The Taming of Victoria Colton

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter 28

[With regard to engagements] Excitement might ruin all.

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

“Where the hell did I put it?”

The question was announced to the empty room as a whole and ricocheted off the shelves and walls and paintings with a hollow echo. Gabriel glared at the contents sprawled across his desk, annoyed with the untidy abandon he recently adopted with regards to his organisation. Usually fastidious to a fault, this was indeed an ill-omen.

And now he’d lost the most important document, one he could not progress without, and it cowered somewhere under this mess.

Through the open drapes at the Hawthorne ducal seat in Surrey, the sky gloomily loomed over the estate with a sombre air of melancholy cheerlessness. Grey clouds hung torpidly low, an indolent drizzle occasionally splattering against the panes of glass. Through an open gap of one of the windows, the fresh, lingering smell of damp earth and cleansing rain slithered in.

With a choleric gesture, he swiped frenetically at the papers and stationary straggled over the desk, sending them pirouetting through the air in wide arcs. The heavier objects clattered to the stone flags of the floor and a glass shattered, signalling belatedly to Gabriel’s uneasy mind that it had been half-filled with brandy.

Mumbling something unpleasant and expletive, he pillaged yet another tumbler from the cabinet adjacent to his desk and sploshed more brandy into it. Now barren, the desk still did not produce the vital document he needed.

Henry entered quietly, announcing his entrance with a subtle clearing of his throat and Gabriel turned to him expectantly. “Have you not been paying the help lately?” he demanded, eyeing the mess Gabriel had created cynically.

“May I ask what you are doing here?”

Henry ambled forward and fetched himself a crystal tumbler, proffering it to Gabriel for filling. He complied although his movements were rigid and unwelcoming. “I brought this for you,” Henry said as he set a pale envelope on the edge of the desk, “and I got word that you intended on leaving the country for a spell.”

“I am.” Gabriel narrowed his eyes at the envelope, idly wondering what it could be and from whom. He didn’t know anybody with such an elegant hand at calligraphy that he corresponded with and though he couldn’t clarify any significant details on the front of the envelope, he could decipher the neatness of the handwriting, the graceful arches and curls of the letters. He only knew one person who could write with such grace and he found himself peering closer, leaning towards the envelope-

“And where are you going?”

Gabriel straightened and refocused his gaze on his grandfather. “Paris.”

An unmistakable expression of surprise and then delight crossed Henry’s face. “Paris?” he repeated. “Whatever for? When do you intend to leave?”

“Victoria. Today.”

The succinctness of his answers should have inspired the urge to broach little protestation, but Henry only frowned and demanded that he elaborate.

“I am leaving for Victoria and I am leaving today,” Gabriel ground out, enunciating each word with a deliberate edge and impatience.

“Well.” Henry slid his hands into his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. “This comes as some surprise.”