Chapter Twenty-Four
Victoria was not beautiful.
Victoria was magnificent.
It was a differentiation that Chase thought important.
He could walk into the ballroom and see one hundred beautiful women or, at least, pretty ones. She, on the other hand, was singular. There was no one like her, and she was his. He had not married her with any intention of thinking of her in such terms, but he couldn’t help himself. He was proud of the fact that she was allied to him. That they were partners in this world.
And as he reentered the ballroom, a glass of wine in his hand, he searched the crowd for her, knowing that she would be able to handle herself. She’d made that fairly clear from early on in the evening. When he spotted her on the arm of Brookhaven, he was pleased.
He was not a jealous sort of man. He never had been. And Brookhaven was his friend. He was no fool. He knew that Brookhaven would never do anything that would hurt him, nor would Victoria.
And he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.
Yet, for the briefest moment, he wished that she was with him at present, instead of Brookhaven.
He wished that he had asked her to dance.
That he was flinging her about the room to the merry tune. And the fleeting thought that he loathed the reputation he had created danced through his head, for it was keeping him from her and skewing how the ton saw them.
They were not a couple that changed beds as often as some changed their sheets.
As soon as the Worthington business was done…so was he. He’d fight for more protections for ladies, and in the meantime, he’d start a foundation for women who left their husbands.
He gazed at Brookhaven escorting his wife off the dance floor, pleased for her success. Yes, he would ask her to dance now. Impatience fueled his speed across the floor.
He placed his glass of wine down on a passing servant’s tray and cut across the long salon. He did not need to wind his way through people. Oh no, they quickly stepped out of his way. And as he neared her, he heard a lord, whose back was to him, say quite loudly, “God knows the only reason why Chase would marry her had to do with a debt. No other reason a man like him would marry such a plain purse as that.”
Rage boiled through him at the fool’s words.
Rage so intense that he grabbed the man by the silken shoulder, turned him about, cocked his head to the side, and said fiercely, “No one speaks about my wife like that, man. You’ll be dead at dawn.”
He wasn’t entirely sure where those words had come from, or the rage inside him. But as he lifted his gaze, he spotted Victoria’s horrified face not but three feet away, and Brookhaven’s astonished one.
She darted toward him, her chin high. “What the blazes do you think you’re doing?”
“I do not allow such comments to be made about the people I care for.”
“Did I mishear you? Did you speak of dawn?” she demanded, apparently not impressed by his defense of her.
“You heard what I said,” he said quietly. “And so did this lout.”
The lout was all but quivering. Clearly he had not intended the duke and duchess to hear him. No, he had thought, likely with too many cups of wine, that he could say what he liked to his friends.
Now, the ponce looked alarmed, terrified even, because Chase had a reputation on the dueling field. He loved to terrify men.
He loved to ask them if they would prefer to be shot in the thigh or, perhaps, the arm, or if they would like to have a bullet whiz by their ear instead of through their heart.
He didn’t kill men on the dueling field. He didn’t believe that men should be executed in that way. But he occasionally felt it necessary to remind them that they shouldn’t terrify others.
It was, perhaps, a twisted thing to do, but it was one of the few recourses he had.
The man blinked rapidly and then inclined his head. “Forgive me, Your Grace. You are correct. It was a most ungentlemanly thing to say.”
“Gentlemanly,” Chase sneered. “You aren’t worthy of a worm let alone the word gentleman.”
Everyone was beginning to stare.