head. "I'll take you there after the deposition. We'll stay for as long as you like."

"Thank you, but...it's best that I go alone. I want to think clearly, and I can't do it with you there."

Grant was silent, and she knew he was struggling with a burst of impatience. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and cool. "What exactly do you plan to think about?"

Victoria shrugged. "Who I am...my past...my future..."

His long fingers slid beneath her chin, and he tilted it upward until she was forced to stare into his expressionless face. "You mean your future with me," he said.

"I just want to go home and reflect on everything that's happened to me. My life has changed so quickly, don't you see?"

His short sigh conveyed a wealth of frustration. Reaching out for her, he lifted her into his lap and slid his hand beneath his coat. The warmth of his palm sank through her gown to the side of her breast. "I understand," he said reluctantly. "But I don't like the idea of you traveling alone and staying in Forest Crest without my protection."

The possessiveness in his voice made her smile. "Grant...before I met you, I lived for quite a long time without anyone's protection."

"That's about to change," he grumbled. "Let me go to Forest Crest alone," she coaxed, though they both knew she wasn't really asking.

Somehow Grant could not return her smile. All he could focus on was his own fear that if he let her out of his sight, she might decide never to marry him. After all, it was a fact that he could never give her the peaceful country life she had always been accustomed to He was not a gentleman--she had seen evidence of the roughness and violence in him, she had seen his many flaws. He was the kind of man she must have disdained and feared in her former sheltered existence.

"All right," he said with difficulty. "I'll send you to Forest Crest after the deposition. You'll go in my carriage, with my driver and a footman to protect you. And I'm going to come for you in a week."

"A week? But that's hardly sufficient--" Victoria stopped in midsentence as she realized that her protest was falling on deaf ears. Her lips curved with a wry smile. "Very well."

A new thought occurred to Grant, and he scowled. "You're not going to see any former suitors in Forest Crest, are you?"

An impish twinkle appeared in her eyes. "No, Mr. Morgan, I was never courted by any of the village lads."

"Why not? What in God's name is the matter with all of them?"

"I was never receptive to their advances," Victoria said, settling herself more comfortably on his lap. "I was always absorbed in taking care of Father, and reading books, and..." Tenderly she laid her head on his shoulder. "I suppose I was waiting for you," she said, and felt his arms tighten until he nearly crushed her.

CHAPTER 19

Having bid the coachman to let her off at the end of the unpaved drive, Victoria walked to White Rose Cottage. The familiar sight of the thatched cottage soothed her, and her gaze hungrily absorbed the peaceful scene. Her small, private world was not as well tended as when she had left it. The ivory and cream rosebushes needed pruning, and the beds of thrift, marigold, and sweet pea were choked with weeds. But it was home. Her step quickened as she approached the small arched doorway, feeling as if she had been gone for a year instead of a month.

There was only one thing to mar her happiness, the image of Grant as she had left him in London. He had refused to kiss her good-bye, and had stood watching with a sullen expression as she waved at him through the carriage window. Amused and touched and yearning, Victoria had almost signaled the driver to stop and turn back. That she had still refused to accept Grant's marriage proposal had clearly caused him no end of frustration.

She desperately wanted to marry Grant Morgan, but was a union between them advisable...or might it eventually end in ruins? She feared he might tire of her someday and come to regret marrying her...and that was something she would not be able to bear.

She badly wanted to talk to her sister, the only family she had left in the world. Despite Vivien's occasional vagaries, she was a worldly, ruthlessly pragmatic woman who knew a great deal about men. And Victoria knew that in her own way her sister loved her enough to listen to her problems and give her the best advice she could offer. As Victoria's heart pounded eagerly with a sense of homecoming, she knocked and entered without waiting for a response.

"Jane?" came a voice from inside. "I hadn't thought you would be back from the village so..." The voice trailed away as Vivien appeared in the main room and stared at the newcomer.

Victoria stared at her sister with a beaming smile. She was struck as always by the sense that Vivien was at once familiar and exotic. How was it possible to love someone and yet never understand her? Vivien belonged to a world so far removed from her own that it seemed impossible they had come from the same family, much less that they were twins.