The Taming of Victoria Colton

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Lastly, be careful what you say and how you dance after supper, even more so than before it, for if you in the slightest way displease a young lady, she may fancy that you have been too partial to strong fluids, and ladies never forgive that.

~ The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (The Last London Editor; 1860)

 

Victoria was in the process of slowly falling out of her bed when something large and heavy crashed outside her room. Being a restless sleeper, it came as no surprise that she found herself startled awake and gazing blearily at the floor beside her bed. Hoisting herself against the edge of the mattress and bracing herself on her elbows, Vicky waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of her chamber, all the while tensing her ears to sounds beyond the door.

A few minutes of silence followed.

Quite suddenly, a substantial scuffling followed by a tremendously loud thud emanated from directly behind her door, causing the frame to rattle seismically. Vicky frowned, sure now that somebody lurked in the corridor outside and not at all pleased by the thought. Peeved, she threw the covers off and padded quietly to the door, cracking it open just a little and curiously peering out into the hall.

Drat. It was Gabriel. Drunk as a coot, he was in a state of disrepair and had collapsed unconscious and spread- eagled right beside her threshold, a foolish grin on his lips.

She should just leave him there. It would serve him right.

She resolved to do just that when the man began to bellow. “THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL FROM SURREY-”

All thought about abandoning him vanished. He was making quite the racket and would wake the entire household, guests and all, and then what would they find? A dishevelled nincompoop sprawled by her room. And due to her own tattered reputation, the absolute worst would be assumed and no doubt she’d be forced to marry the lout.

“WHO hic WAS ALWAYS IN hic-”

Vicky darted outside and crouched beside him. “Gabriel, you ass, shut up!” she hissed, shaking his shoulder.

“- ONE HELL OF A HURRY! Hic!”

Vicky rolled her eyes and grabbed his solid arms. If she could maybe drag him a little bit further up the hall, hence away from her door, then maybe she could come out of this hideous situation alive. Rising, she began to pull him.

Lord, the man was heavy!

She strained and huffed and only managed to drag him about two inches, all the while Gabriel continued to blithely holler at the ceiling. “SHE PULLED DOWN HER hic DRAWERS! AND BEGGED ME FOR MORE hic!”

Finding her exertions futile, she dropped his hands and they thudded against the floor noisily. This, she thought, was ridiculous. The sodding man just had to go and get himself foxed and lost on the same night. He was so ridiculously far away from his own chambers that Vicky would never be able to drag him all the way to the other side of the manor. She could hardly pull him across the hall. Plunking her hands on her hips, she studied him thoughtfully, gnawing on her lip at the unthinkable predicament that lay before her.

“AND NOW,” Gabriel hollered boisterously to the ceiling, throwing his hands up for drunken emphasis, “SHE HAS A BONNY LAD CALLED MURRAY! Hic!”

As if monumentally proud of himself, Gabriel grinned up at her and his eyes fluttered open lazily. “Made it up me’self,” he belched. “Do you like it?”