Read Online Victoria and the Rogue by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online Page A

to hurt her cousin’s feelings. She was not, however, the
    least impressed by the captain’s warning. Why, her uncles had often accused men under their command
    of being less than honorable. But these charges almost always turned out to stem from the dullest of
    crimes, such as not keeping their mistresses in very high style, or failing to see their horses properly
    watered after a long ride. Victoria supposed the captain had some equally boring charge to lay at the feet
    of the earl, and in truth, she could not have been less interested in hearing it.
    “La,” she said when she felt enough time had passed that Rebecca and Captain Carstairs would think
    her suitably chastened. “Shall we go pitch biscuits out the window at the dogs?” For this seemed to
    Victoria the most entertaining activity that Almack’s had to offer thus far. She’d noticed some of the
    younger boys engaged in it, and quite envied them.
    Rebecca and Jacob Carstairs exchanged meaningful glances.
    “Vicky,” Rebecca said, “I don’t think you quite understand what the captain is trying to tell you.”
    Victoria rolled her eyes again. Lord, what was wrong with the English? They did go on and on about
    things— but not the right kinds of things. Really, if it hadn’t been for Victoria, the Gardiners might have
    had tureen of beef seven nights a week and not uttered a peep about it. But about something as trivial as
    whom she was to marry, no one seemed capable of remaining silent.
    It was all Captain Carstairs’s fault, of course. Odious man! Victoria was going to have to find someone
    new for Becky to love, and posthaste. She noticed a promising-looking fair-haired young man standing a
    little ways away, saw with approval that his mustache was neatly trimmed and his collar points high, and
    tossed her fan surreptitiously in his direction, then exclaimed, looking down at her bare wrist in horror,
    “My fan! Oh, Becky! I’ve lost my fan!”
    Rebecca, always highly sensitive to calamities such as these, immediately lifted her hem and glanced
    about the floor.
    “You had it a moment ago,” she said reassuringly. “I’m almost certain.”
    “Oh, if it’s trodden upon,” Victoria wailed, “I shall be sick! Positively sick!”
    She was aware that Captain Carstairs was watching her with a very skeptical expression on his face,
    one dark eyebrow lifted with the other furrowed disapprovingly. But she steadfastly ignored him, keeping
    her gaze on the floor as she “searched” for her fan.
    “Is this what you’re looking for, my lady?” asked the fair-haired gentleman with a smile as he held out
    Victoria’s fan, which he’d bent and retrieved from where it had fallen at his feet.
    “Oh, there it is!” Rebecca cried gladly. “And look, Vicky, it isn’t a bit trodden on.”
    Victoria accepted her fan with a grateful glance in the blond gentleman’s direction. “You are too kind,
    sir,” she said. “It is good to know that there are some gentlemen left in England.” She shot a dark look in
    Jacob Carstairs’s direction. “Might I know the name of my chivalrous rescuer?”
    The blond gentleman blushed charmingly.
    “Abbott, my lady,” he said. “Charles Abbott.”
    “How lovely to make your acquaintance, Mr. Abbott,” Victoria said, relieved that Charles Abbott
    proved to have neither a lisp nor a stutter. He would, she decided, do very nicely for Rebecca, as
    Victoria, who had a quick eye, observed that Mr. Charles Abbott wore a signet ring, but no wedding
    band, upon his finger, meaning that he was in possession of some fortune, but not a wife. “I, of course,
    am Lady Victoria Arbuthnot, and this is my cousin, Miss Rebecca Gardiner.” Rebecca curtsied prettily in
    response to Charles Abbott’s bow. “Oh,” Victoria added with deliberate indifference, “and this is
    Captain Jacob Carstairs.”
    Charles Abbott clicked his heels together smartly upon his introduction to Jacob Carstairs, but his gaze
    was, Victoria saw