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William clenched his teeth. “Are you interrogating me? I rescued you!”

Her eyes narrowed as she realized what had been gnawing at her. “You did this! You orchestrated this whole thing just to play the hero, didn’t you?”

“Vic—”

“You lying bastard!” she cried. “And to think I was happy to see you!”

“You were happy because you love me.”

“I thought you saved me!”

“I did!”

“Take me back,” Victoria demanded, straightening her clothes in nervous gestures.

“Ugh!” William threw his hands up. “What does it take to please you?”

“It’s quite simple, really,” Victoria said calmly before shouting in his face, “Just stop lying to me!”

“How can I not lie when your standards are incredibly high! How can a man like me, a bastard and a thief, have any chance of competing with princes and dukes?”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “By not lying!”

William gritted his teeth. “You wanted a hero! And I gave you a hero.”

“Everything you have told me is a lie. So, do one decent thing in your blasted life and take. Me. Back!”

“Fine!” he growled and spurred the horse to a start. “As you please.”

“And to think I was happy to see you—Ugh!” Their bodies slapped against each other as the horse moved into a gallop, and Victoria wrapped her arms around William’s back so as not to fall.

As angry as she was with the idiot for trying this stupid scheme, she was angrier at herself.

She had been so blasted happy to see him, to touch him again, that she hadn’t even questioned the events that took place!

She was the one who was an idiot! A naive idiot.

He obviously hadn’t changed one bit during their two years of separation. And as much as she had changed, her feelings toward him did not.

Chapter 4

Victoria’s life had turned upside down after one night.

And once again, it was all William’s fault.

Sure, Lord Porter was the one who ran back into the ballroom screaming at the top of his lungs that she’d been taken, ravished, and utterly ruined. But the only reason the coward had done that was because of William’s actions.

Victoria couldn’t fault Porter, truly. Apparently, he had fallen and ripped his breeches in the least opportune place and had to divert the attention away from himself by exaggerating the story of Victoria’s abduction. And instead of sympathizing with her, what did the sophisticated society crowd do?

They hailed Porter as a hero while calling Victoria a harlot.

A harlot! And for what?

For being alone in the street at night, for courting trouble, for not listening to her elders, for not taking a chaperone, and for any other sin that could have been attributed to her situation.

Some people even speculated that she had orchestrated her own kidnapping to extort money from her uncle!

Did nobody realize how absurd all of that sounded?