Victoria and the Rogue Read Online Free PDF

to be brought to
    me all day long.”
    “If you ate ices all day, you would become ill. Besides, my uncles wouldn’t let me stay in a hotel,”
    Victoria said. “They said it wasn’t considered proper in England for a young lady to stay in a hotel
    without a suitable chaperon. Although in India no one would think twice about it.”
    “It must be divine,” Rebecca said, clearly not in the least interested in hearing about India, “to have all
    the money in the world to buy pretty things. Tell me, how many fans do you own?”
    “Oh, dozens,” Victoria said. “It was so hot most of the year in Jaipur. Oh, Mariah, do be careful with
    that gown. Can’t you see it’s silk?”
    “I only have two fans,” Rebecca said glumly. “And Jeremiah ripped one of them. Oh, it isn’t fair! You
    have all the luck—a fortune, dozens of fans, and delicious Captain Carstairs all to yourself for weeks and
    weeks.”
    That got Victoria’s full attention, as nothing else her cousin had said had. Mariah and her slipshod
    unpacking skills were forgotten as Victoria spun around to stare at Rebecca.
    “Captain Carstairs?” she cried in astonishment.
    Rebecca nodded dreamily to her reflection in the long mirror. “Isn’t he wonderful? I wish Papa had left
    me behind in India with you back in ’ninety-eight. Then you and I might have sailed back to England
    together, and had the company of delicious Mr. Carstairs morning, noon, and night.”
    Victoria made a retching noise. It wasn’t ladylike, but she couldn’t help it.
    Rebecca noticed, and raised both her eyebrows in surprise.
    “You didn’t enjoy Captain Carstairs’s company during the voyage?” she asked in incredulous tones.
    “Hardly!” Victoria declared. “Jacob Carstairs is the most contrary gentleman I have ever had the
    displeasure of meeting!”
    Rebecca looked shocked. “But he is so exceedingly amiable,” she said.
    Victoria snorted. “Exceedingly rude, impertinent, and offensive, you mean. And if you dare to tell me
    that he is considered by the ton to be anything like a catch, I shall scream.”
    “Well, he is,” Rebecca said bluntly, and Victoria obliged her by screaming, shrilly enough to cause the
    hamhanded Mariah nearly to drop the bottle of rose attar she’d been lifting from one of Victoria’s many
    trunks.
    “But Captain Carstairs is all that is gentlemanly,” Rebecca went on very seriously. “He has business
    dealings with Papa and frequently stays to dinner—and often invites us, in return, to dine with him and his
    mother—so we are fortunate enough to see him quite often. He has never been anything but charming.
    And he is so excessively handsome and droll. And quite wealthy, besides.”
    “Wealthy?” Victoria, rescuing the rose attar, looked doubtful. “He’s only a naval officer.”
    “Not at all,” Rebecca said. “Do you know that ship you sailed, the Harmony? Well, Jacob Carstairs
    owns it. He owns the entire Harmony line. It was his father’s company, but when he died it all went to
    Captain Carstairs. And he, in a few short years, turned it from what was at the time of his father’s
    death—a bit of a disappointment, I think—into the quite profitable company it is today. Jacob Carstairs,
    thanks to his hard work, is quite fantastically rich.”
    Victoria digested this. Jacob Carstairs, fantastically rich? Well, that certainly explained why he’d seemed
    to feel no compunction about teasing a duke’s daughter.
    Still, what about those collar points?
    “I don’t believe it,” Victoria said finally.
    “Believe it,” Rebecca said. “He has forty or fifty thousand pounds, at least. He is every bit as wealthy as
    you are, Vicky.”
    Victoria sent her cousin a pained look. “Must you call me that?” she asked.
    “Vicky?” Rebecca looked mildly startled. “But we’ve always called you Vicky.”
    “It’s Victoria,” Victoria said. “Vicky is a child’s name. And I am no longer a child. I am, in fact,