The Taming of Victoria Colton

Chapter Eleven

Chapter 11

Englishmen are undeniably the most conservative men in the world, and in nothing do they show it more universally than in maintaining their usual habits in any country, climate, or season.

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

Victoria Colton had done many shocking things in her young life. She had said to Lady Whitefield during a ball that had been the ultimate crush of the Season that she was a droll old cow. She had, accidentally, destroyed a priceless vase that belonged to the Viscount of Durham and the artefact had been in the family for generations, a sentimental treasure inherited by the first Viscount of Durham when he was presented it by a Chinese emperor of some sort. Victoria had even set a man on fire once.

The last two had been entirely accidental, of course, but given the looseness of her tongue and the brashness of her behaviour, people had naturally assumed that she had done all these things deliberately.

However, despite all this, and despite being quite used to causing such shocks, nothing could have prepared her for the visual and auditory shock of Gabriel Sinclair stating implacably that he was about to kiss her.

Her limbs seemed to freeze and her skin simply blazed, matching the smouldering way he was looking at her, and her entire body came alive with insistent spirals of need, of yearning, of an inner ache to lean into him and tilt her lips towards his kiss which she knew would be wonderful.

Slowly, without hesitation, Gabriel stroked her cheek and placed a finger under her chin, tipping her head back so that she stared up at him. Framed against the azure sky with the yellow orb of sun behind him, he was devastating to behold. Bangs of his dark hair fell across his brow, curling against his temples and his neck, and his brightly green eyes burned into her. She thought she would melt with the flames he was fashioning within her, making her stomach flutter and clench with desire.

But these feelings, these intensifying, stiflingly absurd bouts of puissant covetousness, were surprising in their suddenness and even more surprising that Gabriel appeared to share similar desires. It provoked the simple, monosyllabic utterance that escaped her lips like a breathy whisper just as his head began to descend towards her.

“Why?”

He stilled, his hooded gaze intent on her lips, and for a moment Victoria was sure that he was going to ignore her. But he didn’t and he shrugged, as if the question had been of little or no import to him. “I want you,” he said simply, although the husky timbre of his voice sent unprecedented shivers of need spiralling through her.

“But why? Why now? Why all of a sudden and not three years ago?”

It was possibly the strength in her voice that made him raise his gaze and allow his olive-green eyes collide with her own. Their faces a breath apart, his eyes were simply amazing from this distance. She spied flecks of amber around the pupil and then an outer ring of darker green circling the iris. Startling. Breath-catching.

Victoria realised that she had very little resistance against this man.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I’ve wanted you since the day you came down to breakfast four days ago and your hair looked like you rubbed it against the draping. But you looked so God-damn lovely and I knew you had just gotten out of bed, I wanted you immediately.”

“Oh, God,” she croaked, her fingers clinching around the dark lapels of his claret-coloured coat. “This is ridiculous, it’s absurd- we’ve hated each other for most of our lives-”