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

with approval, on Rebecca, who really did look very beautiful indeed in her borrowed
    finery.
    “She likes opera and the works of Sir Walter Scott,” Victoria whispered to Mr. Abbott, under pretense
    of flicking a piece of lint from the young man’s broad shoulder.
    Charles Abbott proved he was as quick as he was handsome, since the next words out of his mouth
    were, “You would not happen to be familiar with The Lay of the Minstrel, would you, Miss Gardiner?
    For there is a point in it these fellows here and I find sorely perplexing….”
    Victoria saw that her cousin looked very pleased indeed, but did not hear how she responded, since
    Jacob Carstairs leaned down and said, very distinctly, in her ear, “Witch.”
    Victoria had no choice but to take umbrage at this unfair assessment of her character.
    “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said with a sniff. “But I don’t know what you mean.”
    “You manage your relations the way Napoleon manages his troops,” Jacob Carstairs said, not entirely
    without approval.
    Victoria flicked opened her fan. “Nonsense,” she said, fanning herself energetically, though still keeping a
    careful eye on her cousin and her new admirer.
    “Are the Gardiners even aware,” Jacob wanted to know, “of how you’ve twisted their lives about to suit
    your own? I understand their cook is terrified to serve anything but lobster turbot—which, if I recall
    rightly, was your favorite dish back on the Harmony—and that the younger Gardiners have actually
    begun acting like little ladies and gentlemen because you promised if they’d behave themselves to buy
    them a live monkey.”
    “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re talking about,” Victoria said airily.
    “I suppose that’s your plan with Hugo Rothschild,” Jacob said. “You intend to turn him into an
    automaton, the way you have the Gardiner children.”
    “Automaton?” Victoria echoed with a snort. “Be your age, Captain. What on earth would Lord Malfrey
    do with a monkey? What nonsense.”
    “It isn’t nonsense,” Jacob said. Something about his gaze, as he stared down at her, began to make
    Victoria feel distinctly uncomfortable. Jacob Carstairs’s gray eyes were entirely too knowing—and too
    bright—for Victoria’s peace of mind. Why, the way he looked at her, she felt almost as if… well, as if he
    could read her mind! Read her mind, or see down her bodice, she didn’t know which. Either way, his
    stare was making her feel as if the room were too hot—it was—and her corset stays too tight— they
    weren’t. How curious that a man she despised as thoroughly as Victoria despised Captain Carstairs
    could make her feel so… well, vulnerable.
    A second later she was certain he could read her mind when he warned, “One day, Lady Victoria,
    you’re going to meet a man whose will can’t be bent to suit your purposes. And I’m not talking about
    Lord Malfrey, either. I mean a real man. And when that happens…”
    Victoria raised her eyebrows. “Yes?” she inquired.
    “You’ll fall in love with him,” Jacob Carstairs said shortly.
    Victoria could not help laughing very heartily at that.
    “Oh, Captain!” she cried, flinging out a hand to keep him from saying more—for surely if he did, she’d
    die laughing. “You are so droll! As if I could ever love anyone but Hugo!”
    But Jacob Carstairs wasn’t laughing at all. He regarded her gravely with those sea-gray eyes, looking
    almost—she did not think she was imagining this—as if he felt sorry for her.
    Sorry! For her! Lady Victoria Arbuthnot, who had forty thousand pounds! Really, it was too excessively
    diverting.
    “You don’t love him,” Jacob said somberly. “You can’t possibly.”
    It was then that, out of the corner of her eye, Victoria caught a glimpse of something. She could not say
    what it was, exactly, that caused her to turn her head just when she did. All she knew was that, in spite of
    how very, very interesting she