The Mercenary Major Read Online Free PDF Page B

back to Victoria.
    “I know, Father.” She reached up and gave his cheek a quick kiss. In spite of his white hair or perhaps because of it, his face seemed boyish, lean and brown from many hours spent going about the estate. His figure was equally fine. Other gentlemen in the county were inclined to grow a decided belly by forty, but her father at three and forty was as slim as many a younger man. It was the grief of losing her mother that had turned his hair white in the first weeks after her death.
    “I just came to remind you of my plans and tease you a bit for missing the chance to go to town,” she told him.
    In the weeks since Victoria had first announced her decision to go to town, the bitterness of their quarrel had lessened. He smiled at her.
    “Me in town? Never. Too dull for politics or the wits in the clubs, too old for the ladies.” He indicated his hair. He was looking at her now with a puzzled expression in his blue eyes. “You’ll do better with the Favertons.” He turned to his desk. She had interrupted his ritual, and seven years of habit were hard to break.
    “Actually,” she watched him settle behind the desk, “the countess will be with us for little more than a fortnight. Then Katie and I will go to Lady Letitia.”
    Her father’s head came up sharply. “Letitia Faverton?”
    Victoria nodded. She’d disturbed him, and he was staring off into space, no doubt seeing some image from the past more real than her corporeal self. “How long will you be gone then?” he asked at last.
    “Oh, for as long as Letty will have us, I imagine,” she said as lightly as she could. It was her one act of cowardice. She would not tell him she hoped to stay, to find a new life in London among people who would see her for herself.
    With a little shake of his head he returned to the present. His gaze cleared. “You’ve put off mourning,” he said, as if she’d accomplished some mysterious sleight of hand.
    “As should you,” she replied.
    “Don’t. If I was wrong to hold you to it so long, I must keep my . . . observances.” His glance shifted from Victoria to the woman in the painting and back. “Your hair,” he said.
    “I won’t be a living portrait, Father. I am not her.”
    After a silence he said stiffly, “Of course not. I want you to enjoy the Season, Victoria.”
    “Thank you, Father.” She could see he was not really listening. “Good-bye.”
    “You’re going now ?” He looked at her, looked at the painting, and back at her. Then he stood and came around the desk.
    “The Favertons sent a cart for my trunk earlier,” she explained. “Reg will be here in the gig any minute to take me to the hall. We leave early tomorrow.”
    “Then let me walk you out.” He offered his arm.
     
    From the steps of Faverton Hall Victoria observed the scene in the drive below. Liveried footmen were loading two crested carriages, while eight horses steamed their restless breath into the chill morning air. Four outriders held their own horses, and the two coachmen stood apart laughing at some private joke. At the foot of the steps Stook, the Favertons’ butler, directed the placement of an enormous assortment of trunks, valises, and bandboxes. From time to time, Miss Goode, abigail to the lady of the house, offered curt suggestions to one of the men laboring under staggering burdens. Considering the style in which they were to travel, Victoria thought it no wonder that Lord Dorward had spent the evening before complaining of the cost of his family’s expedition to London.
    An equally busy scene was taking place to Victoria’s right. The hall was undergoing one of the many renovations Lord Dorward had undertaken. Scaffolding had been erected along the east face of the building, and workmen were climbing up and down with tools and buckets to the accompaniment of hammers and chisels ringing on stone. Other men were conferring with the master carpenter, who had unrolled a set of plans on a makeshift