“Your son is already planning a next time?”

  Eva’s eyes lifted to the roof of the carriage. “Of course he is. His sister beat him up the tower and into the window and she hasn’t let him forget it.”

  Victoria laughed. “Elsbeth may look exactly like you, but she is Sloane in miniature.”

  “If by that, you mean a little hellion, then yes, she is Sloane,” Eva grumbled. “The only solace I have is that I was able to punish Lach by making him remain at Vinehill with Dunkin’s whining about his achy leg and Elsbeth’s gloating over her brother at every turn. I should have sent Sloane up there to suffer the children as well.”

  Victoria smiled. Sloane would have actually loved a long trip to Vinehill over the month of parties and balls at Wolfbridge. “But you will still be happy to have the lot of them back in your arms at Seahorn?”

  A smile that warmed the entire carriage crossed Eva’s face. “The happiest. For how they can drive me mad at times, they are everything.”

  A pang of longing cut through Victoria at the words and her fingers twisted in the heavy wool blanket on her lap. The top half of her body had gotten warm earlier, so she’d taken off her heavy wool cloak, but the blanket made sure her toes stayed warm enough.

  Eva had Uncle Lachlan and her children, and it was so painfully clear that those three people were her world.

  Something that with each passing year Victoria feared she’d never have. Family of her own.

  The fear that she would always be the Untouchable One, on an endless loop of traveling from Wolfbridge to Seahorn to London to Vinehill, only to do it again, year after year for the rest of her life, was becoming too much to bear.

  Young.

  The reassurance popped in her head.

  She was still young. She had time. Lots of time.

  But less time than three years ago when she naively believed a family of her own was just within her reach.

  At least this journey was with Eva. Of all her aunts, Eva was the one that understood her at a certain level—understood that raw loneliness that had never really abated in Victoria’s heart.

  The loneliness that came from growing up without a mother.

  The only difference was that Eva had suffered brutality under her stepfather, whereas her Uncle Reiner had been firmly indifferent to Victoria during her early years.

  Years when she was five and six and seven and eight that were painfully empty.

  Then Sloane had appeared at Wolfbridge Castle and Reiner had met his match.

  With Sloane, Victoria had gained not only a mother, but a whole extended family. Her Aunt Eva and Uncle Lachlan who was Sloane’s brother, and her Uncle Roe and Aunt Torrie who was Sloane’s cousin. Years Victoria had spent with all of them, and then when her natural father, Desmond, had returned to England three years ago, she’d gained her stepmother, Jules, whom she adored.

  Family like she’d never thought possible when she was little. Yet for all the love she’d grown up with since she was nine, none of it could quite close the ever-festering, gaping wound that the early loneliness had left deep within her.

  Reasonably, that was why Victoria modeled her future after Eva. For Eva was so entirely content and happy with her life that it hurt to watch her sometimes. Victoria knew that Eva’s happiness had only been born out of the pain of the past—so Eva appreciated everything in her life just a little bit more than everyone else.

  Victoria nodded at the wistful look on Eva’s face, and a sad smile touched her lips. “Was Dunkin’s leg healing fast enough that they will arrive at Seahorn about the same time as us? It is only four weeks until Christmastide.”

  Eva’s lips pulled to the side. “I hope they’ve already started the journey, but at the very least, I imagine they’ve packed up—which is its own additional wicked punishment for Lach. He hates overseeing the packing. Hates the slow travel. He would be riding on a horse and sleeping on the cold December ground along the way if he had his druthers.”

  “But Elsbeth won’t allow it?”

  Eva smirked at the thought of her eight-year-old daughter. “Not in a hundred years. Her grandfather pampered her too much before he died and she has very distinct memories that tell her she should be in cozy comfort all the time. Not to mention she has her father bewitched.”

  Eva’s shoulders lifted in impish fun. “And I like comfort more than anyone—you should have seen Elsbeth’s face when she realized I was taking the nice carriage down to Wolfbridge. She did the calculation pretty quickly that meant she would be stuck with her brother in the secondary carriage for the ride to Seahorn.” She ruefully shook her head. “I fear the only person that has a chance at hardening up her soul to be a proper Scotswoman is her brother.”

  Victoria reached out and slid her gloved hand along the plush red velvet sidewall of the carriage. This carriage was particularly nice. The springs on it most forgiving on the Lincolnshire roads.

  She looked to Eva. “Elsbeth is only eight—she has plenty of time to harden up. Plus, if she’s already climbing the tower at Vinehill, weapons training can’t be far behind.”

  Eva blanched slightly. “Don’t remind me. Wait—yes, do remind me to talk to Sloane about that when she arrives at Seahorn—I’ll need backup if I intend to keep scars off my little girl. Lach mentioned something about it a few weeks before I left, but I thought he was only trying to rile me up.”

  Victoria chuckled at the thought. Her uncle did love to prod the fire into his wife’s eyes. For how Eva was one giant, kind heart juxtaposed next to her hard Scotsman, she had a spine of steel.

  Good. With any luck, Lachlan and her cousins would already be at Seahorn.

  She exhaled a silent breath of relief. The more people at Seahorn before they arrived, the better.

  All of the families went to Seahorn for a month over Christmastide. And truly, if it wasn’t for the constant tension between her and her father, it would be Victoria’s favorite time of year.

  Everyone was together—all of her younger cousins running amok. Their tiny faces splattered with flour when Cook let them all into the kitchen to “help” with the pastries. The ice skating if the shallow pond closest to Seahorn had frozen over. The games of hide and seek in the labyrinth of twisty, dead-end corridors in the castle.

  She was a grown woman and yet she still loved all of it. Her childhood redone in the way it was supposed to have unfolded.

  “Are you going to temper your anger at your father this Christmas?” Eva’s look pinned her, curious and without a hint of scolding. “I just want to know what we’re walking into this year.”

  Victoria outwardly winced. She’d earned that blunt question fair and square.

  She’d been a horrible brat last year and had made so many of the Christmas festivities painfully awkward. So many heavy silences.

  So many.

  She shrugged, the tips of her ears burning. “I will try. For my cousins.”

  Eva laughed. “Not for the adults? Please let it be for the adults. The children don’t care what is happening above their heads as long as the sugar plums are forthcoming.”

  Victoria chuckled. “For the adults, then.” Her smile faded quickly, that aching, vulnerable piece of her she hated surfacing in the quiver of her voice. “It is just that it is hard. It doesn’t go away.”

  Eva’s lips pulled inward, then settled in a comforting frown. “Desmond abandoned you. For eighteen years. True, he didn’t know you were alive, yet that was the reality of what happened. I can’t imagine that hurt will ever go away.” She leaned across the carriage and grabbed Victoria’s hand. “But he does love you, you know. Des loves you so very much.”

  “He just wants me to…” She heaved her shoulders. “I don’t know what he wants out of me. He wants me to be the little girl that he missed growing up, but I can’t give him that.”

  “As long as you know the love is there.”

  Victoria nodded. She did know that fact. Her father did love her. Was devastated that he’d been apart from her for so long. Would do anything to protect her.

  Yet none of that curbed her tongue when it came to her father.

  She would try this year. Really try.

  A distraction to that end would be helpful.

  Her eyes hopeful, she looked at Eva, arching her eyebrows. “Will there be extra Scotsmen coming from Vinehill this year?” Her uncle had a slew of distant relatives that were constantly moving in and out of Vinehill Castle. Far too many of them hulking and handsome and with heart-melting brogues that she loved to be around.

  Eva wagged her gloved finger at Victoria. “Lachlan was told to only bring the scaly, ugly ones this year. I learned my lesson on that score. There will be none that you will be even remotely interested in flirting with.”

  “Always spoiling my fun.”

  “Just trying to keep your fathers from having heart attacks and—or—killing anyone.”

  Victoria exhaled a laugh. “You paint me a trollop.”

  “I’m just looking to not get skewered with Des and Reiner’s terrifying glares this year.”

  Victoria’s lips pursed for a long second. “Speaking of the glaring duo—or not speaking of them, more importantly—I wanted to ask you a question about the Eve of Winter Ball.”

  “What is it?”

  “Were you introduced to a man, Lord Winfred? I believe he was at the ball through a connection with Lady Frantole.”

  Eva’s head tilted to the side and she stared out the window for a long moment, thinking. “I think, maybe, yes. I met a Lord W…something or another.” Her hand flipped casually in the air. “But there was such a crush there—more so than last year—and it would have been late into the evening. What did he look like?”

  “He was handsome.”

  “Was he? I didn’t notice whether the lord I was introduced to was handsome or not. We were in the crowd and by the time I turned to him, Lady Odfole’s feathered headdress was blocking his face from me.”

  Victoria smirked a tease. “You don’t think anyone but Uncle Lach is handsome.”

  “Not true. I think Dunkin is very handsome as well.” Eva grinned. “Tell me more, refresh my memory.”

  “Lord Winfred has lighter brown hair but darker eyes, I think. I only saw him outside so it was hard to tell. He’s tall, upwards to the height of Reiner and Lachlan.”

  Eva pursed her lips, her head shaking. “Anything else about him?”

  “He has a rather peculiar accent,” Victoria said. “Not quite English, but I’m not sure what other dialect or language is in his words. And I’ve never heard of his title before, so I’m not sure it’s an English title.”

  “Oh, yes, if he was the one that was mentioned, I did hear him, even if I couldn’t see him. He’s from the United Netherlands. I recall his slight accent—it was very hard to place. Flawless English, though.” Her look pinned Victoria. “You said you talked to him? How did you manage that without interference?”

  “The crush was helpful in more ways than one. I managed to escape Uncle Reiner’s watch and made my way out onto the terrace. He was out there.”

  Eva’s lips lifted in a conspirator’s smile. “Good for you. And imagine the wonder that the world didn’t collapse as your father and Reiner would have us all believe.”

  Victoria laughed. “I know, he was—”

  A brutalized scream pierced through the air from outside the carriage, cutting her words, and then the coach lurched to one side, sending both Victoria and Eva slamming into the side wall.

  Hell. They were up on two wheels, teetering.

  Crashing.

  { Chapter 4 }

  Victoria twisted, trying to scramble up her bench just as Eva did opposite her.

  More weight needed.

  Weight onto the side of the carriage that was flying through the air.

  The coach rocked, indecisive on whether it was going to crash onto its side at full speed or right itself.

  Victoria wedged her foot onto the carriage wall, pushing up while she flattened her chest onto the cushioned bench shifting higher, her hands pressing down where her torso couldn’t.

  Teetering. Teetering.

  All at once, gravity took over, the falling coach leaving her suspended in midair for a second that felt like an eternity. The two coach wheels high in the air smashed back onto the road and the windowpanes shattered with the impact, sending glass everywhere.

  Her whole body slammed onto the bench, bounced off, and then she landed on the floor of the carriage. Eva crashed on top of her, skirts and blankets and an arm suffocating her face.

  All the air knocked from her lungs, Victoria gasped for breath, but none made it into her lungs. Again. Nothing. Again.

  Air. Air into her chest.

  Eva shifted above her, trying to untangle their limbs as the carriage lurched, bouncing at an out-of-control speed.

  Another scream and she could swear that she heard through the floor of the carriage a body thump to the ground.

  No. No, no, no.

  Not Percival and Claude and Lawrence and Mr. Drewson.

  All four were some of the best guards Reiner had. Always watching over her. Never falling asleep or losing focus. Always there. She rather adored all of them.

  “Vic—Vicky—are you hurt?” Eva shouted in a panic as she managed to wedge her body off of Victoria’s chest, dragging herself half onto the back bench, even as her leg remained twisted and stuck under Victoria’s backside.

  Freeing a hand, Victoria shoved the fabric covering her face away—her skirt or Eva’s, she couldn’t tell. With that, Victoria could see again and she had to dig her elbow into the carriage floor to lift her body enough to free Eva’s leg. “I—I am fine, I think.” The words only a strangled whisper as she was still trying to drag real breath into her lungs. “You—are you—”

  “My leg is twisted, but I don’t think anything else is injured. Oh, hell, Vicky.” Eva’s look landed on Victoria’s face as Eva flopped herself fully onto the rear bench. Her hand reached out, her thumb dragging across the side of Victoria’s face. “That—where’s the blood from?” Her thumb came away from Victoria’s face with a bright red stain on the kidskin glove.

  The carriage shook even more violently, the speed only increasing. It was tricky to get her legs under her enough to push herself onto the bouncing bench, but with Eva’s hand gripping her, Victoria managed to pull herself up onto the seat next to her aunt.

  The trees were passing fast. Too fast.

  “Is there anyone even driving us anymore?” Victoria looked out the broken window, the cold wind whipping in on them as every rut in the road sent them bouncing high off the bench.

  Eva’s mouth pulled back in a strained grimace. “I think we wouldn’t be on the road anymore if no one was driving. We would have overturned long ago.”

  Victoria reached out, grabbing the frame of the window and pulling herself to wobbly feet. Eva grabbed her hips to steady her and Victoria stuck her head out the window.

  The whipping wind stinging tears into her eyes, she tried to look up at the driver’s seat from the odd angle.

  A man in a brown jacket sat atop the driver’s perch. Not Mr. Drewson’s black livery. Her head swiveled toward the rear of the carriage. An elbow jostled into view. An elbow in a coat with a mismatched patch on it.

  Damn.

  She fell back into Eva and wedged onto the seat next to her. “Not Mr. Drewson. And there’s someone in the back—not ours.”

  “Shit.”

  Victoria’s eyebrows lifted. She didn’t think her aunt knew how to swear. “Exactly.” She looked to the handle of the door clanking loose with every jostle of the carriage. “Do we jump?”

  Eva shifted to the opposite window, peering out. She lifted herself slightly onto her feet for a better view and winced, falling back onto the bench.

  Victoria grabbed her arm, steadying her bouncing form. “You’re injured.”

  “My leg got caught. It’s not right.” Pain etched into her eyes, pain that Eva was trying to suppress. “I don’t think we can jump. We’re moving too fast and I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I don’t care if I get hurt—whoever just stole our coach—they didn’t do it for fun.”

  Eva nodded. “We can try, but they’re just going to stop and pluck us off the road. But I agree—better to fight than to go meekly. If we can get out, maybe someone will see us and help.”

  The steely fortitude in Eva’s voice squashed any fear in Victoria’s chest.

  Better to fight.

  Her legs bobbing, balancing against the rocking of the carriage, Victoria lifted herself to the window again, looking at the passing fields. “We’ll need to pick our spot—the horses can’t keep this pace for long. A soft landing would be helpful.”

  How far had they gone since their footmen and driver had been removed? Two miles? Four? More?

  The carriage started to slow and Victoria dropped back onto the bench, gripping Eva.

  So much for jumping.

  Just when the coach should have rolled to a stop, the carriage door opened and a vile-looking blackguard looked up at them as he ran alongside the coach. He had a scraggly brown beard that stretched down to his chest. Greasy. The whole of him slimy with beady eyes.

  The man jumped onto the carriage step while the wheels continued to roll forward. His look honed in on Victoria and he reached past Eva’s legs to grab onto Victoria’s skirt.

  Eva kicked at his arm, throwing a hand in front of Victoria, pinning her back onto the cushions. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

  The man hacked out a wretched laugh as he leaned in farther with his upper body and shoved Eva to the side of the carriage. “It don’t work like that, lady.”

  He grabbed Victoria’s ankle and yanked her off the cushion, dragging her toward the door.

  With a screech, Eva lunged forward and attacked his head, clawing at him even as he dragged Victoria out of the carriage.

  “Fuckin’ wicked bitch.” The brute turned toward Eva and punched her hard in the face, sending her flying back against the cushions. With a brutal yank, he ripped Victoria clear of the moving carriage and let her drop hard onto the ground.

 

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