Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) by Pearl Darling Page B

trying to avoid his gaze which she knew was trained unwaveringly on her face.
    “Seeing the water always reminds me of Brambridge,” Bill said quietly.
    Victoria brushed at a wisp of hair that had escaped from her bronze hair pins.
    “The way the light plays on the water. The way that the boats ply up and down. And then I see the press of humanity on either side of the riverbank, and am reminded that London is truly a place of contrasts.”
    “Why, that was almost poetic.” Victoria did not want to let her guard down. She had almost done that before in Brambridge. “But it doesn’t take a genius to make that observation.”
    “But Brambridge is also a place of contrasts,” Bill continued, deflecting Victoria’s barb as if she hadn’t spoken. “Where else could a smith become a landowner and employ his apprentices as footmen?”
    “Oh Bill, you didn’t!” Victoria laughed despite herself. She could imagine the scene, hulking great men cluttering up the hall in uniforms attempting to polish silver with their beefy hands.
    The smile on Bill’s face was like the sunshine on the water. “They wanted to. I couldn’t stop them. Life for a smith, like for those at your establishment, is hard. Work is physical, not predicable, and never constant. But at least you have a purpose and direction.” The smile on Bill’s face disappeared. “They wanted to try life as a soft servant.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t going to stop them. The estate needs employees. Edgar Stanton my cursed cousin deprived the place of that. I’m working on getting the place going again. Brambridge needs it.”
    “I just can’t imagine them all serving you at the dinner table.”
    “Who says that people can’t adapt? Just because they were apprentice smiths doesn’t mean to say that is where they needed to stay because that was their lot in life. Some of them have found the change rather good. Others however, let’s just say I may need to reassign them.” Bill grimaced at what must have been an unpleasant memory.
    Determined to keep the tone light, Victoria pointed to a swan that was taking off on the Thames, its large paddle feet flailing at the water as its great wings flapped mightily to pull it upwards. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
    “Yes, she is,” Bill murmured.
    Victoria turned to look enquiringly at him and just as quickly turned back to look at the Thames where the sun now set in the west. She clenched her fingers in her lap. Bill hadn’t been looking at the swan at all. He had never looked at it. She had turned to find his gaze fixed unfalteringly fixed on her.
    “Something so beautiful should always be as free as a bird,” Bill continued cryptically.
    Victoria continued to follow the swan’s flight. It wasn’t hard to know what he was referring to. The way she held tightly onto her emotions, her position in society, her life in general. He didn’t know what she risked if she let it go.
    He did not speak to her again after that. Indeed Victoria could not bring herself to look at him as he left the carriage at Lord Lassiter’s mansion, clutching onto the brass handrails all the while as the coach made the short ride onwards to Colchester Mansions.
    But it wasn’t short enough for Victoria not to dwell on some of the things that Bill had said.
    Entering her drawing room at a trot, Victoria gathered up her small dog, Ponzi, into her arms and buried her face in his fur.
    “Can I get you anything, my lady?” Her butler stepped quietly into the room and folded his hands behind his back.
    “No, Carruthers. Please close the door behind you. I wish to be alone for a while.” Victoria could sense Carruthers was still standing in the doorway. But as she buried her head in Ponzi’s fur again, the butler withdrew, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.
    The small dog began to squirm as Victoria tried to gather comfort from her soft body. A lick on the nose encouraged Victoria to put the small dog back on the