Free Victoria and the Rogue by Meg Cabot

found what Jacob Carstairs was saying, she could not seem to keep her
    gaze upon his face. Instead she glanced over her shoulder, back toward the doors to the room they were
    standing in….
    And found herself looking at the handsomest man she had ever seen. A man in evening dress, with
    golden hair, a manly jaw, and a smile just for Victoria.
    “Oh, can’t I, then?” she asked Jacob with a radiant smile.
    And then she turned to fly into her fiancé’s waiting arms.
    CHAPTER SIX
    “Well?” Victoria spun in a circle before Lord Malfrey. “How do I look?”
    “Pretty as a picture,” his lordship declared. “Prettier, even.”
    Victoria stopped spinning, then ran her hands nervously over her muslin skirt to smooth it. Her fiancé’s
    assertion was all well and good, but she felt she might need a less subjective opinion. “Becky?” she
    asked, with a nervous glance in her cousin’s direction.
    But Rebecca was hardly paying attention. She had one hand up, shading her eyes—though the sun was
    putting in a halfhearted appearance, being mostly hidden behind the clouds that seemed perpetually to
    cover the English sky— while she scanned the green lawn before them.
    “I don’t see him,” she said, sounding dismayed. “Are you sure Mr. Abbott received an invitation, Lord
    Malfrey?”
    “Of course I’m sure, Miss Gardiner,” Hugo said with a laugh. “I added his name to the guest list myself.
    Now tell your cousin how lovely she looks, so we can join the rest of the company.”
    Rebecca threw Victoria a glance that could only be called perfunctory. “Vicky, stop fussing,” she said.
    “You look fine.”
    But this casual remark was hardly enough to satisfy Victoria, who had spent the whole of the morning in
    front of her bedroom mirror, castigating Mariah for not getting her hair coiled to perfection and her gown
    wrinkle-free. Nothing looked right—not her upswept hair, not the high-waisted white gown, not the blue
    silk sash just below her bosom, not the sapphire bobs in her ears, shimmering like stars, nor even the
    deceptively simple—but murderously expensive—blue-and-white straw bonnet she wore atop her head.
    And Victoria wanted everything to look right, because today was the day every girl dreamed of… while
    at the same time fearing it with every fiber of her being. For today was the day Victoria was to meet for
    the first time the woman who would be her mother-in-law.
    “Mother will love you!” Hugo had exclaimed, when Victoria had expressed her reservations about this
    meeting to him. “Are you mad? How could anyone help but love you, Vicky?”
    But Victoria did not share her husband-to-be’s confidence in the matter. She knew that every home
    could have only one chatelaine, and she was determined that, in Hugo’s home, that would be she. But
    supposing the dowager Lady Malfrey was unwilling to allow her to take charge?
    Well, the dowager Lady Malfrey would simply have to be gotten rid of.
    Oh, not by killing her, of course. Victoria had a profound distaste for violence, and besides thought
    murder entirely too easy—unsporting, actually. It would be far more challenging simply to try to convince
    Hugo’s mother of the benefits of living elsewhere… Bath, perhaps. Or Portofino. Portofino was said to
    be lovely….
    Oh, it would be so much nicer if it didn’t come to that! It would be so much nicer if Hugo’s mother
    turned out to be rather a dim sort of woman, only too happy to allow Victoria to take over the running of
    her household. Or, better still, if she happened to turn out to be a shrewd woman who recognized at
    once Victoria’s superior management skills, and stepped dutifully out of the way.
    Either way, Victoria was about to find out just what, in fact, her future held: for Hugo had placed her
    hand upon his arm, and was steering her toward the large party gathered beneath one of the largest oaks
    in Hyde Park, for a festive picnic in honor of his bride-to-be.
    When Hugo