Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) by Pearl Darling

her home.
    Outside, her magnificent white barouche stood waiting for her, the horses stamping their feet in impatience. Her coach driver hopped off the elevated front seat with alacrity and jumped across the cobbles to meet her.
    “I’m sorry, my lady, I couldn’t stop him.” The coachman scratched his head. “He was most persuasive. And a little intimidating.”
    Indeed it was obvious to whom the coachman referred. The man sat incongruously on the white leather seats of the barouche, his massive frame dwarfing the delicate seats. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it carelessly onto the opposite seat as she watched.
    The coachman offered Victoria a tentative hand. “My lady?”
    Victoria sighed. If her stout coachman had been unable to remove Bill, then it seemed that Victoria would need to do it herself. Surprisingly, a thrill of anticipation ran through her. She gave her hand to the coachman and allowed herself to be handed into the barouche.
    Stepping lightly over Bill’s long outstretched legs, Victoria turned and swept his coat off the seat and into her arms. She turned to find his deep brown eyes firmly fixed on her derriere.
    “If you have quite finished, Mr. Standish?” Victoria all but threw Bill’s coat onto his lap. She glanced round the quite empty street. It would be an unusual area of the London for other members of the ton to come to. If they saw her alone in a coach with Bill Standish there would be no end of gossip generated. She would be a laughing stock. Her reputation… perhaps finished.
    “Can I help you?” she asked frostily. Bill’s unwavering gaze was beginning to make her rather warm.
    He laid an arm out along the back of the barouche and crossed his legs, lifting her skirt slightly as she did so. She refused to flinch.
    “I wondered what a lady of leisure did all day and now I know,” he said; his deep voice sent a shiver through her. “They visit the poor. I should have guessed. Does it make you feel any better?”
    “Better about what?” Victoria wished she hadn’t asked. She knew what the response was going to be.
    “Better about your position in life? The silver spoon that props up your lifestyle. The reputation that you have to uphold.”
    Victoria glanced away from the almost angry set of Bill’s chiseled jaw. It seemed more than personal to him. His comments were too close to the bone. “I made a significant donation to this establishment. I came to hear what they spent it on,” she said quietly.
    “And what did they spend it on?”
    “I was told new shoes.”
    Bill glanced back at the railings of the building. Several people had gathered in the yard, looking out at the street, watching the occupants of the barouche with interest. He snorted. “I’ve been waiting here for three quarters of an hour. I haven’t seen one member of your so called establishment wearing anything that I would call new shoes.” Bill ran his hands through his hair. “Gods Victoria, most of them don’t have shoes at all. You are wasting your money.”
    “I have not had time to verify—”
    Bill spoke over her reply. “It’s just typical of a woman of your breeding . Give the poor some money and hopefully it will make some restitution for the same amount she’ll spend on a ball dress. Do you know what it is like to be poor?”
    “No, well I—”
    “Well I bloody well do. You don’t want some rich person handing over money to the first corrupt person they meet to assuage their guilty conscience.”
    “He’s not corrupt.”
    “How do you know?”
    Victoria forbore to mention that she had had the man investigated. Not by herself, mind. Unfortunately though that was her normal style, she couldn’t have risked the subject—Mr. Robertson— becoming aware of her in that capacity. To him she needed to remain a benign benefactor.
    “I just do.”
    “There you go again. Arrogant statements about life as if what you say is the last word in ton propriety.”
    Victoria could feel a